"Oh no!"
Ningguang's face turned pale.
"Don't panic, form a defensive array!"
Moon Carver endured his injuries and roared hoarsely.
Venti hovered in the air, his brow furrowed as he watched the surging tide of monsters below.
King looked at the rapidly closing spatial rift, his eyes showing no surprise at all.
He had no intention of killing Aether.
King glanced at the grieving Lumine beside him and shook his head gently.
These matters should be left to the siblings to resolve themselves.
As for the abandoned army of Abyss monsters before him—
"What a nuisance."
King raised his right hand and clenched it into a fist.
Then, he lightly swung it toward the dense, millions-strong monster tide on the sea and the Corrupted Ocel still wailing and writhing in the center.
Everything froze at that very instant.
Then.
"Bang! Bang bang bang bang bang—!!!"
A continuous series of explosions Bloomed in Liyue Harbor!
Every monster, regardless of strength, exploded at the same time!
No flesh flew, no parts scattered.
The moment they exploded, they turned directly into dust.
In the center of the sea, the mountain-sized Corrupted Ocel held out for exactly 0.0001 seconds.
Then...
Osial's hideous, stitched-together body collapsed like a sandcastle struck by a giant hammer!
Dozens of wildly dancing tentacles snapped inch by inch, turning into ashes.
Its head melted away silently, like a pencil drawing erased by an eraser.
In a brief moment, that Corrupted God, who had just been suppressing two Archons and plunging all of Liyue Harbor into despair, along with the millions-strong Abyss army, completely vanished.
On the sea, only the uncalmed waves remained roaring.
Sunlight spilled down, illuminating the sea that had turned blue and clear again, as well as the countless dazed faces in Liyue Harbor.
Quiet.
A deathly silence.
The world-destroying divine war just now, the sky-blotting monster tide, the suffocating despair... it just ended like that?
"Brushed" away by that man in the blue windbreaker with a casual punch, like brushing dust off a table?
This intense contrast caused everyone's brains to crash.
Paimon moved uneasily in King's arms, seemingly about to wake up.
Lumine still stared fixedly at the direction where Aether had disappeared, her eyes hollow, tears accumulating in her amber pupils but stubbornly not falling.
Clorinde and Lynette exchanged a look, put away their weapons simultaneously, and stood silently behind King.
To them, nothing Lord King did was worth being surprised about; it was just another natural "display of divine power."
Venti hovered in mid-air, blinked his emerald eyes, patted his chest, and whispered: "Wow... fortunately, this lord is on our side. If he belonged to the Abyss... I would have to defect to the enemy."
Zhongli and Raiden Ei approached from afar.
Venti's time clearance effect was excellent; the injuries on both of them had healed, and even their clothes had returned to being neat.
Zhongli's golden eyes took a deep look at King, emotions churning wildly in the depths of his eyes. His heart was full of admiration, wanting to keep King in Liyue but knowing it was impossible, which eventually turned into a soft sigh.
Raiden Ei looked thoughtful, her eyes filled with a look of worship as she watched King.
Amidst this silence—
"Lord, Lord King!!!"
A sharp, trembling, yet self-righteous voice exploded, breaking the silence.
A middle-aged merchant dressed in silk robes, bloated and with mud on his face, scrambled out from a luxury spice shop that was half-soaked in seawater, surrounded by a group of equally wretched-looking followers.
He pointed at his messy shop where precious spices and seawater had mixed into mud, then at the many collapsed eaves and overturned stalls around him. The fat on his face shook with excitement and heartache, his voice tearful and growing louder, trying to attract everyone's attention:
"Since you have such heaven-reaching power! Why didn't you act sooner?!"
He beat his chest and stamped his feet, as if he had suffered a great injustice:
"Look! Look at my shop! It's all ruined!"
"Inside was priceless Thousand-year Agarwood just ordered from a master of the 'Kshahrewar' in Sumeru, and even a Glaze Vessel specially provided for Lord [Regrator] of the Fatui!"
"In this flood, I've lost more than ten million Mora!!"
The more he spoke, the more invested he became, even pointing at King and questioning him with spit flying, trying to occupy the moral high ground:
"And look at these neighbors!"
"Boss Liu, who works at the docks, has three kids at home waiting for rice!"
"Widow Li, who weaves on East Street, relies on that loom to support her mother-in-law!"
"Now the shop has collapsed, the goods are gone, and the jobs are gone!"
"By acting just a bit later, do you know how many families' livelihoods you've cut off, and how many children will cry with empty stomachs tonight?!"
"You have such divine power, wiping out demons with a flick of your fingers. If you had used your divine abilities a bit earlier, wouldn't the seas be calm and the rivers clear, with no losses at all?"
"You... aren't you... treating the lives of us Liyue commoners like weeds?!"
This fat merchant spoke with tears and snot, his acting superb, as if he had become a tragic hero pleading for the people.
Some merchants and citizens who had also suffered heavy losses and were not yet fully clear-headed were moved by his emotions and echoed him in low voices, looking at King with a few hints of resentment.
"Yeah... if only it were a bit earlier..."
"My cargo ship sank too..."
"This guy could have easily solved it..."
Ningguang, Keqing, and the others' faces darkened instantly, a cold light flashing in their eyes.
Ganyu was so anxious she wanted to say something.
The Adepti were even more furious. How dare they criticize their savior right after being saved?
The fat merchant spoke with increasing vigor, spit flying everywhere in the sunlight.
He wanted to continue his performance and bring out more grand principles—
"Snap."
A soft sound.
King really didn't want to hear him barking like a dog anymore, so he raised his hand and gave a wave.
The fat merchant's greasy, bloated face froze, his non-stop accusations stuck in his throat.
He, along with the group of followers behind him ready to chime in, vanished silently into the air like a stain wiped away by an eraser.
The street was dead silent.
Those merchants and citizens who had just been echoing in low voices and showing resentment had their expressions Frozen instantly, which then turned into boundless terror. They all knelt down in a row, trembling like fallen leaves in the autumn wind.
"Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!!"
"I was blind! My heart was blinded by greed!"
"I deserve to die! I was talking nonsense! Please, Lord, spare my dog's life!!"
"It was all that Zhu Fugui's incitement! I'll never do it again! Never again!!"
Just then—
"Cough."
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