He probably wouldn't let anyone touch it.
Judging by how jealously Peñarosa treasured it, he was just short of chaining it to his body.
A creation this precious was likely scarce even within the Holy Tree family, let alone in Peñarosa's hands—this was never meant for single combat, but was an outright strategic-grade relic!
It used the Path of Tianyuan to distinguish friend from foe, then guided every single attack directly toward the enemy, ensuring the Swarm's violence was deployed without an ounce of waste, entirely converted into the most thorough destruction.
This thing was practically made in heaven for the Way of Conquest with its penchant for large-scale warfare; it could almost serve as an inherited sacred relic of the faction!
As long as it was present, advantages in logistical stockpiles and equipment would be magnified infinitely. Once a map-wide bombardment was endowed with cheat-like precision, simple, brute-force volume alone was enough to drive combat capability naturally skyward.
Not a single trace was wasted.
At this moment, from massive 460mm armor-piercing shells fired by the main batteries down to 15mm naval machine gun rounds, the metal rain unleashed by the entire fleet bridged a distance of tens of kilometers under the scope's guidance, locking onto every body exposed within perception with chilling precision.
Even if guns fired blindly into the sky, the moment the ballistic arcs descended, they would cleanly punch through a skull and claim a life without fail.
As Peñarosa waved and directed, hundreds upon thousands of tracer belts seemed to be gathered by an invisible hand, woven into a single sheaf. It became a veritable torrent of metal, sweeping back and forth among the endless mutated creatures. Countless bursts of crimson and bone fragments sprayed into the heavens before raining back down into the sea.
In an instant, carnage reigned.
Like a ruthless spring cleaning, this rag of metal swung back and forth between sea and sky with reckless abandon, physically wiping away dense clusters of aberrations.
Yet the horn blasts from all sides continued unabated—shrill and piercing, like shrieks of furious wrath.
The murky silhouettes in the driving rain were vanishing rapidly.
Or rather—
Sinking into the sea!
Upon sensing this terrifying destructive power, the encircling merfolk swiftly began to dive. There was no need to meet it head-on; this ocean was their sanctuary and home turf.
No amount of firepower mattered. Once seawater exceeded several meters in depth, bullets completely lost their punch, unable to pierce even dead pig meat.
As for torpedoes and depth charges, no matter how devastating their blast, they could simply leave the herds to take the brunt of it.
Above the rain-drenched battlefield, dead silence descended in an instant, save for the roaring surge of the tide and the rolling rumble of thunder echoing from the sky above.
Through flickering flashes of lightning, one could see the pitch-black darkness of the deep sea churning, creeping upward from the abyss toward the fleet.
An eerie cry resembling song echoed through the rain and sea, gradually merging into the swelling thunder. In the end, only rolling peals of thunder remained between sea and sky, each concussion more violent than the last.
Countless merfolk priests joined their strength to summon the storm.
In that instant, the dark sky convulsed in agony like a woman in labor, folding and crumpling in on itself. Boundless lightning converged into a colossal pillar and came crashing down toward the fleet!
And then, it came to a screeching halt.
It was blocked.
Or rather—
The pure light of destruction, which ought to have been formless and insubstantial, had been seized in a fist!
"Beasts are just beasts after all!"
Peñarosa gave a silent, savage grin.
—You finally took the bait!
*Crack!*
With one hand, he seized the descending lightning from afar and crushed it to pieces.
In his other hand, the halberd fractured inch by inch. What erupted from within was a terrifying radiance that eclipsed even the thunder in the sky. It expanded and elongated, transforming in an instant from physical matter into a bona fide spear of lightning.
A sudden tempest gathered, forming a waterspout that churned sea and sky. After swallowing all the blood and fire of the entire fleet, it converged onto Peñarosa's body.
Amid the weave of bloodfire and raging winds, his Regeneration form emerged.
A magnificent silhouette seemingly forged of storm and thunder appeared over the sea. Beneath the interweaving of the Law of Tianyuan, the purest destruction took the hazy shape of a humanoid form.
Bridling violence and bringing war under absolute control, this Regeneration form was itself the most direct and apt embodiment of the Heaven's Mandate of Conquest.
[Titan]!
Now, holding the spear of lightning reversed, the Titan plunged it violently downward into the sea where the merfolk and herds congregated. He stirred it ruthlessly; the dispersing heat and lightning set the freezing ocean boiling, while spreading bloodfire seemed to ignite the entire sea.
In an instant, the vast herds suffered disastrous casualties. Countless merfolk were scorched by thunder into pulp and ash, continuous cracking and shattering sounds ringing without end.
Screams of terror and malice echoed from the deep sea, which only made Ji Jue's heart ache with agony—those were all raw materials! Couldn't you spare at least a couple?!
Beneath the boiling swells, a colossal dark shadow rose rapidly. Two horns sharp as towers broke the surface of the sea, followed by a giant, centipede-like serpent bristling with arms and claws that shot abruptly from the depths, coiling around the Giant.
Peñarosa roared, lightning bursting from his eyes to scorch the serpent's face. Hissing, the giant serpent clamped its jaws viciously around his neck, wrapping coil after coil around his body like a constrictor crushing its prey, refusing to let go even as its own flesh turned inch by inch to charcoal.
Right on its heels came a second one—
A giant serpent burst from the shadows beneath the waves, wrapping around his arm and binding him with another shackle.
Even if they were merely beasts, mutating to such an extent brought signs of atavism, inheriting a trace of the bloodline of the Azure Jiao or White Jiao. Their sheer bulk was too immense to be obliterated in an instant.
Yet neither could they threaten the Titan Giant's existence. They could only wear down his power in vain—buying that single, most critical window of opportunity.
For an instant, the entire battlefield fell dead silent.
All was mute.
In the driving rain, boundless blood and corpses floated into the air as if breaking free from gravity's tether, forming a vortex. Fragments of countless merfolk and herds, pieced together with gallons of blood, actually outlined a colossal head, part human, part serpent.
Like a decrepit old crone whose face was covered in layers of scales, thirsty vertical pupils snapped open. When its gaping maw split wide to the edges of its cheeks, it resembled a monstrous, hideous laugh.
Yet that appearance struck Peñarosa like a thunderbolt.
It sent Haming's vision black, plunging him into the abyss.
It was over.
Everything was ruined.
He broke into sobs, lamenting the funeral of himself and his uncle. If anything happened to Peñarosa, Dancheng would likely be wiped from the face of the earth beneath the Holy Tree family's purge—
Why the fuck was this happening?!
Everyone was just out here going through the motions! What the hell are you beasts playing at?!
[Azure Jiao]!
[Disaster], [Hazard], [Desolation], [Extinction], [End].
This was the pinnacle of what various factions classified as [Desolation]-grade calamity beasts, one of the twin banes roaming the Endless Sea, the progenitor and eternal sovereign of the merfolk: the Azure Jiao!
Whenever either of them woke, the merfolk would fall into madness, collecting food and flesh at any cost to sate their appetite and thirst.
And the only reason they were merely classified as Desolation-grade was not because they were weak, but because they almost never fought pitched battles—their favorite tactic was ambushing.
Furthermore, they never appeared as a pair—
The Azure Jiao and White Jiao never appeared in the same place, nor did they ever become active at the same time.
Even if one was slain, so long as the other remained hidden and undiscovered, it could always be revived once more.
According to the analyses and deductions of Vortex scholars, even if both were killed, so long as a single tribe of merfolk survived in the abyss, they would sooner or later resurrect from atavistic jiao-spawn and grow anew.
Merfolk and jiao had always been one and the same, codependent. As long as the merfolk endured, the existence of the Azure Jiao and White Jiao could never be erased!
Under the deaths of vast swathes of merfolk and the summonings of the priests, the Azure Jiao had temporarily awakened from death, lurking coldly in wait for its opportunity.
Now, using the corpses of countless merfolk, it struck with sudden fury!
Like a snake swallowing an elephant.
Toward the Titan Giant before it, its maw opened, widened, and stretched open still further, swelling to an incredible size.
The broken, incomplete serpent head was like a mountain. Inside that gaping maw, nothing of the world beyond could be seen—only pure pitch-black, a terrifying void that seemed to lead to another world.
Merely opening its mouth swallowed the storm that filled the heavens.
The terrifying suction dragged endless seawater, howling winds, driving rain, and even the dark clouds into the darkness beyond—as if half the world had fallen into its belly.
And the remaining half could not escape either!
Boundless darkness surged toward Peñarosa!
The giant maw snapped shut.
*Boom!*
Amid an earth-shattering roar, it was as if a mountain range had plunged into the vast sea, throwing up waves tens of thousands of feet high.
"Huh?"
Peñarosa stood frozen in place, dumbstruck.
He even forgot to struggle—
He could only stare at the dazed, incomplete serpent head before him, and its bulging, utterly stuffed mouth—
The moment the serpent had opened its mouth and lunged at him, something seemed to have dropped right in front of him.
From tens of thousands of meters up in the sky, the Prosperity descended from the heavens!
Throughout that long yet fleeting fall, the mountain-like ship accelerated, accelerated, and accelerated again, crushing dark clouds and ripping the vault of heaven apart. Throwing out expanding Mach rings one after another, with a heavy *gulp*—
It slammed with pinpoint accuracy straight into the Azure Jiao's gaping maw!
—A! Moun! Tain! From! Be! Yond! The! Hea! Vens!
It was like a world-weary heavy-truck driver smoking a cigarette, reminiscing about the old days to a rookie and asking with wistful nostalgia: "Have you ever heard of a ramming technique that descends from the heavens?"
At this moment, considering only the mass of the preliminary Juque combined with the gravitational potential energy gained through its plunge and acceleration, by the time it crashed into the mouth of the Azure Jiao's avatar, it was practically no different from a mountain!
What was more, it could still increase its weight!
Chapter 741