Li Cunxiao could not understand it. His eyes remained fixed on the Water Sprite soaring above the lake.
Just now, the demon had darted up and down, whipping up waves and making it impossible to see clearly. Now, it seemed exhausted from all that thrashing and merely glided in circles over the lake. With the wind still and the waters calm, more shadows emerged beneath the ripples.
There was more than one Water Sprite!
Li Cunxiao saw it clearly. Besides the Water Sprite in the air, there were three or four more lurking in the lake.
Yet compared to their wildly active companion, they were like ordinary ducks, rising and falling with the water. Their black forked tails lay limply submerged, as though they had withered.
But the Water Sprite in the air clearly refused to give up. Having fed on the flesh and blood of Wind Weasels, it rested only briefly before stirring up wind and waves once more.
Yet this time, before it could make much of a commotion, its swallow-like body froze in midair.
Or rather, it was not just it. Its dancing tail-tentacles, as well as the other Water Sprites on the lake, all became motionless, as though someone had pressed a pause button.
Under Li Cunxiao's horrified gaze, the tranquil lake suddenly split down the middle into a cross, one horizontal and one vertical. The lake water was like steamed egg custard in a bowl, scooped apart in four directions to reveal a lakebed dozens of meters deep.
The fish in the lake still swam back and forth within that "egg custard." The water seemed supported by some invisible container, retaining its entire shape instead of collapsing into a torrent that filled the sky.
At the center of the lakebed stood a translucent giant egg