Chapter 83 commissioned by Josh

Guizhong was not strong or powerful in combat. She was a wise genius with magical mechanisms and the Fatui decided to use her as the equivalent of a sledgehammer, but either way, I could tell her soul was still within her frame and was fully conscious of her actions.

"Can you speak!?" I grunted as I used a glyph to block a stream of her dust sent towards me and her only response was herself shivering and her eyes tightening but in the next couple minutes when Lumine and I kept her from going after Rex Lapis she seemed to be fighting us halfheartedly as she found ways to lessen the controls her protocols and bindings that the glowing circlet I would bet anything was controlling her with.

Our fight was mostly under control but between the fights between Rex Lapis, and Azdaha and then the battle between Osial and the forces of Liyue at the shoreline. It was clear that neither of those battles was going to be ending any time soon.

Especially with how Azadaha having been unsealed and blessed/corrupted with the power of the abyss was at his max power.

Guizhong wasn't even an archon to have that power boosting her, and with her divine energies being put into a mortal frame that was clearly not meant to sustain prolonged combat, Guizhong began slowing down and her sand-blasting technique of grinding us down with the tides of fast-moving dust was slowing down and losing their power.

"Lumine give me an opening," I whispered as we came together on our Anemo elementals and she nodded as we clashed again with the tide of fast-moving dust but when Guizhong raised her hand to create another pillar of dust to ram into us, I used the moment the dust obscured our view to summon a ruin grader behind her and I knew for sure she was fighting the control the fatui had as her body staggered and twitched as the ruin guards claw-like hands wrapped around her wrists and then I had the Anemo elemental catch the Ruin Guard as they fell towards the ground.

Thankfully even as the Ruin Guard crashed down a bit harder than I would have liked, it still kept Guizhong's wrists bound and held up in the air leaving her svelte form clad in a thin robe to stare at me and Lumine as she came down to the ground and I quickly dismissed my Anemo elementals as the strain of having three summons was getting to my aura.

"Damn." I cursed as the Ruinguard that was holding Guizhong visibly flickered with my weak aura. "Lumine surrounds her in Geo crystals," I said as I got to feel the lovely feeling of my aura crackling over my form as it instinctively warned me that it was breaking down and that I was below ten percent...

Honestly, it was like a phone battery that got too low, as most of the features of my aura including my semblance got shut down when my aura lowered to that level, So even as Lumine bound the god of dust Guizhong in Geo crystals the Ruinguard flickered again before breaking into motes of light and I shuddered at the feeling.

Except it was actually my soul shutting down and combined with how I heavily overused my elemental abilities to possibly even kill Childe my vision was firmly in the holy shit there is three Lumine and Paimon's range of how stable I was.

"Jake you alright?! Your hands are bleeding!" Paimon cried out and I could literally feel the dried blood that covered my hands breaking apart as I unclenched the great sword that had served me well in its lightning bonus effect.

"Yeah, I will be fine with some rest," I said tiredly as I slouched forward a bit as I shoved my greatsword into the ground a couple of inches so I could lean on it as I watched the Geo Archon and Azhdahacontinue their battle.

-

"Morax do you regret it?! Do you regret all the lives and friendships that were lost in the Archon War!? With the abyss's power, we can bring down Celestia and be free!" Azhdaha roared even as he clearly tried to kill his old friend Morax who flew through the air weaving through the endless beam of violently reacting elemental effects that Azhdaha could use.

Azhdaha was the complete opposite of Guizhong as while she was physically weak both body and magic, Azhdaha was the opposite with his massive body being some kind of mix of Toad and Dragon that gave him superb defense and unrivaled physical strength that allowed him to block the skyscraper-sized massive spears that Morax was sending at him with the pillars of conflicting elemental effects he shot at Morax in the air.

Azhdaha was an outlier of a being in how he didn't focus on one element like the Archons did or likewise had a mixture of elementals like how Guizhong had Anemo and Geo mixing to create her dust, or likewise with Dvalin having fused Anemo and Electro to make Storm.

No Azhdaha was a freak who like an archon focused on single elements but instead of focusing on only one element, he said fuck it and stole the whole bag of elemental control except for Dendro as he thought the plant-like elemental manipulation was for the weak.

While I was focused on the battle going on I flinched as a weak tendril of dust smacked into my shoulder I looked back at the dull-faced Guizhong and I could tell she was ever so slightly gaining her power back so I sighed and ducked under another compressed wave of Dust that sought to hit me in the face.

"Oi, we beat you! You can't continue to fight back... That's like against the rules!" Paimon cried out and with a sigh, I decided to see if I could help Guizhong and then after dodging another blow from her I got closer to her and I checked out her circlet as I gently used my Anemo power to blow away the sand she was conjuring.

"It doesn't look like it's attached to you... If I remove the circlet will it harm you? Or will you just die?" I asked Guizhong but I got zero reaction from her so after sharing a look with Lumine she spoke.

"Just remove it. We cannot keep her bound up forever, as these gods can be fighting for hours if not days." She said flatly as she reinforced the Geo prison that cracked a bit from whatever Guizhong was doing to free herself and I took a deep breath before touching the predominantly black with red streaks circlet before swearing.

"Fucking shit." I cursed shaking my steaming hand as tears came to my eyes. "That damned circuit literally ate my aura... No damned wonder it's controlling her soul." I snarled as I held my red burnt hand.

"Uhm was it because of your Aura?" Paimon brought up and I looked to Lumine and she firmly shook her head.

"Nope, the first rule of being immortal. Touching stuff that messes with souls is a major no-no." Lumine said bluntly before shaking her head. "If anything I think your Aura protected you from also being controlled thus the drain to it... But to someone without active soul defense, they could very well come under the control of that thing." She said but then the air rumbled as Morax summoned an utterly stupid massive spear made out of geo crystal and stone that crashed into Azhdaha.

The earth rumbled and shook with the stone ground we were upon shattering with lines going through it as Zhongli did the equivalent of just spearing his once great friend with a fucking Empire State Building-sized spear but twice as damned tall.