Yun Shu lowered her eyes.
She acted with exquisite precision. She trembled when she was supposed to tremble and raised her eyes when she was supposed to raise them. The two parts frailty and eight parts detached indifference on her face were perfectly balanced.
The seawater churned endlessly beneath her feet, while a storm circled around her. She stood at the very center of the eye of the storm.
As she absorbed more and more of the storm’s power, the golden specks on her fish tail grew increasingly numerous.
From a distance, they looked almost like golden blood flowing from her.
“Pearl-Pearl… don’t… Don’t save me!”
The blue whale let out a heartrending wail.
Its enormous body struggled desperately to inch forward. Its already scorched skin rubbed against the rocks, leaving behind fresh bloody streaks.
But it paid no attention to that at all.
Little Fox had just knocked out the uncontrollable factor, Shen Jue.
The next moment, it saw the injured blue whale rubbing itself back and forth against the volcanic rocks. A terrible feeling came over it.
Without thinking of anything else, it sprinted from the side of the tower-ship toward the blue whale at full speed.
“Silly fish! Stop moving!” it shouted.
“My host is perfectly fine! She’s saving you!”
The blue whale couldn’t understand it.
Nor did it recognize the system in human form.
All it could see was its good friend—the one who gave it candy—trapped at the very center of a storm capable of destroying heaven and earth.
“I… I’m not in pain… Don’t save me!” it sobbed, pressing its head against the reef. Bloody tears poured from its enormous eyes, splashing into the seawater one drop at a time.
“Pearl-Pearl is in pain… Pearl-Pearl is in pain… Don’t save me…”
Seeing that the blue whale was completely impervious to reason, the system could only switch back into its Little Fox form before saying, “Silly fish, look carefully. It’s me, Lucky-Mud. Would I ever lie to you?”
“Lucky-Mud?” This time, the blue whale recognized the system. It gazed at Little Fox with tearful eyes. “Pearl-Pearl hurts…”
“Shu-Shu isn’t hurt.”
Little Fox was at its wit’s end.
“Shu-Shu is only pretending. She isn’t really injured. Don’t go over there and get in her way. Lie down here and stay still!”
“Otherwise, Shu-Shu and I will never come back to the sea to play with you again, and we won’t give you any more candy pills!”
The blue whale blinked. “Lucky-Mud, don’t be angry with me. We’re good friends. I’ll listen.”
It obediently lay back down and didn’t move an inch.
Little Fox had originally intended to tease the blue whale a little more, but when it noticed that the creature’s tail had been burned by the magma until its bones were exposed, it swallowed the words it was about to say and remained silent.
It couldn’t argue with a silly fish.
That would only make it look silly too.
The moment the blue whale settled down, the believers aboard the tower-ship once again began throwing themselves recklessly against the light wall protecting them.
Feng Chunya was at the forefront.
“Divine Lady, please let us out! I don’t want you to protect me anymore—I want to help you!”
Her eyes were red as she pounded her fists against the light wall again and again. Even after both hands had been beaten bloody, she refused to stop.
One of the young soldiers on the deck was no more than seventeen or eighteen years old, the last traces of childishness still lingering on his face. His eyes were bloodshot. He hurled himself against the golden light wall over and over, was flung back each time, then struggled to his feet again.
“I don’t want to hide behind the Divine Lady anymore! I can fight! I can bear the burden for her! Let me out!”
He smashed his head until it was covered in blood, yet the light wall remained completely unmoved, without even the slightest mark upon it.
An older soldier beside him grabbed him by the arm, trying to drag him away from the light wall.
“Let go! Let go of me!” the young soldier snarled hysterically, tears and blood mixing together across his face. “The Divine Lady is suffering the punishment of Heaven for all living beings in the mortal realm, right there in the storm! And we’re supposed to just watch from here? What is that supposed to make us?! What is it?!”
No one answered him.
Because no one knew how to answer.
Inside the light wall, row after row of soldiers knelt on the ground, their foreheads pressed against the golden barrier.
They clenched their fists, gripped the hilts of their swords, and held on to anything they could. The veins on their arms stood out.
Yet not a single one of them could break free.
That thin golden light wall was like an uncrossable chasm, separating them from their goddess on opposite sides of life and death.
“Divine Lady…” Feng Chunya sobbed, unable to speak clearly. “Please return to the Heavenly Palace. The mortal realm isn’t worth it…”
How could they possibly bear such profound love?
Perhaps they should never have begged the Divine Lady to remain behind. If she had not become entangled in the mortal realm’s karma, then with her immense power, how could she have suffered Heavenly Punishment time and time again for averting disasters in the human world?
They were the ones who had dragged the Divine Lady into this…
Seeing this, Little Fox hurried over to remind Yun Shu.
“Host, stop torturing them!”
It said helplessly, “Feng Chunya and the others are about to die of worry—literally. They’re really about to worry themselves to death!”
Thank goodness its host was clever enough to have it knock Shen Jue unconscious. Otherwise, if that boy had seen this heart-wrenching scene, wouldn’t his favorability have shot straight through the roof and gotten its host sent away?
Yun Shu couldn’t make out exactly what was happening aboard the tower-ship, but she trusted that the system wouldn’t make things up.
So she accelerated her absorption of the storm’s power.
Before long, the storm completely dissipated.
Clear skies spread out once more. Sunlight streamed down in columns resembling rainbows, slanting into the surface of the sea.
Sensing that the life essence she had gained by converting the storm’s power was steadily dissipating, Yun Shu could only begin to swim. Her silvery-white hair streamed behind her, her ear fins were as thin as cicada wings, and her water-blue dress drifted through the currents like smoke and mist.
With every swish of her tail, her magnificent fish tail traced an elegant arc. Countless specks of light sifted down from between its dazzling scales, as though someone had crushed the stars and scattered them into the sea.
Those star-like specks did not disperse. Instead, they slowly drifted downward, settling on the scorched rock walls around the volcanic crater and upon the barely breathing sea creatures.
As the life essence entered their bodies, the sea creatures instantly changed from being on the verge of death to being lively and energetic.
The blue whale especially would probably already have gone looking for Yun Shu and rubbed against her affectionately if Little Fox hadn’t told it not to move.
After all the sea creatures had been healed, Yun Shu thought that since she was already wearing the Tide of All Things, she might as well activate the formation component skill, the Formation of Universal Tides and Life, along with the set skill.
Then another miracle occurred.
Moss once again sprouted from the reefs. Empty shells opened and closed, while shellfish flesh grew before their very eyes. Even ancient algae poked fresh shoots out from the cracks in the rocks…
The seabed became a scene of flourishing life.
Yun Shu continued swimming forward.
Only when she drew near the Profound Abyss tower-ship did she clearly see Feng Chunya and the others drooping miserably on the deck.
She turned to look at Little Fox, which had followed her over.
“Why are they injured?” she asked.
Little Fox told her, “Host, they tried to break through the protective barrier of the Profound Abyss tower-ship just now so they could go help you.”
Yun Shu fell silent for a while.
Once again, she had underestimated the influence that this Divine Lady had over her believers. It seemed that she couldn’t pretend to be suffering Heavenly Punishment in the future. This time, she had only acted on a sudden impulse and gone along with the situation.
She really hadn’t thought it through.
