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“Ugh, filthy.”
The Vigilant Yaksha let out a heavy sigh before wiping off the blood that coated the head of his spear. Thousands of years had passed since he first began working for Rex Lapis, the archon of Liyue, but even with all of his experience, Xiao still sometimes failed to do a clean job—befitting of the dirty nature of his line of work.
He peered down at the Hilichurl corpses scattered on the ground around him and grimaced, not because of the bodies themselves, but instead what they represented. So much death, so much killing, and for so many years with no end in sight.
But this is my duty, Xiao reminded himself. The endless slaughter would not cease until the vengeful spirits of the defeated gods from long ago were finally expelled from this world. And that was an impossible task, because gods could never die.
And so his contract with Rex Lapis would never end, until Xiao himself met his own end, and he could finally be freed from his pain.
But for now, much more needed to be done, and dwelling on his painful karma didn’t make it go away. He picked up his pace and resumed searching for monster to put to rest.
Before long, Xiao encountered a gathering of electro slimes, the lights of their antennae making them discernible in the dark of the night. Nothing strange about a few slimes in and of themselves, but the dark miasma oozing from these elemental lifeforms prompted Xiao to grab his weapon.
Mask on and polearm infused with Anemo power, he made quick work of the slimes. Ready to move on again, he began putting away his spear, but he noticed something strange.
Even with the slimes turned to mush beneath his feet, the miasma did not disappear. Instead, it seemed to be coalescing, becoming one large mass of ominous aura, before shaping itself into something a bit too familiar.
Xiao returned himself to an offensive stance, and looked up to face the image of a god he hadn’t seen in two thousand years.
“Ah, if it isn’t that miserable yaksha, Alatus. I didn’t expect to see you again.”
Xiao said nothing, but gave the god a cold stare.
“Awfully quiet, are you? Tell me, yaksha, whose dreams are you eating nowadays? Oh, no one’s? Well, you can’t tell me you don’t miss that sweet taste.” The god laughed.
“You know nothing.” Xiao’s voice was quiet, but the image of his favourite Almond Tofu flashed in his mind, and he gripped his weapon tighter.
“Is that what you think?” The god laughed again. “I haven’t been doing nothing these two thousand years, you know. Tell me, how is my good friend Morax? I heard he’s gotten all high and mighty these days.”
“Morax is dead.” Xiao didn’t feel like telling an evil god about the Geo Archon’s human alter ego. “This is the era of humanity now.”
“Is he really? Then why is it, dear Alatus, that you are still acting as his slave?”
“I am not his slave.” Xiao kept his voice level, despite the god’s provocations.
“Aren’t you? Why do you keep on taking life after life then, despite all the pain it brings you?”
Xiao was silent.
“Oh, come on. I can see how much you’re suffering. It’s taking you everything just to keep from collapsing in pain, isn’t it? Poor, poor yaksha. At least I let you eat your fair share of dreams when you worked under me. What has old Morax given you besides millennia of suffering?”
Xiao didn’t respond, but his spear lit up with Anemo power, and he thrust it into the god with one fluid motion. The god’s form melted away, returning into a shapeless mass of miasma, before finally dissolving into nothingness.
“What has Rex Lapis given me?” Xiao stared at his weapon, still infused with the power of Anemo.
“He gave me freedom.” The power in his polearm dissipated, and he carried on his search for demons to conquer, the tune of someone’s Dihua flute playing in his mind.