Didn't you go to Teyvat to earn money to support me?

The yaksha girl, dressed in a gentle cheongsam, stood quietly at the bow of the ship, showing no interest in even replying.

She appeared to be strolling leisurely, holding Shen Liang's hand, but in reality, she was keeping an eye on stray arrows and other attacks, guarding against any mishap to Inazuma's distinguished guest. Meanwhile, the treasure ship outside had arrived at the island, and fully armed sailors jumped ashore to begin searching the island. The so-called island search meant that wherever the fire spread, people followed; anyone who did not surrender, regardless of age or gender, was shot dead with crossbows.

After all, the Lonely Cloud Pavilion Islands have almost no indigenous civilians. Even those who fish or farm here can become pirates who rape and plunder when necessary. Even children are no exception, so there's no need to distinguish them.

Anyone standing is in danger; they either have to lie down and be tied up, or they die.

The old man on the suspension bridge watched as the fire approached Dazhai, the center of the main island, and finally made a tough decision!

"The Rock King's army is serious this time, unlike before. Don't get your hopes up! That's the Water Yaksha, Fanan. She was sent to silence them!" the old chieftain roared. "Open the jars! Let the Rock King's lackeys see the spirit of the Whirlpool Clan! No one in this world can kill so many members of our Ba family and still want to go back alive! Bring up all the jars!"

This statement was somewhat unusual. Shen Liang looked up and saw that on the suspension bridge connecting the peaks in the center of the island, rows of bandits had immediately brought black pottery jars from the caves and placed them in the middle of the bridge. The jars looked very heavy, bending the bridge downwards by a large section.

The earthenware jar, roughly the height of ten people, was entirely black, old and damaged, yet luxuriously inlaid with elegant gold trim. Strictly speaking, it wasn't an earthenware jar; its shape resembled a Western goblet, wide at the top and bottom, with a slender "handle" in the middle—simply a giant cup.

"What are they doing?" Fa Nan frowned.

She vaguely sensed something was amiss. In fact, this wasn't the first time Guyun Pavilion had suppressed bandits, but for certain pragmatic reasons, the bandits and government troops on the Guyun Pavilion Islands had always maintained a relatively peaceful coexistence. Firstly, the bandit forces in this area were too powerful, and a forced eradication might result in unexpected casualties; secondly, they and the Yunlai Navy had too many spies planted within each other, and if it weren't for Fa Nan's unpredictable whereabouts as the outer sea admiral, he might very well have returned after a quick raid, just like the other naval forces.

However, precisely because they had never fought a real hard battle, the navy's internal intelligence didn't have a very good understanding of the Lone Cloud Pavilion's combat strength. But anyway, even the strongest pirates are still just pirates. With the valiant Fanan, who can take on a thousand men, leading the navy, even if they only brought two thousand men, it would be enough to easily defeat them.

But now, Fanan's heart was beating too fast, and she vaguely sensed something when she saw those people still going through the motions of ritual at this time.

Shen Liang looked over. As a demon god, his eyesight was much better than that of ordinary people, so he could see clearly at this moment. Then he blinked in confusion.

"What did the eldest princess see?"

“That’s not a jar, that’s a cup, and those children are shouting… I don’t want to be a snake?”

On the suspension bridge, the old village chief stared grimly at the rafts on the waterway. Beside him were a dozen or so black pottery jars. At that moment, several strong men were dragging a dozen or so children who looked to be less than ten years old away from a group of crying and wailing women, pulling them by their feet to the pottery jars.

"Chief, we can begin the ritual now." The old boatman, who had been there before, gritted his teeth and glanced at the children with a heavy heart. Two of the children were his grandchildren, the ones that Fa Nan and the others had seen playing in the mud with him earlier.

The old chieftain turned around, staring at him with a mixture of malice and resentment, and slapped him so hard that his teeth were knocked out. "Look what you've done! Remember, you have three grandsons. I'll leave you one because you've followed me for so many years."

"Thank you, Chief! Thank you, Chief!" The boatman cried with joy.

"Start the altar!" the old chieftain roared.

At this moment, the women whose children had been taken away cried even louder, and the men on the suspension bridge became ruthless and stuffed all the children headfirst into the earthenware jars!

"Wow..."

"Mother! Mother! I don't want to be a snake! I don't want to be a snake!"

"It's so dark! Mom! Mom, save me!"

The children cried louder than their mothers, and then the group of burly men picked up the iron maces they used to pound the sauce!

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The chorus of cries abruptly ceased!

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The mace smashed into the ceramic jar! Blood splattered onto the faces of the burly men!

Fa Nan was stunned by Shen Liang's description.

The burly men continued smashing, as if they were pounding meat, smashing it again and again. First, there was a dull sound of hitting meat, then there was a cracking sound of bones being smashed and smashed into a sticky paste mixed with the meat.

"Bang! Splat! Bang! Splat!"

Chilling.

Then, beneath the pottery jar, as the "cup handle" was squeezed out, was a blood-soaked head.

There was no body, no limbs, only the head remained, with a blank stare that had died of fear and confusion, and the rest of the body had been smashed into mincemeat.

The corpse, squeezed into a strip along the slender stem of the cup, was wrapped in tattered cloth, resembling a sausage for human consumption.

Or.

snake.

"I have to admit I was disgusted." Shen Liang relayed the scene to Fanan, and looking at the girl who had already covered her mouth, he said, unusually without much of a smile, "Snakes aren't such disgusting things. Snakes are beautiful creatures."

"This is a sacrifice? The oldest and most decadent kind of sacrifice! For whom?" Fa Nan, suppressing his urge to vomit, spoke rapidly, utterly bewildered, "What god can be pleased by sacrifice?"

But the next moment, Shen Liang and Fa Nan both saw the old village chief on the suspension bridge spread his arms and shout some incoherent syllables. Then, those strong men picked up pottery jars and poured them into the sea from high above! They threw the meat snakes made from the children into the seawater!

"No one can offend the Ba family, no one can offend the Vortex Clan! No one can leave here alive!" The group of bandits stared at Shen Liang and the others below the mountain, their eyes bloodshot as they roared, "Let us show you the might of the Vortex God! It's terrifying enough that even the Rock King cannot match it at sea! You dare to kill our people, then I'll leave you all here!"

Then their chanting finally became understandable; it was a common language. And the instant those words were spoken, black waves surged up from the sea!

"The waters of the Nine Fields flow like the Milky Way. Seven protectors of humanity, dare they question the absolute purity! One truth has form, all dharmas are without birth. Mountains and rivers endure death, yet heaven and earth are not broad enough!"

This rhythmic yet obscure recitation was like a foreign language to Shen Liang, but Fa Nan immediately understood.

"Ausel's blessing!"

The prayer of the vortex demon god Oser!

Just like the worship of his mother in Inazuma, people who believe in a certain deity naturally have prayers. Among most people in Inazuma, the main beliefs are the Thunder God and the Dead Snake God. Therefore, the prayer is "Heavenly Sin, National Sin, and Town Prayer", which means first sinning the Heavenly Sin God and then sinning the National Sea God.

However, Liyue has only one faith. Even a demon god like Oser, who has been suppressed for thousands of years, is still being summoned through prayer!

But they really saw changes!

The moment the blessing was finished, the sea surged with huge waves! Almost instantly, the sea changed from the shimmering moonlight to pitch black. Despite the presence of the moon and lamplight, the water was no longer visible. What was terrifying was that Vanan could no longer control the water, and their wooden boat swayed violently in the water!

Then, huge waves surged up the sea, even overturning the thatched huts on the island's edge! Shen Liang and Fanan jumped off the ship and fled to the island at the same time, and all the sailors reacted quickly. The treasure ship immediately turned around and left the area, and more people went directly to the island!

Without the suppression of the treasure ships' cannon fire, the sailors lost their reinforcements. But that wasn't important. What mattered most was that everyone keenly heard a seemingly wild and ancient mournful sound coming from the sea, like the cry of a whale, or like the resonance of a conch shell the size of the world.

Everyone instinctively looked towards the sea. In the increasingly turbulent ocean, a huge swirling whirlpool appeared along the boundary of Guyun Pavilion Island. If the treasure ship had set sail earlier, it might have been drawn into it.

Countless dark things could be seen swirling and wriggling within the vortex, visible to the naked eye.

Fanan tried to stop the whirlpool, but to her horror, she discovered that her water control abilities seemed to be suppressed; she could only control a radius of a few dozen meters around herself, not the entire sea. She sensed something within the whirlpool, something incredibly powerful. Faced with that thing's control over the ocean, she was as weak as a wild boar trying to fight off a pack of beasts…

Fanan realized she might have made a mistake, not that she was in danger, but that she shouldn't have been so confident in bringing Shen Liang along to "broaden her horizons." As a general of Liyue, if she died, she would be destined to become a Yaksha, she had long been aware of that. But the little princess of Inazuma came to Liyue to study, only to die there... This might be a more terrifying problem than the bandits of Guyun Pavilion.

She had no doubt that Shen Liang would die. Yes, Shen Liang was indeed a juvenile demon god, but being a demon god only meant a high probability of future power, not necessarily that he was powerful now. As for their enemy, Fa Nan, she already knew who they were dealing with: a true demon god, someone even the Rock King Emperor had fought a fierce battle against, suppressing with countless rock spears beneath the Lonely Cloud Pavilion…

The Demon God of the Whirlpool! Oser!

—Why can Oser actually be summoned!

"How is that possible? Theoretically, Oser, who was sealed at the bottom of the sea by the Emperor, should not be able to break free for another five hundred years! Right now, his power has not recovered to the point where he can even dream of freedom!"

—And what kind of summoning method is this!

—A sacrifice?

—How is this possible...? How is this possible?

Fanan forced herself to calm down and think, but she still desperately realized the enormous gap in combat power. She couldn't understand. Of course, she knew that the Ba family of Guyun Pavilion were descendants of the Vortex Demon God, but how... how could they summon it? So many descendants had never heard of anyone being able to pull out a suppressed god!

At this moment, the vortex finally revealed its true colors.

Thick, dark blue tentacles, resembling octopus tentacles, emerged from the vortex and slammed heavily onto the beach of the main island of Lonely Cloud Pavilion!

Then came the second tentacle, and the third!

"My lord! Great Oser, Oser of the Seven Guardians of the Human World! I offer you the blood and bones of my sacrifice, you have eaten my flesh and drunk my blood, I beg you to kill those lackeys who have brought calamity upon your people!" The old chieftain, his hair disheveled, laughed wildly, then hurriedly fled into the depths of the forest. At this moment, a torrential rain fell, quickly extinguishing the forest fires—a testament to the power of the demon god in altering the climate!

All the sailors froze on the spot, unsure whether to run away. With Oser's enormous size, even the main island of Lone Cloud Pavilion could barely accommodate him. Where could they possibly go?

However, at this moment, Shen Liang looked at the tentacles and suddenly froze.

"Those aren't tentacles! That's its head!"

"My God!"

Vanan also saw the eyes emitting a white light at the tips of the tentacles, and at that moment, Oser revealed its full form. Nine tentacles emerged one by one, each a long neck topped with a slippery and ferocious head. Its body was hidden underwater, and although it couldn't be seen, the distribution of its heads indicated that it must be as large as the main island!

【Xiangliu? Or perhaps the Hydra?】Mistelin tilted her head, examining it.

Shen Liang knew what Xiangliu was. In the mythology Mistelin had told him, there was a nine-headed serpent monster that was eventually killed by Yu. Legend had it that Xiangliu's nine heads would regenerate after being cut off, and it could only be killed by cutting them all off in one go... He wondered if the Teyvat version of the Hydra had such overpowered attributes.

This is when Shen Liang noticed the children's heads peeking out from between the teeth of each of Oser's skulls. Perhaps because they were to be sacrificed to the gods, those children who were mashed into fleshy snakes retained their heads, which were the only parts that still resembled human bodies.

"Evil god!" Fanan gritted his teeth. "Ausel, we were once enemies, not friends. I even assisted the Emperor in personally suppressing you, but back then you weren't such an evil god who would demand blood sacrifices! You actually made living people sacrifice to you? Do you even deserve to be called a god?!"

Shen Liang turned to look at her, hesitated for a moment, and didn't dare to speak.

[I have a feeling that in Sister Fanan's mind, the Demon God seems to be the type with very high moral character... I wonder if I'll shatter her illusions later.]

[Ha, does our little darling actually know she has low moral standards?]

"Sister Yu Tu, let's make this clear. I think my moral understanding might be slightly different from everyone else's, but that doesn't mean I have low moral standards," Shen Liang said earnestly. "In fact, the things people around me say most often are things like 'Good kid, good boy, you did a great job,' and 'It tastes so good.'"

Are you sure the timing of their compliments was right...?

Just then, a sailor nearby exclaimed, "General Fanan is going! Everyone, follow him!"

Shen Liang turned his head to look at the sky.

As expected, Fanan tore open her cheongsam, took off her shoes and socks, and stepped barefoot onto a wooden board. Using her limited water control ability, she gathered a high-speed current of water and sped towards Ausel as if riding a surfboard!

"Can Sister Fanan defeat her?" Shen Liang stretched his arms behind his back and yawned.

But no one paid him any attention. The instant that Vanan charged forward, all the Genshin Impacts who could use elemental power used their own methods to rush onto the sea! Those who could freeze ice! Those who couldn't freeze ice controlled the wind! And those who couldn't even do that just grabbed a sampan and surfed across like little fish!

In an instant, a highly trained elite force was formed, and more than ten powerful Primal Gods followed Fa Nan to carry out the decapitation!

"No need to panic! And don't be afraid to die! Follow me, and obey my orders! Ausel is far from being free. It must have paid a heavy price to barely show itself now. Its strength is negligible! I once followed the Emperor and killed it, sending it crashing into the abyss. We can do it again!" Fa Nan's soft voice was now sharp and loud. "It's nothing more than a reenactment of the War of the Demon Gods. Compared to the Thousand Rock Army back then, what we face today is much easier! Exchanging human lives for divine lives, my lords, how magnificent!"