"But it's too dangerous for you to go alone! Yunqin won't listen to reason right now, and there are still so many monsters. What if you..." Paimon stamped her feet in frustration.
"Listen to me," Lumine gently pushed Paimon behind her, her voice softening. "You'll only distract me here. Protecting yourself is the greatest help you can give me."
"Zhongli and Venti disappeared on the way here. They must have a plan. Go find them and tell them about Yunqin's current situation. I'll go hold her off first!"
Paimon's eyes were rimmed with red, but she still nodded vigorously.
Before leaving, she didn't forget to turn back and shout, "You have to be careful!"
Lumine watched Paimon's figure disappear before tightening her grip on her sword.
The dark energy on the blade seemed to sense her resolve, gradually receding to reveal the ancient patterns beneath.
"Lydia, lend me your strength." She took a deep breath, Anemo energy condensing around her body, and pale green light patterns wrapped around her ankles.
With a light tap of her feet on the ground, she shot through the curtain of rain like a streak of green light, charging toward the crescent moon high in the sky.
High above, Yunqin looked down at the chaotic battlefield below.
A cold smile curved the girl's lips, as if the slaughter below had nothing to do with her.
The Seaborn surged toward the Millelith like a tide, some using tentacles to ensnare soldiers' ankles, others using sharp fangs to tear through armor...
Blood splashed onto the bluestone pavers, quickly washed clean by the rain.
"Still struggling?" Yunqin looked down at the battlefield below, the Moonlight Strings vibrating gently as the silvery-white strands shimmered with a cold light.
She didn't even spare Ganyu another glance, merely hooking her finger.
The silvery thread, as if imbued with a will of its own, shot toward Ganyu's defenseless back.
A dense, black Abyssal aura condensed at the tip of the thread, producing a faint hiss as it sliced through the air with heart-stopping speed.
Ganyu had just fired a Frost Arrow, watching the Seaborn ahead freeze into an ice sculpture. Just as her taut nerves relaxed slightly, a bone-chilling cold suddenly struck her back.
She instinctively dodged sideways, her movements so fast they almost left an afterimage, yet the silvery thread still grazed her shoulder.
The thread sliced a Seaborn that was about to sneak-attack from behind in two.
"Yunqin? How could you... How could you..." Ganyu's pupils constricted.
Her heart felt as if it were being violently squeezed. Past memories flashed through her mind, but the cold thread just now had acted like a knife, slicing those warm memories to pieces.
Before Ganyu could recover, Yunqin's fingertips had already plucked the Moonlight Strings once more.
This time, it wasn't a single thread, but dozens of silver lines that cascaded from the crescent moon, weaving into an impenetrable net.
What was truly horrifying was that half of the silver lines had entangled the Seaborn that were lunging toward the Millelith.
They weren't destroying them!
Instead, they were dragging these monsters toward the adepti like marionettes!
The other half shot straight toward Shenhe and Xiao.
The silver threads hissed as they sliced through the air, sharper and more terrifying than the Seaborn's talons.
"Be careful!" Shenhe turned, wielding the Calamity Queller as Cryo energy condensed into a six-foot-tall wall of ice before her.
The moment the silver threads struck the ice wall, they pierced through it like a knife through tofu, cutting a three-inch-long wound on her arm.
A bone-chilling cold instantly spread up her arm, making her gasp involuntarily as the Cryo energy at her fingertips faltered.
She looked up at Yunqin high above, her cool eyes filled with disbelief.
Xiao was in an even more precarious situation than Shenhe.
He had just pierced the head of a giant Seaborn with the Primordial Jade Winged-Spear, black blood splattering across his Mask.
Before he could withdraw his spear, three silver threads suddenly wrapped around the shaft and jerked violently to the side.
The force was astonishingly powerful, making his hand griping the spear go slightly numb.
The impaled Seaborn seized the opportunity to struggle, its maw full of fangs grazing his Mask as a foul stench wafted toward him.
If he hadn't dodged in time, using his explosive power to leap backward, he would have been bitten.
He hung in midair, his pupils burning gold and purple beneath his mask. The Guardian Yaksha's aura surged, yet it could not suppress the heartache in his soul: "So you're aiding the villain now? Is this the 'condition' you spoke of back then?"
"Did you always know this day would come, or do you want me to quickly... in front of your beloved Liyue... do it to you..."
Yunqin didn't respond at all, not even lifting her eyelids. She simply plucked the Moonlight Strings at her fingertips faster.
The Seaborn she controlled suddenly seemed to follow a plan. No longer charging chaotically, they split into three squads, launching precise attacks on the Millelith's weak points.
The silver threads acted as invisible blades, constantly disrupting the adepti's movements and indiscriminately attacking everyone from Liyue.
The Glazed Rock Projectile Ningguang had just formed was shattered by the threads before it could even be fired.
KeQing's sword was entangled by the threads, forcibly thrown off target.
"This power... is too terrifying." The Millelith commander gripped his spear tightly.
Seeing the soldiers around him wounded by the threads, his face turned pale.
They were already suppressed by the Seaborn, and now, with Yunqin's attacks, they were retreating in disarray.
More and more wounds appeared on the soldiers' armor. Many had already begun to show symptoms of fatigue and dizziness, and their formation was on the verge of collapsing.
Ningguang's phoenix-like eyes were fixed on Yunqin in the sky.
The once innocent girl was now unleashing a power so terrifying that it felt completely foreign to her.
"Her power... is far stronger than we estimated," Mountain Shaper said, his wings beating against the sea to block a wave of Seaborn attacks. "If she continues to aid them, we won't last half an hour before Liyue Harbor is overrun by monsters."
Wind blades coalesced around Cloud Retainer, yet she hesitated to act.
She feared that the Yunqin before her was truly Yunqin.
She feared seeing this disciple she had raised with her own hands betray Liyue, become a lapdog of the Abyss, and ultimately turn against her own kin.
She gritted her teeth, a flicker of resolve crossing her eyes, and launched the wind blades toward the Moonlight Strings.
"Yunqin! Wake up!"
"If you continue like this, you'll be truly lost! The Rex Lapis you love, the people you once protected... they are all watching you!"
The wind blades whistled through the air, and the moment they were about to strike the Moonlight Strings, Yunqin suddenly raised her eyes.
Her gaze carried a suffocating pressure. A silver thread, three times thicker than before, shot out and shattered the wind blades into fragments.
As the wind fragments scattered, her voice carried over the wind and waves: "I told you, struggling is futile."
As her words fell, more silver threads descended from the crescent moon, densely covering half the sky.
Half of the threads entangled the Seaborn, forming a neat offensive formation and charging toward the gap in the Millelith line. The other half launched a fierce assault on the adepti like a torrential rain.
The Millelith's formation completely broke, and the Seaborn seized the opportunity to flood in.
Screams, the clashing of weapons, and the roars of monsters intertwined, as an aura of despair engulfed all of Liyue Harbor like a rising tide.