A Hunter In Teyvat

It had been quite a long while since I did the Mondstadt quest line, so I wasn't entirely sure if Venti was going to be by the Windrise tree but after we left the city and traveled a few miles towards the massive tree in question we saw the green-clad bard seemingly in deep thought as he leaned up against his statue.

The only problem was as we were leaving Mondstadt it started heavily raining with powerful gusts of wind rushing through the countryside as we swiftly traveled towards where we believed our target waited.

"I was wondering if you two would end up following me," Venti said after we came within a few feet of the bard and then he brushed off the dirt that was sticking to his trousers as he stood up and met our eyes.

"You are the Anemo god Barbatos, aren't you?" Lumine said slowly and it was confirmed as Venti visibly cringed and then brushed his hand through his hair.

"How did you... No, it was you who figured it out wasn't it, Jake?" Venti groaned as he frowned looking at me before he seemingly shrugged. "Well in either case, yes I am the Anemo god Barbatos and I would appreciate you both not going around telling people as I have gone to great lengths keeping my status secret in order to allow Mondstadt its independence of divine authority."

Venti folded his arms over his chest as he stared at us finally, he asked us both a rather critical question. "What do you two plan to do with the knowledge of my identity?"

"Huh, why do I feel like you are counting out Paimon!" Paimon questioned aggressively and Venti literally ignored her as he maintained eye contact between me and Lumine.

I looked to Lumine and she seemingly felt my gaze matched it and I saw within her eyes that she perhaps had a desire she wanted fulfilled or more likely she wanted to know if Venti, the Anemo Archon had a way to find her brother.

"Go ahead and ask him," I said simply giving Lumine a small side hug as she stood beside me as encouragement.

"Anemo God Barbatos I wanted to know if you could possibly help me find my brother, not only in return for my silence on your status not that I would go blabbing to everyone about your identity but also for how I and my friends will be helping you and the Knights of Favonius cleanse Dvalin on its taint," Lumine said and Venti's eye's glowed a light green as he seemingly drew on his Anemo powers as he came to the realization that should we succeed in subduing Dvalin and allowing me and Lumine to pour our otherworldly energies into the dragon so that we could, in fact, cure him.

"I swear that should you do so I will do all within my power to search all that the winds touch in order to find your brother in that case Lumine." Venti then looked to me seemingly asking if I wanted some boon as well, but I shook my head as anything I wanted, I could get myself other than maybe some way to contact Alice, Klee's mother who was a renowned explorer and inventor who had found out ways to travel various worlds.

"Well... Seems like some guys aren't too happy to see me back." Venti grimaced and then the wind picked up into a violent howl seemingly in response to his words.

Me and Lumine quickly looked behind us and swiftly approaching on powerful green-tinged winds were a trio of Anemo elementals.

Each Anemo elemental consisted of a large beachball-sized ball of green energy and surrounding the ball of energy were several wing-shaped stone protrusions that floated a few inches away from its central energy sphere that would be able to contract to defend the elemental core as well as using its sharp stone sides to attack others.

"Lumine, Anemo energy isn't going to be at all that useful so follow my lead," I said and with a grunt of effort, I summoned a Ruin Guard as well as a Mitachurl armed with a Pyro-coated great axe.

I quickly ordered the Ruin Guard to send a volley of missiles into the Anemo elementals and despite the ongoing rain, the missiles did cause a good bit of fire in the wet grass, so the powerful Anemo-enhanced winds naturally picked up the flames and flash-fried the Anemo elementals making the air hum loudly as they seemingly screamed in pair for a moment before the rain drowned out the flames that they carried to their bodies.

Lumine dashed forward and as Vneti seemed to be symbolically shooting arrows at the elementals Lumine jumped up and used the shoulder of my Mitachurl to throw herself into the air and with a grin I realized what she was doing so I had the Mitachurl use its great physical strength to hit the Elemental with its axe straight into the air with its blow shattering some of the stone wings that surrounded the elemental core.

While Lumine brought down a powerful Link-style gravity-assisted falling stab into the elemental core of the Anemo monster, I the Ruin Guard took a more blunt approach as I sidestepped the spinning wings that attempted to slice me into bits my Ruin Guard dutifully used its powerful arms to shatter what wings did come into its reach and finally as the final wings broke down I was able to enhance my strength with my Aura and slice the Elemental core in half making it collapse instantly to the ground as the Anemo energy keeping the Elemental 'alive' as it was escaped into the world.

"Woah does this mean Jake has a flying mount now!" Paimon cried out as she flew over from where she was hiding behind the large Anemo God statue that resided there.

"Why does it matter Paimon you are always flying." Lumine prodded making Paimon pout.

"So what? I want to try flying on a massive green ball what's wrong with that?" Paimon yelled as she turned away from Lumine and smoozed over to me saying how she wanted to go for a ride with me at some point.

"Well, that was certainly something Jake..." Venti said shrewdly as he definitely saw I was using a power source that was foreign to this world.

But then Venti clearly changed the subject showing his acceptance and not seeking an answer when he then began explaining his prior bard's tale about how Dvalin was currently poisoned by the blood that he swallowed when he tore out the evil dragon Durin's throat during the chaos that occurred during the fall of Khaenri'ah.

"That black blood has greatly degraded Dvalin and began the process of Erosion far sooner than it should have..." Venti sighed and although Lumine and Paimon didn't understand the significance of Erosion as I did, I only now realized how close Dvalin was to going completely psycho to the point of not only Barbatos but even the Adepti of Liyue might have needed to be called upon to put him down.

Erosion was a state of being where in this world as a soul hits a certain age and such they began to rapidly degrade and thus the minds and bodies of the once ageless beings would twist, an morph before they would need to be put down and they were driven into insanity and would cause great destruction in their wake.

The worst part was how Erosion was brought into being by the so-called Heavenly Principles in order to cull the immortals and supernatural races that used to roam freely before the Archon wars. The Heavenly Principle's was the divine force that ruled Celestia, the massive floating continent that all could see from across Teyvat but none other than the Archons survived going to there and they never talked about it in any real detail.

"The black blood which has led him astray is allowing the whispers of Abyss Mages to control him," Venti explained to Lumine and then went on to explain about the Abyss Order that was a race of beings that wanted to destroy all human life.

"Not to mention now even I am cursed as well." Venti groaned pitifully and I frowned as I couldn't recall him being cursed really.

"When in the world did you get cursed? Wait is that why you haven't been around Mondstadt in so many years?" I asked curiously.

But Venti shook his head with his twin braids on the sides of his head flapping back and forth as he made a cross over his chest as he spoke. "Nope, I got infected with the same Miasma that Dvalin had when I was trying to soothe him... But then someone decided to scare him away!" He scolded lightly before seemingly taking on a mischievous grin. "Therefore this is entirely your fault and thus in order to repay this humble Anemo god you need to help me steal from my church!"

Me and Lumine could only deadpan to one another as we realized that unsurprising the Anemo God was a flighty pain in the rear.

Final commissioned chapter for Genshin... Sike literally an hour after I posted this on my supporting sites, I got another half dozen or so chapters commissioned!