The Jade Votives, having absorbed their fill of adeptal energy, flowed with a warm, lustrous sheen on their surfaces. Fujin cast one toward the south and hurled the other toward the west.
Leaving her hands, the two Jade Votives instantly transformed into two brilliant golden meteors, piercing the mist that permeated the air above the river channel and illuminating part of the pale water vapor.
Upon falling into the designated river sections and touching the water's surface, they emitted a low hum and began to expand rapidly.
Viewed from the river channel, those two Jade Votives had transformed into two colossal ring-shaped arches spanning the water surface. The turbid river water surged and roared as it passed through these majestic jade rings.
The edges of the Jade Votives quickly pressed against the hard rock walls on both sides of the river channel.
In the instant of contact, the expansion process came to an abrupt halt. Immediately, a halo of soft yet resilient adeptal energy flowed out from the contact points, like an invisible cushion, firmly supporting the mountain bodies on both sides.
Such a structure ensured that the power of the Jade Votives could be evenly distributed into the mountain body. If the force were too concentrated, the fragile contact points would be the first to crumble under the immense pressure before the impact of the flood even arrived.
After stabilization was complete, the two Jade Votives rotated in sync once more, continuing to increase their mass, pushing against the rock walls on both banks, and forcibly widening the narrow river channel outward!
This massive engineering feat immediately triggered a violent chain reaction.
The earth began to tremble! The mountains emitted muffled roars. Violent vibrations shook every tree, startling the birds nesting in the forest, sending a dark mass of them fleeing into the sky in panic.
On both sides of the canyon, giant rocks that had long been eroded by water flow and were already unstable peeled away one after another. They plummeted into the thick fog at the bottom of the valley, finally smashing into the surging river water with muffled thuds.
Fujin clasped her hands tight, hovering in the air. Her gaze was fixed dead on the two mountain bodies being forcibly pushed apart, and she whispered a prayer:
"Do not collapse, do not collapse, hold on..."
Next second, a loud noise, far more terrifying than any sound before, blasted from the north!
Fujin jerked her head around, only to see that the final barrier blocking the flood in the distance—that massive mountain saddle—had completely collapsed!
Replaced by a wall of turbid yellow-brown water, the flood surged down with a posture of destroying everything, kicking up clouds of white mist at the valley bottom.
The flood had arrived!
Fujin hesitated no longer. Her form shimmered in the air, instantly revealing her true aspect as a massive Golden Carp! She transformed into a streak of flowing golden light and dived headlong into the thick fog beneath the canyon.
At this moment, the vanguard of the flood had already swept in, easily crushing the rock strata on the west side that were already loose. Massive blocks of rock, mixed with mud and uprooted trees, poured into the river channel, attempting to block the waterway that had just been widened.
Still not wide enough!
Fujin screamed in her heart. She exerted her very last shred of strength, her internal adeptal energy pouring out like a flood itself, madly injecting into the two Jade Votives that served as fulcrums.
Receiving such majestic assistance, the Jade Votives shone with blinding brilliance, and their speed of expansion increased steeply!
The mountain body on the west side let out a deafening boom, moving outward at a speed visible to the naked eye!
Exaggerated fissures instantly covered the surface of the moving mountain. Large amounts of soil, crushed stone, and some weak creatures that had no time to flee fell wailing into the suddenly yawning abyss, ruthlessly buried by the rolling earth and rocks.
The people hiding in the various shelters were scared out of their wits.
The earth beneath their feet pitched madly, as if it were about to overturn completely in the next moment. The roar of collapsing mountain rocks intertwined with the snapping sounds of falling trees. The crying of children, the screams of adults, and desperate prayers mixed together, drowning everyone in sound.
They had just been driven here by the mountain beasts, and now falling into this desperate situation where the heavens were crumbling and the earth was splitting, everyone believed their end had come.
Just amidst this chaos and despair, a ball of soft teal light appeared on the periphery of the crowd in one of the shelters. The teal light rippled and spread; wherever it passed, those mountain beasts that had been baring their teeth and growling low were seemingly soothed by an invisible power. They lowered their heads one after another, retreated into the shadows, and vanished.
The light gradually retracted, and the people, still in shock, subconsciously looked toward the source of the light. That figure stood quietly, clad in teal robes like water. In that instant, everyone who witnessed that figure, regardless of gender or age, forgot to breathe.
On the other side, the skyrocketing river water had already flooded over the low-lying tea fields. Within the turbid torrent, one could vaguely see the white walls and gray tiles that once dotted the valley collapsing powerlessly.
The soldiers of the Millelith formed a solid human wall, protecting the populace they were assisting to evacuate, settling them urgently on the high ground.
Meanwhile, the soldiers of Chenyu Vale, who had retreated earlier and bore the heavy scent of medicinal herbs, peered downward from behind the barrier formed by the Millelith.
Most of them had pale faces and sunken eye sockets, their lips turning a cyan-purple from blood loss and fear. On their tense faces, there was a mixture of grief over the loss of their homeland, terror of the flood, and the dazed bewilderment of having survived a catastrophe.
...
At this time, on the river channel, the two Jade Votives expanding the waterway finally exhausted their energy. Their light gradually dimmed, the expansion ceased, and the surrounding adeptal energy quickly receded.
The Golden Carp that was Fujin, relying only on her last bit of willpower, barely maintained her suspension above the surging river surface.
She forcibly sustained her nearly transparent body, carefully observing the water's potential. She had to ensure that the flood would not cause new blockages due to the sudden changes in the mountain bodies.
Fortunately, although the rocks on both banks had collapsed significantly during the violent tremors, the falling boulders and mud were mostly swept away by the surging main current, rushing downstream without forming a fatal obstruction.
After experiencing the initial insane rise, the water level of the flood seemed to stabilize temporarily at a height that ceased to climb continuously.
The light around the Golden Carp's body decayed sharply; her life was like a candle in the wind, ready to dissipate at any moment.
Finally, she could no longer muster a single shred of strength, nor could she maintain any form. Like a kite with a broken string, she plummeted toward the cold, turbid river water below.
In the brief moment of her fall, countless thoughts flashed through her fading consciousness like a revolving lantern.
She finally understood where that ominous premonition she felt when parting with Changsheng came from: The chasm in power between an Archon and an Adeptus was so vast! Changsheng's so-called "stalling" could not play any role at all! Why hadn't she risked her life to stop her back then?!
She worried about whether the people of Chenyu Vale were safe and sound. She worried about whether Coppelia and Columbina would come into direct conflict with the completely maddened Lord. She worried about her adepti friends and the mortals on the downstream lands of Liyue. And even more, she worried about that Suanni beast who always stayed deep in the mountains, whose mind was as pure as water. If she returned and could not find a familiar figure, how heartbroken would she be...
The phantom of the Golden Carp slipped silently beneath the surging floodwaters.
She did not drift with the waves, but like a weightless shadow, she slowly sank toward the depths of that dark riverbed.
____
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