The merfolk were coming!
Surprise! Shocked yet?
Before anyone even had a chance to resume the singing and dancing, the harrowing accounts and reports brought by numerous survivors spread like wildfire across the Seven Cities. Even the media blackout jointly enforced by the seven ruling families failed to stifle the news.
There were simply too many channels, and the Seven Cities' apparatus was far too slipshod.
As for Luo Island, Ji Jue could have suppressed the news if he wished, but he saw no point in doing so.
The impending menace of the merfolk was an excellent way to force those self-proclaimed wise men—the "geniuses" who spent every day preaching that the disaster wind posed no real threat—to see the situation clearly and abandon their blind optimism.
Bloodthirsty behemoths measuring ten to twenty meters in length were currently traveling in pods, migrating and dispersing eastward across the Endless Sea one pack after another.
Judging by the position and direction of ocean currents, at least several packs would pass through the waters surrounding the Seven Cities. If any of them slipped into the cities through sewer drainage systems or underground waterways, the consequences would be catastrophic.
Merfolk were apex oceanic predators with a natural, potent affinity for the Desolate Ruins and Entropy paths. Their sheer destructive capability defied conventional reason.
Even more terrifyingly, unlike other solitary apex predators, merfolk were intensely pack-oriented. They hunted in organized groups with a clear internal division of labor, and their intellect was far from low—reaching a level comparable to an eleven- or twelve-year-old human upon maturity.
Any pack large enough to be called a tribe could range from dozens to over a hundred members in smaller groups, while larger ones could swell to hundreds or even thousands.
Crossing paths with even a single specimen spelled certain doom for an ordinary fishing boat. In organized schools, they were bold enough to launch coordinated assaults on Federation and Imperial warships alike.
Furthermore, when large numbers clustered together, hormonal shifts could trigger an atavistic regression, giving rise to an embryonic flood dragon brood. If that happened, their scale and ferocity would expand exponentially.
At that point, it would become an outright natural disaster.
Granted, if things truly escalated to such an extreme, the Seven Cities wouldn't even need to worry.
In all recorded history, such an event had occurred only once in the northern waters of the Endless Sea, causing damage so outrageous that the Federation and the Empire would undoubtedly be the first to panic. When the sky falls, let the tall men hold it up; everyone else could just lie flat and watch the big bosses work.
What made the current situation so infuriating was precisely that it wasn't small enough to ignore, yet not grand enough to disregard completely.
If it wasn't resolved, endless trouble would follow.
It was like a sudden cudgel to the skull, leaving everyone's head buzzing.
Right now, the top priority was to figure out where on earth these merfolk had come from, what they were after, and why the hell they were migrating into the eastern waters!
And so, spearheaded by the Seven Cities Council, the seven families investigated up and down. After synthesizing intelligence from all sides, they realized that when all was said and done, the blame ultimately lay with the Federation.
In theory, as long as you lived close enough to the Federation, you could blame them for virtually everything. This time, however, pointing fingers felt entirely justified.
During the previous rainy season, the Haizhou Security Bureau had eradicated the merfolk pods near the Federation far too thoroughly—they had practically butchered them to the root!
As a consequence, with the merfolk threat eliminated, the fish stocks had reproduced at an extraordinary rate this year, exploding exponentially under the brooding harbingers of the disaster wind.
The scent of boundless food continuously drew outside merfolk pods toward the region, much like nomadic tribes chasing lush pastures.
One could only marvel at the wonders of ecological balance.
They had come for an all-you-can-eat buffet!
Yet thinking it through a step further: the Security Bureau had clashed with the merfolk in the first place because an abnormal spike in ocean temperatures threw the fish schools into chaos, driving the merfolk to follow their prey closer to Haizhou.
And the rise in temperature occurred because that old dog Duke Wuyou spared no expense to reignite the Flame Tide Calamity, burning clean through the barrier of the Sacrificial Temple of the Ancient Beginning...
And speaking of the Flame Tide Calamity...
In the end, Ji Jue realized that tracing the blame from one source to the next brought it right back to himself.
"What in the goddamn hell!"
Ji Jue turned the brief over in his hands, his vision darkening the more he read. Didn't this make him look like a jinx who caused disasters wherever he went?
He engaged in some thorough self-reflection, wondering why every crisis under the sun somehow managed to connect back to him. Ultimately, he concluded that those dog bastards were simply too undisciplined and kept trying to drag him into their messes!
What else could it be?
Could he possibly be at fault?
Utterly impossible!
With that, he cast the briefing aside and threw himself back into his research, paying it no further mind.
Meanwhile, the news of the approaching merfolk spread through the Seven Cities like an uncontrolled blaze.
Old reports were constantly dredged up on social media, while the estimated size of the merfolk pods grew ever more absurd. What began as a few pods grew to a dozen, then to dozens, and eventually to hundreds. Countless people swore by recycled reports, embellishing every detail until the numbers and threat level swelled beyond all reason.
Panic surged like a tidal wave.
In reality, the merfolk were still far beyond the horizon, and their numbers couldn't possibly be that ridiculous.
However, at least one point was undeniably true: if the migrating merfolk passed anywhere nearby, they certainly wouldn't ignore the presence of the Seven Cities. A merfolk's senses and smell were sharper than a bloodhound's, capable of detecting food dozens of li away, let alone a massive concentration of human population.
If nothing else, the daily discharge of copious wastewater and sewage carried enough scent to lure passing merfolk like hungry fish to a hook.
Who wouldn't want a fresh feast?
Sensational rumors ran rampant, annoying Ji Jue to no end. Soon enough, however, he discovered why the circulating reports couldn't be quelled.
The Dancheng Association made a high-profile announcement: they would launch an expedition to repel and cull the oncoming merfolk packs, vowing to prevent any harm from befalling the Seven Cities. As long as Dancheng stood, they would never allow those beasts to disrupt everyone's peaceful lives!
In an instant, while earning the enthusiastic praise of the local populace, accounts of Dancheng's military strength, armaments, philanthropic deeds, and noble character flooded every channel in the Seven Cities. For a time, they were practically hailed as the beacon of civilization across the Endless Sea.
"Building momentum already?"
Ji Jue glanced at the news and nearly chuckled out loud.
"Indeed," Minkler sighed. "Looks like the Empire offered quite a generous payout."
Dancheng was ruled by the Dancheng Association, a conglomerate of merchant syndicates, and the backer behind them was none other than the Holy Tree family, the Imperial faction most fond of establishing overseas branches.
Having risen to power on the foundation of native Imperial religious sects, the Holy Tree family possessed immense wealth and resources. Their favorite tactic was hedging their bets across every board, wielding considerable influence across the Endless Sea, Mid-Continent, and even the Federation. Reaching into the Seven Cities was hardly a surprise.
"While you were away these past few days, that old codger has been scurrying around, roping in quite a crowd," Minkler remarked over the phone. "He didn't even spare Chopra. You've missed out on plenty of good drama."
"If I were there, he might not have had the guts to put on such a show."
Ji Jue smiled indifferently. He didn't need to think twice to know what pretext Dancheng was using—chances were, their current diplomatic web was built entirely on the threat he himself posed!
Realizing everyone held him in such high regard, Ji Jue didn't know whether he ought to feel flattered.
Originally, everyone had been praying for the Sukarno family to drop dead. Yet unexpectedly, drop dead they did, but in place of the Sukarnos came Ji Jue.
And he was far worse than the Sukarnos!
Even if the Sukarnos became alliance leader, the Seven Cities would still remain the Seven Cities. But if Ji Jue took that seat, only a ghost knew what godforsaken state the cities would be reduced to.
Starting trouble was as natural to him as breathing. When killing people, he went as wild as a chosen of Frenzied Slaughter. He played political games like a Tyrant and rotted his rivals like Stagnant Rot.
On top of all that, he was a Golden Ribbon artisan of the Ring of Taiyi and an infamous arms dealer from the Federation. His overlapping identities made people dizzy just looking at them. With such a freak living next door, who could possibly sleep at night?
The Sukarno family was still staring at them from the factory assembly line!
By comparison, even a diehard reformist like Fernan seemed warm and approachable.
"For this merfolk hunt, that old fellow Callisto actually put on a hypocritical show and invited you to join," Minkler added from the other end of the line.
Ji Jue's hands paused for a moment. He fell silent, momentarily blank. "Who's Callisto?"
Minkler fell silent as well.
You were just in Pucheng attending the council meeting a few days ago, shaking hands and smiling like long-lost brothers, and you didn't even remember his name?
He sighed and reminded him, "The president of the Dancheng Association."
"Oh, Vermin Number Two." Ji Jue slapped his forehead, finally retrieving the name from the distant fringes of his memory. "Sure. Tell him I'll go."
"Huh?"
Minkler froze, reflexively sitting up straight. "For real?"
"Why not?" Ji Jue finished his task. "The man went through all the trouble of making a grand display and flexing his muscles. If I don't show up, wouldn't his preparations go to waste? Besides, I'd like to see what the Holy Tree family is capable of."
"I see."
Minkler let out a knowing sigh, as if struck by sudden realization. "You're going to stir up trouble again, aren't you!"
In truth, Ji Jue really just wanted to broaden his horizons!
More importantly, he wanted to go hunting!
Having waited so long for the disaster wind, now that it was finally here, if the merfolk could come for an all-you-can-eat buffet, why shouldn't he grab a bite as well?
Moreover, aside from the merfolk materials Sister Wen had brought back as souvenirs, Ji Jue had never actually seen a living specimen. Regardless of how many records and files he had read, he needed to make a firsthand assessment.
He would start by catching a live one!
The moment he agreed, Ji Jue set sail directly into the ocean, leaving a cursing Lou Feng behind to continue turning his endless millstone...
Under the cover of night, the *Prosperity* sped through the light mist toward the migration route of the merfolk pods. Like a phantom, it slipped along without raising the slightest ripple.
That was because the entire *Prosperity* was floating above the water!
Compared to its previously battered state, the current *Prosperity* had transformed entirely. In terms of external appearance—
—it looked even more battered, and even more derelict.
It bore no resemblance to a cargo ship at all. Instead, it looked like a ship-shaped chunk of rock. The completely stripped hull revealed an organic iron-gray tone, completely devoid of reflection, and it felt like solid stone when tapped.
Parts of the irregular hull protruded in odd places, and its overall volume had grown noticeably larger...
More crucially, Ji Jue could finally install various equipment without fear of Little Niuma accidentally slurping away all the material properties.
Because the ship was, at long last, full!
It turned out that making real progress required leaning on your peers. When it came to rich concentration and nutritional value of material properties, nothing beat the Desolate Ruins!
Ji Jue had fed the corpse he scavenged from the Blood Vengeance Trial straight to Juque. An established Exaltation master's lifetime accumulation of Regeneration forms and shattered Encircled Realms were processed under Three-Phase Alchemy and utterly consumed by Juque.
A single corpse weighed over a dozen tons, and the sturdy material properties locked inside surpassed countless rare treasures. No wonder they were hailed as fine jade and prime stock.
Ji Jue hadn't been idle along the way, either. Over the past few days, he had dismantled the Blessings stripped from the corpse, turned them into expansion modules for Juque, and installed them all.
Following [Immovable as a Mountain], he added two new Blessing chains: [Layered Mountains and Waters] and [Oceans Dry and Rocks Crumble]. The effect of the former was straightforward—stacking an additional barrier on top of existing defense, alternating dual shields for faster armor generation and quicker recovery.
Meanwhile, [Oceans Dry and Rocks Crumble] raised the ship's upper limits and endurance, lowering the consumption required to sustain defensive states over long periods.
It was all about stacking armor, stacking armor, and stacking more armor!
Now that the deficiencies in Project Juque were thoroughly patched, the *Prosperity*'s defense had reached a terrifying degree. Even without activating any Blessings, it could take a point-blank barrage from a warship's main cannons head-on.
Ji Jue's ideal standard was that if Sister Wen suddenly lost her temper one day and wanted to thrash him, the ship could hold out for half an hour against a crystalline dragon lance falling from the sky!
From the looks of it, if it were only a crystalline dragon lance, it seemed entirely capable of withstanding it.
As long as she didn't breathe fire.
As for the cost—the cost was that aside from looking like a vessel, the entire Juque no longer had anything to do with a ship. If placed directly in the water, it wouldn't even float.
Its weight already exceeded a solid block of iron of equivalent size. Relying on buoyancy alone, it would instantly sink straight to the ocean floor, as deep as the seabed went.
At the same time, however, as Juque, it resonated incessantly with the stars above and the earth below. Without expending much spiritus at all, it could hover weightlessly between sea and sky purely through the pull of gravity and the push of repulsion.
There was no need to ride the wind, much less cleave the waves.
Like an iron mountain gliding silently over the sea, it came and went with ease. Although its acceleration was somewhat sluggish, once up to speed, its sheer inertial momentum alone could crush everything in its path like an artillery shell.
This was the purest form of mass.
Juque had no need for redundant weaponry; the sheer physical weight of its existence was enough to demolish every obstacle in its path!
Without wasting any time, the *Prosperity* cleared the territorial waters of the Seven Cities before dawn, delving deep into the vast ocean. In this desolate expanse devoid of established shipping lanes, not a single ghost could be seen across ten thousand li.
After making a rough estimate of the merfolk pods' travel speed, Ji Jue circled an area on the nautical chart and found they were still a thousand li away.
He had arrived too early.
Still, even if the main body of the pods remained far off, the scouts dispatched by these aberrant creatures should have reached the vicinity by now.
To an extent, despite being muddle-headed beasts, they actually understood how to send out scouts ahead to probe the route. They even possessed a primitive language among themselves, structured with astonishing complexity, and different pods even spoke different dialects.
No wonder they were called merfolk.
This level of intelligence alone far surpassed other beasts, to say nothing of the threat they posed.
Once he found a suitable spot, Ji Jue skillfully prepared his groundbait and cast his line...
Time to go fishing!
After so much metaphorical baiting and angling over the years, this was the first time he was applying these skills to actual fish. To ensure he didn't return empty-handed, he spared no expense.
Drawing upon the shattered scale in his material vault, he extracted a substantial amount of aberrant flesh and tossed it into the ocean.
Submerged in seawater, the writhing crimson flesh began to convulse and spasm rapidly. Skin and scales sprouted, and its internal anatomy gradually shifted.
It was as if the flesh harbored the anatomical blueprints of countless species, naturally evolving the moment it encountered a new environment.
The flesh multiplied swiftly in the seawater, soon turning into a bizarre mass of tissue. Animal fur and scales broke through the surface, swimming aimlessly, before extending tendrils to capture nearby fish and shrimp.
Even without consciousness or reason, raw biological instinct manifested aquatic traits. After seizing several octopuses and crabs in succession, tentacles and shells began to form across the writhing flesh, followed by fish-like eyes.
Right before Ji Jue's eyes, it came alive!
A mere scale shed from a Great Sin Fish—and the derivative borne of the blood seeping from it—was already growing and evolving at breakneck speed.
A few minutes later, the skin beneath the shedding scales took on mimetic markings, clinging flat against a reef like an inconspicuous pattern.
Left unchecked, a brand-new, terrifying predator would probably roam these waters before long.
Unfortunately, it was already too late.
The moment it hit the water, its scent and blood had dissolved into the sea, spreading silently and alerting the behemoth prowling the perimeter.
In the deep abyss untouched by sunlight, waves abruptly surged.
A massive, serpentine body coiled and swung, pursuing the unprecedented sweet aroma as it accelerated into a sprint. Yet even at full speed, it didn't stir a single undercurrent or make the faintest sound.
The ravenous merfolk glided silently forward, its sharp, swaying scales slicing through tangled kelp like blades as it crept into position.
Faced with a meal delivered to its doorstep, it still maintained a fair degree of caution, even surveying its surroundings. Regrettably, it completely overlooked the rock-like *Prosperity* resting on the surface, inching closer, closer, and closer still.
Until it struck in a sudden explosion!
A colossal surge erupted in the deep sea as the twenty-meter-long merfolk shot forth like lightning. Its jaws gaped wide with a deafening snap, slamming shut with violent force.
With a crunch, the carapace was ground to dust. The fleshy derivative was trapped between two rows of razor-sharp teeth and torn to shreds. As thick blood bloomed through the water, it was ravenously devoured in great gulps.
The merfolk's bite force was even more absurd than a hippopotamus's. From the moment its teeth closed, no matter how the derivative struggled, escape was impossible.
Yet just as it was relishing the sweet nectar, it felt the flesh in its maw abruptly melt. It twisted, swelled, and when the creature realized something was amiss and tried to spit it out, it discovered its jaws were locked tight.
As if sealed with instant glue, the bizarre flesh plugged its mouth, expanding and spreading with frantic speed. No matter how its four human-like arms clawed and pulled, the mass refused to budge. The melting flesh kept spreading, even gluing its hands fast in return...
By the time it tried to flee, it was too late.
The charge buried deep within the flesh detonated.
Shattered by the impact of Jingzhen, the merfolk convulsed once and lost all ability to resist. Towed by a slender, unbreakable silver wire, it was hauled upward against its will, inch by inch.
A winch hoisted it into the hold, dumping it straight onto the operating table prepared specifically for it.
Even paralyzed, the merfolk remained ferocious, twitching constantly in an effort to struggle until its strength was completely spent.
In the end, all it earned was an admiring sigh from the human before it.
"Quite lively for a little tyke, aren't you?" Ji Jue marveled, leaning in to examine it. "Tell uncle, how old are you this year?"
The merfolk let out a feeble hiss.
Its venomous, famished eyes glared fixedly at him, weak and helpless. Yet just as Ji Jue threw his head back and laughed, the creature, which should have been thoroughly incapacitated, snapped forward with a sudden jolt. Beneath its torn scales, an arm had somehow regained mobility, clawing straight for Ji Jue's throat!
And then...
It fell right into Ji Jue's grasp.
Pinned effortlessly in his hand, its razor-sharp claws couldn't even leave a scratch on his slender, pale fingers.
Instead, his grip tightened around it.
Like a sleazy karaoke boss groping a hand, he kneaded it casually.
"My, so enthusiastic!"
Ji Jue beamed with joy. "Come on, let uncle read your palm. Hmm, where's your career line? Your love line doesn't look great either—single from birth, clearly. And your lifeline's on the short side, too. Well..."
He paused for a beat, letting out a regretful sigh.
"Judging by this length, I'm afraid you'll only live until today."
Chapter 736