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A shrill cry, followed by a growl, a roar, the words behind it incomprehensible to the people of Liyue, nor to the traveler, nor to the Fatui.
But Zhongli understood, even as the familiar pain in his chest rose, much like the time he held Guizhong's dying form in his hands. Even as his feet refused to move, watching as his Liyue fought against this threat without their God's help- without him.
"Guizhong!" The hydra screeches, the ballista striking one of its heads, "Guizhong!" Osial wails, pain and anger and sorrow in his voice. Zhongli almost wishes he couldn't hear it, couldn't understand it. But the voice tears through his mind, through his soul, for he was the one who understood Osial best, alongsie the Goddess of Dust.
"Why? Why would you still fight for him?" Another ballista pierces through the hydra, water breaking its form and falling into the water, swallowed by the waves and vortex. "Why would you still fight for the one who ended you?"
Why, indeed.
"Why would you fight for the people who had failed you?"
They both knew the answer, for Guizhong loved her people. She loved them for their successes and their faults, she loved them for they were- for they are humans.
She loved them so, that she allowed herself to die, to stop Morax in his path of destruction, swallowed by his own bloodlust and thirst for he was the God of War. Only then, did he cease his carnage, Guizhong's weakened form in his hands and he watched as she turned into dust, scattering with the winds of Teyvat.
Osial had been the one to rampage, then.
For how dare he? How dare he allow her to die? How dare he end her life by his hands?
Guizhong, Guizhong...
And even as Morax's spear pierced his heart, Osial did not cease his screams, his curses.
"Morax! Morax! How dare you?"
And maybe had he not been blinded by his own sorrow, he could have heard the one in Osial's voice. Weeping as earth consumed him in Morax's power, forever changing the landscape of Guyun with it.
"How dare you not shed a tear for her?" He would have heard, had Osial not been sealed yet.
But now he is unleashed, by Rex Lapis's own intervention, no less. Not that Osial would have known of the contract Rex Lapis had made with the Tsaritsa. He rose from the water, only to yet again be vanquished.
"Morax!"
Zhongli's heart wrung as the voice grew weaker, and this time, he hears the sorrow behind it. The betrayal, the pain.
To be human is to hurt, and the price Zhongli had to pay to understand it is more than any amount of Mora he had produced. More than the struggle he will face once he hands over his Gnosis.
The sea grows silent yet again as Osial returns to his slumber, the last of Qixing's attack weakened him enough to be sealed yet again. Jade Palace ceases to exist with it.
Pillars became his stepping stone as he traverses through the ocean, a new one forming in front of him as the ones behind him crumbles to nothing but golden dust of geo energy.
He remembers where he stood when he first sealed Osial.
"Osial, my dear friend, forgive me."
He knows Osial will not answer, not so soon, but he let the petals of glaze lilies and silk flower float towards the ocean.
"Forgive me."
And for once, Rex Lapis weeps.