Beneath the Blightwind

Throughout the interminably long meeting, everyone's expressions grew uglier by the minute. Sharp words, squabbling, and buck-passing flew back and forth. No one was willing to put up real capital, and no one wanted to be the scapegoat sticking their neck out first. For a time, they were stuck in an utter deadlock. "What, are we supposed to strike first?" Callisto sneered. "If you ask me, it's already pointless. That man named Ji has already built his momentum, and Luo Island's position is unshakable. Can none of you read the basic situation? Do you really want to escalate this until it's completely out of hand?" "If things truly spiral out of control, we certainly won't be the ones suffering the most." Seeing that the moment was ripe, the old matriarch of Macheng wore a dark scowl and declared decisively, "If it really comes down to mutual destruction, are we supposed to just bare our necks for the slaughter? If everything is leveled to barren wasteland, then so be it—we lose, and that Ji fellow can squat in the ruins of the Seven Cities picking over scraps. Are we really going to hand over centuries of our families' and cities' hard work to an outsider?" "Oh?" Callisto chuckled, amused. "Is the old lady going to lead the charge herself and march us all off to attack Luo Island?" "Why would we fight?" The old woman turned an expressionless gaze upon him and gave a chilly laugh. "Since Luocheng and Xiangzhou don't want to play our game, let them play by themselves!" The moment the words left her mouth, everyone froze in stunned silence. Stupefaction filled the room. "Silence!" Fernan, the council speaker who had remained tight-lipped from start to finish, slammed a hand onto the table, his face ashen. "Do you realize what you're saying?" "Does Mr. Fernan have any other solution at this point?" the old woman asked coldly. "If three cities could become seven back in the beginning, then seven cities can become five today! The Seven Cities belong to all of us, and the rules are set by all of us. Since Luo Island and Xiangzhou refuse to comply, why keep such a thorn in our side?" "..." In the sudden hush, the delegates exchanged glances, their eyes involuntarily lighting up. Brilliant! Wasn't that a way out? If they couldn't solve the problem and couldn't crush the man, why not simply cut ties? *We won't play with you anymore—go play with yourself!* Expel them from the Seven Cities! Such was the beauty of a clean severance. A split! Since underhanded tricks didn't work, they would take it into the open. By eliminating the gray area that Ji Jue had been meddling in, they could cleanly draw faction lines and establish distance, completely severing his reach before his hands could stretch into the other five cities. After all, every shipping agreement and transport contract across the Seven Cities was signed in the name of the Seven Cities Alliance, including countless business ventures and exchanges. Without the Alliance's endorsement, Luo Island wouldn't get so much as a drop of broth. Without a seat in the Alliance, what leverage would he have to erode and seize authority over the Seven Cities? Would he dare wage open war right next to the Federation? If covert operations were off the table and it came down to tug-of-war within the established framework, they had been wrestling with one another for decades—why would they fear him alone? Shift the battlefield and the approach. Turn the Seven Cities' domestic affairs into foreign diplomacy. Whatever grand ambitions that man named Ji harbored, he could indulge them alone on Luo Island! Once the rest banded together to isolate Luo Island and cut off all intercourse, even Ji Jue would find every step fraught with difficulty. Without Alliance agreements, he wouldn't even be permitted to use the shipping lanes, let alone have the right to fish in the Seven Cities' resource zones. "That's... not entirely out of the question." The first to chime in was actually Callisto, who had just been protesting the loudest. The worst-case scenario had simply been Ji Jue becoming the master of the Seven Cities Alliance, extinguishing any chance Callisto had. But now, if the top seeded contender was kicked out of the competition, didn't that mean he, the runner-up, stood a chance at taking gold?! If he couldn't rule the Seven Cities Alliance, what about a Five Cities Alliance? That wasn't unacceptable either! "Absolutely not!" Fernan roared in fury, glaring at every eager face around the table. The others were not at all surprised. The man had spent his entire life stitching together compromises among the Seven Cities, finally patching together something that resembled a whole. To see it fracture with his own hands, to watch his life's work wash down the drain... how could he ever accept it? Yet what did it matter if he couldn't? "Elder Fernan, surely you aren't acting as Speaker of the Seven Cities Council in public while begging for scraps from that fellow Ji behind closed doors? If you ask me, he probably doesn't think much of your methods anyway..." The Master of Yamen sneered. "When the time comes, you might well be the first old relic he trims away." "Then let us proceed according to the rules," the old matriarch of Macheng said with a faint smile. "Let's vote. Isn't that what Mr. Fernan has always championed? The Seven Cities are a democracy, after all. Shouldn't we abide by the outcome of a vote?" "Quite so, quite so," the old geezer from Xi Island agreed, nodding repeatedly. "Count me in as well." The Master of Yamen raised his hand, and Callisto beamed with even greater delight. Macheng, Yamen, Dancheng, Xi Island... Even if Pucheng, represented by Fernan, opposed it, they already held four out of the seven votes. Even before the voting had officially commenced, expelling Luo Island from the Seven Cities was already a foregone conclusion! "Damn you all, stir it up, stir it, keep stirring!" Fernan flung his pen onto the table, his eyes bloodshot. "Stir it until the entire Seven Cities knows no peace, stir it until it's an irreconcilable fight to the death! Stir it until we all fucking die together!" Evidently, such minor dissonance did nothing to dampen their newfound fervor. They were even meticulously preparing to follow proper procedure... "In that case, let us begin the vote," Callisto proposed, raising a hand. A chorus of agreement followed immediately. Seated around the circular table, they gleefully began scheming their petty, verminous master plan, tacitly ignoring Fernan's thunderous scowl. But just as they were about to speak— Total darkness fell before their eyes! A dead silence. The silence arrived abruptly. Beneath the suddenly flickering lights, everyone exchanged dazed looks, frozen in place. The lights blinked once, then flickered again. Amidst the stillness, no one spoke. Faint rumbles reached them from afar—a magnificent, shuddering reverberation transmitted through the bedrock of the earth itself. A titanic roar! *Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!* No matter how vast the distance, those colossal echoes carried across the ocean, distinct enough to be perceived by the naked ear. More importantly... The lighthouse! Right in the heart of Pucheng, the slumbering lighthouse abruptly burst into radiance. Its pale beam pierced the night, instantly washing over the domain of the Seven Cities and driving away untold numbers of wandering Sea Locusts and herds. Simultaneously, it illuminated a vague silhouette upon the distant sea. Like titanic pillars bridging heaven and earth! Pillar after pillar descended lightly from the vault of heaven, striking the churning waves as though stepping upon solid ground, supporting an enormous body concealed high within the cloud cover. Amidst the inextinguishable tempest of wind and rain, thunder pealed and lightning flashed ceaselessly. Every flash of lightning faintly outlined that colossal figure, yet its true shape remained impossible to discern. It was as if the storm itself had grown long, slender limbs, strolling leisurely across the sea, advancing slowly from the distance. From time to time, a slender tentacle drooped from above the clouds, coiling around a massive calamity beast in the ocean and hauling it up into the cloud layer. Soon after, amidst sharp, crunching cracks mixed with thunder, showers of gore and shattered bone sprayed down upon the mortal world like rain. Vast. Impossibly vast... A body like an island, submerged in dark clouds and lightning, slowly pressed forward. Compared to that awe-inspiring scale, the lighthouse beam blanketing the Seven Cities was nothing more than a firefly. Yet that feeble glimmer seemed to draw its attention. For a fleeting instant, the immense entity appeared to pause. The storm shifted direction, turning toward the nearby Seven Cities. Then, amidst an almost suffocating hush from the watchers, that distant gaze casually withdrew, looking ahead once more as the tempest continued its stride forward. A brush of shoulders. From the turbulent, savage depths of the Endless Sea far away, an enraged roar seemed to echo. The deep ocean tore wide open. Tentacle after tentacle unfurled, reaching toward the heavens, plunging into the dark clouds and tangling with the massive silhouette amidst the thunderheads. Beneath the tempest, the sea seemed to boil. Lightning clashed; rain poured in torrents. Everything was blotted out. Only amidst violent tremors did roar after roar resound across sea and sky, raising colossal waves that surged in every direction. The brutal storm raged for half the night. Not until just before dawn did the savage downpour and thunder finally abate. Tentacles dangled from the clouds, gorging on every calamity beast in the waters before setting off once more, drifting slowly toward the deepest reaches of the Endless Sea... All that remained was an expanse of ocean dyed pitch-black by viscous ink, countless half-eaten skeletons of calamity beasts, and an audience of stunned onlookers who had spent the entire night in trembling fear and dread, their terror yet unspent. That had been the closest the Seven Cities had ever come to total destruction. A whole night! At dawn the next day, the sun rose, yet the sky remained somber. Amidst the churning, tossing waves, the pungent stench of the sea rose thick. Between the gray-black sea and sky, the faint light of the lighthouse still flickered. It looked so desolate and broken. The bulletin from the Federation arrived belatedly. One day earlier, an Extinction-rank calamity beast that had long been missing, the Voracious Ao, Charybdis, had emerged from the northern Endless Sea, bearing unidentified wounds, likely sustained from a defeat in battle. On November 27, when it attempted to approach Federation waters, it was repelled by the Leviathan Fleet and was now moving from north to south... All areas of the Thousand Islands were urged to maintain vigilance and take timely precautions, and so forth. The expressions of everyone who received the message soured instantly. It was as if they had been force-fed filth. *You're only telling us now? Where the hell were you earlier?!* *The thing has already passed through, eaten its fill, and left!* *If it had taken any real interest in the Seven Cities, our corpses would already be cold...* Charybdis was the name given to it by the first imperials who observed it, meaning "whirlpool of the sea." It was said that whenever it fed, it was like a waterspout tearing up from the ocean, swallowing whole everything swept into its path. With every Blightwind season, it entered an active phase, roaming along ocean currents to feast voraciously before vanishing without a trace once more. The only silver lining was that it was a picky eater. Tiny creatures like humans held little nutritional value; no matter how many gathered, it wouldn't even bother opening its mouth. Yet who knew what it might do if driven mad by hunger? The entire Seven Cities had just brushed past the edge of its jaws. Who wouldn't be terrified? Furthermore, even while passing the Seven Cities and battling that unknown giant calamity beast, it had been wounded. Even so, it had devoured countless leviathans. Even now, colossal chunks of the slain sea beast still floated amidst the waves, and the warped gravity in the surrounding area had yet to settle. The Blightwind blew, howling with mounting fury. Countless calamity beasts churned amidst the waves, slaughtering one another in a frenzy of cannibalism. The true season of rampage had finally begun... The carnival of the behemoths was underway!