I was born a god, the son of the Demon Lord.

The sound was like something huge churning underwater.

The roaring sound rushed through the narrow passage, shaking the surrounding water and causing a few grains of fine sea sand to fall from the rock wall overhead.

The three children immediately fell silent.

Wei Shenglan's playful expression faded somewhat, its tail stiffened for a moment before returning to its natural wagging, as if deliberately trying not to let the other party see its tension.

He turned his head and glanced at Lin Qingyue; the two exchanged a look.

Lin Qingyue didn't speak, but simply took the spear off her shoulder, turned her wrist so the spear tip was pointing forward, and lightened her pace by half a beat.

The group swam forward along the passage for a while longer.

The rock walls on both sides of the passage gradually became covered with glowing algae, and the pale blue light laid a soft path in the dark seawater.

Schools of fish occasionally swim by in front of you, their scales reflecting tiny glimmers of light, making you want to take a second look.

A round, glowing little fish suddenly emerged from a crevice in the rocks, slammed into Shen Xizhou's face with a "smack," bounced off, and swam away in a panic, swishing its tail.

Shen Xizhou was knocked backward by the impact. He blinked and, after seeing that it was just a tiny glowfish the size of a palm, let out a long breath.

"...That scared me to death! I thought something was wrong."

The three children looked at each other in disbelief. Hailey patted her chest twice and said, "What a scare, what a scare..."

After regrouping, the group continued onward.

As they ventured deeper into the passage, the seawater grew increasingly thick, as if something was subtly oppressing the waters.

The fluorescent algae overhead dwindled, the darkness ahead grew thicker, even the fish gradually disappeared, and the surroundings were so quiet that only the faint sound of water flowing past one's ears could be heard.

Just as the group was preparing to speed up and pass through a narrow rocky passage—

"Help! Help me!"

A small figure stumbled out of the darkness ahead.

It was a small mermaid with a human body and a fish tail, its body grayish-white, its scales dull and lifeless, clearly a lowly mermaid of low status among the sea creatures.

Her clothes were tattered, she was covered in wounds, her eyes were red and swollen, and her face was covered in tears. She swam while looking back, as if she had been chased by something terrible.

When she saw Lin Qingyue and Wei Shenglan's group, she seemed to grasp at the last straw and rushed towards them while crying.

"Please, please save me! There's a monster behind me! A huge monster!"

She swam close, but paused for a moment.

Those grey-blue eyes lingered on Xu Nanyi's face for a moment, as if they recognized something, then they bypassed Xu Nanyi, hid behind Wei Shenglan, grabbed his sleeve, and cried uncontrollably.

Xu Nanyi narrowed her eyes.

Wei Shenglan glanced down at the little mermaid hiding behind him, frowned, but didn't push her away. Instead, he pulled her closer to his back and looked up at the bottomless darkness in front of him.

"...You mean the monster, over there?"

The little mermaid nodded frantically, her voice trembling with tears: "It was so big! So black! Its mouth split open! I... I almost got eaten by it..."

She had barely finished speaking.

Something moved in the depths of the darkness.

The seawater seemed to be stirred up by some enormous thing, surging in layers from the front, pushing pebbles and sand towards the group.

Immediately afterwards, a deep roar exploded from the darkness, carrying a heavy, rotten smell, and the stench of seawater rushed towards us.

A huge figure slowly emerged from the darkness.

The thing was more than two people tall, and its body was so twisted that it didn't look like a living creature, but more like a monster that had been forcibly pieced together.

Its entire body is covered with grayish-blue scales, each with curled edges, like rotten fish skin stuck to bones. Dark green mucus seeps from the gaps in the scales, leaving long trails in the water.

Its head resembled both a fish and a human, with a mouth split to the base of its ears, revealing a row of jagged, black, sharp teeth, with the remains of some unknown creature hanging between them.

The two eyes were different sizes; the pupil of the larger eye was a vertical line, while the smaller eye was completely cloudy and white, like the eyeball of a dead fish hanging outside its socket, swaying slightly with its breathing.

It has six slender arms on both sides of its body, each with three sharp bone claws at the end. In the water, the claws open and close intermittently, as if searching for the location of its prey.

The Mysterious Immortal.

Moreover, it has already achieved a considerable degree of physical realization.

The moment it fully emerged from the darkness, the spear, like a silver-white lightning bolt, burst forth from the water, carrying a sharp spiritual force, and pierced straight into the eye of the Ghost Immortal with its vertical pupil.

Almost simultaneously, Wei Shenglan shook off the little mermaid's hand from behind. With a sudden burst of power from her silvery-white tail, she shot out like an arrow. A coral dagger appeared in her hand, which she used to cut into Gui Xian's side abdomen, close to the bottom of Lin Qingyue's spear.

Hailey raised her hand and flicked out a water blade, precisely blocking the movement trajectory of the Ghost Immortal's two left arms.

Shen Xizhou's dragon bone whip had already been lashed out, coiling around the two bone claws on the right side of the Ghost Immortal like a living silver snake.

At the same moment that everyone made their move, Xu Nanyi had already silently placed the Nine Nether Ghost Seal in her palm.

Golden patterns spread from the bottom of the seal, floating on the skin of her small hand, flickering, ready to deliver the final blow at any moment.

Before the strange immortal had even fully emerged from the darkness, it was simultaneously struck by five attacks.

It let out a short, angry roar, and its six arms opened at the same time, its bone claws suddenly crossing in front of it to protect its vitals, but it was too late.

Lin Qingyue's spear tip grazed its left eye socket, drawing out a string of dark green blood beads.

Wei Shenglan's sword pierced deeply into the gap between the scales on its side, and when it was pulled out, it brought out half of its rotting internal organs.

Hailey's water blade severed the tip of a bone claw from one of its left arms.

Shen Xizhou's whip wrapped around its two right arms, forcefully pulling them off course and creating a fatal gap in its defenses.

The ghostly immortal, in pain, opened its mouth, which split open to its ears, and spewed a cloud of dark green poisonous mist at the crowd.

Just before its tail disappeared into the shadows—

The Nine Netherworld Ghost Seal in Xu Nanyi's hand had floated above her palm at some point, with golden patterns on the seal spreading from the bottom to the four corners, like a slowly blooming golden lotus.

She gently pushed the Ghost Seal forward, and a golden net of light spread out from the bottom of the seal, like an invisible giant hand, silently spreading out in the direction where the Ghost Immortal had retreated.

The ghostly fairy was completely unaware of anything approaching as it retreated into the shadows, until it crashed into the net.

"Buzz—"