Chapter 1727: Upside-Down Lake

He had to sound bold: "I had already planned to inspect the Inverted Lake. Isn't the Illusion Sect planning to ambush us here? Let's give them a chance!"

His calm composure greatly encouraged those around him. But Bai Ziqi knew clearly that the difficulty of this current operation far exceeded previous ones, and even a slight mistake on their part could lead to significant losses.

Celestial Lord Miaozhan had already explicitly communicated that the large-scale divine spell "Time Deception," which protected the fleet, could not be cast again anytime soon. It was clear that even a Celestial Lord found it somewhat strenuous to exert divine power within the enemy's illusion.

If the Inverted Sea were to unleash another tsunami or some other large-scale, irresistible divine power, Bai Ziqi's fleet could suffer significant losses.

Before such a situation arose, he had to quickly lead his subordinates to land on Silver Pearl Island, preventing the opponent from recovering and unleashing another powerful attack.

The Illusion Sect had its own compulsions, and Bai Ziqi also had an unutterable urgency.

The Inverted Lake, now opened up from the reef, had transformed into a large, irregularly shaped polygonal bay. Naturally, the fleet wanted to dock nearby. The shores along the lake were all stony beaches, with white pebbles and a gently sloping lakebed, making it suitable for docking.

The most striking feature here was the silence. As soon as the fleet sailed in, it felt as if they had entered a dragon's lair. There was not a single stray sound around, even the wind seemed to have stilled; only the gurgling of the oars was audible.

Despite being enchanted with spells, the ships moved slower and slower, as if a thousand-jin weight was dragging beneath them.

Looking down from the ship's rail, the water surface shimmered, revealing nothing unusual. But if one were to switch the perspective to below the surface and add light, the scene would undoubtedly send shivers down everyone's spine:

Beneath every large ship, below the waterline, something was writhing!

On closer inspection, it wasn't waterweeds, but countless monsters.

Some resembled humans, others did not. Some had three eyes, others two gills. Some were human-like in form but had pointed ears and bald heads. Some had dark blue, scale-covered skin...

In short, their forms were highly abstract, yet without exception, all were grotesque.

Anyone encountering them in the deep, dark water would feel as though they were in a nightmare.

These creatures darted back and forth across the lakebed, their numbers growing. They clung to the ship bottoms more and more densely; beneath Bai Ziqi's flagship, they even formed two thick layers.

They even fought amongst themselves to claim a bit of space.

The ships originally had multiple defensive formations, which would not have allowed such rampant behavior. Unfortunately, after enduring several rounds of the Illusion Sect's powerful divine spells, the formations were largely destroyed and had not yet been restored. Since these monsters had not yet attacked, the people on board remained completely unaware.

But with all of them clinging to the bottom, the ships became very heavy.

The General of Luodian ordered his subordinates, "Find someone to go down to the ship's bottom and see what's slowing us down."

Luodian soldiers were primarily land-based, and few were skilled swimmers. The unlucky individual chosen had no way to refuse and grudgingly entered the water.

And then he never returned.

While everyone was waiting, there was a stir at the sterns of the last two large ships:

Water monsters were quietly crawling up the ships' sides. Just then, a sentry, needing to relieve himself, walked to the stern. As he unfastened his belt and glanced down, he suddenly met a pair of large, bell-like eyes!

"Ah..." He was startled. Just as he was about to draw his sword, he was dragged down.

But that cry, after all, alarmed his companions. As soon as they drew their weapons, they saw grotesque and hideous monsters bursting from the stern, rushing up like a tide.

"Enemy attack, enemy attack!" The warning bells rang on ship after ship. This was because the water monsters launched their assault almost simultaneously.

All fourteen large ships, not a single one spared, were targeted by the water monsters.

The warriors brought by the Celestial Palace were all seasoned elites, incredibly brave, capable of severing a monster's head with a single swing of their blades. While these monsters were indeed weaker individually, their numbers were appallingly vast!

They climbed up the ships' sides from beneath the water, like an army of ants swarming towards their prey, dense and endless!

Each large ship had a few hundred soldiers, yet thousands of water monsters managed to crowd onto it!

Each warrior could cut down one head, five heads, or even thirty heads, but could they cut down a hundred?

As the saying goes, "Even ants can kill an elephant if there are enough of them," and this was the most vivid illustration.

Less than a quarter of an hour into the battle, dozens of soldiers, showing vulnerabilities when surrounded, were carelessly dragged down—

Then they were torn to shreds, their screams lasting less than seven or eight breaths.

The most horrific fate was for those who didn't die immediately, forced to watch as their bellies were ripped open, their intestines, liver, and stomach violently pulled out, becoming living flesh for the monsters to fight over!

"Gather on deck, don't get separated!" The roars of the generals echoed. "Form ranks to fight them!"

On one large ship, five spellcasters collaborated to cast spells, unleashing over ten fire crows. These crows, wreathed in intense flames, needed only to circle the ship once for countless water monsters to be ignited by the true fire, shrieking as they fell into the water.

Each pass they made cleared a large wave of monsters.

But the problem was that the water monsters, unafraid of death, charged forward relentlessly, seemingly impossible to eliminate.

Was the bottom of this Inverted Lake perhaps directly connected to hell, allowing it to continuously supply monsters to the ships?

Bai Ziqi's flagship received special attention from the water monsters; while other ships had around a thousand monsters crawling onto them, his had at least two thousand. However, his ship had the strongest guard, and as long as they maintained their defenses, the monsters wouldn't be able to break through for a while.

"Yaksha!" Bai Ziqi frowned after getting a clear look at these monsters.

Weren't these the man-eating monsters, Yaksha, that the fishermen spoke of? Whenever the storm wall disappeared, they might rush out of the Inverted Lake to cause havoc. But this time, they weren't bothering mortals; they were picking a fight with the Celestial Palace's forces.

Bai Ziqi looked back at the fleet; every ship was swarming with water monsters. His flagship had the most, with no space outside the defensive perimeter for anything else to squeeze in.

A rough estimate indicated at least twenty thousand monsters had emerged from the water.

Even the Celestial Palace's forces were suffering unavoidable casualties against them. If this number of water monsters were unleashed on Silver Pearl Island, they would likely devour the living population to extinction!

The civilians on Silver Pearl Island numbered only about a hundred thousand in total.

Bai Ziqi had heard from fishermen that the most terrifying water monster attack on the city in history involved only a little over two thousand monsters emerging from the lake together, causing over thirty thousand deaths on Silver Pearl Island!

How was it that the number of water monsters emerging from the lake had increased more than tenfold simply because the Celestial Palace's forces arrived?

Bai Ziqi grew interested and waved a hand to his White Guards. "Drag that corpse over here! Yes, just drag it over."

A White Guard had just slain a seven-foot-tall water monster. It was human-shaped, stood on two legs, had green skin, bulging eyes, a mouth that could stretch to its ears, and rows of yellow teeth that jutted outwards.

Bai Ziqi put on gloves, then with one swift cut, he disemboweled it. But instead of bleeding, the monster exuded white foam.

He gripped the muscles on either side of the incision and forcibly pried them open.

The sensation was wrong; it lacked the firmness and resilience of flesh and blood. Instead, it felt like rotting meat that had been left out for over ten days: soft, slippery, and easily punctured.

After the monster's chest cavity was opened, everyone stared in astonishment:

Its internal organs also foamed, and its abdominal cavity was filled with water.

In just a few breaths, its digestive tract dissolved before their very eyes, like ice melting into water.

In less than half a "cup of tea" time, the entire monster dissolved, leaving not a single trace of residue. The deck was left covered in water stains and foam.

However, a thin, faint, barely visible gray mist rose from the monster's body and drifted towards the outside of the ship.

It was unlucky; as soon as it appeared, it was illuminated by the Lamp Spirit. Bai Ziqi plucked a strand of hair, lightly singed it in the Lamp Spirit's golden flame, and then flicked it towards the gray mist.

With a whoosh, the strand of hair transformed into a small binding rope, automatically coiling around the gray mist.

The gray mist struggled desperately, but to no avail. Bai Ziqi pulled it closer for a look, and after a puff from the Lamp Spirit, the true nature of the thing was revealed:

A ghost.

It was a dead soul, its entire body swollen, its features contorted.

Bai Seventeen immediately recognized it and said, "It's a drowned ghost!"

A drowned ghost residing within the body of a Yaksha?

Bai Ziqi casually tossed it to the Lamp Spirit, then said, "Bring another one."

Another water monster was dragged over for dissection and examination.

The situation was identical: as soon as it died, it began to dissolve into water. From the inside out, nothing remained in the end.

No wonder the people of Silver Pearl Island had never understood the true nature of these monsters over so many years. Their post-death existence was simply too brief; even Bai Ziqi didn't have time to perform an autopsy.

From this body, too, a dead soul emerged.

Bai Ziqi understood. He pointed at the Yaksha on the ship and commanded, "Go!"

The Lamp Spirit instantly enlarged, trailing a long tail as it circled the ship.

Illuminated by the golden light, everyone discovered that a faint gray mist emanated from each recently deceased Yaksha. These mists flipped over the ship's rail and swiftly plunged into the depths of the Inverted Lake.

Bai Ziqi removed his gloves and shook his head, "Yaksha? No, they're all illusions created by Qianhuan."

These were not natural living creatures!

So the question arose: Why would Qianhuan regularly deploy these monsters to Silver Pearl Island?

Before he could finish that thought, an unusual wind sound came from above. Immediately after, several White Guards shouted, "Milord, be careful! The water monsters can fly!"

A water monster dove down from a sail, heading straight for Bai Ziqi.

The Lamp Spirit whooshed into the sky, transforming into a sharp arrow, and pierced through it.

When it fell onto the deck, everyone held up their lamps to look. This creature surprisingly had bat-like membranous wings on its back; it could climb to a high point, leap, and glide with the wind.

In an instant, more and more winged water monsters climbed onto the ships. They directly leaped into the clustered soldiers, pouncing and biting, trying to tear open the defensive perimeter.

"The enemy unleashed these things to exhaust our strength."

Previously, the Illusion Sect used powerful divine abilities to deplete the Celestial Lord's power; now, they were sending water monsters to wound the Celestial Palace's forces, a two-pronged attack. Bai Ziqi couldn't indulge them, so he immediately commanded, "Relay my order: each ship is to deploy the Heart-Steadying Banner!"

There was a divine ability allowing communication between all ships. His order was relayed immediately, and on each ship, a large white umbrella was unfurled in the midst of the concentrated troops.

It looked like an oil-paper umbrella, with a pearl embedded in its tip and over a dozen slender cloth strips hanging beneath it.

Once all fourteen white umbrellas were fully opened, Bai Ziqi commanded again, "Strike the Soul-Shaking Drums."