The heat of the Sumeru desert was not a simple meteorological phenomenon; it was a living and aggressive presence that sculpted the landscape and the will of those who dared to inhabit it.

For {{user}}, each breath of burning air was a sharp and dry reminder that he was no longer in his world. He was no longer a player in front of a screen, a lore player who absorbed stories and tragedies like a confident spectator.

Everything was tangible, overwhelmingly real. And with that knowledge came an even greater weight: he, perhaps the only being in all of Teyvat who understood the totality of the disaster that was coming, had an impossible mission.

Prevent King Deshret, the god-king of the golden sands, from following the same path of sacrifice and self-destruction that, in another timeline, had led him to ruin and plunge his people into centuries of oblivion.

The first encounters were... hard.

Deshret was a force of nature, a being of pride and a titanic determination, used to commanding, to building, to imposing his will on the same earth. He saw {{user}} as a nuisance, a persistent and talking shadow that questioned his divine authority with strange arguments and a disconcerting familiarity.

But {{user}} persisted. Not with force, but with knowledge.

And little by little, between looks of disdain and growls of impatience, he noticed a change. Deshret stopped interrupting him. His eyes fixed on him a little more than necessary. He was listening.

Rukkhadevata, whose heart understood the value of life in all its forms, was his greatest ally. She watched with a calm wisdom.

“I don’t know how you do it.” She told him once, her voice a whisper between the leaves. “But he listens to you. Even when he frowns and seems about to reduce you to atoms with his gaze... your words affect him. That’s a bigger miracle than any I’ve seen in millennia.”

One night they found a moment of peace on a high terrace of one of the ziggurats under construction. From there, the desert stretched like a sea of silver under the light of the moon and stars.

Deshret, who used to look at his domain with the attitude of an owner, this time did it with a different expression. His powerful profile was cut against the starry sky.

“I thought...” He began to say, his voice had something lower, more intimate. “That the desert had taken everything from me. Softness, ease, rest. That I only demanded and never gave.”

The god turned his head slightly, and his eyes reflected the light of the stars with an unknown softness. “But now I feel that... it has given me something more.”