Seeing Nan Zhi, the male Jiao person spat out a huge bubble. Just as he was about to say something, his pupils suddenly dilated, and he let out an extremely shrill, piercing shriek:
[Wi——]
“Hiss!”
The high-frequency sound penetrated the seawater into her mind. Nan Zhi instinctively covered her right ear, but a shadow suddenly fell beneath her feet.
She looked up, only to see that outside the dome shrouded in concealment spells, an overwhelming horde of low-level Sky Demons roared and screeched, flooding into the Nine Bends and Eighteen Gorges like a tidal wave.
On the map, the dense cluster of tiny red dots representing enemies wove into an unbreakable, massive net.
Within the Nine Bends and Eighteen Gorges, the Sky Demons emerging from the black mist came with aggressive fury.
Meanwhile, the jade slip that Nan Zhi had been ignoring now flickered with a faint luminescence:
【The Sky Demon army has attacked, marching on the Nine Bends and Eighteen Bends and successively capturing seven cities across the two kingdoms of Yaksha and Black Crow. Low-level cultivators are urged to evacuate immediately from the vicinity of Jiao Bay, the Nine Bends and Eighteen Gorges, Tiger Tooth Island, and Bixia Pool.】
【Those below Foundation Establishment must return to the Sea Market at once. If unfortunately surrounded, please seek assistance from nearby Sea Market shrimp soldiers, crab generals, or disciples of the Three Sects.】
So fast?!
Nan Zhi shuddered.
In other words, her current location was right in the dead center of the battlefield.
Nan Zhi swiftly swam back into the cave and immediately retrieved the conch used to contact Hai Ying and Tu Jiuxiao.
This was a communication tool worn by Sea Dragon people when diving for pearls, refined from deep-sea pearl conches. Even if separated by tens of thousands of li, they could transmit messages as long as they were in the same waters.
Bzz, bzz, bzz.
The conch trembled and spat out a stream of water vapor as two messages arrived almost simultaneously:
“Message received. At Eagle-Fish Island, do not worry.”
“I'm at Hydra Cliff. Ah-Jiu, where are you guys?”
Nan Zhi pulled up the map and studied it for a moment before breathing a sigh of relief. Although those two locations were also within the battlefield zone, they were still some distance away from the Nine Bends and Eighteen Gorges where the Sky Demons were congregating.
After hesitating briefly, she only reported that she was safe, omitting the fact that she was currently inside the Nine Bends and Eighteen Gorges.
Splash, splash... Splash, splash——
The faint sound of massive water splashing came from outside the cave; the red-tailed Jiao person had also returned.
[Human cultivator, you haven't left?]
Seeing Nan Zhi and Hongluo, he was stunned at first, then somewhat delighted.
The male Jiao person swam to the shore and sat on dry land. Like a mother hen protecting her chicks, he counted the little Jiao children once over before letting out a long breath:
[Now you can't leave even if you want to. The Sky Demons from the Wuwang Sea have come ashore, and the outside is filled with black poisonous mist. You can only survive by staying here with us.]
[Human cultivator, there's no need to be afraid. When the next full moon rises in the sky, those things will return to the Wuwang Sea.]
[I have prepared plenty of food, enough to last us until the next full moon.]
The little Jiao children around them seemed accustomed to the ferocious Sky Demons flying back and forth overhead, looking thoroughly unfazed. They merely clustered around the male Jiao person, opening their mouths to beg for food.
Keenly catching the underlying implications in the male Jiao person’s words, Nan Zhi pressed:
“You've seen a Sky Demon tide like this before?”
[I've seen it many times. Ever since I hatched from my shell, every time the white-headed red-tailed birds fly back from the West Province Continent, the Sky Demons of the Wuwang Sea come ashore once.]
The male Jiao person seemed quite fond of chatting. As he rolled mud with his hands to reinforce the cave entrance, he answered Nan Zhi's question:
[They won't stay long; they'll leave when the next full moon rises.]
[You humans call this a “Sky Demon tide”? Last time they came, they seized the canyon from the Jiao people. The time before that, they snatched the sea territory where we weave silk. And the time before that——]
[Yet this time, I don't know why it came early.]
“The white-headed red-tailed birds breed in the North Province, and only when the chicks grow up do they fly to the West Province Continent. A round trip takes exactly ten years.”
Nan Zhi's thoughts surged like a tide, and she instantly understood:
“The Sky Demon tide across the twelve nations of the four directions occurs once every ten years. The news of the Sea Market allying with the Three Great Sects must have reached the Sky Demons, causing the Sky Demon tide to erupt early.”
A single move affected the entire situation.
The twelve nations revered Dragon Girl Mingzhu as their sovereign. In the original timeline, the dragon girl who should have died was alive, and a “mysterious Great Witch” had intervened. With the Three Sects set on eradicating the demons, the Sky Demon race was far from stupid and naturally would not sit idly by awaiting doom.
Nan Zhi did not plan to leave just yet.
She attempted to persuade the male Jiao person to take the little Jiao children and seek shelter temporarily, but the latter shook his head:
[We have the protection of the Sea Goddess; we will not be discovered.]
[Human cultivator, you and your emergency ration can stay here indefinitely.]
[Do you want to stay? Do you want to stay with us forever?]
The Jiao person’s enchanting words were exceptionally gentle; someone of unsteady mind would likely have agreed without hesitation.
“I still have urgent matters to attend to. Our meeting was merely a chance encounter; if fate permits, we will meet again.”
Nan Zhi declined the Jiao person's kind offer, leaving behind several bottles of Blood Supplementing Pills as thanks for the sea urchins before preparing to depart in haste.
As she left, the red-tailed male Jiao person merely stared quietly at her, a faint, eerie light glimmering in his eyes.
...
The moment the word “depart” was spoken, the surrounding environment suddenly shifted.
The undercurrents turned turbulent, and inky-blue seawater carrying a fishy stench rushed right at her face. The cave that had just been there vanished without a trace, leaving behind only a dozen-odd corpses tangled in layers of seaweed.
Nan Zhi slowly dove deeper and discovered that the undersea sand was piled high with Jiao corpses.
Large and small, male and female, all of them had turned into desiccated corpses bobbing up and down with the seawater. The beautiful, black, seaweed-like long hair of the Jiao drifted with the currents like smooth silk.
Black sea urchins crawled across the white sand of the seabed. The surrounding coral reef lay collapsed and shattered, bearing no trace of its former beauty.
The multicolored reef field.
The little white Jiao child with elven ears.
The male Jiao person with the beautiful pale red tail.
It was as if everything had merely been a fleeting dream.
So, were the Jiao people she had just seen ghosts?
A chill crept into Nan Zhi's heart, but with no time to dwell on it, she immediately escaped toward the gathering point specified on the jade slip——
...
Nan Zhi traveled southward for another seven days, fighting her way through. On the eighth day, following the information on the jade slip, she spotted a strangely conspicuous guest-greeting pine on the edge of a cliff.
The guest-greeting pine had thick branches and lush green needles, its boughs heavily draped with vines whose colors were so vivid and intense that they almost seemed fake.
“Looking up at the heavens and laughing aloud, I step out the door; how could one of our kind be mere common weeds?”
Landing her flying boat, Nan Zhi recited this line of poetry toward the guest-greeting pine. The vines on the tree slowly parted, revealing a pendant gate on the bare stone wall just wide enough for one person to enter.
Flutter, flutter, flutter——
A swarm of bats flapped their wings and flew out. Cloaked in her hood, Nan Zhi patted Hongluo on her shoulder and strode inside.
Upon entering, she found a lofty cave bustling with activity like a miniature market, where cultivators of both the human and demon races were resting.
Even amid war, there were supply points.
The Sea Market provided an unlimited supply of low-grade pills to rogue cultivators, and a treasure ship passed by every fifteen days, which was why so many cultivators gathered here.
Nan Zhi pulled her cloak tighter, her gaze sweeping across the cavern. Her eyes narrowed slightly.
Almost all of them were experts at Golden Core or above.
Rate on N.U.
