Chapter 36: Gathering Tears

We all headed out to find fallen tears except for Venti. He chose to stay behind in the tavern. We first headed to the Eagle's Gate domain. Once we were inside the domain was different from the one I went to with Lisa and Fatui’s domain. We were in a forest-like area. The buildings had vegetation growing among them and were floating in the domain. Structures are not connected, making it difficult to cross and if you somehow fall below, there is only fog leading who knows where. I was already in my Rising Hopper form when we entered

“Everyone be careful, we don’t want to see anyone falling into the chasm below.” Jean warned us and we all nodded accordingly

We used our wind gliders to get us across platforms. As we went further in we encountered some hilichurl archers to stop us as they perched in the high ground. Reaching them was easy. I just jumped to them instantly, reaching them and giving them a good kick, instantly defeating them. We moved along but this time we stopped by a group of pyro slimes and hilichurls. With our group, they were all too easy. Amber and Lumine dealt with the hilichurls while Diluc, Jean, and I dealt with the slimes. An updraft of wind was blowing, so we used our wind gliders to ride it bringing us to a new area. We could see the next area we needed to go to but had no path to take us there.

“What is this?” Lumine found a mechanism and activated sending platforms to us making a path to the next area. The platforms however were moving so we had to be extra careful with our steps or risk falling to oblivion.

We reached the next area and we saw a path forward leading toward a room. Once we entered the room the walls suddenly closed leaving us trapped inside

“What happened!?” said Jean being fully alert

“HAHAHAHA!” A Pyro abyss mage suddenly appeared before us

“Foolish humans! You won’t be getting in the way of our plans. This is as far as you will go!” as he finished he summoned multiple hilichurls with samachurls among them with electro slimes.

The samachurls immediately cast spells and the hilichurls attacked and blocked us. Amber and Lumine intercepted the incoming hilichurls while Jean, Diluc, and I stopped the onslaught of the slimes. The samachurls finished their spells and sent mini-cyclones at us.

“Everyone move!” Jean yelled and we all moved away from the mini-cyclone path

Diluc coated his sword with a large amount of pyro energy and waved his sword toward the slimes. A large flaming phoenix came out of the sword annihilating the slimes in its path. Seeing an opening I switched my form to Freezing Bear

[Blizzard!]

[Authorise]

[Progrise!]

[Attention freeze!]

[Freezing Bear!]

[Fierce breath as cold as arctic winds]

I ran toward the abyss mage and sent a large amount of ice towards his shield. The shield begins to crack a bit slowly

“Get away from me!” The abyss mage was getting mad from my interference and tried to send a fireball toward me but was stopped by Jean coating her sword with anemo infused cryo from my ice breaking the shield faster. The shield broke making the abyss mage unguarded. Jean made multiple slashes at the abyss mage creating many cuts on his body before knocking back toward a wall.

“AAAH! How could this…” He did not get to finish until an arrow pierced his head between his eyes courtesy of Amber. We defeated the remaining slimes and hilichurls easily. The room opened when we defeated the last hilichurl. We exited the room and found a chest when we opened it inside was a fallen tear

*sigh* “We finally have one! That was hard…” Paimon complained

“It's too early to relax. We still have to find more. Besides, the Fatui could also be planning something...”

When we exited the domain Jean started talking to Diluc

“Hey Diluc, I heard that the Fatui have recently proclaimed you persona non grata.”

“Hmph, what an honor. Nobody was ever proclaimed "persona grata" by the Fatui anyway.”

“The Fatui? The diplomatic delegation from Snezhnaya? What have they got against Master Diluc?” asked Paimon

“The Fatui are a problem not only for the Knights — they also present a real threat to the whole of Mondstadt. And when it comes to threats against Mondstadt, Diluc is—”

“That's enough, Jean. You knights are subject to too many restrictions. You can't directly confront this so-called "diplomatic" scum. Personally... I despise them. If I were to choose between "eating a Cryo Slime alive" or "joining the Fatui..." ...I'd prefer to be crushed to death by a meteorite.”

“Geez, your wording is so very dramatic…”

Our next location was the hilichurl camps in Dadaupa Gorge. We traveled for a few hours before we reached the camps. It was an easier experience compared to the domain we just went through. There were only hilichurls, samachurls, and a few mitachurls in the camp. We were able to defeat them rather quickly. Diluc was bisecting them, Jean was blowing them away with her anemo energy, Lumine was slashing down a hilichurl every second, Amber was in the rear shooting arrows while sending out Baron Bunny for distraction, and I was defeating them with the Attache Calibur while jumping around the battlefield. After we emptied the camp we found a chest and inside was another fallen tear. Lumine kept it in her storage

“I think we need just one more. Do we have an idea where to find one?” I asked

“I think we can find the last one in the Thousand Winds Temple but… There is a Ruin Guard that is guarding it. We just ignore it since it does not do any harm and is far away from Mondstadt.”

“Great! I have just the thing to take down that pile of scrap.”

“A new Progrisekey?” Amber asked

“Huhuhu… you’ll see.”