Genshin Impact, I, a mere mortal, cannot accompany you to the very end.

Whether it's the matter of the poison dragon, Dvalin, or anything else, your return to Mondstadt this time is to end this destiny.

They were terribly harmed.

"Hoo..." Kiyono slowly exhaled again.

The West Wind Sword Technique has been fully inherited.

Dvalin let out a mournful cry, its wings sweeping through the clouds as it spiraled upwards, its blue scales gleaming metallically in the dim storm, stirring up the gloomy atmosphere like ocean waves.

Kiyono Kazein took the Divine Sword from his waist, its tip pointing diagonally at the ground. He raised his eyes and stared directly at the gloom before him.

Qin sensed that Qingye was different; was it his demeanor?

Or perhaps it's something he always possessed.

If the boy initially gave the impression of a lazy and carefree afternoon breeze, now he gives the impression of a raging winter westerly wind.

The boy lowered his body, his slender fingers pressed on the scabbard, his center of gravity lowered, his back foot pushed off firmly, and his shoulders relaxed—this was the posture for drawing the sword.

Before him, where his sword was pointed, raging demonic dragons.

"You..." Qin started to say, "I'll cover your escape now, don't be reckless..."

She stopped halfway through her sentence.

As the wind surged and clouds rose, Qingye drew his sword and advanced by stepping on the roof tiles of the tower. The wind passed through his body, and his speed increased. The fluttering hem of his clothes was rapidly pressed down and blurred, as if he had melted into the wind.

"I'll hold it off, the Knights will protect the people."

Kiyono said this.

This statement is both strange and familiar; it seems he said something similar hundreds of years ago.

Dvalin had clearly noticed Kiyono's approach.

It flicked its tail.

The boulders and rubble kicked up by the dragon came rushing towards him. Kiyono lowered his center of gravity to the lowest point, passed through the ruins, spun around, and drew his sword.

Those stones were moving very fast.

The wind pressure accelerated them to incredible speeds, shattering the boulders in mid-air. Their enormous size was reduced to countless fragments, filling the sky like a torrential downpour of sharp stones.

If an ordinary person were to be grazed by even a small amount, they would surely suffer broken bones and die on the spot.

asshole.

How could he be so reckless!

Qin's pupils dilated slightly; such a dense rain of pebbles would be too much for even a seasoned knight to withstand.

She thought that the boy's words about joining the knights and staying here meant he wanted to help the soldiers evacuate the people. But to her surprise, he charged straight at the dragon.

But Kiyono's subsequent performance exceeded her expectations.

Kiyono closed his eyes.

The world was clear and bright.

All that remains are the tracks, the tracks left by the stones.

Only dots and lines.

The combination of Unwavering Mind and the West Wind Sword Technique sparked new inspiration.

One is the highest state of mind in Inazuma Kendo, and the other is the highest swordsmanship of the Mondstadt Knights.

He imagined the stones as raindrops, and the countless stones were like a torrential downpour. He had once cut through a torrential rain in Mondstadt, dancing with his sword in the rain, his nimble blade piercing through every falling raindrop.

He waited, waited for the final moment, waited for the raindrops to fall on him.

Then, he drew his sword.

"Is that the West Wind... Sword Technique?" Qin murmured.

The West Wind Sword Technique, created by the young wolf Rustan, is wielded with a longsword held in one hand.

There are only three key points: 1. Cutting, 2. Slashing, 3. Piercing.

Kiyono slashed horizontally with his sword, shattering the pebbles he touched in two. The pebbles grazed his cheek, but his speed didn't diminish at all. He dodged the oncoming debris and used his sword to deflect a trail of fire off the roof tiles. He leaped from the highest point of the roof beam and slashed upwards. In Kiyono's vision, another raindrop shattered.

Tick.

This is the sound of raindrops pattering around me.

He moved faster and faster, and the afterimage of the Divine Slash was no longer visible. The sword light blurred into the wind, and countless raindrops were cut and shattered by the wind, splashing at his feet. He passed through the storm, and nothing could stop his progress.

Qin had never seen such a Western Wind Sword Technique before.

I have never reached such a level before.

She was a diligent swordswoman. For twenty years, she had studied swordsmanship day and night. Even now, when the Dragon Calamity occurred, she was still honing the West Wind Sword Technique. But she had reached a bottleneck, a bottleneck that she could not break through no matter what. Qin knew that above this bottleneck lay another world.

And all of this was recreated by a boy who was only sixteen years old.

Something must be done, Qin thought to herself.

She turned around.

She is an ordinary person, not a genius, but ordinary people can also do things.

Many people were still trapped and buried in the ruins. She longed to go with Kiyono Fuuin, but she was the vice-commander of the Knights of Favonius. Her role was more important elsewhere than on the battlefield between geniuses and dragons.

We should cherish the time this noble young man has delayed.

She didn't know what to say.

As Qin turned around, her heart throbbed with a spasm-like pain, as if the spirit of chivalry was scorning her.

Whoosh... Ang!

The dragon was already enraged; it raised its neck and let out a roar that was almost a hiss.

Before it, amidst the raging tornadoes surrounding it, the heavy wind curtains were cleaved open, the mist rapidly expanded, and the clear wind howled through the mist, striking towards its neck.

The divine blade struck the dragon's scales, the metal colliding with the scales to create a dazzling display of fire. The wound stretched downwards, straight from the neck to the chest, and was quite deep.

But this is the limit.

Qingyefeng

Yin could not possibly defeat the demon god.

His body was still weak, and even though he had picked up his old skills, he still couldn't do much more.

All Qingye could do was buy more time for the evacuation of the masses.

Dvalin swung his tail and struck him in the chest. Kiyono parried with his sword, but upon contact, he felt his tiger's mouth split open, his blood rushing backward, his limbs about to fall apart, and he collapsed helplessly to the ground.

He struggled to his feet from the ruins, and the dragon swooped down again, attacking him.

—"Whisper of the Wind".

Just then, another storm of sword winds struck the unsuspecting dragon's body. The dragon, in pain, lost its balance and veered off course, grazing past Qingye Fengyin.

Kiyono turned around.

But then she saw the little girl, the little girl who had been quietly eating fish by the campfire and had even offered to share half with her—Ying, panting heavily, her chest heaving from the exertion of running, and wind elements slowly gathering in her outstretched palm.

Seeing Kiyono looking over, Ying tilted her head, winked playfully with her right eye, and smiled proudly.

"You old rascal!" Little Paimon said, hands on his hips, "Don't try to show off all by yourself!"

-

"...The dragon is entangled."

The woman clicked her tongue.

"West Wind Sword Technique".

Why is he here?

She gazed at the young knight confronting the dragon. She remembered that she had clearly killed the boy, that was how it should have been... but how was he still alive?

She saw that sword technique again, the West Wind Sword Technique.

Familiar yet unfamiliar.

The lady had seen it countless times, every dusk and afternoon.

They are all dragons, all young knights, all from Mondstadt.

For some reason, she had a strange sense of déjà vu.

The dragon Durin went out of control and invaded Mondstadt, and the young knight died alone in battle... The sky was just as gloomy that day.

The only difference is the ending.

Rosalyn didn't make it in time, Rustan died alone, but the blonde girl stood beside the boy, fighting alongside him against the enemy.

For some reason, she felt irritated by this inexplicable sense of déjà vu.

They are clearly different people.

Watching the blonde girl's panting smile, which looked like she'd finally made it, she felt an instinctive disgust.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Wow, it's 11 o'clock today, the World Cup final! Wow, it's not too much to slack off a little, right?

Volume 1: Chapter 45 Why Are You So Lucky?

Dvalin stared at Qingye Fengyin, paused, as if pondering something, lowered its eyes, and blood from the cut on its neck by Shenqie flowed down.

The pain of the wound drove it mad, but something else drove it even madder.

Nobody remembers it.

It has been forgotten.

Even the old friends did not recognize it.

The toxins, deeply ingrained in its marrow, eroded its sanity. Its dragon eyes were quickly filled with blood red. It raised its neck and let out a mournful and desperate dragon roar, drawing the divine power of the temples from all directions.

After driving out the old nobles a thousand years ago, Dvalin was summoned by Barbatos and, with the help of the Sky Harp, blew away the ice and snow, leveled the mountains, and smoothed the terrain of Mondstadt, allowing the warm, humid sea breezes from the east to blow into the Mondstadt region to supply agriculture.