Chapter Text
The origin of the foul vampires plaguing Teyvat is still a mystery, but it is known they were born, and began to multiply, during the Cataclysm rapidly and suddenly.
They are not unlike the demons Adeptus Xiao regularly hunts, but far more resilient. They can only be exterminated through certain means. It's nothing Xiao can't adapt to. Silver, stakes, and believe it or not, garlic, have all joined his usual get-up and preparation rituals before a hunt.
Mortals, loosely united under the occupation of "vampire hunters," have also foolishly begun hunting these vampires themselves with the aforementioned items. These vampire hunters were once just desperate mourners with a dream, but now? Now they are commissioned for each hunt, paid generously and united under actual guilds.
Xiao himself has considered acquiring their intelligence, but it's too dangerous. Mortals simply aren't robust enough to withstand the presence of the Illuminated Adepti.
That has not stopped the Conquerer of Demons – and now Vampires – from hunting every last one down. They are the incarnation of gluttony and wrath, sinners of the most violent degree, because they were once human but cast everything aside for a volatile, impure power. Such an animalistic pestilence, that they've adapted to all manners of environments.
Disgusting. The thought fills his mind as he adjusts his gloves for another night spent hunting.
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The origin of all vampires was, in truth, just a humble traveler that records everything there is to record, and awaits the day his light can return to him.
Aether was once the Prince of Khaenri'ah with many hopeful dreams and a deep fondness for humanity. But He was an ignorant amnesiac with far too much power, toyed by far too many people.
When He was made to absorb an immense amount of Abyssal energy, His angelic constitution responded to it like the ley lines — attempting to cleanse it, naturally. But the Abyss is a highly volatile force, and in an attempt to survive, it rapidly adapted into a bizarre manifestation of Aether's despairful, all-devouring devotion.
Five Sinners had grasped at this brand new power that had shattered the world's illusion of stability. It was the truth that people did not want, it was the path no one had chosen, and most of all, it was a world-devouring love made manifest.
But love is a curse to all who is affected by it if all you can love is yourself, and it mutated into crude, far more violent variations when in the hands of embittered humans that already had been contaminated by the Abyss' influence.
The Five Sinners of Khaenri'ah had rapidly multiplied, and Aether can only assume the heavens saw this as a betrayal after what followed.
He can't blame them. Not anymore. Not when his once honorable vessel has fangs and claws and his thirst can only be sated by the loveliest of things. Dainsleif deserves so much better than that miserable expression on his face.
If he met his sister, would she find him sickening too? He had only ever held her limp body since that day, her consciousness sealed away in her holy vessel by a god's rightful fury.
When she awakens, if she can ever forgive him, he will have prepared humble home for them both. He'll become as powerful as she needs him to be with her powers sealed away — they can explore all of Teyvat ten times over, and maybe he can repent in the up-coming lifetimes.
But it had been so long, and he couldn't bare to look at her lifeless visage when he caused it.
Khaenri'ah's remnants are miserable too. They lash out — perhaps he taught them that before their minds betrayed them. Who is Aether to judge? It's his fault. It's all his fault.
He only visits her in the Guyun Stone Forests to clean up the maggots and insects and worms trying to make themselves at home inside of her. How unfriendly.