Even while wearing the Noh mask, Paimon immediately recognized that it was Bonanus, who had once served as their guide.
Lumine remembered that when Bonanus introduced herself, she had said she was one of the five Guardian Yakshas serving under the Marshal.
She was an existence similar to an Adeptus.
"Sorry, Traveler. I'm late."
Bonanus stepped on the water's surface, holding her crescent halberd in front of Lumine and Paimon.
"Disappear!"
Violent Anemo energy erupted. A dark green figure appeared in the air, thrusting forward with a spear and instantly knocking down one monster.
The one who entered Lumine and Paimon's view was a dark-green-haired young man also wearing a Noh mask and holding a verdant green long spear.
"It's the person who was following Jun Bai before. He really is an Adeptus too." Paimon exclaimed.
Lumine carried Paimon ashore and looked upward: "It's not just him and Bonanus. All the Adepti who were hiding in the Guili Assembly according to Jun Bai's orders have taken action."
As soon as her words fell, Mountain Shaper and Moon Carver appeared in the sky, using Adeptus arts to buff the Guardian Yakshas fighting below.
Pyro and Geo energy erupted one after another. A dark-red and a dark-gold Yaksha joined the battlefield below.
"So those are the legendary Guardian Yakshas?" Paimon exclaimed as she watched the four figures rampaging across the battlefield.
Their valiant and battle-hardened postures were truly impressive.
"Correct. Those are the Guardian Yakshas who followed the Marshal to war in all directions during the Archon War — the four great generals: Conch Spiral, Golden-Winged Peng, Mind Ape, and Fire Rat."
A steady voice rang out. A man dressed in luxurious ink-black satin robes walked to Lumine and Paimon's side.
"Nice to meet you, Honorary Knight from Mondstadt. This one is named Ji Xuanjian, a mere ordinary person who manages the Guili Assembly on behalf of the gods." Xuanjian smiled kindly.
Lumine felt the elemental energy in her body recovering: "Sorry, I have something to do right now."
"Miss Honorary Knight, there is no need to worry about the people who were sucked into the whirlpool." Xuanjian waved his hand toward the whirlpool, "Those were merely stone statues I made in cooperation with the Adepti."
The Vision hidden in Xuanjian's hair glowed. Countless broken stones floated up from the whirlpool.
Lumine and Paimon looked carefully and indeed saw the faces of the previous fishermen on the broken stones.
Paimon breathed a sigh of relief and said: "So that means there was actually no one on those boats, right?"
"Yes."
Xuanjian nodded, then began commentating from the sidelines: "Those monsters are called Scarlet-Eyed Sea Dragons. They are a dependent race of the God of the Vortex, Osial, from the Archon War."
"After Osial was suppressed, under the Marshal's leadership, the Millelith completely exterminated this type of monster."
"But now this kind of monster has appeared again." Lumine played along as the straight man.
"Someone awakened Osial's dependents from the Ley Lines." Xuanjian explained, "Moon Carver detected this matter through divination, which is why I and the other Adepti came up with this plan."
"We placed stone statues I created on the boats and applied Adeptus arts to make them look no different from living people."
"Monsters reproduced through the Ley Lines have the same strength as when they were alive, but they have no intelligence and only retain their instincts."
"Therefore, with just a little bait, these monsters will emerge from the sea. Speaking of which…"
Xuanjian bowed slightly to Lumine and said: "Miss Honorary Knight, thank you for slaying one Scarlet-Eyed Sea Dragon earlier. If not for the blood of its own kind, a mere bit of bait would not have been enough to lure out all the Scarlet-Eyed Sea Dragons."
"There's no need for that. I was only protecting myself."
Lumine did not dare accept such a grand gesture.
Paimon, however, had a different focus from Lumine and asked: "You said these Scarlet-Eyed Sea Dragons are reproductions from the Ley Lines. Doesn't Jun Bai know about this?"
Because when Jun Bai had introduced his abilities back then, he had left a very deep impression on Paimon.
So Paimon remembered very clearly that Jun Bai's authority could suppress all monsters reproduced from the Ley Lines.
Just like what happened in Mondstadt City before.
"If these monsters all appeared from the Ley Lines, then with Jun Bai's ability, it should be very easy for him to resolve it, right? So he doesn't know?"
"The Marshal has other matters to attend to." Xuanjian smiled, then looked toward the battlefield where the situation was clearly favorable, "Besides, such a small matter does not require the Marshal to take action personally."
"Other matters?"
...
After the sky suddenly changed color, Jun Bai left the Guili Assembly and arrived above the Guyun Stone Forest.
Compared to the Guyun Stone Forest in the original plot, which only had a somewhat strange shape, the one before him was far more divine and mystical.
Crimson crystals spread across the ground, with what seemed like flowing flames within them. The mountain body was covered in golden Geo energy, and pale patterns converged into talismans on its surface.
The elemental powers of three Gods were intertwined, suppressing the god in the sea — Osial.
To borrow Zhongli's catchphrase: From the perspective of ordinary rationality, the seal set by three Gods together would be extremely difficult for ordinary people to break.
However, the current state of Guyun Stone Forest was far from optimistic.
The seal was gradually disappearing, the mountain body had begun showing signs of wind erosion, and the crystals were losing their color.
The seal that the three Gods had jointly set back then was now failing. Osial was awakening, and his power had already begun to affect the outside world.
The second point of world line divergence — the shattered Guyun Stone Forest.
"In the original plot, Osial only temporarily broke free from the seal. But after the world line changed, they actually want to shatter Osial's seal?"
Jun Bai furrowed his brows tightly.
For important nodes of fate, it really was impossible to rewrite the path by exploiting bugs.
In the background story, Jun Bai had changed the seal that suppressed Osial in the original plot into one set by the three gods together, which could not be undone by the All-Taboo Talisman alone.
The past had been altered and the butterfly effect had occurred. In theory, Osial should have had no chance of coming out.
Yet in reality, the seal had been artificially destroyed and was already gradually losing its effect.
It was only a matter of time before Osial returned to the world.
[That's why I said earlier that if you want the plot to develop in a direction different from the original story, you can only use Popularity Points. No other methods will work.]
"I roughly knew you wouldn't lie about something like this, but I still wanted to give it a try."
Jun Bai said, then began to sense the source of the anomaly on Guyun Stone Forest.
Soon, Jun Bai discovered where the problem lay.
"God residue? And power from the Abyss?"
Jun Bai arrived at the place where the seal had been destroyed. It was filled with two auras that felt extremely familiar to him.
"One of them could still be called a coincidence, but both together…"
Jun Bai narrowed his eyes. A figure appeared in his mind — a person who would do anything for the sake of research.
"[The Doctor]." Jun Bai said softly.
Jun Bai took out Scarlet Feather, attached a talisman to switch it into bird mode, gave it some quiet instructions, then issued an order for Scarlet Feather to carry out the task.
Afterward, Jun Bai carefully examined the traces of God residue on the seal and sensed the aura of an "old friend" from it.
"System, analyze the God residue here."
[Affirmative. Analysis in progress…]
[Analysis complete.]
[Host, as you thought, the source of this God residue is the culprit who caused your second Nirvana in the background story.]
[God of Death, Roykodim]
(Original God, only appears in background supplementation. Inspiration comes from one of the five royal insects in the Wang-like Sentai series, King's Squadron Monarch — Gulaodi Roykodim)