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

Every time Hai Zhaoyue looked at it, she felt like her vision went black and she couldn't see the future of the Taiyuan Realm.

When the world is in crisis, they are unparalleled guardians.

When the world is not in crisis... they themselves are the biggest crisis!

So this time, she planned ahead for the hunting grounds, using the competition as a pretext to carry out a cleanup.

Since these little brats are destined to become the next generation of guardians, let's find them something productive to do now, so they don't end up causing a fourth continental sinking event in the future.

"I am truly the most intelligent person in all of history—"

She was feeling smug when she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.

On a small stool next to the throne, Hailey rested her chin on her hands, her face almost pressed against the water mirror.

Those big, round eyes reflected Xu Nanyi's figure wielding a spear in the mirror, shining as if two stars were inserted into them.

The little girl's mouth was slightly open, her cheeks were puffed out, and her face seemed to say: "So cool, I want one too."

Hai Zhaoyue's "strategic" smile cracked.

"...My son."

Hailey replied without turning her head, "Mm."

"What are you looking at?"

Hailey's eyes lit up even more. "Mother Queen! Will they enter the Dreamland Temple with me to become guardians later?"

Hai Zhaoyue's luminous pearl rolled three zhang away with a "glug glug" sound as she looked at her daughter's innocent and eager little face.

I almost forgot, there are 5 Guardians in this generation!

My son is doomed! The future of the Merfolk is shrouded in darkness!

Hai Zhaoyue reached out and slowly covered her face.

At that moment, the Sea King on his throne had only one thought in his mind—

Is it too late to smash that water mirror?

……

"Sister!" Shen Xizhou's voice was distorted in the water, as if it were coming from behind a wall.

Xu Nanyi didn't turn around. She pressed down on Wu Qiyue's head with one hand and pushed her whole body into the crevice on the side of the cliff.

The tail of the dragon bone whip curled up with a small stone and was the last one inserted, leaving the four people stuck in the crevice of the reef like sardines in a can.

The remains of the icy prison still hung above, the shattered ice crystals reflecting the last embers of firelight, perfectly concealing their hiding place.

Xu Nanyi covered her mouth and nose with one hand and made a "shush" gesture with the other.

The sound of chewing came from above.

Moist, slow, like someone chewing a piece of meat with bone.

The six-eyed behemoth was still eating the octopus they had painstakingly killed.

Xu Nanyi: ...Fine, I've worked for nothing. It's a losing proposition.

Wu Qiyue's hair floated in the water, making Xu Nanyi's nose itch.

The small stones silently erected a thin earthen wall, blocking most of the entrance to the crack.

The chewing sounds stopped.

Everyone held their breath at the same time.

Then, a sound came from above—

"Eeya."

The baby's laughter echoes from thousands of meters deep in the ocean.

Xu Nanyi's scalp flaked up from the back of her head all the way to her hairline.

It's not the eerie "hee" from horror movies, but the innocent laughter of someone who has just learned to roll over and is laughing at their own toes.

With its six vertical pupils and a mouth that can swallow whales, the uncanny valley effect is maximized.

boom.

The entire cliff trembled.

Xu Nanyi looked out through the cracks in the earthen wall and saw the remains of the Ice Cage shattered into dust.

The thing pressed down with its entire body, and its six vertical pupils lit up one by one in the darkness. The inside of its irises had swirling patterns, and its skin was covered with a layer of grayish-white waxy film, like a living, breathing piece of rotting flesh.

It lay on the seabed, its head swaying from side to side, its nostrils... if that hole counts as a nostril, were twitching as it sniffed.

did not find.

"babble--"

The laughter changed tone, the ending note rose, carrying a hint of confusion, which then turned into irritability.

Its first reaction was to raise its forelimbs and smash the nearest seafloor pillar.

The second reaction was to sweep across with its tail, leveling all the coral structures within a radius of 100 meters.

Third reaction—

It opened its mouth.

The moment Xu Nanyi saw that mouth open, only one word popped into her mind: Guixu (归墟).

The legendary mouth of the abyss that swallows all water.

The surrounding seawater began to flow, instantly sucked away, as if someone had pulled the plug from a bathtub. All the seawater rushed towards that mouth, carrying with it mud, pebbles, coral fragments, and—

people.

The first scream came from afar.

"Help, help me—"

A rogue cultivator was swept up by the water, his hands frantically paddling, his face filled with terror. His body flew uncontrollably toward the gaping maw, like a piece of paper being swept away by the wind.

More voices emerged.

"Token! Crush the token!"

Someone frantically pulled out the teleportation tokens used in the competition.

*Snap*, it shattered.

A flash of light—and the person was still in the same spot.

"What's going on?!"

"We can't get out! The space is sealed!"

Xu Nanyi looked down at her token and extended her spiritual sense... Sure enough, the space within a radius of several miles was as if it had been covered with a layer of cement, so hard that it did not budge.

The black spheres that the thing spat out had somehow spread into a net, locking up the entire area.

I can't fight them, I can't run away, and I can't use teleportation.

Amid the chaos, a deep voice boomed over everyone's cries: "Shut up, all of you!"

Xu Nanyi looked in the direction of the sound and saw a middle-aged cultivator clad in black armor standing firmly on a giant rock. His spiritual energy was like an iron wall, resisting the suction force of the water without moving an inch. He possessed the aura of a mid-stage Nascent Soul cultivator.

"What's the panic?" He looked around.

"The source of the spatial blockade is that thing itself! Kill it, and the blockade will naturally be lifted. Rogue cultivators, retreat to the rear. Those with combat strength above the early Nascent Soul stage, form a formation with me!"

The morale of the troops visibly stabilized for a moment.

Xu Nanyi crawled out from the gap.

Shen Xizhou grabbed her sleeve: "Sister!"

"Let go." Xu Nanyi glanced back at it. "It's at least at the Integration Stage; those people alone aren't enough."

"But you—"

"I'm not going. We'll all die here together." Xu Nanyi pried his hands off. "Just help if you want to help. Why think so much?"

She gripped the Burning Tide spear, and the dark red patterns on its shaft began to glow, like lava flowing along cracks. A semi-transparent phoenix phantom appeared in the void behind her, its wings slowly unfurling, the temperature of its feather tips causing the surrounding seawater to bubble and froth.

The armored cultivator was the first to sense the heat and turned around sharply—he saw a little girl, who looked to be about six years old, dragging a long spear that was almost red-hot, walking through the water.

His pupils contracted: "You—"

"Enough with the nonsense." Xu Nanyi pointed her spear forward. "I'll lead the attack, you guys hold them off."

The Xuanjia cultivator was stunned for half a second, thinking that the pressure of the other party's Nascent Soul Realm was stronger than his own, and assumed that it was an old woman disguised as a child. He gritted his teeth and shouted.

"Did you hear that! Everyone, hold that thing back and create an opportunity for it to unleash its attacks!"

Shen Xizhou swung his dragon bone whip eighteen times in a row, each whip shadow condensing into a foot-long ice cone at the end, which rained down on Hai Taisui's six eyes.

The icicles rained down on its waxy skin with a crackling sound; though they couldn't break through its defenses, they caused all six of its pupils to contract simultaneously.