Chapter 279: Bluewave city 11.

The lamps in the city flickered. The wind died. The waves remained frozen in place, great walls of dark blue water hanging along the harbor as if someone had carved them out of stone. Hundreds of ships stood motionless in the bay. People who had been running through the streets simply stopped where they were, staring at the black crack spreading across the sky.

Then the eye beneath the City Lord’s mansion blinked.

A pressure descended.

The city groaned.

Tiles shattered. Windows burst. Cultivators in the streets staggered and dropped to their knees. Several Foundation Establishment cultivators fainted immediately. Even the Golden Core elders who had come running from different parts of the city looked terrified, their faces white as paper.

Mo Yuxin did not move.

Neither did Su Yubing.

They simply stood together in the underground chamber, fingers intertwined, while the pressure rolled past them like a strong wind.

The city lord’s smile was gone.

He stared at the eye beneath the floor.

For the first time since Mo Yuxin had met him, the old man’s expression contained genuine fear.

"This is wrong," he whispered.

Mo Yuxin glanced at him.

"You woke it."

The city lord shook his head.

"No."

The seven circles around them suddenly turned crimson.

"It was supposed to wake for her. It was never supposed to look at you."

Mo Yuxin’s gaze became colder.

"Then perhaps you should explain yourself before I lose patience."

The city lord looked at her.

Then he looked at Su Yubing.

"Eight hundred years ago, the founder of Bluewave City received a dream. In that dream, a woman descended from the sea carrying a sword of white light. She wore no crown, but every dragon beneath the Southern Sea bowed to her. She walked into the city and pointed at the ocean. When she did, the entire sea separated into two halves."

Su Yubing listened silently.

"The founder believed the dream was an omen. He searched the coast for years and found nothing. Then, three generations later, another city lord dreamed the same dream. And another after him. Every few decades, someone in the City Lord’s family would see the same woman."

The old man’s voice trembled.

"The face was always unclear. The name was always missing. But the dream always ended with the same words. When she returns, the sleeping sea will open."

Su Yubing’s brows drew together.

"And you think I am that woman?"

"I don’t think anything anymore."

The city lord laughed bitterly.

"I spent twenty years gathering old records. I spent another thirty finding every surviving member of the families that once guarded this place. I built this formation because the records said that when the seventh bell rang, the woman would appear. I thought I could control what happened after that."

Mo Yuxin slowly turned her head.

"You thought you could control something that has been sleeping under your city for eight hundred years?"

The old man swallowed.

"I was arrogant."

"At least you know that."

The eye below them moved.

The chamber shook again.

A low voice rolled through the ground.

"Yubing."

Su Yubing’s body stiffened.

Mo Yuxin immediately stepped closer.

"Don’t answer it."

Su Yubing nodded.

The voice came again.

"Yubing."

This time there was something different in it.

Not anger.

Not hunger.

Longing.

As if whatever lived below had been waiting a very long time.

Su Yubing squeezed Mo Yuxin’s hand.

"I don’t like this."

Mo Yuxin’s expression softened instantly.

"I know."

"It knows my name."

"Then we will make it explain why."

Su Yubing looked at her.

"You are not afraid?"

Mo Yuxin smiled faintly.

"I am afraid of many things."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Such as?"

Mo Yuxin lowered her voice.

"You getting hurt."

Su Yubing’s tense expression softened.

For a moment, the monstrous eye below them and the collapsing city above them seemed far away.

Su Yubing moved closer until their shoulders touched.

"Then don’t let me get hurt."

"I won’t."

She said it so simply that Su Yubing believed her without question.

The city lord watched the two women and suddenly understood something.

The woman from the prophecy might indeed be Su Yubing.

But the prophecy had never mentioned the person beside her.

And judging from the way the ancient creature had looked at Mo Yuxin, that omission might have been the greatest mistake in the entire set of records.

A crack spread through the floor.

Something enormous began rising from the darkness.

The city lord stumbled backward.

"Impossible."

Mo Yuxin’s eyes narrowed.

A dragon’s horn emerged through the opening.

Then another.

Black scales followed.

The thing beneath the city was too large to fit inside the chamber, yet the walls stretched strangely as if the space itself were being distorted to make room for it.

Its head rose from the darkness.

At first glance it looked like a dragon.

But Mo Yuxin knew enough ancient beasts to recognize that it was not one.

It had the long body of a sea serpent, the horns of a dragon, the whiskers of an ancient flood beast, and six eyes scattered across its skull.

Two of those eyes were open.

One looked at Su Yubing.

The other looked at Mo Yuxin.

The creature lowered its head.

"The seal is broken."

Its voice shook dust from the ceiling.

"The Emperor’s blood has returned."

Su Yubing stared at it.

"What emperor?"

The creature ignored the question.

"And the sword keeper has returned beside her."

Mo Yuxin’s eyes sharpened.

"Sword keeper?"

The creature’s ancient gaze shifted toward her.

"You have forgotten."

Mo Yuxin felt a strange chill run through her body.

She had never seen this creature before.

She was certain of that.

Yet something about its voice produced a faint disturbance in the depths of her soul.

Not recognition.

Something more annoying.

The feeling of remembering a dream that vanished the moment one woke.

She closed her eyes for a brief second.

Nothing.

No memory.

Just darkness.

When she opened them again, the creature had lowered itself until one enormous eye was level with her.

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TO BE CONTINUED.