Immortal Love Is Everlasting

Sensitive Gods, Adepti, and Dragons

Xiao knew something was up when Venti called for him. Venti never called for him formally, if he wanted Xiao to meet him somewhere, he would see him personally. Xiao never quite understood it.

"Why walk to find me when you can just call my name?" But Venti insisted that he wanted to walk to him, and he would only call him it it was urgent. So Venti had probably gotten himself into some serious shit, and Xiao probably needed backup. He could call Zhongli! He went to Morax's statue and prayed for Zhongli to help.

Zhongli came to Xiao's aid immediately. "Hello, Xiao. How can I help you? He frowned when he saw the worried expression on Xiao's face. "Is something wrong? Did you get hurt?" Xiao tensed.

"No, but I think Venti is in trouble. He called for me and seemed really worried." Zhongli scoffed. "Doesn't he call for you all the time? You two have your little thing going on." Xiao looked at Zhongli desperately. "Zhongli, I know you don't like Barbatos, but I know he's in some kind of trouble. He wouldn't call for me so formally if-" There it was again. The twinging pain in his neck that meant Venti was calling for him.

"Just please, master, I am asking you to trust me." Zhongli stared at Xiao. "Fine. Let's go." Xiao teleported to where he thought was Venti straight away, but noticed his power also wasn't allowing him to take him directly to Venti for some reason. This either meant a higher power was blocking him, or Venti changed his mind and didn't want him there.

Zhongli noticed Xiao's power calculation was off as well. "Where did we end up?" He asked in a more serious tone. Xiao looked up in terror, seeing a clouded mountain with a severe storm cloud surrounding the top. "Venti says this mountain is called Dragonspine, one of the few places in the world with a phenomenon known as Sheer Cold. If we get too cold up there, we will be incapacitated."

Zhongli's brow furrowed. "We need to go see exactly what Barbatos got himself into. Come, I will get us at least halfway up the mountain. I can't go directly to Barbatos because I don't know his location."Even though Zhongli didn't get along with Barbatos too much, he would be terribly grieved if the idiot died. Zhongli and Xiao started to run up the mountain, stopping every 5 minutes or so to warm up by a fire so they didn't freeze.

They were close to the summit of the mountain when they heard a crushing noise. It almost sounded like- "Bones." Xiao stated, terrified. They ran faster, eventually getting to the Cryo Hypostasis's lair.

Xiao gasped as he noticed Venti's body lying motionless in the snow, blood splattered all over the white ground. Zhongli, furious, told Xiao to protect Venti's unconscious body. Then he started pounding into the Hypostasis with pure force. The Hypostasis fought back fiercely, and managed to break a few of the bones in his arms with ice crystals.

Even with his arms broken though, he still fought hard. Eventually, the Hypostasis retreated. He ran over to Xiao. "Xiao. Carry Venti back down and bring him to Windrise. I'll join you two there, but save your strength for teleporting Venti." Xiao nodded. About ten minutes later, Zhongli met them at Windrise.

"How is he." Xiao looked up. "He's stabilizing, but still badly wounded with several serious injuries. I think- ZHONGLI! YOUR ARMS!" Zhongli looked down at his arms. They weren't broken anymore (thank Celestia) but he had blackened them down to a stone form so they could heal properly. If the bones were stiffened to stone, then they could heal faster. So he reverted his arms back to their original "dragon" form.

"It's okay, Xiao, I can still operate. This is just how I heal broken bones."

"Alright, if you say so. Venti is slowly but surely recovering, he should be fine if his broken ribs are kept stable. The frostbite is more or less gone, I think being at Windrise is speeding his recovery. It can't help with any magic inflicted injuries though." Zhongli suddenly had a horrid thought.