Ronova’s death scene is the hinge that the rest of Teyvat swings on. The Ruler of Death loses, experiences dying for the first time, and then spends her last moments doing something deliberate to a celestial pillar. Everything that follows — the glowing nails, the nervous Archons, the adepti posted on watch — traces back to those ninety seconds.
Quick answer: Ronova invokes the Eitr from the Shadow Realm and shatters a celestial pillar as her parting gift. Afterward, Celestial Nails across every region begin glowing and emitting sounds.
Ronova’s final moments and the Eitr
A dragon passes through the haze near a towering celestial pillar. A rift of purple light tears open in the air beside it, and Ronova comes through — white-haired, horned, visibly spent. She falls through the air and gives the line the whole sequence hangs on: “She who controls death… cannot know the experience of dying.”
She lands beside the pillar and touches her lip, studying the black glove on her hand. “So… This is what death feels like,” she says. It is played as genuine curiosity rather than fear, which matters for what she does next.
Crimson wing-like structures hover at her back as she looks up and drops her grievance against everything below Celestia. “Humans… Gods… Even… I need not despise you any longer.” That release of resentment is what unlocks the rest of the scene.
She then conjures a glowing orb in her palm and calls the Eitr by name: “Respond to the mother of all forbidden creations… Hidden by Hyperborea in the depths of the Shadow Realm: the ‘Eitr’…”
Ronova presses that energy directly into the column. Cracks spread outward across the stone until the pillar breaks apart. Red feathers drift around her as she says, “Take this feeling with the hallowing of soil…”
Yellow eyes shining, she smiles while reaching a clawed hand toward the camera. “Offer them to the world… This is the gift I leave behind.” Her form then breaks apart into white light. The pillar is not destroyed from spite; she presents the act as a gift passed on.
What the Eitr is
Ronova’s incantation is the clearest description of the Eitr the game has given. Three things are stated outright:
- It is addressed as the mother of all forbidden creations.
- It was hidden by Hyperborea, deep in the Shadow Realm.
- It answers a summons from the Ruler of Death, and it is strong enough to shatter a celestial structure on contact.
Ronova invokes the Eitr only after she has already accepted her own death. She is a Shade created by the Heavenly Principles, which makes her using a forbidden power against Celestial architecture the sharpest break of her long service.
Every region where the nail starts glowing
Once Celestia’s Ruler of Death falls, the Celestial Nails driven into Teyvat stop being inert scenery. Each region reacts with its own posted watch, and the Traveler works through them one by one.
| Region | Who is watching | What they report |
|---|---|---|
| Snezhnaya | Alyosha | Strange glow and sounds from the nail |
| Dragonspine | Albedo | Skyfrost Nail reacting unexpectedly |
| The Chasm | Xiao, Millelith, adepti | Monitoring on Rex Lapis’ orders |
| Inazuma | Yae Miko | Ominous shining; suggests asking Kokomi |
| Sumeru desert | Dehya and Candace | Mercenaries and desert folk on guard |
| Natlan | Mavuika | A pillar of light; stay wary of the Abyss |
Snezhnaya is where the pattern gets named. Alyosha connects the noise and the light coming off the Heavenly Principles’ nail directly to the defeat of Celestia’s Ruler of Death, rather than treating it as a local anomaly.
Inazuma is the most pointed reaction. Yae Miko mentions she pulled a Great Misfortune slip before going to look at the nail herself, and she floats Kokomi as someone who might actually understand what the thing is doing. Natlan gets the widest lens: Mavuika stares at the pillar of light and talks through Ronova’s past influence and Capitano’s role while warning that the Abyss is the real problem to stay alert for.
Why the reaction contradicts what was known about the nails
Celestial Nails were cast at the command of the Heavenly Principles to wipe out civilizations that disobeyed or became contaminated by the Abyss. The working assumption has always been that a nail is a finished punishment — a weapon that already landed and now just sits there.
Albedo is the one who says the quiet part on Dragonspine. Examining the Skyfrost Nail with the Traveler and Paimon, he points out that the way it is reacting does not fit what anyone previously believed the nails were for. A weapon that has already been fired should not light up when a Shade dies on the other side of the world.
The Heavenly Principles themselves have lain dormant since the Cataclysm five hundred years ago, crippled by Nibelung after the War of Funerary Flame. The Four Great Rulers have been enforcing their laws in the meantime, and Ronova — the Arbiter, the one who cursed the pureblood Khaenri’ahns with immortality — was one of them. Her handing the Eitr to the world on her way out is the first thing in centuries to make the dormant machinery respond.
Nothing in the scene confirms the Heavenly Principles have actually woken up. What is confirmed is that every nail is now live, every major power in Teyvat has eyes on one, and the Traveler is being walked region to region to find out what that means.
