Chapter Text
When Osial attacked Liyue Harbor, Hu Tao had been inside the funeral parlor. She was working as usual and was preparing to meet with a client, but as she was getting up to leave, the building started to shake, and she fell to the ground.
An earthquake of this size was very irregular, but she remembered that she needed protect herself during an earthquake and she quickly ran and hid under her desk. Zhongli always worried about her, and had tried to make sure that she always knew what to do in an emergency.
After the initial quake, she wanted to go out and see what was happening. It probably wasn’t the safest idea, but Hu Tao, being the curious person that she was, went outside anyway. She had been expecting a normal amount of damage to the streets or buildings, but instead she saw a giant water serpent out in the water!
She had just gotten over her shock of seeing the creature, when she noticed that it was staring directly at the harbor. She silently hoped that the creature was just looking and wouldn’t actually get closer to the harbor, but she should have known that she was never that lucky.
Hu Tao knew that she wouldn’t have time to escape the harbor by the time the serpent got there. Just as she was contemplating what to do, she suddenly saw a shadow above her, and when she looked up she saw the Jade Chamber flying over the harbor and toward the serpent.
She wasn’t sure what was happening, but she had no way of figuring anything out, so she accepted that she had to wait until after this was over to get answers. If she survived.
She wished that Zhongli was there. Not only might he be able to answer her questions, but Hu Tao had to admit that his presence was comforting, and she could really use some reassurance right now.
She shook herself out of her thoughts, Zhongli isn’t here, so get your head back to reality, now that the Jade Chamber was dealing with the serpent, she needed to get to safety. She tried to remember what Zhongli told her to do in case of a tsunami. She could almost hear his voice in her head: ‘in the case of a tsunami, it is best to evacuate to high ground so that the water will not reach you’. She couldn’t help but appreciate his knowledge right now.
But Hu Tao hesitated, did this count as a tsunami? Would getting to higher ground even help?! She was so confused, she was used to knowing what was going on, but in this situation she felt helpless.
She needed to take a breath.
Think.
She skimmed her memories for any information that could be useful, and remembered hearing about an ancient water god that Morax fought a long time ago. There was a chance that this was the same god, but if that was the case was there any hope? Morax was dead, so who would be able to defeat it?
At this point her breath was becoming quicker, but she knew she had to stay calm, so she tried to push her fear away and replace it with determination. She had a vision, so maybe she could help fight it, after all, pyro is very effective against water.
Even though she knew it was stupid–and probably pointless–she ran down to the edge of the walkway that overlooked the water. She saw that the water creature had gotten fairly close, but the Jade Chamber was now hovering above it.
Just as she steeled her resolve and looked to the serpent, a bright light came from the Jade Chamber and she watched as it crumbled and started falling out of the sky and down onto the water snake. Hu Tao barely had time to react when the impact created a large wave that was heading right toward her. Before she could react, the wave washed over her and threw her against a building.
There was a sudden pain in her head, before her vision started to go dark.
The last thing she saw was the serpent collapsing back into the water, and then the world went dark.