Yunqin sat on the deep blue crescent moon, her crimson eyes devoid of all vitality, leaving only the arrogance of one looking down on ants.
The crescent moon hovered over Liyue Harbor, the dark energy swirling around it intertwining with the water mist rising from the sea, dyeing the originally clear morning light dark purple, even blurring the outline of Qingyun Peak in the distance into a gray shadow.
The sea breeze rolled in with a fishy stench, making the jade bells hanging from the Jade Chamber jingle chaotically, and the map of Liyue Harbor hanging on the pavilion flutter violently.
When Yunqin repeated those words of proclamation, the trembling of the Moonlight Strings at her fingertips was as faint as a mosquito's buzz.
No one noticed that a trace of struggle suppressed by the Abyss was hidden within that trembling.
The moment her voice fell, the silver lines that originally connected to the Seaborn suddenly split like living creatures, and the ends sprouted countless fine branches, rapidly spreading through the stagnant air like an inky spiderweb.
In just a few breaths, it entangled every single Seaborn present, not even the juveniles hiding behind the reefs escaped.
The green moss on the reefs withered and turned black the moment the silver lines swept over it, and when the sea breeze blew, only fine gray powder remained.
The Seaborn entangled by the silver lines froze instantly, and the dark energy all around them burst out violently. The Abyssal aura, several times denser than before, enveloped the Hydro Element, causing their bodies to swell to nearly three times their original size.
Bony spurs pierced through the skin of their already hideous bodies, growing outward, while thick black water seeped from the suckers, dripping onto the bluestone slabs and etching out small holes.
The Deep Blue Hydro Barrier covering their bodies gleamed with a cold light, and even their roars made the window frames of Liyue Harbor rattle, shaking fine cracks into the window paper.
Wind seeped through the gaps, bringing the fishy stench from the sea, making the children hiding inside the houses cough violently.
Yunqin lowered her gaze slightly, her long eyelashes casting fragmented shadows against her crimson eyes, and her fingertips plucked the Moonlight Strings once more.
A beautiful melody flowed through the wind, yet it was permeated with a bone-chilling deathly silence.
On the shore, the Millelith soldiers gripped their spears tightly, the anti-slip grooves on the shafts soaked with cold sweat.
Suddenly, five ink-black silk threads erupted from Yunqin's smooth back.
The thick, ink-like threads writhed slowly in the air, faintly entwined with fine Abyssal Tentacles, emitting a nauseating fishy stench.
The sea breeze abruptly shifted, blowing this stench toward the shore. Many townspeople leaned against walls, retching violently, while the cries of children were blown into fragmented pieces by the wind.
Auntie Li, the candied hawthorn vendor, crouched in a corner clutching her child, her hand tightly covering the child's nose and mouth as tears streamed down her cheeks. "What a tragedy... How could Miss Yunqin have become like this?"
The old stonemason beside her sighed, his calloused hand stroking the carving knife at his waist; it was the same knife Yunqin had helped him sharpen before.
"She must have been entangled by a god's lingering resentment. All we can do now is stay out of the Millelith's way."
-
A bizarre scene unfolded: all the Seaborn controlled by the silver threads turned as one and bowed toward the black silk threads, paying no mind to the Millelith spears already thrust against the barrier.
The spearheads struck the barrier with a sharp "clang," yet the Seaborn did not even flinch, their gazes fixed on the five black threads as if worshiping a deity.
Their bodies' Hydro Element barriers glowed with a strange red light born of devotion.
The black threads slithered into the sea like vipers, churning up waves several meters high.
The ink-black seawater instantly grew even darker, its corruption seeping into the coral on the seabed and turning it into rotting wood.
In less than half a quarter of an hour, several earth-shaking roars erupted from the deep sea.
The sounds were no mortal's, carrying the savagery and violence of ancient monsters.
The waves suddenly turned frantic, shaking dust from the glazed tiles of the Jade Chamber.
Next, nine massive heads covered in dark purple scales rose slowly from the ink-black sea.
This was the Abyssal variant of the legendary Nine-Headed Serpent. Each head was the size of a millstone, with knotted muscles bulging beneath dark purple scales embedded with deep-sea stones and shells.
Their golden vertical pupils held no trace of reason, only murderous madness. The longest head bore an Abyssal rune on its forehead, which glowed faintly in the seawater.
The black venom dripping from their fangs was as thick as lava, instantly bubbling into a poisonous bog emitting green mist upon touching the sea.
Dead fish and shrimp floated on the surface of the Poisonous Bog, quickly corroded into white bones.
"Hydra, I command you to be the leader of the Abyssal Moon Guards, and to destroy Liyue!" Yunqin's voice, carried over the wind and waves, was cold and devoid of warmth, yet it bore an unquestionable command.
The nine-headed monster seemed to understand the order. All nine heads raised simultaneously to the sky, letting out ear-splitting roars toward the eerie blue crescent moon.
The central head spewed a beam of black light that shot straight into the heavens. The beam collided with the dark purple clouds, exploding into a sky-filling black rain. The droplets instantly etched small pits into the ground.
The shockwave from the roar bent the withered grass on the shore. Even the carved window lattices of the Jade Chamber cracked, their paper frames shattering into white down that instantly dissolved upon falling into the Poisonous Bog.
This roar served as the horn of attack. All the Seaborn instantly responded, charging toward the Millelith with hissing roars.
The Millelith glanced at one another, raising their spears in unison, yet their formation was still thrown into disarray.
A young soldier was entangled by a Seaborn's tentacle around his ankle and was dragged into the Poisonous Bog in an instant. His cries for help were swallowed by the waves, leaving only a trail of bubbles on the water's surface.
Other soldiers' spears pierced the Seaborn bodies, only to be corroded into rust-covered wrecks by the black water within.
The moment the spear shafts snapped with a "crack," the Seaborn's sharp claws slapped their chests.
Fresh blood splashed into the Poisonous Bog, instantly turning black.
-
When the "Abyssal Moon Guards and the Nine-Headed Scourge" story fragment was pushed to the entire server with the game, major gaming communities were instantly ignited.
Among the top ten on the Weibo Hot Search list, three related topics, "Yunqin's Blackened Iconic Scene," "Hydra's Model Details," and "Battle of Liyue Harbor," forcefully took the top spots, with total topic views breaking one hundred million within half an hour.
In the live stream of the salted fish streamer "Genshin Old Class Monitor," the online viewership, which had originally stabilized at 800,000, instantly soared to 1.5 million, and the bullet chat was flooded with amazed words like "Holy shit" and "My scalp is tingling."
When the camera gave the shot of Hydra's nine heads roaring simultaneously, he slammed the table hard, and his headphones almost slipped off: "Brothers, did you see that! The reflection on these scales! The physics effect of this dripping venom! Mihoyo's modeling is completely maxed out this time!"
The words had barely fallen when the screen was suddenly covered with "High Energy Ahead" bullet chat. The moment the two sides began their battle, the gift effects in the live stream merged into a continuous stream, with rocket and airplane animations almost blocking the game footage.
Old Class Monitor gasped sharply and replayed the scene over and over.
Thousands of analysis posts quickly emerged in the story discussion section of the gaming forum.
In the highly-upvoted post "Analyzing Yunqin's Level of Abyssal Corruption through Black Silk Metaphors," the original poster broke down the visual details frame by frame: "The subtle trembling of the five black silk strings suggests that Yunqin is in a state where her consciousness is suppressed but not completely devoured."