There was absolutely no reason for Yidhari or whatever the fuck to be invovled with The Exaltists. It didn't even tell us anything new about them. It was just this octopus bitch being manipulated by the Exaltist lady. It could have worked fine as being a tale about Vivian 2.0 and her powers going haywire, being left alone and having being used by fanatics living in the past, unrelated to the Exaltists.
A self contained story basically.
The only reason why the Exaltist are there is because they are setting up 2.4/2.5 because 2.2 had that dude with the glasses that's part of Yixuans crew join the Exaltist and this patch just reminds us of that.
Oh and course Lucia also has a sad backstory too. Her dad is dead and part of her whole horror gimmick is to find his spirit and say goodbye properly. Because of course.
Which brings me to the final boss of this patch.
Fuck him. He's Lucias dad turned into a monster but he's the worst of the miasna bosses. Annoying as fuck gimmick where you have to run around and play hide and seek with mini Lucia or have him snatch 45% of your HP. If you fail, it's almost a one hit KO. Why the fuck?
Also we finally get introduced to that Hu Tao/Yixuan looking girl.

Cool I guess.