About an hour later, the leaders who had scattered in pursuit returned empty-handed one after another, gathering once more before the underwater palace that the battle had reduced to ruins.
Sea Spider slammed his six walking legs against the seabed rock, his voice thick with irritation. "All that chasing, and it turned out to be a fake! Where on earth is that fellow's real body hiding?"
Gray Catfish slowly swam back from another direction, stroking his whiskers with a grave expression. "The one I pursued was a fake as well. It dissipated on its own halfway through. I never even caught its shadow."
The other leaders shook their heads in turn, indicating that they too had pursued duplicates, without exception.
Sea Spider looked around and suddenly noticed that two figures were missing. His enormous compound eyes shifted a few times. "Huh? Why are we two short?"
Hearing this, Gray Catfish also turned to scan the gathering. His gaze searched the crowd for a moment, and his brow gradually furrowed. "Yan Qiang and... haven't returned yet?"
The leaders exchanged glances, none of them speaking for a time. They waited another ten minutes or so, but there was still no movement on the sea's surface.
Gray Catfish spoke slowly, breaking the silence. "Yan Qiang probably realized the one he was chasing wasn't real, then was killed by Ao Yu on his way to find the others."
At these words, the leaders' expressions immediately darkened.
Sea Swallow stepped out of the crowd, his expression pained and his voice carrying a measure of self-reproach. "I will report everything that happened today to the High Priest truthfully and have Yan Qiang's school and the... clan posthumously honored as Sacred Beasts of the Sea God, granting them the privileges of Sacred Beasts for generations to come."