Genshin Impact:-What if the Sovereigns Started a War

Training Ground — Realm of Training

The ground cracked beneath Orion's back as he fell hard, the breath knocked clean out of him. Frost scattered like broken glass around his collapsed stance.

Ignarion stood over him, spear lowered but eyes sharp with disappointment. His voice cut through the silence like a blade sheathed in judgment.

"Orion, for what reason did you choose the sword as your weapon?"

Orion blinked through the haze of pain. Snowflakes drifted lazily around them, unaware of the weight pressing down on his chest—both physical and emotional.

His voice was quiet, heavy.

"Because this stance... these movements... they're Frieda's.

It's the way she fought. The sword is the only thing that fits."

A silence followed, long and almost cruel.

Ignarion's expression did not soften. If anything, it deepened—into something like disappointment edged with pity.

"Then you wield the sword out of love..." he said slowly.

"...but there is no love in you for the sword."

He stepped back. His form relaxed, the fire that burned moments ago now smoldering low.

"Until you learn to love the weapon—not for who used it, but for what it can become in your hands—you will not move forward."

Ignarion didn't wait for a reply. He turned, one hand slicing open a rift of burning orange light. The air howled around it like a dying star.

"Grieve. Train. Grow. In that order."

He stepped through—and was gone.

The rift snapped shut.

Orion lay in the silence, surrounded by ice and memory.

Inside the Knights Academy – Girls' Dormitory

THUMP.

Elynas groaned dramatically as she collapsed face-first onto her bed.

"This training is actual hell..." she muffled into the mattress.

"Why is the Headmaster himself training us?" Merry gasped, flopping down beside her like a dying fish.

"I mean, come on—I'm Sixteen, not a war general."

Elynas let out a sleepy whimper.

"He's so strict... I can't even bring up Big Brother Orion without getting death-stared into the Shadow Realm."

Merry pouted and rolled over.

"Well... at least Tera's not here to tease you about your hair or your baby face."

"He's a boy! He's in the boy's dorm!" Elynas grumbled, sitting up just enough to throw a pillow at the wall.

"I still can't believe he's not totally dead after that training..."

"He's just pretending to be fine. Trust me." Merry nodded solemnly.

---

Boy's Dormitory – That One Loud Room

Tera was not fine.

Collapsed on his bed like a broken puppet, arms dangling off the sides, he barely flinched as a crowd of sweaty, nosey boys loomed over him like hawks around a carcass.

"NO FAIR!" one of them yelled.

"Why the hell do you get two childhood friends—and they're both girls?! In the same academy?!"

Another one leaned in dangerously close, slamming his hand on the bed.

"You countryside raccoon! You better not be hogging them for yourself!"

Tera blinked slowly, too exhausted to process the outrage.

"I don't get it... What's the big deal?" he mumbled.

"You guys have lots of friends in the dorm, too..."

That was the final straw.

"Boys." One of them whispered dramatically.

"He doesn't get it. He actually doesn't get it."

Everyone stared at Tera like he was some kind of mythical beast too pure for this cursed realm.

He whimpered and pulled a blanket over his head.

----------

Zephyr's Castle

The wind had a memory here.

It whispered through nothingness, rustling flags that hadn't existed moments ago, gliding through curtains of invisible silk that parted only when they pleased. The castle of the Wind Sovereign floated upon the sky—not above it, not within it, but as part of it. Its tall, slender pillars vanished into the clouds like thoughts drifting out of reach, and the walls pulsed in and out of existence like half-remembered lullabies.

Rooms folded in on themselves, domes rippled like disturbed puddles, and staircases curled eternally upward into unreachable vanishing points. Nothing was constant—except the awe.

At its heart sat a throne that wasn't there. A hollow absence carved into the wind, rimmed with reverence. Around it, dozens of wind spirits twirled in silence—faceless, robed in flowing air, never touching the ground.

Upon this absence-throne lounged Zephyr, the Wind Sovereign, his form halfway between man and memory. Hair like floating dandelions, a face always shifting—young, old, male, female, human, beast—never holding still longer than a breath. Beside him stood Dolores, his Divine General, calm and still as a breeze before a storm.

"Someone's approaching," Dolores said, her voice like wind chimes trembling before a gale.

Zephyr tilted his ever-morphing head, eyes narrowing like storm fronts curling inward.

---

Below the Castle – The Grassland

Three knights in full gear stood on the hilltop beneath the shifting behemoth of sky and madness that was Zephyr's castle.

They stared up, eyes squinting into the high-altitude hallucination of floating stairs, spiraling airways, and anti-gravitational architecture that refused to obey logic.

One of them—a tall one with a spear and a clear allergy to heights—groaned.

"How the hell are we supposed to deliver this letter up there?!"

His voice cracked with a mix of awe and absolute regret.

Another knight pulled out the sealed letter with trembling hands.

"I—I don't even see a door! Or a gate! Or… floors!"

The third, younger and bolder, grinned.

"Come on. It's the Wind Sovereign. He probably already knows we're here. I bet he'll just suck us up with a tornado or something."

The ground beneath their feet shivered.

And then the wind began to sing.

The Wind Shifted.

Not just breezed. Not just gusted.

Shifted.

Like a god had exhaled a bad memory.

A crackling boom echoed across the grassland—not sound, but pressure, collapsing lungs and rattling armor. The sky above the knights blackened with unnatural speed, clouds curdling into a vortex that spiraled like a drain in the heavens.

And then it came.

Descending from the eye of the storm was a creature that tore through the air like a vengeful hymn.

A dragon—no, something worse—like the forgotten dream of thunder given flesh.

Its body was sleek, forged from the essence of a hurricane: dark blue and teal scales, dulled and fractured like broken stormglass, with glowing cyan veins running erratic through its form like unstable ley-lines ready to rupture.

Jagged, warped horns flickered with arcs of electricity, dancing like captive lightning.

Its wings—oh, those vast, paper-thin wings—stretched with eerie grace, the membranes torn and veined with black, fluttering in a way that screamed "wrong."

It landed with no impact—just a silence that crushed the world.

The knights fell to their knees, whether by instinct, reverence, or pure fear was unclear.

Its eyes, glowing cold and pale, stared down at them—not looking so much as judging their existence from somewhere far beyond mercy.

Then, with a voice that rolled like thunder stuck in its throat,

the dragon Highfall spoke:

"People of Arian... for what purpose have you come to disturb the peace that winds have?"

The words hung heavy in the air, tinged with grim restraint.

But underneath—like a sword hidden in a bouquet—there was hatred.

Not explosive.

Not loud.

Suppressed. Boiling. Measured. Deadly.

The lead knight's voice caught in his throat like a splinter.

He opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a breathless whimper.

Beside him, the second knight—a girl barely older than sixteen, but hardened by drills, mud, and far too many stories about what lived above the clouds—managed to lift the sealed scroll with trembling fingers.

But the wind stole it before her hand could rise past her chest.

The letter didn't fall.

It ascended.

Gracefully. Effortlessly. Like it had always belonged to the skies.

Highfall's eyes tracked the scroll with slow, surgical stillness, his cracked wings twitching once, just enough to summon another gust. The scroll rose higher—higher still—twisting, spiraling upward like a paper offering. The moment it passed into the roiling clouds that cloaked the floating castle, the wind stilled. Completely.

No rustle.

No breath.

Not even the heartbeat of a breeze.

Up above, high beyond sight, the scroll passed silently through a curtain of living air—no guards, no gates—and found itself drifting toward a throne of absence. There, in a swirl of translucent wind spirits, sat Zephyr—shifting form, ever-human and ever-not, like the silhouette of a man glimpsed through fog that refused to settle.

He extended a single finger.

The scroll froze midair.

Then, with a whisper only the winds could hear, it unfurled itself.

Beside him stood Dorores, Divine General of the Airborn Legion, a being clad in high silver and pale stormlight, her face hidden beneath a smooth, featureless helm. She leaned slightly forward, catching glimpses of the missive.

Zephyr didn't speak.

He inhaled.

And the air itself read the message for him.

---

Back below, Highfall's wings twitched again.

The tension in the storm dragon was palpable. If he moved wrong, a city would vanish.

If the knights so much as breathed incorrectly, they'd be atoms on the wind.

But… he didn't move.

Instead, something shifted in his voice. Less thunder. More thundercloud.

"If this is a declaration… it is ill-timed."

"If it is a request… you have no leverage."

"If it is a plea..."

He lowered his head slightly, one glowing eye narrowing like a crashing wave about to collapse.

"…then pray the Wind Sovereign has pity left to give."

The three knights stood frozen, cloaks whipping around them violently.

And then, impossibly gentle, the storm began to fade.

Above, the floating castle stirred. The wind shimmered with meaning. Curtains of air parted.

And a voice—not loud, but everywhere—rang out:

"Let them rise."