"What exactly are you plotting?" In the dim camp, Childe sat by the bonfire and asked Balladeer, who was resting with his eyes closed.
"Won't you know when it's light?" Balladeer glanced at Childe, then closed his eyes again, looking mysterious.
"What the hell?" Childe scratched his head, his eyes full of confusion.
Ember, who was sitting on the ground picking his feet, saw Childe's energetic look and marveled at his robust physique. "You're really something, still able to stay up all night with us even with injuries."
Staying up all night with injuries, he was practically fine.
"What's this? I've gone three days and three nights without sleep before!" Childe sneered at Ember, thinking he was making a big deal out of nothing.
As a Harbinger, if he couldn't even withstand such a small setback, how could he command respect?
The other Fatui members had all returned and were currently resting in the camp. Ember and the other two were chatting idly by the bonfire.
However, most of the chatter was between Ember and Childe, with Balladeer only occasionally interjecting.
Unbeknownst to them, the dim, thick fog began to brighten—it was roughly dawn.
"It's time. Let's go take a look." As soon as the Sky changed slightly, Balladeer opened his eyes.
"If it's truly as I suspect, then this place is going to be interesting." After saying something that left Childe feeling muddled, Balladeer rose from the bonfire, intending to leave the camp.
"Where to?" Childe also got up.
"To the place we visited yesterday, of course." Balladeer turned his head, chuckled softly, and then strode off into the distance.
The scenery ahead rapidly receded. With the three of them moving at full speed, it wasn't long before they arrived at the area they had just visited yesterday.
Childe scanned the surroundings, finding the place increasingly familiar. Not only was the terrain similar, but even the distribution of monsters was the same.
The distribution of these monsters seemed to have barely changed.
"Just as I thought. It seems my guess was pretty accurate." Seeing this, Balladeer stroked his chin in thought for a moment, then set off again without even a moment to catch his breath.
Arriving at the southernmost island, the first thing that caught their eyes was the perfectly intact giant rock pillar.
"Hmm? I remember this was cut down yesterday, wasn't it?" Childe jumped onto the top of the rock pillar and stomped his foot. He had personally seen Balladeer cut this rock pillar in half yesterday, so how had it returned to its original state today?
"Yes, this rock pillar was indeed cut down, but now it has been restored. What exactly is going on?"
Balladeer revealed a meaningful smile.
"Yeah, what exactly is going on?" Ember mimicked him, stroking his chin along with Balladeer.
"Stop with the riddles, what is it really?" Childe jumped down from the rock pillar. He looked at the posturing Ember and Balladeer, feeling a bit annoyed.
These two guys, relying on their smarts, always talked in circles. When he got stronger, he would definitely teach Balladeer a profound lesson.
As for why Ember wasn't included? Childe felt it would be "a little bit" difficult to catch up to Ember.
He'd better not daydream.
"Alright, the smart ones always have to look after the slow ones." Balladeer spread his hands, then said with a sigh:
"If I'm not mistaken, Tsurumi Island's time is probably problematic."
"I estimate Tsurumi Island's time should be stuck at a certain point. As soon as a new day arrives, everything on Tsurumi Island will revert to how it was at that specific time."
"I never expected the time here to be problematic. It's truly unexpected."
Balladeer looked around. He hadn't expected the strange fog on Tsurumi Island to be secondary; the truly peculiar thing was the extraordinary time here.
"Ti...time is problematic? You're not messing with me, are you?!" Childe nearly dropped his jaw when he heard Balladeer's words.
The only time anomaly Childe remembered was when he fell into the abyss at fourteen.
At that time, he had trained martial arts with his master for three months in the black rift. The Foul Legacy Transformation technique was also mastered within those three months.
However, when he returned to the surface from the rift, he was surprised to find that only three days had passed.
From then on, those three months of darkness became an experience deeply buried in Childe's heart.
He originally thought he would never experience such a special event as "time anomaly" again in his life, but he never expected it to happen again today on Tsurumi Island.
"You're quite clever." Ember glanced at Balladeer. Although he was arrogant, his mind was still quite sharp.
"Don't compare me to this simple-minded guy." Balladeer rolled his eyes at Ember, and also mocked Childe beside him.
His mind had always been very good.
"Then I wonder if you've noticed that Tsurumi Island's time isn't just simply stuck at a certain point." Ember stretched out his hand. The aura of Tsurumi Island could truly be described as the most complex.
Besides ordinary elemental power, there was also the lingering, unceasing resentment and residual power left behind by some powerful entity after its death.
Not only that, Ember could also sense the chaotic Ley Line energy underground.
And the reason the Ley Lines were so chaotic was because something from the Sky had fallen.
Because something from the Sky had fallen, the Ley Lines became chaotic. It was precisely because the Ley Lines were chaotic that the powerful entity, holding endless resentment, was able to use its own power as a guide to plunge Tsurumi Island into a cycle.
"A cycle? You're not joking, are you? Who could do such a thing?" Balladeer, upon hearing this, showed the exact same expression as Childe did earlier.
He thought his own deductions were already astonishing, but he didn't expect what Ember said to be even more surprising.
"Don't believe it? Anyway, time here will change; it definitely won't just stay stagnant at a certain point." Ember said with his arms crossed, full of confidence.
"How did you figure that out?" Balladeer didn't immediately believe him. For no other reason, the cyclical nature of time was simply too hard to believe.
"More words are useless. Nothing has changed here, but the main road where we met Ruu won't be this quiet."
"Want to go see?"
Ember pointed behind him. Balladeer and Childe might not be able to see that far due to the fog, but he could see it very clearly.
That space had already turned into a roaring thunderstorm.
"Let's go!"
"I can't wait."
Balladeer and Childe both agreed. In fact, they were much more enthusiastic than Ember.
This was their first time seeing such a scene. Ember, however, had seen it all before, so his reaction was relatively calm.
Without much further ado, the three turned and sprinted towards the main road where they had first met Ruu.
Although the fog on Tsurumi Island still existed, the map had been quickly drawn up by the Fatui members and Balladeer together.
Therefore, the three of them didn't wander much in the fog before returning to the previous main road.
But the road at this moment was no longer as calm as before. The Sky here seemed to have undergone some kind of anomaly; the entire Sky was blood-red, even turning the surrounding fog crimson.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Amidst the crimson, countless bolts of lightning descended from the Sky, kicking up bursts of flying sand and soil.
There were no people to be seen on the road. Everyone seemed to have been erased, a scene that made both Childe and Balladeer's hair stand on end.
This was even worse than having a few arrogant Tsurumi Islanders. Regardless of how they looked down on people, at least there was some human presence. Now, not only was there no human presence, but not even a single person could be seen.
"What happened here?"
Watching the thunderstorm rage on the ground, Childe stepped forward, his face filled with uncertainty and surprise.
"What happened? It's just the end of another cycle in a few thousand years."
Ember pondered for a moment, then spread his hands and said.
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