BOOM!
As if struck by a massive thunderclap.
Everyone on the lakeshore was instantly knocked back by this roar, falling unconscious onto the ground.
The two men pushing the boat were no exception, their eyes rolling back as they collapsed paralyzed into the mud by the shore.
A split second later, Sevrin's figure descended from the sky, accompanied by gusts of a billowing storm wind.
Upon landing, his body shook slightly, forcefully dispersing the turbulent wind rings that were swirling intensely around him.
He then casually waved a hand toward the small boat, raising a strong wind that swept all the salt grains on the boat into the lake, revealing the two children who had been buried by the salt.
Only after seeing that the two children's chests were rising and falling with normal breathing did Sevrin feel slightly relieved.
Immediately, he looked coldly toward these ignorant men and women on the lakeshore and lightly lifted his foot to stomp the ground forcefully.
CRACK!
In an instant, a ripple of earth-shaking vibration, like a wave of water, rapidly spread out, jolting all the villagers awake.
As the old man who had previously led the villagers in the human sacrifice woke up and saw that the coarse salt clearly covering the small boat had vanished without a trace, he immediately hollered at the top of his lungs:
"The salt is gone? It's... it's the wrath of the Salt God! Lord Salt God is angry!"
His shout immediately scared the villagers so much that their legs shook, and they didn't know what to do.
"What bullshit Salt God!"
Seeing that this old man was still spreading delusions to deceive the crowd, Sevrin gave a cold snort. From thirty meters away, he raised his hand toward that withered face and delivered a slap from a distance.
SLAP!
A strange wind gusted past, and the old man was instantly sent spinning like a rolling ball across the ground for thirty meters, his face swelling up on one side.
Seeing Sevrin perform such a supernatural power, the villagers were all terrified into silence, and no one dared to speak again.
Seeing that no one was making a fuss, Sevrin finally asked:
"What are you sacrificing to? How long have you been doing this? Who led you to do it?"
Hearing the questioning, the villagers looked at each other, but not a single person answered.
Ultimately, it was the old man with the swollen face who stood up to answer these questions.
"Reporting to the Great Lord,"
The old man said, covering his face and speaking with slurred words, "We are sacrificing to the Salt God of Ly Lake. We must sacrifice every year during all four seasons: spring, summer, autumn, and winter. If we miss a single sacrifice, the Salt God will be enraged, letting fish monsters crawl out of the lake, making the village livestock die of disease, and making the salt in the salt fields become poisonous."
"Fish monsters? Salt fields?"
Sevrin cast his gaze afar across the lakeshore and indeed discovered a small patch of salt fields half a mile away.
As for any fish monsters, he looked around but didn't find any.
This saltwater lake wasn't particularly large; its depth was unknown, but its total area was at most a few miles, so Sevrin could see all of it at a glance.
He then turned back to the old man and asked: "And how long has your village had this custom of worshipping the Salt God?"
The elder replied: "Great Lord, it has been over a hundred years."
"Over a hundred years?" Sevrin said coldly, "Doesn't that mean you've already killed over a thousand children?"
"This... this..." The elder stammered, "This is a rule handed down by our ancestors; we cannot easily change it."
"You cannot change it, so I will change it for you."
Sevrin pulled out his Lieutenant medallion and shouted in a deep voice: "This official is a Wood-Rank Lieutenant of the Graew Demon-Slaying Bureau, specifically in charge of governing all illegal, non-canonical, and excessive folk sacrifices. According to my preliminary investigation, this worthless Salt God of your village requires living human sacrifices, which definitively classifies it as a heretical cult worship. From this day forward, it must be abolished!"
He wasn't intentionally deceiving them; the Demon-Slaying Bureau indeed held this responsibility, though most folk cults were essentially schemes created by local gentry to amass wealth, so such cases were usually handled by government runners and constables.
Nonetheless, the Demon-Slaying Bureau always retained the authority to manage folk cults.
All of this was information Sevrin had learned from the information in the warehouse of the Nina Town's Demon-Slaying Bureau.
"Graew Demon-Slaying Bureau?" The old man's expression was somewhat blank because he had simply never heard the name.
He knew of Graew, but he truly didn't know what the Demon-Slaying Bureau was.
In fact, this situation reflected the current awareness of many commoners in the Mount Qing region.
This territory, spanning thousands of miles, nominally belonged to Graew, but in reality, it was a lawless land.
No force dared to claim total control here; simply put, it was a collection of autonomous circles.
While Graew had the standing and ability to make such a claim, they were too indifferent to do so, viewing the region as beneath them.
For instance, this Lialod Village, forget Graew, not even any fortress power bothered to come here to claim sovereignty.
For this place was truly too desolate and too barren, possessing neither resources nor good farmland.
It had only a crude salt field that produced barely usable coarse salt, along with about ten mẫu of poor land, almost like saline-alkali soil, that could yield just enough crops for Lialod Village to feed itself.
If Sevrin hadn't happened to fly past overhead and discover this place, others would have had to cross marshes and mountain ranges just to reach this godforsaken spot.
"A thought suddenly occurred to me,"
Sevrin said, "Even though it is said that it's hard to leave one's homeland, the environment here is so harsh and there is this evil thing like the Salt God occupying it, why don't you leave this place and live elsewhere?"
"This..." The old man said hesitantly, "Officer, there is something you don't know. The people of Lialod Village... cannot leave this place."
"Why?" Sevrin frowned in confusion, "Is someone stopping you? Could it be that Salt God?!"
"Sigh."
The old man let out a long sigh, "Great Lord, in this territory of ours... there is a curse. Anyone who stays here for a long time can never leave again. Once they leave, the curse will take effect."
"What kind of curse?" Sevrin asked.
"This curse is called the Inverted God-Worship,"
The elder replied, "If anyone leaves this area, within less than an hour, their limbs will become twisted; hands will turn into feet, and feet will turn into hands.
At that time, the person must go to the Salt God temple in the village and kneel in worship while upside down, begging Lord Salt God to absolve their sins.
Otherwise, after a short while, their nose and ears will swap places, and even..."
The old man hesitated for a moment, fear showing on his face as he said, "Their mouth and their rear will also swap places."
"Eh?" Sevrin was shocked, "Swap places how?"
"Sigh." The old man sighed, "That tongue... will end up down between the legs."
"A tongue growing out of that place?!"
Sevrin said with a face full of disgust, "Doesn't that mean... every time they go to the toilet, the tongue gets a taste first?!"
The old man nodded silently.
Sevrin couldn't help but shout coldly: "This Salt God... how truly malicious!"
COUGH! COUGH! COUGH!
Right then, the pair of young boy and girl suddenly coughed and climbed up from the small boat.
As they wiped their eyes and saw the old man kneeling on the ground, they actually asked in their dazed innocence:
"Grandfather Chief, weren't we going to see Lord Salt God? How did you end up following us here?
Could it be that Lord Salt God has changed his tastes and doesn't want to eat children anymore, and has switched to eating elderly people instead?"
Before the chief could respond to the two children, Sevrin spoke first:
"Children, you two don't need to be sacrifices to see that bullshit Salt God. Hurry home and find your parents."
However, after these two children heard this and looked at each other, they actually shook their heads in refusal:
"No, no! We are the chosen sacrifices; we must be given to Lord Salt God to eat. If Lord Salt God is hungry, disaster will strike the village."
"That's right, Great Lord,"
The old village chief added, "Our Lialod Village has done this for over a hundred years; it has always been like this, and everyone has long grown accustomed to it."
"Just because it has always been like this, does that make it right?"
After saying that sentence coldly, Sevrin looked toward this old village chief with a cold glint in his eyes.
He could see that if he wanted to convince the ignorant men and women of Lialod Village, and save those two children, and even more children in the future, he had to first deal with this old fossil.
But simply killing him would be useless; instead, it would only make the remaining villagers' stance even more resolute, unless he killed them all.
So right now, there was only one way.
That was to seize control of this chief's mind and consciousness.
To make him an ardent supporter of all Sevrin's subsequent actions, rather than a stubborn obstructionist.
And for Sevrin, controlling a person's mind was as simple as eating or drinking.
He didn't even need to use the method of ghostly possession with an invisible Vile Slaughter; a single yellow paper talisman would be enough to suppress the elder's spirit and delude his heart, allowing him to be driven like an ox or horse.
He could even use the pure mental power granted by [Level 2 Spirit-Concentration] to suppress and manipulate the old man's thoughts.
And that was exactly what Sevrin did.
His eyes flickered with a faint ghostly light, and through eye contact, he immediately caused the old chief's brain to fall into a blank state, his body stiffening as he froze in place.
A second later, the old village chief returned to normal, except his gaze toward Sevrin had shifted from wariness and fear to reverence and worship.
With his eyes transformed, the chief immediately looked toward all the villagers and intentionally raised his voice:
"Great Lord, you are absolutely right. We truly cannot continue these sacrifices indefinitely. What if one day Lord Salt God's appetite grows, grows so much that he wants to eat eight or ten children every month? What would we do then? Our village doesn't have that many children to feed him."
As soon as these words were spoken, all the villagers at the scene looked at each other, and after thinking it over, they couldn't help but nod slightly.
The chief was right.
They could still provide two children every three months.
But if he wanted to eat eight or ten children every month, then their Lialod Village... would surely go extinct.
At this thought, the villagers' blind fear toward the Salt God quietly diminished a great deal, and traces of resentment even began to brew within their numb minds.
But just then, the two children who were to be the sacrifices spoke up, both saying with anxious fear:
"But... but if Lord Salt God truly brings disaster, wouldn't Father and Mother, and my little brother and sister, and the whole village... wouldn't they all be finished?"
"Rest assured,"
Sevrin gave a light laugh, "With me here, this village of yours will suffer no hardships."
With that, he raised his right hand, the word Naeaie glowing in his palm, and aimed it at the Ly Lake before him and began to suck.
WHOOSH!
Under the suction of the grotto portal, a massive waterspout immediately surged and rose from the surface of Ly Lake, roaring and rotating as it flew into Sevrin's palm, falling into a deserted valley within the East Forest Garden of the Kiyou Grotto.
The terrain there was concave like a basin, perfectly suited for holding lake water.
Indeed, Sevrin's plan was to directly drain this entire Ly Lake dry.
"Aren't you a lake god? Fine, this father will drain your lake dry and see if you show yourself!"
Sevrin's idea and actions were extremely simple and crude, yet they terrified the entire population of Lialod Village, for none of them had ever seen anything like this.
"A Water Dragon King! This is a Water Dragon King!"
The old village chief, who had now become very perceptive, immediately knelt and kowtowed like a pounding pestle, while continuously murmuring phrases like "Dragon King's protection."
The villagers of Lialod Village nearby, seeing the chief kneel, also knelt on the ground, kowtowing incessantly while screaming "Dragon King's protection" at the top of their lungs; even the two children who had just woken up did the same.
Thus, amidst the people's worship, this river god sacrifice ceremony instantly transformed into a water pumping construction... no, into the scene of a Dragon King sucking water.
At the scene, every second, thousands or even tens of thousands of cubic meters, or even more, of lake water were rapidly sucked by Sevrin's single palm into the East Forest Garden of the Kiyou Grotto, becoming his future blood pool reserve, adding thousands and tens of thousands of tons continuously.
"Too slow, too slow."
After sucking water for a while, Sevrin couldn't help but raise his other hand, opening another grotto portal to begin dual-action pumping.
WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH
In an instant, his water pumping efficiency reached another level.
Yet even so, having sucked up unknown tens of thousands of tons of water, Sevrin was still dissatisfied, feeling it was too slow.
So, a few seconds later, he leaped up, his whole body plunging into the Ly Lake, completely immersing himself in the lake water. He then opened grotto portals all over his body, beginning a 360-degree, all-around water suction.
The surface of Ly Lake, which was already surging with waves, instantly became turbulent with massive swells, beginning to rush frantically at an unknown speed toward the underwater humanoid abyss that was Sevrin.
For a time, Ly Lake, this small, inland saltwater lake that had never experienced any significant waves, witnessed exploding swells and rising mist under the trembling gazes of everyone from Lialod Village. It began to visibly sink, centering around a boiling vortex.
WHIRR WHIRR
SPLASH SPLASH SPLASH
The billowing mist rising into the sky met the torrential winds in the upper atmosphere, instantly turning into rain that bombarded the earth, drenching the people of Lialod Village until they were all soaked like drowned rats.
Right then, the old village chief, dripping wet, suddenly shouted above the wind and rain:
"Fellow villagers, do not be afraid! None of you should fear! Look here, look at me!"
As soon as everyone heard this, they immediately looked toward him.
The old chief scanned the villagers and asked loudly:
"Fellow villagers, do you know what exactly is happening to Ly Lake?"
Everyone shook their heads in confusion.
"This is Lord Water Dragon King..."
The old village chief held his head high, pointing at the boiling Ly Lake as he bellowed, "He is fighting that heretical Salt God beneath the lake!
Once Lord Dragon King kills the Salt God, everyone in our Lialod Village will be completely liberated!"
"Oooohhh!!"
The villagers were first dazed, then immediately became excited, roaring and cheering one after another, "Dragon King saves us from suffering! Saves us from suffering!"
"So, fellow villagers!"
The old chief spoke again, "The Dragon King has arrived, justice has arrived, and we are saved! Let us all kneel together and pray for the Dragon King's blessing!"
After saying that, he was the first to kneel, pressing his hands together and murmuring prayers toward Ly Lake.
The other villagers also hurriedly knelt down, offering various chaotic prayers toward the boiling, roaring Ly Lake.
Beneath the continuously boiling Ly Lake, Sevrin no longer knew how much water he had sucked.
It might be a million tons, or it could be several million tons or even more.
Sevrin didn't have a plan and was too lazy to calculate.
He only knew that the basin in the East Forest Garden was almost filled.
Yet, from all directions, countless water currents still surged and broke toward him as if there were no end.
"It seems this Ly Lake is quite deep,"
Sevrin, who had become a humanoid vortex, remarked with emotion, "The area is clearly only two or three miles across, yet after sucking for so long, there is still so much water."
In the midst of his emotional sigh, a massive dark shadow suddenly rushed up at extreme speed from the dim deep water below him.
"So foul-smelling~"
Sevrin looked down with a cold sneer, "You must be that fish monster."
Having said that, he closed all the grotto portals. Simultaneously, the steel whip in his palm suddenly elongated significantly. Trailing a dark red light as his arm swung, it lashed violently toward the dark shadow attacking from below.
SCREECH
Following a shrill, agonizing sound that made one's teeth ache, Sevrin's heavy and powerful whip strike unexpectedly slid off the surface of the dark shadow, striking the murky lake water instead.
BANG!
With a dull thud, the surging lake water was instantly blasted apart by the whip. Amidst the sparks that flickered and vanished, a large spherical air pocket suddenly appeared.
Sevrin's sharp gaze pierced the air pocket, and he instantly saw clearly the massive dark shadow pressing against it.
Human face and fish body, ten meters long, eyes like red bowls, six fins and eight arms, pitch black all over, and covered in iron scales.
Sure enough, it was the Ly Lake fish monster mentioned by the old village chief.
As for the personal interface of this fish monster:
[ Character Name: Unknown
Level: Demon Beast → Mid
Mastered Skills: "Demon Form, Beast Likeness" "Toxic Demon Physique" "Hard-Scaled Whirling Blades" "Vile Disaster Murky Bubbles"
Special Traits: [Level 2 Stamina] [Level 2 Iron Body] [Level 1 Self-healing] [Level 2 Toxicity]
Expert Shards: None ]
In the same instant Sevrin saw the fish monster clearly, it launched a continuous series of attacks against him.
SWISH SWISH SWISH
Dozens, even hundreds, of glistening black blades shaped like scales suddenly burst from the fish monster's surface. Twirling, they all shot from below toward Sevrin.
"Fucker, using fish scales to smash me."
Sevrin's body flickered rapidly, leaving a trail of afterimages. In an instant, he dodged all the incoming black scales. At the same time, he sneered as his twin whips suddenly elongated and stabbed down violently, "Die for me!"
TEAR TEAR
Following two consecutive crisp sounds, the twin whips, which had suddenly grown to 33 meters long, stabbed into the fish monster's head and instantly pierced through its entire body from top to bottom, emerging from the tail.
Immediately, Sevrin rapidly utilized a special move from the "Furious Flood-Dragon Whip":
"Flood-Dragon Plunges into Sea, Grind!"
CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH
The pair of steel whips piercing through the fish monster's entire body suddenly spun thousands of times per second with a buzzing roar. Like two long deep-sea electric drills, they instantly ground all the internal organs and tissues within the fish monster's body into a mass of minced meat.
Then, Sevrin utilized another special move:
"Flood-Dragon Submerges Water, Quake!"
BOOM!
As if detonating an underwater bomb.
With the pair of steel whips at the center, a massive, frantically roaring and surging torrent was generated, instantly bloating the fish monster's entire body until it swelled significantly. A split second later, it abruptly burst apart.
CRACK!!
Accompanied by circular shockwaves that drenched and blanketed everything in all directions, thousands upon thousands of thumb-sized pieces of seared fish meat rapidly and completely covered all the lake water within a thousand-meter radius.
After this single strike, that ferocious fish monster was reduced to nothing but a set of stark white skeletal remains drifting aimlessly; not even a scrap of flesh remained.
Thus, the fish monster... died!
As for all its skills...
Whether it was the "Demon Form, Beast Likeness" shared by all demon beasts, or the "Toxic Demon Physique" that secreted large amounts of toxic mucus to increase body slipperiness, or the "Hard-Scaled Whirling Blades" that could fire numerous steel-hard blade-shaped fish scales, or even the "Vile Disaster Murky Bubbles" that could generate highly toxic solutions and discharge them at high speeds.
Sevrin didn't learn a single one of them.
Learn? Learn what? Learn my ass. He wasn't learning them, not a single one.
What Sevrin hated most in this life was fish: smelly, stinking, toxic, and slippery.
If he accidentally turned into a fish after learning those disgusting skills, he would have to stew himself.
For Sevrin, only a fish turned into a side dish was a good fish.
"Since this fish monster swam up from below..."
Sevrin looked down into the pitch-black depths of Ly Lake and chuckled secretly, "Then its master, the Salt God, should also be hiding down there."
With a light laugh, he turned and straightened his legs, suddenly kicking against the lake water above.
BANG!
Following a sharp, dull thud, Sevrin's body shot like a swift arrow, trailing a long string of grayish-white bubbles as he surged toward the bottom of Ly Lake, leaving only a cluster of vacuum air bubbles rolling and churning in his wake.
...
Just like that, after kicking against the water several times in succession, Sevrin finally reached the bottom of Ly Lake.
This place was about 10,000 meters from the surface, six times deeper than the deepest lake on Earth, Lake Baikal.
No light could penetrate such a thick body of water to reach this point, so Sevrin's surroundings were currently in absolute darkness, without a single shred of light to speak of.
However, relying on his Wild Nature intuition, Sevrin could roughly sense the vague conditions within his immediate vicinity.
But based on what he sensed, within a 2,000-meter radius, there was nothing larger besides some small, flat fish and swaying water plants.
But Sevrin was in no hurry.
After swinging the steel whips in his hands, he followed a vague, subconscious induction and swam rapidly in a certain direction.
After swimming for about 1,000 meters, Sevrin suddenly stopped.
He cast his eyes around in every direction, but all he could perceive was boundless darkness.
"It's right here... that strange presence that also carries a hint of a threat."
Standing at the muddy bottom of the lake, Sevrin whispered with a solemn expression while scanning the area above and around him, "Strange, truly strange. This place is empty; where could it be hiding?"
He looked down at his feet, "Could it... be hiding down there?"
Suddenly, a sense of crisis, as if about to be bitten viciously by a venomous snake, surged into Sevrin's heart.
Without time for further thought, he immediately kicked off the muddy ground, blasting apart a large patch of murky soil as he retreated over thirty meters in an instant.
Just as Sevrin retreated to a distance, the spot where he had been standing was suddenly and completely covered by an invisible force.
BUZZ!
This invisible, anomalous force flashed for an instant; from its appearance to its disappearance took only the briefest of moments, so fast it was as if it had never existed at all.
Furthermore, it caused no visible impact on that area of the lakebed; not even a single strand of waterweed was broken.
But Sevrin's Wild Nature intuition told him that if he hadn't dodged just now, the outcome would surely have been unimaginable.
"Was it some kind of curse, an occult art, or a supernatural power?"
Various thoughts flashed through Sevrin's mind.
Subsequently, just as he tightened his grip on the twin whips and was about to stir the murky lakebed violently below.
BOOM!