The Aquatic Artist

After a single sentence, the battle began.

After merely three exchanges, both sides realized how troublesome their opponent was.

Chen Miemie's [Mystery] was infinite, and his body was currently composed of specks of moonlight.

The water arrows, water blades, and massive wave attacks from the [Water-form Artist] hit him to absolutely no effect.

The [Water-form Artist]'s body was made of water.

Chen Miemie's lunar threads, moon blades, and giant moonlight hand slaps could pierce and scatter its body, but in the very next instant, flowing water would refill and reform it.

These were two monsters capable of elementalizing their bodies, thereby gaining complete immunity to physical damage.

After the first round, neither of them had lost a single hair.

The second round began.

The [Water-form Artist] pointed its hands at Chen Miemie, making a gesture similar to taking a photograph.

The surrounding water enveloped Chen Miemie, forming a water coffin.

"I know my attacks are useless against you, but if I trap you, seal you at the bottom of the lake, and crush you with immense water pressure, how long can your starlight form last?"

Hearing this, Chen Miemie opened his mouth to respond.

"*******" His voice was blocked by the flowing water and couldn't transmit, turning into a string of muffled noise.

Chen Miemie was somewhat dissatisfied with this result.

So, he took two steps forward and walked straight out of the water coffin, his yellow clothes still completely dry.

The [Water-form Artist] watched this, its eyes almost popping out of its head.

The reason it was only "almost" was mainly because its face was also made of water; its eyes and body were one entity, so they couldn't actually fall out.

Upon coming back into contact with the air, Chen Miemie's voice returned to normal. "Your ability is quite interesting, but you chose the wrong opponent."

"Is that so? Then how about this?"

A mass of water reappeared around Chen Miemie's body. This time, the moment it enveloped him, it instantly turned into solid ice.

"Haha, ice is also a form of water. Now you..."

Before it could finish speaking, Chen Miemie once again simply walked out of the massive block of ice.

Next came a cage of boiling steam, but the result was identical—it couldn't trap Chen Miemie at all.

At this point, the [Water-form Artist] ceased its attacks.

"I admit, I can't do anything to you. It's your turn to attack. If you can't do anything to me either, then I'm going back into the water."

Chen Miemie didn't attack immediately; instead, he raised a new question.

"It seems your attack on me wasn't a passive trigger. Do you just enjoy attacking others?"

The [Water-form Artist] was actually a very arrogant pure-elemental anomaly. At this moment, Chen Miemie had earned its recognition through his strength, so it was willing to converse.

"Half and half, I suppose. My initial passive attack was actually withstood by you right at the start. I like collecting the bodies of the strong. Because this collecting habit has lasted for so long, I'm not even sure if it's my passive trait or if I genuinely just enjoy it."

"By 'at the start,' you mean that moment when you tried to draw my blood, right? What do you do after collecting the bodies?"

"Some are made into ice sculptures, some are vaporized into ash, and some are forever trapped in water orbs and sunk to the bottom of the lake."

"It seems you've killed countless people."

"No, on average, I don't even kill a single creature in several years. I am only interested in the strong. When ordinary people and weak mystics come to the water's edge, I usually ignore them."

"How do you define weak?"

"In the words of the Seven Great Races, anything below [Mystery] 5 is weak."

Good heavens, this [Water-form Artist] was truly arrogant. It wouldn't even bother killing anything that wasn't [Mystery] 5 or above.

"Then what is the highest tier you've killed?"

"In my long life, I have killed three [Mystery] 6 beings, and once, I successfully escaped from the hands of a [Mystery] 7."

Chen Miemie quite liked this aspect of anomalies. They either completely ignored people, or if they were willing to chat, they didn't constantly hide things like mystics did.

"Is this humanoid form of yours male or female?"

"I have no gender and no fixed form. This water shape is just an image I molded at random."

The two of them were having a pretty good chat.

Suddenly, the [Water-form Artist]'s humanoid form collapsed into a puddle of water droplets.

When it reappeared, it was already in the middle of the lake.

"I know I am no match for you, so I will be leaving. You are the second [Mystery] 7 to make me flee."

Chen Miemie retracted his previous assessment about anomalies being straightforward.

This [Water-form Artist] didn't act human at all; the purpose of the chat was probably just to stall for time so it could utilize some kind of movement ability to escape back into the lake.

The half-moons in Chen Miemie's eyes glowed. "You can't escape."

Moonlight shone on the lake's surface, reflecting a jagged, shimmering light.

Originally, the depths of the lake connected to further water sources, but at this moment, it was as if they had been frozen.

It wasn't the freezing of ice, but a freezing caused by the severing of kinetic energy.

Sensing such mighty power, the [Water-form Artist] didn't dare to show its head in the lake at all; instead, it dove deeper.

It dispersed itself throughout the entire body of water, breaking itself down into parts.

Chen Miemie quietly watched the small lake, his face devoid of sorrow or joy.

"A decent ability, merging with the lake into one entity. There truly aren't many in this world who can handle you. However, fighting against the strong year after year, there will always come a day like today, where you kick an iron plate."

Chen Miemie raised his left hand and pointed at the eternal moon in the sky.

"Since you have merged with the lake, then I shall obliterate this lake."

"Eternal Moon: Tide."

As Chen Miemie's voice rang out.

It was as if the eternal moon in the sky "looked" toward this place.

The next moment, the entire lake experienced a high tide.

All the lake water defied gravity, as if rain were falling in reverse from the ground to the sky.

The lake water, which should have existed as a single cohesive body, separated into individual, dispersed droplets under the irresistible gravitational pull of the tide, slowly rising toward the eternal moon in the sky.

"No!" The miserable scream of the [Water-form Artist] rang out.

It was invincible because it was one with the lake, but it also shared the lake's fate because of that very connection.

How could it have imagined that someone could actually attack an entire lake!

Chen Miemie narrowed his eyes.

"Have a safe journey. If all goes well, you might fly all the way to the eternal moon, but in all likelihood, you will dissipate along the way and become a part of the world's water cycle."

"Wait, Great Being, can we talk this over?" The entire rising lake actually shouted downward loudly.

A hint of a smile brushed past the corners of Chen Miemie's mouth, vanishing in a flash.

He slightly lowered his left hand.

The countless rising water droplets stopped moving, suspended in the air like a bead curtain hanging between heaven and earth.

"Great Being, I apologize to you for my earlier rudeness. Please let me down; I can pay my respects to you in a better form."

"What do you want to say?" Chen Miemie completely lowered his hand.

The bead curtain of the water screen lost its upward gravitational pull and crashed entirely down.

Because the water droplets had scattered, they didn't all fall back into the lake. In the end, the small lake's water level was only two-thirds of what it used to be.

The [Water-form Artist] had no time to worry about how much lake water was left.

As soon as it landed, it immediately transformed into a watery humanoid form and arrived in front of Chen Miemie.

"You are a Great Being the likes of which I have never seen. I would like to exchange a treasure for your forgiveness."

Chen Miemie waved his hand, rejecting it outright.

"I don't need your treasure, because everything you own will become mine."

The [Water-form Artist] somewhat failed to understand Chen Miemie's meaning.

Chen Miemie then finished her sentence:

"Are you willing to follow me forever? Think it through carefully, for you only have one chance to make your choice."