Chapter 42

"Just now. Why didn't you ask me to save you as you were all falling?" Dvalin asked and I could tell he was cleared of corruption as his previous voice was deeper and had an almost metal grinding tone to it which honestly could have been the Abyssal spire being literally attached to his neck.

Venti who was lying on the back of Dvalin sighed before he spoke. "Me not wanting you to listen to the Abyss Order. That doesn't mean you have to listen to me." Venti sat up and patted the dragon beneath him as he continued to speak. "Freedom if demanded of by an Archon isn't really any freedom at all."

Venti laid out his hands in a cupping motion in front of him, similar to his statue's in Mondstadt pose as an extremely dense orb of Anemo energy formed within his open hands before it gently flew out of his hands and merged into Dvalin.

"The power of the Anemo Archon... But I am no longer a member of The Four Winds?" Dvalin spoke as his body was illuminated in a light green light which revitalized his form.

"I know. Regardless of that, you protected us, and I grant you, my blessing." Venti said as Dvalin slowly petered out and began flying downwards towards Mondstadt.

Once Dvalin dropped us off he quickly flew away so Jean and the others could quell the unrest at seeing the dragon land in the middle of Mondstadt. But an issue was readily apparent as the whole city was under lockdown with the gates closed and a bunch of Hilichurl-style fortifications haphazardly built outside the city in a sort of siege-like formation around the large bridge.

We were thus told of the story about the Hilichurls by Amber who had just gotten off scouting duty for the assembled enemies outside.

"Why haven't you guys purged them in fire and blood then?" I asked as I pointed out that the Hilichurls camps were made out of freaking wood and both Amber and Klee had Pyro Vision that could shoot over the length of the bridge.

Amber sighed. "Jean and everyone else were gone, and Klee is simply too young to be put in charge of one of the two gates and frankly a number of our knights are caught on the other side of the fortifications, so it has been just me and Klee holding the main gate while Kaeya and the adventurers with Visions hold the portside gate. The biggest problem other than the Hilichurl's greater numbers is the Abyss Order mages that will teleport into the city if we leave the gates behind." Amber explained and I looked over to the large bridge that separated the city from the mainland.

It was filled with a great number of slanted wooden walls which were obviously placed by both factions in order to prevent arrows and in Klee's case bombs from blowing up groups of hilichurls

I guess that's a bit of a consequence for us taking so many more people with us to defeat Dvalin.

"How is the food storage situation?" I asked frowning as I recalled in Canon this wasn't nearly as much of an issue as Diluc alone was able to break through their lines and send them packing but this was at least three times a more powerful force.

"Mondstadt was built to withstand siege don't worry Jake." A tired male voice spoke, and we looked behind us and saw the clearly exhausted form of Kaeya walking over who all but collapsed against the gate wall as he closed his single eye. "The problem we face now isn't the Hilichurls as it will only take a few more hours for the triumphant returning knights you guys went with to deal with Dvalin to be fully rested up for us to take care of them. The problem is the Fatui 'ambassadors' making more noise at our handling of the situation." Keaya said making little quotation marks with his hands.

"Do you have the authority to stop any panic should something like a Ruin Grader stomp those fortifications down?" I asked completely done with this nonsense. I just wanted to go to bed after fighting a damned dragon.

Keaya and Amber shared and looked before their face scrunched up as they very clearly recalled how I had used Ruin Guards in the past to deal with enemies and a Ruin Grader was something weighing more than five times its smaller model with even greater weapons.

"Haa... Yes, I have the authority and honestly rather than allowing the abyss order to nitpick at our defenses I rather you deal with them at once and cause a bunch of property damage. Just don't summon the thing on the bridge itself." Kaeya said sighing before his eye firmed and he looked to Amber. "Amber tells the knights on duty to prepare for Hilichurls and mages to attempt a desperate push into the city. use the captured fatui weapons, if necessary, but if not don't. I don't wanna deal with the bitching ambassadors asking where we got those weapons, and we have to dance around the fact that we slaughtered an illegal invading military encampment upon our lands."

Lumine Paimon and I then went atop the large, reinforced walls of Mondstadt above the city's gate and Lumine looked to me as we overlooked almost village-looking fortifications of Hilichurl-style buildings arrayed in front of the large bridge.

"Jake think you can just summon your Ruin Grader and we can just leave it and go to bed?" Paimon tiredly asked and I was honestly on the same wavelength.

"Sadly no Paimon. If I just mentally ordered, it to kill all the Hilichurls around here, all they would have to do is have one of their Hilichurls run off with the Ruin Grader chasing it into the neighboring forests to lose its objective."

"Well summon it and a Ruin Guard to stand guard in front of the bridge to catch any stragglers that aren't a Mitachurl." Lumine counseled and I nodded at her sound advice but as she mentioned a Mitachurl I looked through the throngs of Hilichurls doing their business and noticed there weren't any Lawachurls at all.

"You would think with an invading army they would have a bunch of Lawachurls around here?" I muttered.

"Paimon thinks that maybe they weigh too much for Abyss Mages to teleport!" Paimon cried out as though it was common sense, and you know what, honestly that very well be the case.

"See Paimon if we ever need to teleport around you will be left behind with how much you eat." Lumine jokingly prodded making Paimon stop in the air as she whirled on her friend.

"Oh yeah well at least when Paimon sits on Jakes's lap, his legs don't fall asleep!" Lumine's face twitched at the almost smug rebuttal, but she couldn't.

"Alright girls you are both pretty, now let's deal with this so we can get some rest. I have a strong feeling more drama will be coming our way in the next couple of days." I said remembering how Venti said he was going to return his Holy Lyre to the church tomorrow afternoon as he was apparently getting blasted tonight and if canon held up then Signora would be attacking us but who knows with how she and Childe were forced out of the Liyue will change things.

With a hum of effort my body began glowing lightly with silver light as I pointed at the center of the fortifications and the largest congregations of Hilichurls and my aura drained as a large Schnee glyph formed in the air just above the congregations and even a half mile away we could hear the Hilichurls scream in fear as the massive form of the Ruin Grader fell the ten-meter drop from the Glyph smashing through a hastily built watchtower.

"Paimon doesn't really wanna watch this... It's kinda pitiful." Paimon said as the Ruin Grader stomped out of the smoke it created from its land and its ocular laser showed its power by carving a trench through the surroundings as it basically atomized all it touched as the Hilichurls and even Mitachurls died and broke apart into smoke at the lasers touch and the structures they built fared little better.

"Yeah, this is a bit lopsided isn't it," Lumine said blandly and I wonder if her opinion of how these things were being dealt with would change once she heard they were mostly the people of Khaenri'ah.

Even once the Abyss mages teleported over, they weren't able to deal with it as Cryo traps had nowhere near the strength to stop it and none of the other elemental mages could deal enough damage to exceed its automatic regeneration naturally within the machine and being boosted by my Aura.

Finally, I heard a series of triumphant cries as a bunch of knights pushed another group of Hilichurls out from the Portside with Kaeya and surprisingly Diluc working together to slaughter any Hilichurls they could get their hands on as the monsters fled across the bridge.

Seeing the Ruin Guard at the end of the bridge acting as basically a woodchipper to the weaker Hilichurls the few Mitachurls managed to push back Diluc and Keaya very briefly before they literally chucked their weapons into my Ruin Guard knocking it down and allowing the Hilichurls to flee with the rest of their brethren that gave up fighting my Ruin Grader.

I then dismissed my summons as I sighed tiredly as my soul literally felt overstretched from using too many summons today.

"Alright let's get going... Wish we could stay at Noelle's again, but we need to just get an Inn tonight." I grumbled.

"Ooh Paimon bets Noelle if she was home wouldn't mind allowing us to stay for the night." Paimon tried as even she liked Noelle's more homely apartment.

Before I could deny Paimon, Lumine took the words out of my mouth as she yawned. "Nah it would basically be the height of rudeness for us to basically drop in unannounced. Let's just get a room and we can see she and the other knights are in the morning."