Hu Tao stared at that familiar yet strange figure, her lips trembling as she muttered a sentence that left everyone bewildered.
"But we were just... yesterday..."
Her words came to an abrupt halt. She suddenly turned her head away, using her oil-paper umbrella to hide the redness in her eyes. Her shoulders shook slightly, and she refused to say another word.
Lu Nanqing slapped the table in frustration, controlling Lumine to press for an answer.
But Hu Tao only shook her head, showing no other reaction.
"Don't leave us hanging, Hu Tao! What exactly happened yesterday?!"
Lu Nanqing grumbled as she controlled Lumine to keep moving forward.
At the entrance of Wanmin Restaurant, she saw Xiangling leaning against the windowsill.
Her cheek was pressed against the cool glass, her eyes red as water-soaked cherries, her teary gaze fixed on the moon over the sea.
The young girl's fingers unconsciously scratched at the wooden window frame, carving several deep white marks into the wood.
"Xiangling!" Lumine's voice rang out through the curtain of rain.
Xiangling spun around, and the moment she saw Lumine, tears almost spilled from her eyes.
She leaned against the windowsill, her voice, thick with sobs, drifting through the rain: "Traveler, tell me, what happened to Yunqin?"
"Why is she attacking Liyue? We were just... yesterday..."
Just yesterday!
Another unfinished sentence!
How could they keep us hanging like this!
The audience in the live stream was completely bewildered.
"What exactly is the key point about yesterday? Did we miss some plot?"
"Could it be that Yunqin was controlled by the Abyss yesterday?"
"That doesn't make sense. Yunqin has been right under our noses the whole time. Where did the 'we' that Hu Tao and Xiangling mentioned come from?"
Lu Nanqing also frowned deeply. Just as she was about to control Lumine to press for details, the screen suddenly dimmed. A melodious yet sorrowful violin tune slowly began to play, and the story CG officially started.
The camera slowly pulled back, revealing more and more waterspouts on the sea.
Black mist entwined around a giant vortex, staining the azure seawater ink-black, even the moonlight was twisted into an eerie, ghostly blue.
The next second, countless terrifying Seaborn surged from the towering waves.
Some resembled giant fish with dozens of tentacles, their suckers stained with minced flesh; others looked like eyeless mollusks, their bodies covered in oozing holes; and some dragged long tail fins, their mouths filled with sharp fangs...
They writhed their hideous bodies in the waves, roaring deafeningly as they charged toward the Liyue Harbor docks.
"All Adepti, unite our strength!" Cloud Retainer's command pierced through the wind and waves.
The Adepti's combined power wove into a sturdy barrier, forcibly blocking the colossal waves that threatened to swallow the docks.
Yet the Seaborn completely ignored the barrier, leaping from the waves like madmen, claws and fangs bared as they charged the Millelith defending the harbor.
The Millelith gripped their spears and fought back.
But the Seaborn were too numerous, and their power far surpassed ordinary monsters.
In mere moments, soldiers were entangled by the ankles by tentacles. Their shrill screams were swallowed by the roar of the waves as they were instantly dragged into the pitch-black sea, leaving not even a spear shaft behind.
As Lu Nanqing watched the Millelith's health bars on the screen drain at a visible rate, her heart leaped into her throat, and her fingertips instinctively clenched the mouse.
A young soldier used his spear to desperately fend off a Seaborn tentacle, his arm sucked red by the suckers, yet he still refused to retreat a single step.
"Hold the line! We can't let the monsters harm the civilians!"
Right then, the sound of something cutting through the air came from high above.
Xiao, wearing his Nuo Mask and wielding the Primordial Jade Winged-Spear, leaped down from the sky.
The spear tip precisely pierced a Seaborn's head, and black blood splashed onto his Nuo Mask, shimmering with an eerie light.
On the other side, from the Jade Chamber, Ganyu's ice arrows rained down.
Every single arrow could freeze a whole patch of Seaborn!
She had just saved a squad of Millelith, but new monsters were already surging in behind the Seaborn frozen into an icy warehouse.
Ningguang formed hand seals, and countless Geo bullets smashed into the Seaborn.
The golden light shone exceptionally bright in the darkness, yet it still couldn't fill the gap where monsters kept pouring in.
Shenhe carried the Calamity Queller and charged in the vanguard, ice condensing around her body as every spear swing split a Seaborn in half.
-
By the time Lumine reached the pier, the battlefield on the screen had descended into utter chaos.
Some Millelith were retreating, carrying their wounded comrades on their backs;
Some knelt on one knee, using their bodies to shield huddled allies;
And others, entangled by Seaborn, their spears long broken, still fought the monsters with their fists, letting out desperate yet resolute roars.
As she watched the endless stream of Seaborn and the retreating forces, Lumine's gaze was fixed by the sight in the sky.
Yunqin sat on a crescent moon, watching the slaughter below with a playful expression, her fingers still gently plucking the Moonlight Strings.
It was as if this battle, a life-or-death struggle for Liyue's survival, was merely a game for her amusement.
"I have to stop her first!" Lumine gritted her teeth and summoned her weapon.
But the Dull Blade that should have appeared had now turned into the unexpected Festering Desire!
The patterns on the sword's blade writhed like living things, emanating an ominous aura.
"Why is it this sword?" She froze for a moment.
The instant Lumine's fingertips touched the hilt of the Festering Desire, a bone-chilling cold surged from her palm, spreading through her entire body.
Her pupils contracted sharply, and her hand gripping the hilt tightened instinctively. Wasn't this sword... already shattered long ago?
But now, it had inexplicably reassembled itself perfectly in her hand.
The patterns on the blade writhed like living creatures, and the Abyss's aura was even denser than before, making her chest tighten.
"Traveler? This sword... didn't Yunqin shatter it earlier?" Paimon floated beside her, her little face filled with shock.
She reached out to touch the scabbard, but the dark energy emanating from the blade forced her back half a step, and she patted her chest unconsciously.
"What a sinister aura! How did it suddenly appear?"
Before Lumine could think further, a dull roar suddenly echoed from the depths of the sea.
The sound was unlike the roars of ordinary monsters; it was more like a colossal beast, dormant for millennia, awakening from its slumber.
Each roar's vibration sent ripples across the sea's surface, causing even the distant waterspouts to sway.
She looked up at the center of the vortex, where a massive silhouette faintly emerged from the ink-black water, larger than all the Seaborn combined.
Dark energy swirled around the silhouette, and every breath it took carried an overwhelming pressure capable of overturning heaven and earth.
There was something even more terrifying in the depths of the sea!
Lumine's heart sank heavily, and she temporarily pushed aside her confusion over the Festering Desire.
Now was not the time to obsess over the weapon's origin. Yunqin was still controlling these monsters from the sky, and the colossus in the deep sea might also be her creation.
If they delayed any longer, Yunqin would truly become a criminal against Liyue!
Lumine turned to Paimon and gently stroked her rain-dampened fur. "Paimon, go hide in a safe place. I'll find you after I've dealt with this."