"Huh? Did I hear you right?" The young man from the Lawrence Clan looked astonished. "Take another good look at the situation, will you?"
With that, he waved his hand, and a great horde of Hilichurls, each nearly as large as the camp's watchtower, sprang out of the darkness in the distance.
Behind the Hilichurls, two Lawachurls four times their size also appeared: a Stonehide Lawachurl and a Frostarm Lawachurl. From afar, they looked like mountain peaks.
There were countless other monsters as well, including Slimes and Whopperflowers. This force of Abyss monsters, formidable in both number and strength, was clearly the source of the Lawrence youth's confidence.
"That's it?" Tang Wang merely cast them a cold glance. "This is what you're counting on?"
"Honestly, couldn't you at least have brought an Abyss Mage to take up a little more of my time?"
"Hmph!" The young man, convinced victory was in his grasp, snorted coldly in return. "Still putting on a brave face? If you've got any brains, you'd better get moving and get the hell out of my sight!"
"As for these three beauties..." He gave a somewhat lecherous smile.
"...Human," Ronava's weak voice suddenly called out as Tang Wang's mouth twitched. "If you really can't do it, you should run."
"Don't worry, Ronava. Enemies of this level aren't worthy of-"
Before he could finish, the impatient Frostarm Lawachurl charged at him with overwhelming force. Its mountain-sized body made the ground beneath its feet groan in protest.
Seeing this, the smile on the young man's face grew cold. The spear-wielding figure had not only refused to dodge but was charging straight back at the monster at full speed.
Boom! But what happened next left him dumbstruck:
The two figures, one huge and one small, crossed paths in midair in an instant. The next moment, a savage force tore an enormous hole through the Frostarm Lawachurl's chest and abdomen.
Tang Wang immediately turned with his spear and delivered a side kick, sending the mountain-sized body flying toward the cliff at Starsnatch Cliff.
Crash! The Frostarm Lawachurl's body smashed a terrifying gash into the rocky cliff face. A closer look showed that its enormous body, wreathed in black smoke, had already begun to turn to ash.
Blood was still flowing from the hole in its chest and abdomen.
Meanwhile, Danika, having received treatment, had recovered from the dizziness caused by her blood loss. When she opened her eyes, she saw Tang Wang's back as he stood with his spear, facing an army alone.
At some point, the sky over Starsnatch Cliff had darkened. A fine rain fell from above, and a light mist veiled the distant coast. Yet the shimmering golden light around Tang Wang remained as dazzling as ever.
"Before the battle begins, allow me to make one thing clear." He suddenly raised his left arm and extended his index finger.
"You are the challengers!"
As soon as he finished speaking, a golden projectile shot forward. A one-sided slaughter unfolded among the monsters.
Thrusting, lifting, sweeping, stabbing... golden trails appeared again and again across the rain-swept battlefield. Each appearance meant the deaths of a great many monsters.
The smile gradually vanished from the young man's face. Pure terror took its place.
The monsters he had brought with him represented nearly half of what the Abyss Order had accumulated throughout its long campaign of mischief. If they were all wiped out here, wouldn't the Lawrence Clan's plan to retake Mondstadt come to nothing?
"Retreat... retreat!" he shouted at the Stonehide Lawachurl, which was still standing.
"With our remaining strength, we must pursue the broken foe..." The moment the Lawachurl turned around, a golden figure leaped into the air and streaked across the sky.
Tang Wang aimed at the Lawachurl's turning head and drove his spear down. A golden meteor pierced the curtain of rain, and in a flash, the Lawachurl's head was severed from its body.
"Not play the Conqueror for empty fame!" Tang Wang raised the White Tassel toward the young man, who had collapsed to the ground in fright.
Behind him, every monster tainted by the power of the Abyss had been reduced to a pile of ash.
"Y-you, you, you..." The young man was already incoherent as Tang Wang grabbed him by the collar and hauled him up.
"Unfortunately for you, you rejected the offer to surrender earlier. So now, you have no right to resist." Of the other three women present, only Linaya had heard Tang Wang, whom they regarded as kind and warmhearted, speak to someone in such a cruel tone before.
"Now, answer me: who put you up to this? What have you done? And what are you after?"
"I'm warning you," the young man finally said, putting on a show of bravado, "I'm from the Lawrence Clan-"
Schlick! The next moment, Tang Wang sliced off his left arm with his spear.
"Aaaahhh!!!" His screams, like those of a pig being slaughtered, echoed across Starsnatch Cliff. Of course, for the sake of the interrogation, Tang Wang stopped the bleeding from his wound.
"Now, the first question: who gave you your orders?" His tone was very calm.
"Y-you'll pay for this..."
Schlick! Before he could finish, his right arm was severed too.
"I asked you a question. Stop spouting nonsense!" Tang Wang sent the White Tassel in his right hand back into his Shadow Domain. Then he clenched that hand into a fist and drove it into the young man's abdomen.
As the young man writhed in pain and was about to vomit blood, Tang Wang released his collar. Then his left hand darted upward and seized the young man by the throat.
The pain from that combination went without saying. When the young man was close to dying from pain and suffocation, Tang Wang released his grip.
The Lawrence Clan member who had been so full of himself moments ago now lay on the ground, having soiled himself, coughing up blood with sounds of utter agony.
"All right, all right, children shouldn't watch such frightening things." While Danika and Ronava stared fixedly at Tang Wang, Linaya suddenly reached out with her soft, smooth hands and gently covered their eyes.
"I see." After that beating, the young man fearfully confessed their entire plan.
Simply put, the disaster Mondstadt now faced was the result of cooperation between the Abyss Order, the Lawrence Clan, and the Fatui.
Together, they had created the Four Symbols Seals to ensure that the poisoned blood in Dvalin's body would continue to corrode his mind. The so-called Four Symbols Seals consisted of the three Abyss Heralds and Dvalin's poisoned blood itself.
Their goal was simple: attack Mondstadt City. Though their needs differed, they were quite united in that objective. And the best weapon for taking Mondstadt City was naturally Dvalin, the Dragon of the East.
In other words, Tang Wang and his companions had stumbled upon the root of the problem. They only needed to kill the Pyro Abyss Lector, and Dvalin's poisoned blood could be purged.
"Using the Inverted Statue, the Fatui's technology, and some test subjects..." The young man's voice was somewhat weak. "A lot of people were used as expendable materials for this experiment."
"Among those Hilichurls just now, the ones that didn't turn to ash were all failures. So you're a murderer too..."
Naturally, Tang Wang could not leave the young man's accusation unanswered.
"I see." He suddenly stood and faced the countryside where the monsters had been. "Everyone... please rest in peace."
"Now, one last question: have you seen a merchant selling large quantities of special weapons? Or have you had contact with any related sources?"
"Sister Eula, save me!" the young man suddenly shouted. Behind Tang Wang, the side of a greatsword's blade came swinging toward him, wreathed in frost.
"What?" Without looking back, Tang Wang raised his spear and blocked the blow. "Eula, how could you be in league with them?"
"...This is an internal matter for the Lawrence Clan," said the tall, graceful blue-haired woman behind him. "Please let him go."
But her words were far too ambiguous. What Eula meant was that she should kill this scum with her own hands. She felt that an outsider's hands should not be stained by the blood of a Lawrence vermin.
But to Tang Wang's ears, she sounded like the young man's accomplice.
"That's a real shame." As he spoke, the golden light around him erupted. In the blink of an eye, he severed Eula's sword-wielding right arm.