Truth Amongst the Pages of Purana

Entering Sumeru's rainforest from the Chasm in search of the Dendro Archon, the Traveler follows the hermit scholar Haypasia into a cave, where her incense knocks them out. In a vision they see a vast, glowing white tree — Irminsul — and hear a voice plead, "World... forget me." They awaken in Gandharva Ville under the care of Forest Rangers Tighnari and Collei, and learn there have been two Dendro Archons: Greater Lord Rukkhadevata, who died in the cataclysm, and the reclusive Lesser Lord Kusanali. Sumeru is plagued by the Withering, a sickness of Irminsul that also worsens Eleazar, the disease afflicting Collei.

In Sumeru City, the pair receive Akasha Terminals and discover the Akademiya holds its own Archon in open disdain. They befriend Dunyarzad, a devout follower planning to revive the Sabzeruz Festival for Kusanali's birthday, along with her bodyguard Dehya and the dancer Nilou — then chase a lead about an item stolen from the Akademiya to Port Ormos.

There, aided by the aloof Scribe Alhaitham and the merchant Dori, they trace the stolen Divine Knowledge Capsule to the Eremite leader Mizri, who uses it and goes berserk — muttering the very words from the Traveler's vision. Alhaitham quietly pockets the capsule, while the Traveler returns to the city for the festival.

On the day of the Sabzeruz Festival, Dehya foils an Eremite attempt to kidnap Dunyarzad, who reveals her Eleazar has reached a terminal stage — the festival is her last wish. Grand Sage Azar shuts the celebration down before Nilou can perform, departing with cryptic words about "the birth of that god." Then the morning begins again: the Traveler is trapped reliving the same day.

A mysterious girl named Nahida restores their memories of the loop, which she calls a samsara. The truth is monstrous: the sages have plunged Akasha users into a collective dream of the festival so the system can harvest their vacated dreams, raw material for the secret project to create a new god. The real Dunyarzad weakens with every cycle until her consciousness vanishes, while the Traveler, Paimon, and Dehya test the dream's boundaries in search of its cause.

Deducing that Nilou is the dream's host, the Traveler helps her realize she is dreaming. As the dreamscape dissolves, Nilou at last performs the Dance of Sabzeruz, watched by Dunyarzad's spirit. Awake, the Traveler learns that Nahida — speaking through Katheryne's puppet body — is Lesser Lord Kusanali herself, imprisoned in the Sanctuary of Surasthana for five hundred years. She has saved Dunyarzad, and reveals that the words "World, forget me" were left in Irminsul by a contaminated Rukkhadevata.

To learn the sages' plans, Nahida and the Traveler pressure Azar's guilt-ridden secretary Setaria into becoming a mole — but the scheme is overheard by Il Dottore of the Fatui Harbingers, the true architect behind the Akademiya's project. He springs a trap, using the Akasha to convince a mob that the Traveler is a hero, and Nahida must reveal the scope of her powers to cover their escape.

At the sanctuary of Pardis Dhyai, Haypasia's communion with Irminsul channels not Rukkhadevata but the memories of the Harbinger Scaramouche — the vessel the sages are ascending into their new god. When Eremites run Nahida's borrowed Katheryne body through, she swaps consciousnesses with the Traveler, who witnesses Scaramouche mid-apotheosis before Dottore traps Nahida's mind within the Akasha. Her final clue points the Traveler toward the desert.

In Aaru Village, the Traveler is ambushed by Cyno, the self-exiled General Mahamatra, and a four-way standoff with Alhaitham and Dehya is defused by the guardian Candace. Comparing notes, the four realize they have each been investigating threads of the same conspiracy. When the village's exiled mad scholars — its revered Village Keepers — begin disappearing, the search for them becomes the group's first joint cause.

Hunting the missing Village Keepers, the Traveler, Cyno, Dehya, and Alhaitham uncover a scheme run through Eremite radicals: a masked "envoy of King Deshret" has been luring the mad scholars away with incense. The trail leads through the abandoned Eleazar hospital Dar al-Shifa, where Alhaitham exposes both the Akademiya's misinformation campaign about Deshret's resurrection and the uncomfortable truth that Cyno himself was the unwitting mole — the Akasha had been computing his movements all along.

Negotiations with the Eremite leader Rahman nearly cost Dehya an arm before an earthquake drops the group into ruins of King Deshret. There, a priest's ancient transcript rewrites the desert's creed: Deshret's pursuit of forbidden knowledge drove his people mad, and to save them he sacrificed himself while Greater Lord Rukkhadevata expended her power until she reverted to a child. Rahman, realizing his people have hated their own savior, pledges his men to the cause.

The captured perpetrators, the scholars Morghi and Judar, confirm everything: after Rukkhadevata's death stalled Sumeru's progress, Dottore seduced the sages with a plan to manufacture a new god, fed by the dream samsara and by knowledge canned from maddened scholars. United at last, the group begins plotting to bring down the sages and rescue their true god.

Alhaitham's coup unfolds on Jnagarbha Day, when the sages upload to the Akasha. Cyno smuggles Rahman's Eremites into the city as "prisoners," a feint sends Dottore back to Snezhnaya, and Alhaitham stages a betrayal that lands the Traveler inside the Akademiya — close enough to wake Nahida's imprisoned consciousness. Nilou's forbidden dance lures the guards away, Dehya frees the Traveler, and Cyno arrests Grand Sage Azar. After five hundred years, Nahida walks out of the Sanctuary of Surasthana.

The false god remains: Scaramouche, mounted in a colossal Fatui mecha. Nahida reveals she has trapped him in repeating samsaras and pours the compiled knowledge of Sumeru's people into the Traveler, who defeats him. Retrieving the Electro Gnosis, Nahida and the Traveler enter Irminsul and find Rukkhadevata's final memory: she created Nahida from Irminsul's purest branch, and the only cure for the forbidden knowledge corroding the world-tree is to erase Rukkhadevata from it entirely. Nahida complies, and all of Teyvat forgets her predecessor — except the Traveler.

Dottore returns to bargain; Nahida trades the Electro Gnosis for the destruction of his other segments. The sages are exiled, Sumeru celebrates, and Nahida points the Traveler onward to Fontaine — revealing the Fatui classify them as Teyvat's fourth Descender.

A letter draws the Traveler to Port Ormos, where Kaeya has come nosing after his roots — and Dainsleif appears with a bombshell: Kaeya's ancestors, the Alberichs, founded the Abyss Order. Dainsleif is in Sumeru chasing a recovered memory of the "Loom of Fate," an operation the Traveler's sibling once mentioned, and the group tracks it to a lonely farmstead in Avidya Forest.

There the Traveler slips into a vision of the past, walking beside Chlothar, a Khaenri'ahn noble calling himself "Eide," who tends a wounded hilichurl: his son Caribert, born to a Mondstadt woman and transformed by the gods' curse upon Khaenri'ah. Together they brew a remedy blessed by one of the Seven, but the search for a cure leads them to a hidden shrine where hilichurls pray to a defiled statue — and a disembodied voice naming itself a "sinner" speaks, entrancing Chlothar into worship.

The medicine briefly restores Caribert's mind, but the boy glimpses his reflection and vanishes, consumed by Abyssal power. Chlothar, revealing his full name Alberich, hails the Traveler as his "Prince" or "Princess" — the vision was seen through the sibling's eyes. Waking beside the farmstead, the group unearths Chlothar's remains. Dainsleif departs alone, suspecting the sinner's identity and promising answers at their next meeting.