Vermin and Vermin

In the silence, no one spoke in the conference channel. More accurately, their faces had finally dropped into sullen scowls. A solution? What other solution could there be? Nothing more than killing. If everyone went mad like you and just killed, killed, killed, how was anyone supposed to live! A rabid dog through and through. He had barely stepped through the door before he started baring his fangs at everyone... Don't fucking forget, the Seven Cities belong to all of us, not a place for you to throw your weight around. "It seems the disagreement between Mr. Ji and everyone is a bit larger than anticipated," Callisto sighed softly. "As for a solution, I think we should take our time and discuss it thoroughly. There's no need to damage our harmony over such a trivial matter." "Where's this harmony? I don't see it. Since you're neither willing to listen nor willing to learn, why come to me in the first place? To tell jokes?" Ji Jue waved a dismissive hand, not bothering to waste another second. "Fine, that's enough of this farce. I've heard my fill. Go home and stir your own shit. I truly hope that after the noxious wind passes, I'll still see everyone looking so lively." His avatar was the first to darken. Right after, Minkler offered a faint smile and disconnected. After a brief silence in the conference channel, they departed one by one, leaving only Fernan staring quietly at the darkened screen before him. Exhaustion etched into his face, he opened his mouth as if to say something, but in the end closed his eyes and waved a hand. He shut down the screen. The meeting was over, but anyone with half a brain could guess that another meeting had likely already begun in secret, in full swing. And what would that meeting be targeting, if not Ji Jue? When it came to Deus Ex Machina, no one was foolish enough now to discuss critical matters over electronic devices. It would be strange if they weren't on guard. Since you, Ji Jue, are unwilling to assimilate into the local circle, don't blame everyone for uniting to shut you out. He had only just seized Xiangzhou and Luo Island, yet he was already this rampant. His wild ambitions were plain for all to see. With such a monster lurking beside their beds, who could possibly sleep soundly? "I'm afraid those fellows are going to stir up trouble after this," Minkler called to say. "No matter. With the noxious wind upon us, they won't manage any major moves." Ji Jue sneered. "I can do without Luo Island, but can they do without the Seven Cities?" At this critical juncture, having rejected their invitation to wallow in the mud and openly broken relations with them, they had no way to deal with Ji Jue. At most, it would be subtle stabs in the back and isolation. Being infamous had its perks: anyone who wanted to make a move had to weigh the consequences first. If Ji Jue didn't die, none of them would meet a good end; if Ji Jue did die, they wouldn't come out ahead either. Luo Island wasn't an indispensable core interest to Ji Jue. Even if Luo Island were lost, he could just haul everyone off to Haizhou—there was plenty of room in the wilderness! Worst-case scenario, he could just go build New Quancheng! Rather than playing games with this bunch of vermin, it was far better to focus on more pressing matters. Tsunamis, and storms. The chain reaction triggered by the earthquake had already stirred up raging swells across the Endless Sea. Several hours ago, massive waves had been spotted rising from the water, surging toward the Seven Cities. However, without the subterranean earth veins to conduct them, they might not maintain their intensity by the time they reached the Seven Cities. The subsequent storms and bizarre weather were the real trouble. On satellite imagery, fresh cloud masses had coalesced, gradually blanketing the western waters of the Endless Sea in vast storm clouds. Amid rolling claps of thunder, the pitch-black clouds advanced inch by inch like an iron curtain, draping the firmament until torrential rain came pouring down at dawn. Between the pitch-black sea and sky, sheets of rain veiled the lights of Luocheng. In the silence, only the deafening rain and rumbling tides could be heard. Even standing on solid island ground, one felt the unnerving dread of a lone skiff pitching about, ready to capsize at any moment. Fortunately, the post-earthquake disaster response had been steady and swift. Aside from some local flooding where drainage systems hadn't been repaired in time, no major issues arose. As for what the rest of the Seven Cities would become, that was beyond Ji Jue's concern. Ever since that fallout, Luo Island had virtually severed ties with the Seven Cities Council. No one spoke of mutual assistance anymore. Like classroom bullying through the silent treatment—collective ostracization and ignoring. We're not playing with you! Whether that was a bad thing or a good thing was hard to say. After several days of continuous downpour, vegetation across Luo Island grew rampantly, and even the mosquitoes in the foul ditches swelled several sizes larger... The mutations brought by the noxious wind grew increasingly severe. Under the dim daylight, the dreary rain droned on without end. Meanwhile, the stench from piles of dead fish grew more pungent by the hour, until white foam frothed on the gray seawater. In the Seven Cities now, no one dared venture out to sea. Dead fish, dead fish everywhere. Patches of them spread across the ocean surface like mold, drifting with the currents and piling up around the island. Some even fell from the sky... *BOOM!* Amid a muffled crack of thunder, cold, foul-smelling rain poured from the overcast sky once more, but this time it was accompanied by a relentless series of thuds. Screams erupted one after another. Vast quantities of dead fish plummeted alongside the rain. Dense black dots emerged from the heavens, growing larger and larger before crashing down onto the streets and beaches, splattering flesh and entrails in every direction. A waterspout from somewhere unknown had scooped up vast schools of fish and was now scattering them across the island, coating every corner in scales and rotting meat. Then, once the storm subsided and the weather cleared, a sickening "fragrance" enveloped all of Luocheng under the blistering sun. And worse still were the things drawn by the stench... "They really aren't even pretending anymore, are they?" After waiting for days, Ji Jue gave a wry, angry laugh as he looked toward the horizon, where dense swarms of black specks whistled forward. "Couldn't you at least put on a show?" Sea Locusts! Mutated in the sea and driven into mad, ravenous frenzy, all of them... What a sheer coincidence: piles of dead fish drop from the sky, followed immediately by an endless swarm of Sea Locusts charging straight for Luo Island? If anyone thought there wasn't foul play behind this, Ji Jue might as well scoop out his brains and dump them in the trash. As for who did it... Ji Jue didn't care to guess. Whoever he pointed at, that's who it was. The vermin in the Seven Cities were undeniably involved. Even if they lacked the guts to challenge Ji Jue in the open, tripping him up in the dark was child's play. They didn't even need to do much—merely isolating Luo Island was enough to make it look like an easy mark ripe for the picking. Dropping a hint, pointing the way, or tossing out an idea on the side—who didn't know how to do that? "Should we sound the alarm?" Inside the workshop, Lou Feng poked his head out after receiving the alert. "No need. Trash is still trash no matter how much there is. What good does piling up leftover scrap do?" Ji Jue waved dismissively. "Tell the sanitation department to keep working. A perfectly fine island reeking like this makes life unbearable." "What about the swarm outside?" "I'll sweep them myself." Ji Jue rolled up his sleeves. "Even a mosquito's leg is meat, however small. Besides, with this many mosquito legs piled together... it would be a shame to waste them." Across the quiet sea and sky, a low buzzing began to rise. The sky, which had only just cleared, darkened once more as a terrifying deluge poured from the clouds like a tidal wave... At this moment, the ocean, the air, and the firmament seemed to be swallowed by a rapidly expanding darkness. The countless specks converged into a black tide that threatened to devour everything. As those dots rapidly expanded, their grotesque forms became clear: bodies that seemed like a cross between fish and insects, covered in scales and carapace, tails and jointed legs, along with all manner of bizarre mutations. The Sea Locusts, unstable to begin with, had mutated even further under the noxious wind's spur, turning into an assortment of monstrous abominations. As for the adults, their sizes were even more absurd than what Ji Jue had seen back in Mid-Continent. No one knew how much they had gorged on under the wind's influence; countless specimens were the size of trucks, and even more lurked in the deep sea, their bizarre and terrifying silhouettes barely discernible beneath the waves. And countless juveniles were already taking flight! Now Ji Jue finally understood why they were called Sea Locusts. These things truly could sprout wings. Right under his gaze, as hordes of Sea Locusts feasted voraciously on piles of dead fish offshore, wet insect wings sprouted straight out of their backs. Sprouting on demand, right on the spot... And their numbers had completely exceeded anything Ji Jue could calculate. Individually, Sea Locusts posed little threat to a Celestial Chosen, but now they choked the sea and sky, continuing to converge... Shrieks and hisses rose in waves, calling to one another as their buzzing wings scattered pheromones to relay the message far into the distance. By sheer numbers alone, this was an unmitigated disaster! Among the various calamity beasts, the Sea Locust was one of the few without a designated rating. While an individual posed no real threat, as their numbers exploded and their swarm expanded, the danger they presented to city-states and settlements skyrocketed. Impossible to slaughter completely, impossible to eradicate. No matter how many you killed, it was pointless—they would even devour the corpses of their own kind... Only when they had eaten everything bare and turned on one another in starvation would the swarm collapse and the disaster subside. Though they posed no threat to Ji Jue himself, to Luo Island, this was an existential catastrophe! Now, the locust plague whistled in from all directions, across the sky and through the sea... The deafening drone of wings roared like thunder without pause, churning the tides and stirring relentless waves. Ji Jue could almost envision the mastermind laughing silently in the shadows. *A multiple-choice question, Ji Jue. Your turn.* *Abandon Luo Island and flee in disgrace, or exhaust yourself in vain trying to save it?* For a moment, Ji Jue felt countless gazes settle upon him. Even outside the office, the silence was deafening. When he pushed open the door, he saw anxious, panicked figures at their desks. Their eyes turned toward him, looking as though they wanted to speak, yet no sound came out. "M-Mr. Ji..." The person closest stammered, voice cutting short as he scrambled to his feet in panic, unsure of what to do. Ji Jue remained cold and unperturbed. His gaze swept over those faces he had barely seen a handful of times, settling on an empty desk. "Unexcused absence during work hours. First warning." "Huh?" The man froze, dumbfounded, failing to process the words. "Given the circumstances, I won't mark it down as truancy. Don't let me see it happen again." Ji Jue gave a chilly warning. "Finance, draft a notice later: allowances are doubled for the next few days, and overtime pay will be disbursed in full. The cafeteria staff will have to work harder—make sure meal supplies don't lapse. Do I need to repeat myself?" "Uh, g-got it!" Snapping back to reality, the employee frantically jotted down Ji Jue's instructions. Ji Jue nodded, staring directly at them before asking, "Then what are you all still standing around for? Don't you have work to do? Did I hire you to run a charity?" Work is work! Even if lightning strikes, you still work! Just because Sea Locusts are here, you think you can ignore your performance metrics? You signed a contract and entered the factory, so sell your body, blood, and youth honestly, and don't give me any of that nonsense! If you ask me, you just haven't tightened enough screws! Get to work! And so, under his impassive gaze, the factory that had plunged into panic spun back into full gear, restored to order with all fear vanished. Gradually, the shadows blanketing the sky and the eerie screeching echoing through the air seemed to fade like an illusion, vanishing without a sound. When the busy workers raised their heads in confusion and looked out the window, they found that nothing could be seen outside. Only a swath of pale white. Pale mist spread silently, like a pure white tapestry draping between the sea and sky, encompassing all of Luo Island. Countless wisps of white converged, dancing sinuously. Like a wall of ten thousand fathoms rising between sea and sky, cutting off inside from outside. The Veil had fallen, cloaking the stage. There was no show to see here.