East of the Guyun Stone Forest.
A fierce battle was raging nonstop across the sea.
Although the Cloud Retainer Fleet had already received Guizhong's order to withdraw, before that could happen, they had collided head-on with the onrushing gods.
"Order all ships under our command to avoid taking the gods' attacks head-on!"
"Fight them with maneuver warfare!"
"Gods, my ass! This isn't the era of the Archon War anymore!"
The Cloud Retainer Fleet's commander barked out orders nonstop.
Leaving was no longer an option.
Turning the fleet around to retreat would take an extremely long time.
Once they did, they would become sitting ducks for the gods.
So the commander decisively adopted the guerrilla tactics recorded in ancient military texts!
You attack me—I retreat.
You halt—I harass.
You tire—I strike.
You retreat—I pursue.
While naval artillery wasn't particularly effective against gods, that didn't mean it was useless.
All the warships danced across the sea like nimble insects.
The massive gods were endlessly harassed by their attacks, growing increasingly irritated.
Some of the smaller ships, in order to give the main battleships space to unleash their full firepower, didn't hesitate to carry out suicidal charges—ramming themselves straight into the enemy just to keep the gods from closing in on the core ships.
"ROAR!!!"
The gods roared in unison.
Towering waves surged as if to devour everything, crashing toward the fleet.
Yet under the dense artillery coverage of the fleet, the colossal waves were shattered in an instant.
But as the battle dragged on, the fleet's losses mounted rapidly.
Almost all the small ships were wiped out.
From an original force of over a hundred vessels, only a little more than a dozen large warships remained, barely maintaining their firepower.
Though the gods had all suffered varying degrees of injury, not a single one had fallen.
Gods were gods, after all—utterly different from mere monsters.
Their vitality and destructive power were never something a single fleet could rival.
Just as the gods were about to launch a decisive assault on the remaining ships, a furious roar thundered down from the sky.
"INSOLENCE!!"
The sea trembled violently.
A stone dragon as vast as a mountain smashed down from the heavens like a falling meteor, sending towering sprays of water skyward.
Azhdaha descended.
Icy elemental power surged around him, and the surrounding sea instantly froze into a vast expanse of ice upon his arrival.
"ROAR!!!"
The stone dragon's roar echoed between heaven and earth, forcing the surrounding gods back several steps.
"Cloud Retainer Fleet,"
Azhdaha spoke calmly,
"leave this to me. Withdraw at once and return to defend the Guyun Stone Forest!"
"Yes, Lord Azhdaha!"
Seeing reinforcements arrive, the fleet commander finally let out a breath of relief.
He immediately had the signal flags raised, ordering the remaining dozen large warships to turn around and withdraw.
From over a hundred vessels, only a little more than ten capital ships remained.
The losses of the Cloud Retainer Fleet were devastating—but they had successfully stalled the gods' advance toward Liyue.
Though the cost was immense, they shattered the long-held belief that mortals could never stand against gods.
Faced with the assault of multiple gods, the soldiers of the Cloud Retainer Fleet were afraid—yet not a single one took a step back.
If Jiang Yan were here, he would have praised them without reservation.
They were all true warriors.
Watching the fleet retreat safely, Azhdaha no longer had any worries behind him.
The heavy losses suffered by the Cloud Retainer Fleet filled him with fury.
"Trash!"
Killing intent burned endlessly in Azhdaha's eyes.
"Weren't you quite fond of ganging up on the weak?
Using numbers and size to bully others?"
"Now—this is our war!"
The gods exchanged glances.
Despite the terrifying pressure radiating from Azhdaha—a top-tier god—these gods, shrouded in black mist, had long since lost the ability to think.
They howled and charged at him.
Azhdaha roared.
Rock, fire, lightning, ice, and water—five elements surged around him at once.
Countless stone pillars erupted from the sea.
From sky and ocean alike, torrents of flame, arcs of lightning, spears of ice, and columns of water rained down upon the gods.
The tide of gods crashed head-on into Azhdaha's assault.
They roared.
They howled.
They slaughtered.
In an instant, winds raged, the ice fields shattered, and waves churned violently.
On this stretch of ocean—
a fragment of the Archon War was being reenacted.
Azhdaha smashed a god's head to pieces with a single strike, then swept his massive tail through the battlefield, sending entire groups of gods flying.
"A bunch of ants!"
"You really think you can—"
"KILL ME?!!"
Azhdaha's furious roar shook the heavens.
His mountain-like body stood like an unbreakable bulwark.
The gods could not advance even a single step further.
At this very moment, deep beneath the earth.
A black-robed figure flickered in and out of existence.
Watching the endless streams of black mist rising around him, a chilling aura seeped from the sinister mask on his face.
"What a pity.
Even monsters influenced by Abyssal energy were still stopped by the nation of stone."
"Wood Spirit Adeptus… you truly are…"
"…prepared far too well."
At the mention of the Wood Spirit Adeptus, the black mist around him surged violently, nearly spiraling out of control.
Yes—this black-robed figure was none other than the Lord of the Abyss who had fought Jiang Yan for two thousand years.
After five hundred years of recovery, he had finally regained a humanoid form.
"Hehehe… if the Wood Spirit Adeptus hadn't destroyed ten thousand years of my preparations…"
"The so-called Seven Nations wouldn't have been able to withstand my Abyssal army at all!"
"But why haven't you appeared yet, Wood Spirit Adeptus?"
The Lord of the Abyss had not yet unleashed a full-scale Abyssal invasion.
Because he did not know that Jiang Yan had fallen into deep slumber.
He was wary—constantly wary that Jiang Yan might suddenly appear at a critical moment and disrupt his plans.
Even though Jiang Yan had torn through the Abyss itself, long before Jiang Yan ever entered it, the Lord of the Abyss had already been corrupting the minds of Khaenri'ah's researchers.
Guiding their studies ever closer to the forbidden, pitch-black Abyss—
until they would finally carve open a complete path for it.
When that happened, the Abyss would fully invade Teyvat and overthrow the rule of the Heavenly Principles.
But what he hadn't expected—
was that Jiang Yan would directly annihilate every Abyssal monster.
Now, even though Khaenri'ah had opened a passage to the Abyss, the Lord of the Abyss could only rely on underground Abyssal miasma—
to influence monsters, sea beasts, and gods on the surface,
and launch attacks against the Seven Nations.
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