At the depths of the Sea Eye, the black tide had completely spiraled out of control.
Hairuo merely raised a hand.
In an instant, every surge of the rampaging black tide froze in place.
A jet-black chain halted less than an inch from Tantai Jingyue’s brow.
The roiling waters stopped beside Shui Hua.
Even the fissures in the Sea Eye, which had been splitting apart, fell still at that very moment.
Shui Hua stared at her blankly.
This was the first time she had truly witnessed the full extent of Hairuo’s divine might.
She was a true deity, sovereign over the myriad seas of Cangzhou, before whom countless waterways bowed their heads.
And yet, Hairuo’s body was now almost transparent.
The ends of her long hair were constantly dissolving into watery light.
The edges of her white robes, too, were fading away inch by inch, like the reflection of the moon sinking into the sea.
When Tantai Jingyue saw this, her expression changed sharply.
“Master.”
Hairuo looked at her.
A faint smile appeared on that face which had always been so calm.
“So you still remember to call me Master.”
“Looks like you haven’t forgotten everything.”
Tantai Jingyue’s eyes instantly reddened.
Of course she knew why her master had come here.
She also knew that with every breath Hairuo remained, the price she paid would only grow greater.
“Master, I’m sorry.”
“This is all my fault.”
Hairuo did not answer.
She walked toward the two sisters, one step at a time.
Only when she stood before them did Hairuo speak in an even voice.
“Let go.”
Tantai Jingyue did not release Shui Hua.
Instead, Shui Hua held her even tighter.
Her eyes red, she looked up at Hairuo.
“I can’t.”
“If I let go, she’ll abandon me again.”
Tantai Jingyue said quietly,
“I won’t.”
Shui Hua immediately looked up and glared at her.
“Then why did you jump down just now?”
Tantai Jingyue had no answer.
She could not explain.
Because whatever her reasons, she truly had made the decision for Shui Hua once again.
Hairuo watched them in silence.
One always wanted to bear every danger in her younger sister’s place.
The other would rather die alongside her elder sister than be left behind alone again.
Who would have thought that, more than ten years later, they had still arrived at the brink of the same ending?
Hairuo spoke softly.
“When I separated you two back then, it was so that you could live.”
“I never imagined that, in the end, I would still be the one to drive you here.”
Tantai Jingyue lifted her head.
“Master, did you know this day would come all along?”
Hairuo did not deny it.
Tantai Jingyue’s fingertips trembled.
“If you knew, why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“If I had known about Shui Hua earlier, perhaps I could have found another way.”
“At the very least, she would not have been dragged into the Divine Palace without knowing anything.”
Hairuo was silent for a long while.
At last, she slowly said,
“Because I was afraid, too.”
Tantai Jingyue froze.
Shui Hua also looked up at her.
Hairuo was the god of Cangzhou.
To Tantai Jingyue, she had always been calm, always unwavering.
Whether sea beasts attacked or the waterways fractured, she always seemed able to find a solution.
Yet now, she had admitted it herself.
She, too, could be afraid.
Hairuo’s gaze fell on the waning remnant moon behind Tantai Jingyue, which was slowly crumbling apart.
“But you still chose for yourself.”
Tantai Jingyue lowered her head.
“I had no other choice.”
Hairuo looked at her.
“You simply never gave anyone else the chance to choose.”
Those words left Tantai Jingyue completely silent.
Shui Hua’s hand tightened slightly around her sleeve as well.
Hairuo was right.
Tantai Jingyue had always been like this.
A muffled boom suddenly erupted from the depths of the Sea Eye.
Boom—
The black tide, pinned down by Hairuo, began struggling once more.
Cracks spread through the pitch-black waters.
The divine radiance around Hairuo dimmed with it.
Her body, already nearly translucent, became even more insubstantial.
Tantai Jingyue immediately sensed that something was wrong.
She looked at Hairuo, genuine panic appearing in her eyes for the first time.
“Master.”
“No.”
Yet Hairuo merely lifted her head and gazed into the deepest part of the Sea Eye.
“The Sea Eye needs a complete Hairuo.”
Though the current Hairuo’s divine essence had already weakened,
it was still whole.
And for centuries, it had remained the sole will acknowledged by Cangzhou’s waterways.
If she burned away her divine essence, she could turn herself into a new seal upon the Sea Eye.
Perhaps it would not hold for long, but it would be enough to buy Tantai Jingyue and Shui Hua some time.
Tantai Jingyue’s voice trembled.
“Master.”
“Please, don’t.”
Hairuo gave her a calm look.
“This time, it isn’t your turn.”
Tantai Jingyue stood frozen.
Hairuo raised both hands.
The complete divine essence that belonged to her finally manifested in full behind her.
A whole sea-moon slowly rose from the black tide.
The instant it rose, every waterway throughout Cangzhou shuddered.
The tide lines surging backward beneath Cloud Dream City.
The Sea-Subduing Pillars around the Divine Palace, already beginning to tilt.
Even the depths of the distant Eastern Sea—all of them lit up with a dim blue divine glow at that very moment.
Countless waterways interconnected.
At last, they formed an ancient divine diagram that covered all of Cangzhou.
And at the center of that diagram was the Sea Eye.
Hairuo’s body began to burn.
There were no flames.
Only strand after strand of pure watery light peeled away from her body.
The lights fell into the black tide.
The waters, black as ink, began rapidly losing their color.
Beneath the radiance of that complete sea-moon, the raging Sea Eye gradually began to quiet once more.
Shui Hua stared blankly at the sight.
She had never been close to Hairuo.
Even now, she still resented the woman who had sealed away her memories.
But she understood what was happening all the same.
“Will she die?”
Shui Hua’s voice trembled.
Tantai Jingyue did not answer.
Because the answer was already written in Hairuo’s steadily fading body.
Hairuo raised a hand.
A gentle divine light enveloped the two sisters.
Tantai Jingyue immediately realized that this power was sending them out of the Sea Eye.
She lunged forward and seized Hairuo’s nearly transparent sleeve.
“Master!”
“I can stay and help you.”
Hairuo answered calmly,
“If you stay, you will only distract me.”
Tantai Jingyue’s eyes reddened.
“You raised me.”
“And now you want me to stand by and watch you stay here alone?”
Hairuo looked at her.
At last, a hint of warmth appeared in her tranquil eyes.
“I brought you back to the Divine Palace not so that you could die with me.”
“Jingyue.”
“Shui Hua.”
Hairuo’s gaze slowly passed over the sisters’ faces.
“The divine essence is a part of you.”
“But it should not be your entire life.”
“The Hairuo of this age is me.”
The two sisters froze at the same time.
The Divine Palace had always taught Tantai Jingyue that a Divine Maiden who bore a divine essence should devote her whole life to Cangzhou.
Yet the one who was truly Hairuo was telling them, at the end of her life,
that the divine essence should not be their entire lives.
Hairuo looked first at Shui Hua.
“You possess seventy percent of the divine essence. Your power far surpasses Jingyue’s.”
“But your nature is too impulsive. You do not know restraint.”
“Do not rely on the sea’s affection for you to act so recklessly again.”
Shui Hua was still crying.
Yet upon hearing those words, she could not help but choke out a protest:
“I didn’t…”
Hairuo glanced at her.
Then she turned to Tantai Jingyue.
“Jingyue.”
Tantai Jingyue clutched tightly at her sleeve.
Hairuo smiled softly.
“I am very happy to have taken you as my disciple.”
“All these years, you have never disappointed me.”
Tantai Jingyue’s lips trembled.
Hairuo continued:
“I will buy you a little time.”
“The rest of the road will be yours to walk.”
Tantai Jingyue bit her lip hard.
She knew there was no way to change her master’s decision.
Just as Shui Hua had been unable to stop her from throwing herself into the Sea Eye.
After a moment, she slowly lowered her head.
“This disciple…”
Her voice caught in her throat.
She paused for a long while before finally forcing out the words.
“This disciple obeys.”
The light of the full Sea Moon grew ever brighter.
Yet Hairuo’s body had already begun to dissipate in great swaths.
Her shoulders.
The hem of her robes.
Her long hair.
All dissolved into strands of pure waterlight, merging into the Sea Eye.
Tantai Jingyue stared at her without blinking.
As though she wished to carve her master’s final image into her heart forever.
Then, all at once, she dropped to her knees.
Shui Hua froze for a moment.
Then she too knelt beside her sister.
Tantai Jingyue’s voice was hoarse.
“This disciple has failed in filial duty.”
Hairuo lifted a hand that had become nearly transparent and gently rested it on Tantai Jingyue’s head.
Just as she had many years ago.
Back then, six-year-old Jingyue had just been brought back to the Divine Palace.
She had knelt in the unfamiliar Hall of Listening Tides, fighting back her tears.
Her tiny figure had been so quiet that it made one’s heart ache.
Hairuo had raised her hand for the first time and stroked her head.
Then told her:
“From this day onward, you are my disciple.”
“This place is your home as well.”
And now, that hand once more rested upon her head.
Yet it was so light that it scarcely seemed to have any weight at all.
“You have already done very well.”
“Leave the rest to your master.”
At last, Tantai Jingyue’s tears fell.
Ever since entering the Divine Palace at the age of six, she had rarely cried again.
A Divine Maiden could not cry. The next Hai Ruo could not be weak.
But at this moment, she was merely a disciple about to lose her master.
Hairuo gave the two sisters one last look.
Then she gently raised her hand.
The divine light surrounding Tantai Jingyue and Shui Hua suddenly rose upward.
Shui Hua reached out instinctively.
“Lord Hai Ruo!”
Tantai Jingyue lunged forward as well.
“Master!”
But neither of them caught anything.
Hairuo’s sleeve had already turned to waterlight, slowly flowing away through their fingers.
The sisters’ figures continued to rise.
Hairuo, meanwhile, remained alone in the deepest part of the Sea Eye.
The full Sea Moon behind her began to shatter.
Each fragment of moonlight that fell transformed into an ancient sacrificial sigil, pressing down into the depths of the black tide.
Hairuo did not answer them again.
She merely closed her eyes slowly.
As though she had finally heard the long-lost, tranquil sound of the tide.
“After so long…”
“I can finally rest for a while.”
She softly hummed an ancient sea ballad.
It was a song the earliest fishermen of Cangzhou had sung to the sea before setting sail.
It was also the song her mother had once sung to her by the shore, long ago, before she had become Hairuo.
Her voice was very soft.
So soft it was like a mother soothing a child who refused to sleep.
“O sea, O sea…”
“Moonset comes with the evening tide; the wind stills, and the road home stretches long.”
“Fear not the depths of the boundless sea—the tides will always return to shore.”
“O traveler far from home, remember to hold her hand tight.”
“When the bright moon rises once more…”
“Then you may go home together.”
The song drifted with the shimmering waters toward the deepest reaches of the Sea Eye.
Boom—
The whole sea moon shattered completely.
Countless ancient sacrificial runes sealed shut at once.
The raging black tide was forced back into the depths of the sea.
And the fractured Sea Eye slowly began to close.
Deep within the Azure Abyss Divine Palace.
In the Hall of Tidetide Listening, the sea lamp that had burned for centuries gave a faint sway.
Its final wisp of ghostly blue flame reflected the empty divine throne.
Then—
It went out forever.
