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

------------

The Wuqi River flows through the northwest of Liyue. It is a branch of the Bishui River, passing through many mountains, and finally converges into a stream at the Laminar Rock Abyss.

On the surface, it meanders and winds, but underground, it is also an underground river within a deep abyss of rock, sustaining countless people.

A woman in tattered leather armor waded through a dark river less than ankle-deep, carrying a small "torch" made of luminous stone. The dim light could only illuminate a short distance. She carried several iron helmets on her back, each one stained with blood and strung together with rope.

But she wasn't commemorating her comrades who had died beside her. Instead, she filled each helmet with some kind of white jade-like stone, several of them, seven or eight hanging on her back, their weight visibly apparent. The red-haired woman refused to give up; she struggled through the water, her vision blurred, murmuring ancient and strange poems.

"...An alien star fell to the eight wastelands, its light shining like gold and jade. Forty-eight thousand years have passed since then, and it has not been associated with the Daoist King of Shenzhuo..."

"...Mortals cannot see it, and the sound of it echoes through the ages. One day, the ancient kingdom is shrouded in darkness, and the pearl loses its luster..."

Fire Yaksha, Yingda, was already exhausted. Her long hair was filthy and disheveled, almost matted together, and her body was covered in tattered skin. Even the Yaksha's regenerative abilities couldn't restore her to normal. She could only stagger, crawling out step by step. Occasionally, when she encountered those terrifying beast-like monsters, she would try her best to hide.

But it was actually useless. The monsters were too familiar with the vibrant life force emanating from her, and they could almost instantly detect that Yingda was still powerless to stop her aura from flowing out.

But all the beasts only glanced at her from afar before quickly fleeing. Not a single hound or vulture attacked Yingda; in fact, they deliberately kept their distance from her, getting further and further away.

It wasn't fear; the creatures of the Beast Realm didn't feel fear. It was an instinctive distancing, as if there was something about Yingda that they found utterly repulsive, causing them discomfort, even a sense of impending death.

“…Just as I thought,” Yingda murmured.

The white jade she held indeed had the effect of driving away these monsters from outside the world, just like the poem she recited, which suddenly appeared in her mind when she touched this "heavenly nail fragment".

Since venturing alone into the Abyss of Layered Rocks, Yingda had been searching for the so-called "Gate to the Beast Realm." Unfortunately, she never found it. Deep underground, she encountered many soldiers of the Thousand Rock Army and even, following the telegraph layout diagram she obtained from Fanan, located several radio stations capable of communicating with the surface.

In the very beginning, Yingda was even able to contact telegraph stations on the ground! She was even able to organize soldiers to participate in the resistance.

But Yingda soon realized that mere combat was meaningless. Just like the Floating She, which she had never found, she too had to delve deeper to find the enemy's lair. During the two months she spent infiltrating and searching for the gates of the Beast Realm, the soldiers protecting her died one by one. With each death, Yingda removed their helmets or badges, trying to remember these nameless heroes. But in the end, too many died; she no longer had the capacity to remember, and could only continue her journey alone.

From that moment on, she lost contact with Shen Liang, and she knew that from the perspective of the ground, she was probably dead.

But she was still searching, searching for the Gate to the Beast Realm, searching for... news of the Floating Abode.

At first, she walked through man-made mine tunnels, then through natural caves, and later through caves of unknown origin. Finally, she carved out a passage to the deepest part of the earth by following countless paths, emerging from a mountain of corpses and a sea of ​​blood from ferocious beasts.

She suddenly discovered that five or six hundred meters underground, there was a huge autonomous mechanical serpent digging tunnels, even creating a rather large cavity. She easily evaded the serpent's detection range and then explored the center of the cavity—Yingda had originally thought that it might be the location of the Beast Realm Gate, or perhaps the lair of the Kanria vanguard, but she only found out when she arrived there.

There was only one huge, ice-blue fragment of a sky nail.

The fragment emitted a soft, comforting light, even capable of dissolving the corrosive influence of the black mud on one's mind! Yingda not only failed to discover the so-called Gate to the Beast Realm, but also found no enemy beasts. The Kanriyans hadn't deployed any Beast Realm hounds in this area, but instead had a powerful, self-disciplined giant serpent guarding this seemingly celestial nail that had been smashed down from an extremely high place.

Yingda didn't know what it was, but she wasn't stupid. She could sense from the Kanriyans' arrangement... their aversion and fear of this Sky Spike. The reason they launched their infiltration into the Layered Rock Abyss and used it as their base was very likely because they hoped this thing wouldn't be discovered by the Liyue people, or at least that they would keep it under their control.

So Yingda peeled off a piece of the Heavenly Nail and carried it with her. The Heavenly Nail always emanated a healing power, making her as comfortable as possible and keeping her conscious amidst the endless erosion of the black mud. Just as she expected, when she carried the Heavenly Nail, both the ferocious beasts of the Beast Realm and the ever-emerging black mud would avoid her. In fact, if she actively approached them, they would emit a hiss as if they were being burned through.

Yingda did not find the Gate to the Beast Realm, but she realized that the Sky Nail might be the key to changing the course of the battle, so she turned back, avoiding the eyes and ears of the Kanriyans, and climbed all the way to the ground.

But the route was different from the one she came by. On the way there, there were still many survivors of the Thousand Rock Army underground, protecting her and maintaining contact with the surface.

But when they returned, the entire underground was eerily quiet.

Yingda didn't go looking for those radio stations. She roughly knew that in the past two months, there were probably no survivors among the hundreds of people underground. She held little hope for her comrades' survival, just as those radio stations had never found the first wave of troops who led the charge into the underground shelters. The underground was too dangerous; even if they survived, they would be corroded to death by the black mud. And the soldiers underground weren't the type to sit idly by and wait to die. They came down to find Kanria's weaknesses, so they were mostly the ones who took the initiative.

Now, she might be the only one left underground.

But it doesn't matter anymore. If Fu She dies, and the Tiger Might Camp is all dead, then she's the only one who can take the Heavenly Nail Fragment out. She has to get out no matter what.

Thinking of this, Yingda smiled absentmindedly. Perhaps this was responsibility. As the younger sister, she single-handedly plunged into the underground; as the general, even without ever seeing Fushe, she had to return to the surface to bring victory.

Even Shen Liang on the ground hadn't heard any news of Fu She from any radio station. She already had a pretty good idea whether her already delirious older brother was alive. But as she decided to abandon the search and leave with the Heavenly Nail fragments, she suddenly remembered how, many years ago, Fu She would always pat her head with a mischievous yet cheerful smile, ruffling her hair like he was petting a restless lamb.

Yingda suddenly stopped in his tracks!

She suddenly sensed something was wrong; Yaksha had a very keen sense of smell, and she detected a strong stench of blood.

The smell of blood wasn't a big deal; people had died in the entire area within several miles of the Layered Rock Abyss, and the blood of humans and wolves mingled together, so she was used to it. But this smell of blood was strange. It was faint, not the strong, rotten, stinking odor of blood, but a faint metallic smell, yet it was everywhere and felt very fresh.

It's fresh blood.

Fresh blood meant the person had only recently died, and that danger lurked nearby. Yingda held a broken scimitar in her hand; she no longer had the strength to revert to her Yaksha form and could only rely on this mortal weapon for self-defense. She cautiously looked around, but all was quiet except for the sound of the wind whistling in from the ground.

We're not far from the ground now. As a Yaksha, she can break the restrictions of the floating dwelling and come and go freely, but that doesn't mean others can. So no one else should die here... If the first Thousand Rock Army soldiers who came down died here, they'd been dead for two months... Yingda's face was a mixture of unease and vigilance. She bit her withered lips tightly, but she couldn't find anything.

So Yingda raised the luminous stone lamp and shone it around, but the dim light couldn't reach very far. She realized she was being too nervous, so she lowered her head and washed her face with the stream water to clear her mind.

As soon as the luminous stone illuminated the ankle-deep stream, Yingda froze.

Perhaps because it was too dark underground and there was no light source, she hadn't looked closely at the ground until now. Under the light, she discovered that the originally clear underground river had been stained with a color, an extremely deep crimson, a sudden and dangerous red, like concentrated cinnabar paint being thrown into a basin of water.

The red color spread down from an invisible spot upstream, only spreading a dozen meters behind Yingda. As the red color advanced, the entire stream quickly turned red. She stood in the midst of the pervasive red, the strong smell of rust gradually overpowering the body odor that hadn't been washed off for dozens of days.

is blood.

Yingda knew what had happened. The number of ferocious beasts he had seen these past few days had been decreasing, indicating that the war had likely begun in earnest. The barrier had been broken, and the beasts had rushed to the surface to fight the Thousand Rock Army. The battleground was probably the Wuqi River, with corpses piled up in one of its tributaries... This underground river was filled with their blood.

Blood flows into a river.

Yingda had lived for three thousand years; she wasn't unfamiliar with war, but even the war between demons and gods was a frenzied battle between gods, and she didn't remember ever witnessing a river of blood. How many people's blood would it take to stain a river red? A thousand? Ten thousand? No one knew.

Yingda washed his hands in the bloody water, lowered his head, and saw his tired eyes reflected in the water.

“Do not cross the river.” she said softly.

Returning to the ground, she was met with even more brutal fighting and the bloodshed of millions. Therefore, she had to cross this river.

--------

The banners of the Thousand Rocks army and the black banners of the Intiwat of Kanria crisscrossed the battlefield, with fearless cavalry charging ahead with iron spears, cooperating to annihilate the tactical beastmen of the Beast Realm!

No matter how fierce and cruel a wolf is, it is still a dog tamed by humans. Even when the army is outnumbered, one man can fight ten wolves, let alone when the army temporarily surpasses the enemy's strength!

But the wolves of the beast realm are creatures that do not understand death. Even so, they never retreat, and will continue to charge even after killing the wolf in front of them. Wave after wave of people and wolves pounced on the riverbank, and wave after wave of people and wolves took over the battlefield.

Shen Liang used his spear to force a wolf back, then suddenly turned around and saw a missile hurtling towards him!

Chapter 106 Brothers in Arms

Shen Liang had no knowledge of "missiles," but his body's instinctive reaction prevented him from raising his gun to block; instead, he dodged. A cannon barrel on the arm of a giant over ten meters tall flashed red light. The missile deflected and exploded on the ground behind Shen Liang. The Kanriyan, perched on the giant's shoulder and hiding behind the machine's armor, laughed maniacally as he commanded the giant to wield a massive, ten-meter-long single-handed sword. The giant leaped up, clumsily and swiftly, and brought the sword down on Shen Liang!

"Bronze?" Mistelin whispered after Shen Liang moved away. "Using bronze as the missile's outer shell... Even with brilliant gunpowder researchers, materials science still limits weapon development."

【What are you saying, YuTu-nee!】

"I'd say you could even slice this missile in half with a knife. Because of the materials, its explosive power isn't even as great as the armor-piercing power of the warhead." Mistelin stared at the giant sword falling towards Shen Liang's head. "The smelting technology is so limited. This sword is also forged from crude iron. Apart from being resistant to high temperatures and forging, it's completely susceptible to corrosion. It's not a very good weapon; it's just big."

Shen Liang almost laughed helplessly. Mistelin really didn't seem to care about stirring up trouble with her sarcastic remarks. These robots, each over twenty meters tall, were far more terrifying than the monsters of the Beast Realm on the battlefield. Generally, such units required either the strongest warriors to confront them or a barrage of artillery fire to wipe them out. After all, a single punch from one of them could weigh tens of tons, comparable to a tank charging through the battlefield… What was a tank again? Why did I think of that analogy?

But since his opponent had set their sights on him, Shen Liang didn't bother to dodge. He wielded his spear and clashed head-on with the giant sword! The instant the metal struck, Shen Liang felt as if a heavy hammer had struck his hand, and he could no longer grip the spear. But just as the spear was about to shatter from the violent resonance, he released his grip, leaped, and dodged the thunderous blow.

Shen Liang didn't know if his finger bones were broken from the shock. His hands were covered in blood. He pulled out a halberd from behind his back again, shook off the blood, and gripped it tightly.

The Kanriyan piloting the giant gave a sinister laugh, not moving forward, but staring at Shen Liang as if he were prey already trapped in a deadly situation. Half of the Kanriyan's body was inside the machine, his bare upper body concealed behind the giant's shoulder armor. He did this to avoid being targeted by the Thousand Rock Army archers. In this war, his greatest role as a human was to control the most powerful autonomous machinery.

Autonomous machines are capable of acting on their own, but their self-control is ultimately less powerful than human control. The autonomous machine he piloted was called the "Relic Heavy Machine," and it was considered one of the larger ones among various autonomous machines. Kanria had many autonomous machines named "Relic," a name that didn't signify their antiquity or obsolescence, but rather indicated their ability to conquer all hostile nations, turning all prosperity into ruins.

Just like the other name for the general-purpose autonomous machine, "tiller," this only represents that in the eyes of the Kanriyans, all enemy resistance is as weak and powerless as fields waiting to be tilled, and only deserves to be trampled.

“Raiden Ryou, Crown Prince of Inazuma?” The Kanriyan man knew who he was facing. He smiled and licked his lips. “As expected, you are a beauty. I don’t want anything else, I want your banner. As for your life… hahaha, if I could, I would like my brothers to taste the princess, but I can’t bear to chop you into mincemeat right now.”

Shen Liang stared coldly at him, his halberd carving deep craters in the ground. He didn't speak, only silently pursed his lips, locked eyes with the Kanriyan.

The Kanria scout was somewhat surprised; he didn't see any fear in the handsome young man with the white ponytail. He had expected Shen Liang to at least turn and run, because unlike him, Shen Liang had long since disregarded life and death, a wolf-like invader. Intelligence indicated that Shen Liang no longer possessed the power of a demon god; his presence here was merely to boost the army's morale. A princess of such high status shouldn't meet the gaze of a terrifying invader with such coldness, yet he couldn't decipher Shen Liang's eyes.

This even made him somewhat worried about whether Shen Liang could still use any divine power, but even if he could, it didn't matter. He was curious about whether the relic's heavy machine could fight against a lesser demon god, and it would be a good opportunity to test it out. As the vanguard force dispatched by Kanria to various countries, taking on this mission was practically a death sentence. So he wasn't afraid of dying, only of dying without meaning.

Shen Liang suddenly started running. This petite, even seemingly frail, boy swung a halberd twice his size in a half-circle, slashing at the heavy machine with all his might, while roaring, "You want my flag?"

The scout ordered the machine gunner to raise his sword to parry, but the enormous impact caused the scout's own body to ache. This was because his body was tightly clamped to the machine's protective layer, and the torsional force reflected in the armor, though reduced layer by layer, still affected his body.

"my life?"

With a light and agile hand, Shen Liang flipped the heavy halberd in his hand and thrust it again!

"You treated me like a woman and humiliated me?"

He grinned menacingly and smashed the halberd down for the third time!

"Sure! Of course!" Shen Liang stepped on the massive arm of the relic's heavy machine, the halberd blade embedded in the iron plate, propelling it forward as he ran. Sparks crackled beneath his feet. He finally leaped onto its shoulder, tossed aside the twisted halberd, drew his longsword from behind, gripped the end of the handle with both hands, and slammed it down hard on the relic's heavy machine's eyes! "Kill me, and anything is possible! As long as you can do it!"

The relic's heavy machine emitted a creaking sound of mechanical destruction, but the scout was more delighted than alarmed. A red light flashed in the eye controlling the machine, and a high-heat laser beam shot towards Shen Liang's location in an instant! Shen Liang was forced to abandon his attack on the eye and dodge again. The scout was excited; he licked his teeth and laughed arrogantly towards Shen Liang's location, "Very good, you haven't disappointed me! You dare to do so much with just mortal power? I like you. Remember, for the Kanreia to fall in love with a god is an honor for your god!"

But Shen Liang had already relaxed his strength. His hands hung limply, dripping with blood from the wound-healing medicine. Yet, he raised his head, his gaze towards the scout not fervent, but as if looking at a dead man.

"What kind of look is that! How dare you look at me like that?" The scout was furious, but before he could shout, he caught a glimpse of a figure that shouldn't be there from Shen Liang's perspective. A petite girl in a white and purple dress was floating in the air with an umbrella, her small hands covered in white silk gloves gently holding the blade of the Mo Dao that had been inserted into the eye of the relic machine gun.

The general's strength is no greater than Shen Liang's. Although she possesses some of the power of the Thunder Movie, she can actually exert less power than a Yaksha or other immortal. However, her control over lightning is more useful against machinery than immortal magic, given the opportunity to access it.

Shen Liang attracted most of the scout's attention, and he did not immediately pull out the long-handled sword inserted into the energy center, which was the eye, as this was the best conductor of lightning.

Of course, given the General's power level, her explosive lightning couldn't truly destroy the Relic Heavy Machine, which was the root cause of the scout's carelessness. But the General didn't need to destroy the Relic Heavy Machine in one go.

She unleashed a torrent of lightning, expressionless, temporarily crippling the relic's mobility! Every light on the colossal statue went out, its arms drooped, and its eyes lost their light. With Kanria's technology, such a short circuit could be restarted in a few minutes, but a few minutes... was enough to kill that Kanria ten thousand times over.

"How could you know to use a battery to short-circuit?!" The scout realized his end was near, but he wasn't afraid; he just roared madly, "It shouldn't be! It's impossible! How could Liyue or Inazuma possibly have the ability to see through our alchemy! No... something's not right!"

He suddenly looked up at Shen Liang, then realized something. "People from the Witch's Guild? You have people from the Witch's Guild!"

But no one answered him. The general's gaze was as cold as iron. She could have killed him right now, but she withdrew under Shen Liang's orders.

Shen Liang knew that at this time, in order to boost morale, he shouldn't let his sister get rid of him so easily. There were only a dozen or so vanguard troops in the entire Layered Rock Abyss battlefield, so even if they were killed, they should be killed with value.

Then the horn sounded, and Shen Liang raised his hand to the sky, paused for a moment, and then swung it forward! From all directions, more than three thousand archers hidden in various parts of the battlefield simultaneously released their bowstrings, which were drawn to their limit! Each bow was a powerful bow with a strength of a hundred stones, and at the same moment, they released a power like thunder, torrential rain, and a raging tide.

The scout's madness slowly subsided. He knew his doom when he saw the archers aiming. His shoulder armor wouldn't rise, and he was trapped here, half his body a naked target. But he was still angry, angry that Shen Liang wouldn't give him a dignified death. Dying at the hands of a demon god was something to be proud of, while being riddled with arrows was like being a nameless soldier.