Genshin Impact: I, Heavenly Principle, Will Make Teyvat Supreme

Rumble rumble rumble—

Reginleif let out a dragon roar filled with the power of her past and future selves, blasting toward a massive dragon from another universe—one far larger than her own body.

To call it a dragon was merely a label. The two of them were entirely different lifeforms, only identifying themselves as dragons out of shared perception. In truth, there was not even a sliver of commonality.

A graceful female voice rang out clearly:

"No one dies in this battle, right? In that case, I have no reason to concede. You are a personification of the rules, akin to the Old Deus. No, you are of the same kind as the Old Deus themselves."

"So, I will go all out and see just how vast the gap between us truly is!"

Roar—

The dragon's cry shook the space-time within the range of the Gift Game.

Though her roar couldn't compare to the Final Dragon or the Ultimate Dragon, Reginleif was still a Dragonia Dragon King. Even if there was a difference, it couldn't be too great.

"If you insist on fighting to the end without surrender, then I'll just have to crush you. I hope you can withstand it!"

Apep was also provoked into a serious fight. Her Dendro Force breath, laced with compressed spatial power, surged toward Reginleif.

Space was torn into dense fractures. The force that ripped through matter made the Gift Game space tremble.

Two fundamentally different powers clashed relentlessly, with neither side able to overpower the other for a while.

But in the end, Apep would certainly win.

Dragonia were essentially containers holding specialized inner worlds. Their past and future echoed within, and those echoes gathered the infinite power of time.

However, there was a glaring weakness.

That so-called "infinite" power wasn't truly infinite.

It was like a reservoir with vast amounts of water but a limited outlet. No matter how much water it held, only a certain amount could be released within a set time.

A Dragonia's strength was determined by the size of that outlet.

And there was another fatal flaw.

A Dragonia was a vessel that constrained its own past and future. As long as a small crack could be made in that vessel and a foreign power injected into it—

That small force would echo infinitely through time.

A single scratch would become infinite damage, and the Dragonia would self-destruct.

And for Apep, achieving that wasn't difficult.

No matter how powerful a Dragonia might be, it was still merely a multidimensional lifeform. An Upper God, by contrast, was the embodiment of rules.

In the Gift Game, no casualties would occur. Even if a Dragonia's vessel were shattered, it would recover after the match.

Thus, Apep had no reason to hold back. She launched a wild, frenzied assault.

She wasn't just an Upper God. Within her body lay a world composed of Dendro Force, granting her energy reserves beyond even a Dragonia Dragon King.

Whether in endurance or in offense, she was clearly a step ahead of Reginleif.

At the same time, the lesser dragons who followed Reginleif were clashing with Teyvat's Middle and Lower Gods.

Though Reginleif had long avoided war, her followers were naturally restless. Yet out of respect for their Dragon King's orders, they had held themselves in check.

Now given the chance to fight, they were elated. Even knowing they were likely to lose, they unhesitatingly chose to enter the Gift Game.

Previously, one overly eager follower encountered a Flügel and was eventually beheaded and hung as a trophy on Avant Heim.

Rumble rumble—

Below, humans migrating toward a city-state looked up at the battle raging in the skies above.

Though their eyes still held fear, their bodies did not tremble. Tugging their cloaks tighter, they quickened their pace.

"Everyone, move faster! We have to reach the city-state quickly! Other human settlements are heading there too, but what if we're the ones to clinch victory in the Gift Game?"

...

Though the world had completely changed and even wild fruits were enough to fill one's belly, all of it hinged on the Gift Game.

They couldn't imagine what would happen if humanity lost.

This was a miracle hard-won for humankind—no one could afford to drag the others down.

A Werebeast tribe encountered the migrating human group. The humans instantly broke into cold sweat.

For humans, the species they most frequently encountered were the Werebeasts. After all, searching for food often led them into each other's paths—but when that happened, the result was usually one-sided slaughter.

"Wild monkeys... tch."

The Werebeast tribe paused to glance at the humans, snorted coldly, and continued on toward their own city-state.

They had no interest in wasting time on wild monkeys.

Besides, they were likely carrying their own Gift Game tokens.

Disrupting another's match would likely result in punishment.

A Demonia had once attempted to hunt others and was erased by an unseen force for showing disrespect to the organizers—as if it had never existed at all.

Demonia were a race created by mutated Phantasma after acquiring the ability to generate life.

To even call them a "race" was generous.

Though many Demonia were humanoid, they lacked the cognition of true humanoid races—let alone intelligence. Most of their actions were purely instinctual.

Demonia had never been assigned a Gift Game.

Even if they had been, their lack of intellect meant they couldn't participate.

They were the failed attempt of mutated Phantasma trying to create a new Phantasma race. Though they succeeded in producing life, they failed in generating intelligence.

Most Demonia were mindless husks, preying on other races by instinct.

Many races had been wounded in the early days.

To the Upper Races, Demonia weren't worth noticing—they could be wiped out in passing.

But the Lower Races lacked the power to do so.

Thus, Demonia became scattered across the world in small numbers.

There was no need to exterminate them either. The Abyss had great use for such beings.

So the Abyss Monarch Aether appeared directly before the Devil who had created the Demonia: the mutated Phantasma, Azag-Thoth of the Black Swamp.

At this moment, the Devil—creator of the Demonia—was drenched in imaginary sweat.

The "Black Swamp" was quite literal—a murky marsh that existed outside the world, a separate space akin to a small world.

This outer layer was beyond the planet, and the interior formed the miniature world within the Phantasma's body.

One after another, grotesque, black, humanoid creatures thrashed in the marsh, trying to escape.

"An Old Deus from beyond the universe... what is your purpose here?"

Azag-Thoth's fearful voice echoed through the space.

He felt as though his very consciousness was being torn apart.

Terrifying. Deep. The mere presence of this being felt like it would consume him.

Was this an Old Deus of Devouring or Darkness?

Far more dreadful than Artosh, the God of War.

Aether responded expressionlessly:

"Azag-Thoth of the Black Swamp, Phantasma—very good. Exceptionally suited for my Abyss."

"Abyss?" When Azag-Thoth of the Black Swamp heard that word, he instantly sensed it was no ordinary term. Just those two syllables caused a certain unknown, yet deeply ominous rule in the world to tremble.

It was the most negative force this world possessed.

As a Phantasma, a sentient natural phenomenon, Azag-Thoth was a mutated variant—one that had obtained the creative authority normally reserved for Old Deus.

What's more, the natural phenomenon it embodied leaned toward darkness, depth, and decay. This made it all the more attuned to the powers of rot and shadow within the world.

The moment it heard the word "Abyss," part of its consciousness was dragged into a world composed entirely of the world's dark forces.

A world made purely of shadow—unimaginably vast, filled with countless continents and blood-red, black-red, and black-purple celestial bodies rotating in unseen patterns like clockwork.

At its center lay the largest continent. At the heart of that continent stood a colossal city, where innumerable dark, decayed, ominous Old Deus gathered around a throne at the Abyss' core.

An avalanche of knowledge and information flooded into Azag-Thoth's consciousness.

And with it, the Demonia within his body began to thrash wildly, their forms corroded by the power of the Abyss.

Purple-black and crimson-red currents rolled through the marsh. The once grotesque Demonia became slightly more refined under the Abyss' influence. Even their thick limbs began to grow shorter and more delicate.

Because of Noah's will as the Heavenly Principle—though he hadn't intentionally altered the Abyss—newly born abyssal creatures now leaned toward traits like cuteness and beauty.

It was much like how the Dragon King of the Deep Sea, Neuvillette, favored the Melusine. As a result, deep-sea dragon lizards had changed their appearances to resemble the Melusine to please him.

At the same time, Azag-Thoth's aura was completely transformed under the power of the Abyss, shifting toward abyssal alignment.

Such was the domineering nature of the Abyss. Its corrosive influence was incredibly potent. Even Upper Gods, incarnations of rules themselves, were vulnerable.

While the Abyss couldn't infect the rules directly, it was extremely effective against consciousness and ego.

For Upper Gods, the Abyss invaded straight through their sense of self.

Though Phantasma could rival Old Deus in essence—having reached the level of an Upper God—they were still individual manifestations of natural phenomena, not the phenomena themselves.

Azag-Thoth came back to his senses, only to realize he had already become a retainer of the Abyss. His feelings were complex.

His resigned voice echoed across the space:

"No matter the world, you embodiments of the world's rules are always so domineering."

Though resigned, he felt no hatred. After all, Phantasma were implicitly destined from birth to become apostles of Old Deus.

Once that relationship was formed, Phantasma and Old Deus entered a symbiotic relationship.

While being commanded by Old Deus, the Phantasma would also receive the nourishment of divine rules, accelerating their growth.

Universal rules were, by nature, the superior form of natural phenomena.

"You really are powerful, Monarch."

Azag-Thoth was shaken by the overwhelming might of this god from another universe who had subjugated him.

Was this truly a god?

He could sense nearly ten thousand rule concepts within the being before him—as if the divine cores of ten thousand Old Deus had been fused together into one monstrous entity.

It felt like an entire world unto itself. Terrifying.

He wouldn't even doubt it if someone told him this was the One True God who ruled the entire cosmos.

Aether smiled. "An awareness-based natural phenomenon, a self-contained miniature world that can continuously create new species... this will greatly accelerate Abyssal development."

He was very fond of mutated Phantasma. They were essentially queen insects capable of endlessly producing soldier ants.

And lately, he'd been troubled by a lack of such producers.

As the Monarch of the Abyss, Aether appeared to enjoy boundless prestige and was on the verge of becoming a Second-tier Supreme God.

However, once this mission concluded and the Teyvat Universe advanced to a Single Universe, the Abyss—as the universe's dark side—would also undergo a full-scale upgrade. At that point, both the quality and quantity of Abyssal rules would surge.

Even if he successfully reached Second-tier Supreme God through accumulated merit and promotion bonuses, the road to First-tier Supreme God would stretch endlessly.

What's more, the Abyss was unique. As the cosmic darkness, its total volume was essentially half of the universe itself.

At present, the Abyss Pantheon could be considered the most powerful, but its development was still laughably minimal.

The result? The Abyss was severely understaffed. He was going insane from the lack of manpower.

While other pantheons feasted and enjoyed festivals, the Abyss was mining. When others held ceremonies, the Abyss was still mining. When other pantheons' Primary Gods were chatting and boasting, the Abyss continued mining.

And yet, the benefits far outweighed these minor downsides.

His own strength had grown tangibly, and among those at his level, he was absolutely unmatched.

He could borrow the power of the Abyss to empower himself. Other Supreme Gods needed to create their own micro-universe upon reaching Second-tier just to obtain a similar boost.

Aether raised his hand, and behind him appeared the Abyssal Ring. His golden eyes turned into ominous black.

Gates of Abyssal Vortex opened in every region on the planet where Demonia existed.

Tentacles formed of pure abyssal energy emerged, dragging each Demonia into the Abyss.

When it was done, Aether turned back to glance at the divine halo behind him.

"28% of the Abyss has been developed. I now control over 9,000 Abyssal rules. Just a bit more and I can ascend."

Even now, he was confident he could create his own micro-universe.

...

Elsewhere, in the forest of the Elves.

The Elves had an extremely rigid caste system. Nobles and commoners were sharply divided.

Naturally, the treatment they received was worlds apart.

Even genius vs. ordinary, beautiful Elves vs. those with flaws—all were subject to differentiated treatment.

They even captured members of Lower Races to serve as slaves.

Their upper echelons followed a council of elders.

A dual system: elder council and slavery.

Before the Gift Game descended, the Elves, Dwarves, and Flügel appeared to have formed a three-way balance of power on the surface.

Even the Elves themselves believed this. But only one person knew it was all an illusion—the Elves were actually the weakest of the three.

That was because their creator had no intention of ever aiding them in war. He wouldn't even glance in their direction.

That person was Think Nirvalen, whose mastery of magic was unmatched. Even Kainath had once cast a divine gaze upon her to deliver an oracle.

Now, Think Nirvalen stood hesitantly before the shrine of their Creator, consumed with rage.

When are you going to show yourself, you air god?! Do you really intend to let the entire Elven race lose this Gift Game?!

To you, our air god, are we Elves truly nothing more than tools to obtain the Star Grail?!

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