Beneath the Veil

Silent and soundless. The veil that seemed to bridge the sea and sky expanded without a whisper. Lofty and mercurial, dense as an iron wall, yet drifting light as if dancing on the wind. Awaiting the arrival of any and all visitors. There was no earth-shattering boom, not even the slightest ripple to be seen. Pale mist covered everything, swallowing all. Outside the Veil, tempestuous waves were churning and gathering layer upon layer. Between the heavens and the ocean, an omnipresent violent black tide raged. Innumerable Sea Locusts rose and fell, congregating, mating, fighting, squabbling over dead fish and rotten carrion on the sea surface, screeching at the top of their lungs. Yet it was still not enough. Even more sweet aromas wafted from the deepest recesses of the mist. More food! Amid the convergence of massive volumes of pheromones, the boundless locusts in the sea grew increasingly ferocious, ravenous, and frenzied. From among the rotting fish and dense darkness atop the water, swarms of Sea Locusts suddenly took flight, howling toward Luo Island. They could bear it no longer. Midair, hordes of Sea Locusts coalesced, winding forward like rivers. Dozens of continuous, undulating torrents plunged straight into the mist. Finally... Far beyond the perimeter, untold covert watchers watched with eyes lighting up, chuckling soundlessly. However, the grins soon froze on their faces. Behind the Veil, absolute silence reigned. It was as if nothing had happened at all. Nothing could be seen, nothing could be heard. The mist did not change in the slightest, generously and magnanimously welcoming every visitor. There was no commotion whatsoever! No fire, no lightning, no hissing shrieks, no clamor, nor even the faintest fluctuation of spiritus. From beginning to end, the Veil hung high. Only an endless stream of Sea Locusts continued plunging inward—hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands. Every slender tributary was formed from thousands of Sea Locusts. In just a few short minutes, who could count how many had charged into that expanse of mist from the sky, the sea, and the air? And then? Then, there was no then. From start to finish, no one had any clue what had happened, not even the Sea Locusts themselves... Not a single Sea Locust that entered the mist ever flew back out. Only the Veil danced gracefully between the sea and the sky. Refusing none. "..." The same dead silence spread through the Seven Cities Council in Pucheng. The conference room, which had just been cheerfully awaiting a good show, fell dead quiet once more. Everyone had gathered under the pretense of standing united in the same boat and showing concern over the situation, just to watch the spectacle, vent some frustration, and look for an opportunity to kick someone while they were down. Instead, the movie had started ages ago, so why was the screen still black?! Never mind characters and special effects—there wasn't even any sound! Can someone tell me what the hell is playing here? Wait, you bastards aren't teaming up to put on an act for us, are you? A more pressing issue lay at hand. "...That thing." The Master of Yamen's expression grew stern. Paying no heed to the scalding teacup in his hand, he leaned in involuntarily and voiced the confusion lingering in everyone's minds: "What on earth is that thing?" In the renewed silence, Callisto of Dancheng twitched slightly, as if recalling something, though he sounded uncertain himself: "Looks like the Venom Fleet's Veil?" For a moment, everyone turned to look at him. As if looking at an idiot. The kind having a full-body seizure while drooling. The Veil? Who here hasn't seen that before?! Since when was the Veil this absurd?! Back in the day, the Sukarno family hadn't been discreet about it; they could hardly wait to show it off every day. But back then, the Veil had, at best, attenuated the power of artillery shells and exerted a little crowd control during naval battles. How could it be this terrifying? Swallowing so many Sea Locusts without making a peep was one thing, but it didn't even let out a burp! If it were truly that formidable, the Venom Fleet would have dominated the Seven Cities long ago. Why would the Sukarno family have even bothered vying for alliance leader? Dropping this thing right over someone's home base would make anyone kowtow... If it wasn't the Veil, what was it? They exchanged glances in silence; nobody said another word. In the hush, Callisto suddenly recalled the Holy Tree family's warm attitude toward Ji Jue, and a chill ran through him. Involuntarily, a shudder-inducing conjecture crept into his mind. Perhaps that threat not long ago—about being able to wipe out Yamen within three days—wasn't just an empty bluff! No matter how many Sea Locusts swarmed in, and no matter the tangle of mixed emotions swirling in the hearts of the spectators outside, the Veil remained aloof and impassive throughout. Like light gauze rising on the breeze, beneath the pale gray lay yet another layer of pale gray. No matter how hard one tried to peer through, peeling back layer after layer of mist, all that awaited behind was unchanged mist. What appeared to be a single veil had long since been partitioned into countless layers of such structures. The thick veil capable of shrouding all of Luo Island was, in essence, an alchemical megastructure composed of over tens of thousands of layers of spiritus mist! Indeed, the Veil of the past could never have expanded to such a scale, but what Ji Jue wielded today was a far cry from before. In terms of sheer scale alone, the scraps of the Venom Fleet weren't even fit to carry the current Veil's shoes! The mist once woven from myriad remnant spirits and grudges was, at best, an artificial domain meant to interfere with artillery fire. Yet such a crude structure had provided Ji Jue with boundless inspiration. After drastic overhauls and purging the remnant spirits that possessed nothing but spite, what gathered within now was the fully specialized spirit of the Lord of the Flies. These faint spirits, originating from the same source, felt no mutual rejection whatsoever. Quite the contrary, the more of their kind there were, the more stable they became. At the same time, having reverse-engineered Badanta's Golden Body, Ji Jue poured in all his understanding of Promotion and the Abyss, truly forging it into a handy, obedient tool! An invisible Embers Furnace! Although the "Orthodox Dharma" of Wulou Temple defied the principles of Promotion, it still held some merit, more or less. Just as monks were extensions of the Orthodox Dharma, the Spirits of Creation originating from Ji Jue coalesced into a whole through the mandala's structure. The Lord of the Flies had truly become a part of Ji Jue, an extension of his soul and consciousness... Just like now: every domain within the layered Veil lay within the palm of the Hand of Non-Offensive! The reach of the Veil was the domain of Non-Offensive transmutation! In other words, this was an artificial enclosure! "All things prosper, crafted by this hand," Ji Jue murmured softly, "all in this world shaped by these ten fingers!" At this moment, within the fully deployed Veil and this unprecedentedly magnificent transmutation, Ji Jue once again deeply felt the true essence of Non-Offensive. He extended his hand. And so, the invisible hand took hold of everything. Outside the Veil, endless swarms of Sea Locusts continued to plunge in, yet within the dense mist, no matter how immense their aggregated numbers, they drifted apart and separated during aimless flight. They lost all sense of north, south, east, and west, unable to tell front from back or left from right. As they ventured deeper, even up and down began to invert. It was like leaping into a deep-sea vortex, tilting, drifting, and wandering against their will until, in the end, each was entirely alone. *Buzz—* The mutated Sea Locusts hissed loudly, calling to their kin in the mist, but the answers from all directions grew faint and indistinct. Guided only by the scent of food, they forged ahead blindly. Yet none noticed their bodies growing lighter and lighter... Under the erosion of the layered mist, scales silently sloughed off, limbs snapped like withered leaves, shells crumbled to dust, and blood evaporated into nothingness. In the end, even their wings disintegrated. Only severed husks tumbled from midair, decomposing faster and faster as they fell. When they finally struck the ground, nothing remained but a wisp of negligible ash. A gentle breeze blew, sweeping it into the drains, never to be seen again. Exquisite, miraculous disassembly and butchery. Not a single drop of blood was wasted, nor a shred of material ruined. Even the impure, tainted spiritus was thoroughly recovered. Such scenes played out continuously across countless corners beneath the shroud of the Veil. At first, inexperience caused the frantic Sea Locusts to struggle violently, wasting quite a bit of material. But soon, after repeated practice, the process became smooth as flowing water. Countless Sea Locusts were like products stepping onto an assembly line, reduced to nothingness across layers of processing and disassembly. Their physical husks were completely dismantled, yet the tiny, ignorant, ravenous souls seemed to go on soaring. They forgot why they had come and knew not where they were headed. They merely ascended through the endless mist, higher and higher. And thus, the faint firefly specks caught sight of an immense radiance like a blazing sun. It was a constantly revolving, nested mandala—a magnificent mandala constructed from an ocean of spirits of the Lord of the Flies! Layer upon layer of brilliant silver light echoed like a tide across the infinitely high vault of heaven, overlapping into a vortex. Steel clattered like shouts, electric currents hummed like chants, the friction of machined parts sounded like recitation, and sharp, monotone synthesized effects rose and fell like tides. In the end, they converged into a solemn, sacred hymn that reverberated through heaven and earth. The remnants of Sea Locust souls rising from the mist bathed in that clear light, as though enlightened by an epiphany. The ravenous hunger and madness that had plagued their souls since birth miraculously vanished, replaced only by boundless joy and serenity. Salvation! Under the mandala's salvation, countless remnant spirits rose from the mist at every moment, turning into speckles of residual light that plunged into that blinding sun! Like moths to a flame, throwing themselves forward without hesitation. Even if it meant being thoroughly consumed. In this way, offering their own remnant spirits as negligible bricks and stones, they fully integrated into the mandala, expanding the magnificent structure by an imperceptible fraction. And then another fraction, and another... Amid this near-endless dedication, the originally ethereal and swaying mandala rapidly sharpened, gradually congealing into solid reality. And so, Lou Feng was left utterly dumbfounded. For a creation of this magnitude, the consumption every single second of every single minute was an astronomical figure. Just like the animate workshop Ji Jue had conjured during the artisan examination: anyone with a slightly thinner foundation would have been burned dry within three to five minutes. Yet the spiritus reserves, which had been plummeting, slowed their decline right before his very eyes. In the end, at a rate visible to the naked eye, they began to... recover? The meter was spinning backward! Wait, is that even legal?! Bro, stop fighting for a second and tell me where you bought this cheat! The kicker was that Lou Feng actually knew where Ji Jue's cheat came from. He even possessed a copy himself... Three-Phase Alchemy! Fluid, solid, and gas. Fluid Alchemy elevated material through spirit, utilizing the enhancement of spiritus to stabilize physical properties; Solid Alchemy restrained spirit through material, using physical stability to shackle the transformation of spiritus; and Gas Alchemy broke down the barrier between matter and spirit, building a bridge to achieve arbitrary conversion, extracting physical essence to enhance spirit and wringing spiritual essence to reinforce matter. Individually, any of the three would be considered a secret among secrets among artisans. Combined together, they were an outright exploit. When the three phases cycled, spinning forward meant reinforcement; spinning backward meant draining dry! Draining the deficient to supply the surplus, or reducing the surplus to supplement the deficient—all took place in a single thought. Aside from being somewhat devoid of conscience, it had virtually no drawbacks. Yet weren't both processes merely natural variations? In the philosophy of Wulou Temple, nothing was ever permanent; everything simply cycled endlessly through formation, abiding, decay, and voidness. For a precious herb to ripen, it might have to siphon dry all the soil vitality within a hundred paces, withering countless weeds. Conversely, the fall of a great whale could nourish schools of fish in the deep sea for generations. The circulation of spiritual and physical essence—was that not an occurrence happening constantly in the waking world? Differentiating between superior and inferior through human morality was far too narrow-minded and arrogant. Could what was taking place here not be considered nature? Even the disaster beast horde stirred by the Blightwind at this very moment... wasn't it also part of the waking world's cycle? In a daze, another fresh layer of insight and perception welled up in Ji Jue's heart. The Veil's operation grew even smoother, breaking through an invisible bottleneck to flow like water. Truly as if crafted by nature itself. "Look, Isis," Ji Jue smiled, gazing down at the cycle of generation and destruction within the Veil, suddenly enlightened: "All things are complete within me." "As it should be, sir," the workshop spirit replied impassively, undisturbed as always. No matter how countless Sea Locusts in the sky and sea poured into the Veil, blot out the sky as they might, sheer numbers achieved nothing and altered nothing. To shake the Veil's mist by sheer mass alone, the swarm would have to multiply tenfold to exceed its processing capacity. Unless the Veil could be thoroughly shattered from the outside, every Sea Locust rushing inward was nothing more than raw material awaiting processing. Even their souls and life force would become part of the Veil, fueling its consumption and operation, which in turn supplemented Ji Jue's collection and stockpiles. "I believe you should take note, sir," the watching workshop spirit reminded him quietly. "Storage space in the workshop's material vault is limited. Having too much of this scrap will only take up room." "Then give it an initial run through the furnaces in Punabantu and ship it out as feedstock to the branch plants in Xinquan, Luocheng, and the Mid-Continent as production material." Ji Jue waved dismissively. "They brought their own rations and delivered themselves right to our doorstep from thousands of miles away. How could anyone complain about having too much material or too deep a stockpile?" Scrappers were just like that—everything looked like a treasure, and nothing could bear to be thrown away. Even a grain of rice dropped on the floor had to be picked up and washed. Besides, as long as something was alive, how could it be useless? Even the most worthless thing could still serve as a battery! Apart from that... "Let me show you something good." Ji Jue eagerly pointed toward a Sea Locust that had just breached the Veil. Hissing, the creature squirmed its massive bulk, cleaving through wind and waves. The fully matured giant Sea Locust was vastly more grotesque than its kin, easily the size of a fully loaded heavy truck. At such weight, it had long lost the ability to fly, its wings completely atrophied. In their place were several lizard-like limbs and webbed feet. Surging from the sea, it climbed onto the barren reefs of Luo Island, hunting for the scent of flesh and blood. It lunged toward a humble shanty where a faint light still flickered not far away. Yet as it sprinted, its body gradually stiffened, taking on an iron sheen. Stumbling, it staggered forward step by step, nearly unable to stay upright before scrambling up again. Gradually, as scales and carapace peeled away, layers of metallic luster emerged from beneath the mutated flesh... until finally, it froze in place. The light in the small house flickered for an instant. "What's going on out there?" a trembling voice asked. "What is that?" "Don't be scared, I'll go look." The faint sound of a bolt sliding home rang out. The curtain was lifted by a corner, and the fisherman inside gingerly peeked out with one eye, scanning the outside warily. There was only a layer of pale mist; nothing could be seen. He faintly heard a hiss that quickly vanished into thin air. It sounded like eerie wind. "*Sudden heavy fog over the sea has prompted full martial law across Luo Island. Residents are requested to remain indoors and avoid going outside where possible. In case of emergencies, please call the assistance hotline promptly...*" The old television was playing the Luo Island administrative building's broadcast on loop. By the door sat two crates of emergency supplies distributed just a few days prior. Mostly near-expired compressed biscuits, long-stored bottled water, and a few blister packs of common medicines, with a stack of Coast Industry recruitment flyers tucked between them. "Nothing's out there, don't make a fuss." After watching warily for a while, the fisherman lowered the curtain. Unchambering the round, he still kept the firearm close at hand, forcing a dismissive smile as he turned around. "Every single day, what could possibly happen? Don't panic, let's eat first." "Mm." The anxious woman pulled a recruitment flyer from the stack, tossed it into the stove for kindling, and stared down at the rising flames, somewhat distracted. "Coast, huh... I hear the pay isn't bad..." The fisherman, waiting to eat, thought for a moment and nodded. "Let's give it a try another day. They say if you sign on long-term, they even assign housing. Small as it might be, it's better than this shack." "But they're not short on people right now. Would they want us?" the wife asked, fretting. "Didn't they say there's training?" The fisherman smiled. "We have to try, don't we? Relying on the weather for food like this isn't a long-term plan. There aren't as many taxes to pay now anyway. If we sell the boat, we should be able to save a little." He wrapped an arm around his wife, leaning together before the stove, grinning impishly. "If worse comes to worst, we can sell fried rice outside Coast... Your fried rice is so good, we're bound to make plenty of money." "Then who's doing the dishes?" "Once we make money, we'll buy a dishwasher!" "Get outta here!" ... Amid their trivial murmurs, the fire in the stove leaped, burning bright and vigorous. Leaning against one another, it felt as though even the chilly wind sneaking through the cracks was no longer cold. Meanwhile, within the mist outside the shack, thirty feet away, the mangled carcasses of Sea Locusts were rapidly decomposing, dissipating, and evaporating. As if they had never existed. Amidst the shattered remnants, a monstrous beast seemingly forged of steel firmly pinned down what had once been its kin, its gaping mouthparts clamping down on the other's throat. *Crack!* Another beast that had just crawled ashore was ripped clean in two. The mangled creature convulsed, gradually falling still. Only splattering blood slid down the metallic beast's face in winding streaks, dripping to the ground. In the dead silence, the mechanical Sea Locust lifted its head, surveying its surroundings. After a long while, it suddenly craned its neck, monstrous and ferocious, hissing at the top of its lungs. "—Meow!"