Whale and Dragonfly // OC x Childe Genshin Impact fanfiction

Chapter 35: SSS+ Domain

A week has passed. Signora has already left to travel back to Snezhnaya, report directly to her Majesty The Tsaritsa about the geo Archon's gnosis mission. Childe, on other hand, chose to stay another week in Liyue with the hope that his friend will return.

Sadly, this was his last day here. Tomorrow early morning, the ship will arrive to pick up and take him back to the snowy motherland. Yet, his friend was nowhere in sight. He asked a few agents to go look for her but none of them found any traces. Charlotte's personal agents were out of sight too. She disappeared without a trace after his birthday.

Such situation left young man wondering: was she still in Liyue?

11th Harbinger wandered the streets together wandering through the mazes of his thoughts. It was a peaceful afternoon, Liyue people buzzing around as most of them had a lunch break.

The orange-haired man soon noticed the familiar blonde girl with a floating fairy companion in the distance. Speeding up his walking pace a bit, he approached her. After all, it wouldn't be nice to leave without saying goodbye to your friends, right?

Even if he couldn't do that to his best friend...

"Hey, comrade!" he greeted cheerfully.

"Ah, it's you again!" Paimon crossed her arms on her chest. "Let me guess, you want to fight Lumine again?"

"Wasn't last time you losing to me 1:5 enough?" Lumine asked with a smug look.

"Last time sure was impressive. Well done, Traveler. And no, I just got some free time, so I'm looking for ways how to spend it. I wanted to chat and hang out, but if the fight is what you're craving for, I'm more than open to the suggestions." Tartaglia smiled.

"Thought so..." floating fairy sighed. "Will there ever be a day when you won't come asking for a fight?"

"Oh my dear friend, you're forgetting something. I, Tartaglia, the 11th of the Fatui Harbingers, spend every single second getting stronger."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, you told us that already. Sheesh, you sure are a trouble maker."

"Well, if adventures are what you want..." Lumine interrupted her companion's and Harbinger's argument. "There's a special commission from Adventurer's guild. It's the first-ever commission marked as SSS+."

"Oooh, you're talking about that domain one? Katheryne did say it must be a big deal. The adventurer who reported the domain was horrified and his voice shook so much! His friends were barely able to understand what he was saying... Not to mention his terrible injuries... Poor guy..." Paimon sighed.

"Now that sounds like a challenge suited for me!" despite the whole story with domain's previous explorer, 11th Harbinger was as cheerful as always, his eyes almost glowing with excitement. "Accept the commission. I'll go together."

Lumine and her floating fairy friend exchanged worried looks. Knowing they were too weak to change Harbinger's mind, they nodded, telling him to meet them at the city gates in 10 minutes.

~~~

After half an hour, the group was finally standing in front of the domain entrance, somewhere in Liyue's mountains. Unlike other domains', this entrance was different – it was built from darker stone, its door lock glowing in darker shade of blue.

"U-Uh, g-guys, it's still not too late to turn around and go back-"

"True warriors never back out of battle. Let's go." Childe's voice was cold, filled with bloodlust as he interrupted Paimon.

Pushing the door open, they revealed a giant portal. Once again, this domain wasn't behaving like any other – instead of having to step in and teleport to the challenge, this domain sucked them both in itself.

After falling through the blinding darkness for quite some time, the pair found themselves in a huge arena in the middle of nowhere. It looked like a floating platform in the large cave, its walls tainted with colors that the outside world has never seen.

"Where... a-are we...?" Paimon clung to Lumine's shoulder from behind, observing their surroundings.

To the boy, on other hand, it all looked familiar. Way too familiar.

"Abyss..." he whispered, stepping forward.

"W-What?" Paimon started shaking. Lumine, despite being slightly scared herself followed after the young male. "L-Lumi- wait-"

When they got close to the middle of the platform, a giant red key appeared. It gave off strange energy, somehow tempting to touch it.

Childe reached out his hand.

"W-Wait, Childe, don't-"

Too late.

The moment Harbinger's hand touched the key, it disappeared, spawning 3 pyro abyss mages. They immediately noticed their challengers, giggling in their ghastly voices.

"Pff- 3 pyro mages? Really? And you call this an SSS+ commission?" Tartaglia laughed, pure hydro blades forming in his hands. "Stay back, Traveler. Enjoy the show. Come at me!"

Despite hydro being the element that broke pyro shields the easiest, Childe found it hard to do. For some reason, these mages had especially strong shields. When it would take averagely 10 hits to break one, 10 hits done pretty much no damage to this one.

Lumine helped out with her current geo powers and after good 20 minutes, all mages' shields were broken. Once their shields were broken, they could be defeated easily. Swinging his pure-hydro polearm in a big radius, with one single powerful strike, Childe finished all of them off.

Finally, the pair could rest a bit.

"Phew... That was quite tough..." Harbinger sighed, sitting down on the ground to regain his breath easier.

"Do you still think this was a good idea? Monsters in this domain are hell stronger than the ones back in the real world!" Paimon was getting worried more and more. "Lumine, let's go back, please-"

Before the blonde girl could even answer, 4 giant hydro slimes appeared in front of them. Childe was already back on his feet, slight uneasiness in his eyes – hydro slimes will be immune to his blade slashes. He will have to use his bow – the weapon he was least adept with.

Lumine was the one to help out more this time. Childe kept releasing arrows as quick as he could, but those barely did any damage to the jumpy blue creatures. If it wasn't enough, they soon found out this challenge had a hidden part too...

Outlander finally managed to defeat one slime. The blue creature started bouncing in place, soon enough exploding. By the time Traveler wiped her face from the slimy remains, she found 4 smaller hydro slimes in the giant's place.

Every giant hydro slime would turn into 4 small upon defeat.

Tartaglia managed to defeat another giant. Now they had 8 small slimes that were way faster than the big ones jumping around, as well as 2 giants remaining.

The situation was getting out of hand. There was no way the Harbinger and Lumine will defeat them all on their own. But all of the sudden, something strange happened...

Ashadow fell upon the arena...