Transformation

A trap! This was nothing short of a trap. The screeching of the merfolk rose and fell in a chaotic din, mingling with the shrieking hum of the Sea Locusts, thick with confusion and fury—just like culters and bighead carp realizing too late that what they had clamped their jaws around was not food, but a barbed hook! Luo Island, which had initially looked entirely helpless, was actually like a dilapidated house full of holes and drafty leaks... As long as you skirted the minefield, cut through the electric fence, braved the incoming fire to close in, and gave it a solid kick, it would shake off its camouflaged stone skin to reveal tens of thousands of turrets and missile launchers, blasting everything for hundreds of li around into pulverized mush! Right now, the debris-strewn Luo Island was like a slaughterhouse assembly line—plucking, deshelling, bleeding, and butchering. Every step was carried out with methodical precision: filthy, foul-smelling, and deafening, yet astonishingly efficient. What conquered the monsters was no hero, but monsters far more terrifying. Machinery trampled vermin; beasts butchered beasts. The concealing veil had finally been torn aside. Death and ruin sang like performers upon a stage, while bone and blood danced within the palm of an invisible hand. Terrifying and grotesque. Amidst the wholesale slaughter, the blare of horns grew increasingly frantic, an echo of impotent rage urging them forward again and again. The boiling sea surged with waves once more, as if hill after hill were rising from the waters. Pitch-black carapaces looked like piles of countless skeletons; a pungent stench and an acidic tang rose on the wind, and the torrential downpour turned bizarre, tinged with emerald-green and hissing as it fell. More than sixteen mountainous shells rose from the sea. Wriggling appendages squirmed beneath them as they crawled forward along the seabed, clambering over the beaches and reefs to make landfall on Luo Island. Concentrated firepower converged in strafing volleys, yet bullets merely bounced off shells the size of multistory buildings. Viscous streams of jellied phlogiston and thermite flowed and dripped slowly from the carapaces. Even missile bombardments could only blast open ruptures in the colossal shells—behind which mucus swiftly secreted, gushing out to coat the shells and hardening in an instant, leaving them completely intact. That was a Scourge-rank calamity beast, the Corpse-Dwelling Conch! The flesh writhing beneath the shells blurred the line between hermit crab and snail; even on dry land, their movement was extraordinarily swift. Soil, gravel, asphalt, and stone all dissolved into putrid sludge under the churning of their tentacles. Rolling waves of rot spread outward, causing rust spots to rapidly bloom across steel. Everywhere they passed turned into an acid-eaten mire, and all tangible matter nearby began showing signs of dissolving in the wind. Beneath that ghastly glow, everything melted in rapid succession. Whether buildings, machine guns, or sieging Peace Cats, within mere seconds they rotted into muck... Masses of merfolk began converging toward the Corpse-Dwelling Conchs across the field, ducking behind the carapaces to shield themselves from the gunfire. The sheer degree of organization nearly made Ji Jue laugh out loud. It was bad enough that these beasts had siege equipment, but did they seriously teach themselves infantry-tank coordination too? Were they not even pretending anymore?! Even without an order from Ji Jue, the Peace Cats and the mobile companies rapidly pulled back and opened up the distance. *Paradise system guidance complete.* Beneath the gleam of that sliver of moonlight, the shadow of the Prosperity slowly descended through the overcast sky, hanging suspended between sea and firmament. And then... —All batteries, fire! Beams of blazing light, like lances, pierced through the storm, spanning the vast distance to impale the earth below! Abruptly, a tempest of silver flame turned into a tornado, tearing up from the ground! A majestic, surging tide of fire, mixed with blazing plumes of vaporized metal, whirled violently as it rocketed straight into the heavens. Then came the second, the third, the fourth... Amidst violent tremors shaking the earth, geysers of flame erupted one after another, completely submerging the mountain-like, writhing Corpse-Dwelling Conchs. A foul stench and dense smoke billowed outward. Amidst the acrid stench of rot, there was, bizarrely, a nauseating trace of savory aroma. It was as if all of Luo Island were a platter, freshly preparing Haizhou's famous dish for guests right there on the spot—Charcoal-Grilled Conch. Massive clouds of vaporized metal and raging flames surged outward, enveloping the immense Corpse-Dwelling Conchs and penetrating every crevice, incinerating shells, vaporizing mucus, and charring writhing flesh to cinders. Above the heavens, thunder shook once more. Summoned by the combined calls of the priests, lightning flared like torrential rain, crashing down upon the Prosperity. That rampaging power, potent enough to dissolve metal and steel, coursed over the vessel without leaving behind a single scorch mark. It could hardly even be called a touch of wind and frost. The defensive capability of Project Juque might have its limits, but crude lightning and fire devoid of any mechanism whatsoever could certainly never harm it. And upon the hull, the faint, lingering aura of the Azure Jiao's remnant spirit drove the merfolk into an even greater frenzy! They were burning with murderous resentment! They wished nothing more than to sacrifice their lives this very instant to purge this monstrous evil for their Holy Lord! And then, they truly did charge to their deaths... As if seeking their own demise, they pounced toward the enemies right before them, falling dead on the spot one after another beneath strafing machine-gun fire and cleaving power axes! Viscous, pitch-black blood gushed forth, pooling together like a living thing. And with the bursting of the Corpse-Dwelling Conchs, countless rotted bones spewed out from the shattered shells in an unending fountain. Human, fish, calamity beast, herd... No one knew how many corpses they had swallowed or how much death they had dissolved. The death of a single Corpse-Dwelling Conch was enough to create a dead zone in the sea capable of dissolving countless living beings! Masses of merfolk blood and bones pooled together; venomous remnant spirits converged with death, coalescing into several skeletal giant jiaos that soared into the sky, launching a counteroffensive against the Prosperity. *Dumbfounded, humans? This is the blood-boiling combo skill between us calamity beasts!* Whirling with churning tides of dissolution and virulent corrosive venom, the skeletal giant jiaos darted across the sky with uncanny agility, like living creatures. Even when struck head-on by the Prosperity's main guns and blasted with massive craters, their bones would knit back together in the very next instant, whole once more. They spat torrents of corrosive acid that splashed over the Prosperity, sizzling and hissing. And then... it didn't do a damn thing! In response, the Prosperity merely retracted all its main guns, and then, very gently, rammed forward. *Boom!!!* A veritable Mount Tai pressing down from above! Gale-force winds and roaring booms erupted between sea and sky. Right in front of the Prosperity, a skeletal jiao failed to dodge in time, and the terrifying, fully unleashed mass easily smashed it into pulverized dust. Bones showered down like rain. And the Prosperity, hurtling like a runaway dump truck, had already begun accelerating. Stomping the pedal to the metal, it chased after the skeletal jiaos in the sky, taking every bombardment and breath attack right to the face as it played a game of tag. *I come crashing headlong toward you!* *If I hit you... well, then you got hit.* *I can pay for my own vehicle damage, but you'd better pray you've got an isekai to be reborn into!* Too bad, judging by the terrified way those giant skeletal jiaos were scrambling to get out of the way, it didn't look like they did... In that case, terribly sorry, I take full liability—take it up with my insurance! Thunder and lightning cracked incessantly across the sky. The Prosperity blared its horn in excitement, and Little Niuma roared as it ran amok, rampaging as if entering an unpeopled land, leaving only a ceaseless torrential rain of shattered bones showering down from above. As if unaware, by the time anyone came to their senses, the Prosperity had already pursued the fleeing skeletal jiaos past Luo Island, entering coastal waters... Right at that moment, a venomous hiss that had been held back for so long erupted from the ocean! Amidst the bloody waters, a pair of vertical pupils slowly opened. Looking up at the Prosperity in the sky. *Finally...* *BOOM!!!* Every single skeletal jiao shattered, vaporized, and dissipated all at once, just like a sacrifice and fusion summon in some game. A terrifying gravitational pull surfaced from the depths of the ocean. A raging vortex suddenly expanded, swallowing everything in the sea, tugging at the Prosperity high in the sky. Guided by the deaths and grudges of its spawn, it locked onto its target. The Prosperity shuddered, plunging downward uncontrollably. Down, further down. The lower it fell, the harder it became to break free of that terrifying pull, until it was dragged helplessly into the vortex, spinning frantically. Though it was mere flowing water, within the vortex it acted like a high-pressure water jet cutter, violently ramming and scraping against the Prosperity's hull, sparking dazzling trails of fire across its surface. What was even more terrifying was the monstrous form gradually surfacing amidst the rushing torrents of blood inside the vortex—after lying in wait for so long, summoned by the sacrifice of its countless spawn, the calamity beast Azure Jiao had fully materialized! Its colossal, magnificent body extended endlessly from the sea, coiling around the Prosperity, constricting inch by inch like a python. Upon its scales, the aura of the Desolate Ruins emerged, endlessly enhancing it, exerting this brutal strength entirely onto the hull until a shocking fissure opened across the pitch-black body of the ship, running from stem to stern... All around, the merfolk screeched, shouted, and chanted in adulation. *The Holy Lord's divine might is truly invincible, damn it!* The fissure rapidly widened and spread, and the hull began to split open. Yet from within the dividing compartments, a sharply angular, giant mechanical hand emerged... Five fingers spread wide, reaching out from the darkness, and then clamped down hard around the Azure Jiao's neck, tightening as they slowly contracted. To a shrill sound like grinding iron and bronze, beneath the collapsing hull plating, countless components converged into a mechanical face resembling both beast and dragon. It slowly leaned out, peering down at the Azure Jiao's head, grinning silently. *Still bragging, little bro?* *Look who your daddy is!* "Hello there!" Standing upon Juque's keel, Ji Jue looked up and gave a faint smile to the calamity beast inches away: "I've been waiting for you for quite a while..." Now, the hull of the Prosperity burst apart with a deafening roar—or rather, disassembling from the inside out. Extending from the massive hull was a body akin to a giant. Clad in armor of diamond-shaped scales, crowned with savage bloodfire, with a countenance like dragon and beast alike, its four arms spread wide and two legs stood planted amidst the surging waves. Just like a colossal mechanical god, it steadily rose from the vast ocean. Boundless blazing light erupted from its eyes. Dragon Mountain form!