Perhaps Anbaixiu had sensed the flaws in his idea himself, or perhaps Catherine's pure, virtuous soul had finally rubbed off on him, but he was beginning to feel that what he had planned was wrong.
Sending Ariel to take Aeolus's place sounded neat on paper, but upon closer examination, the odds of failure were substantial.
First and foremost was Talos's attitude. Would the storm god truly care to watch the exact same drama all over again?
Moreover, Ariel was no solitary orphan like Aeolus. The Kuo-toa Goddess might have run rings around Aeolus, but Ariel had an entire kingdom standing behind her.
Even if its population was modest, it was not something the kuo-toa could push around at will.
Lastly, there was Ariel's temperament to consider.
Her Highness the Princess of the Raging Tide Kingdom was vastly more fierce than Aeolus. She was the kind of iron-willed woman who would swing a hammer and challenge her own royal father to a duel. She would not be so easily manipulated. If pushed to fury, she was fully capable of raising that hammer and slaughtering every kuo-toa in sight.
Thinking it through, Anbaixiu felt he had indeed made a misjudgment. In slowly shedding his humanity, he had ceased to factor such things into his calculations.
"My original plan was to have you charm those kuo-toa, forcing their goddess to come to the table so I could pitch the scheme to her. But looking at it now, I was in error."
Kuo-toa possessed notoriously low intellect, which made their resistance to Catherine's charms virtually nonexistent.
One look at Catherine, and the creatures would likely forget their own goddess entirely, which would leave the deity no choice but to negotiate with him.
That was precisely why Anbaixiu had needed Catherine. Now, however, the plan had to change. Ariel was no longer the crux of the matter; Anbaixiu needed to devise another way to satisfy Talos's twisted tastes.
Yet what could possibly please a god like Talos?
As Anbaixiu pondered, he realized the *Black Tide* had already reached its destination.
Beneath the ship lay gloomy, murky waters where countless bubbles churned from the seabed, making the ocean appear as though it were boiling.
This was the heart of the kuo-toa's territory.
Kuo-toa differed from other aquatic races in one major regard: most were amphibious.
They would occasionally emerge onto beaches, haphazardly heaping sand and whatever flotsam they could find into crude idols to worship of their own accord.
The seabed here was a honeycomb trench gouged into the deep. Bubbles venting constantly from the earth below filled the chambers, creating bizarre, partially submerged sea caves. The lower portions were flooded with water, but swimming upward inside revealed large pockets of trapped air.
Anbaixiu did not know whether this area had been intentionally shaped this way, but he knew the kuo-toa favored such an environment above all else.
Now that they had arrived, the original course would have been to dive into the ocean alongside Catherine and seek out the Kuo-toa Goddess.
With the change of plans, Anbaixiu was ready to turn back.
It would be better to reconsider once he devised a sounder scheme.
Yet before the *Black Tide* could even swing around, the boiling ocean erupted into a colossal whirlpool. Seawater surged a hundred meters into the air, erecting a towering wall of water that boxed in the airship.
Immediately after, in the vortex's epicenter, a colossal female figure with the head of a lobster materialized from the churning brine, radiating an imposing aura of divine authority.
"It is you! You dare show your face before me again!"
A shrill, ear-splitting shriek pierced the *Black Tide*'s hull and struck directly at the souls of Anbaixiu and Catherine, inflicting agonizing discomfort on them both.
Such was the might of a divinity. Even without an offensive spell, the unbridled release of their divine presence alone was enough to torment mortal beings.
Despite both ranking as intermediate deities, Blibdoolpoolp appeared far more aggressively hostile than the God of Alchemy. The mere emergence of her avatar caused the ambient magic to warp and twist violently.
This was Blibdoolpoolp's domain. In such an environment, ninety-nine percent of spells cast would yield wild, unpredictable results.
Anbaixiu might have been able to use his Dice of Fate to forcibly ensure his casting succeeded, but the expenditure would be staggering, and he could hardly sustain it for more than a few spells.
He had not anticipated that the Kuo-toa Goddess would bubble to the surface on her own before he had even deployed Catherine.
In that case, he might as well speak with her.
Knowing she could hear him, Anbaixiu did not bother stepping outside the *Black Tide*. He addressed the goddess directly from within: "Respected Mother of the Sea, I come today in search of peace. I pray you stay your wrath and divine might."
Yet the goddess gave him no room to negotiate. She roared with rage: "You are a notorious cheat! A foul undead, a wretched mortal! What right have you to negotiate with me?! Coming here, your only end is to suffer my fury and become sea-floor dung!"
The sky-bound torrent surged another tier higher. Swept along within the rushing columns were countless kuo-toa, hurtling upward on the current. The moment they attained sufficient altitude, they threw themselves toward the *Black Tide*.
Tens of thousands of kuo-toa burst from the surging waters like a swarm of hornets erupting from a shattered nest, plunging forward in a dense, writhing mass.
Anbaixiu could only curse her as a lunatic before ordering the *Black Tide* into combat.
Dozens of gun barrels extended from both sides of the hull, spewing a furious barrage of specialized munitions.
The moment they struck the leaping kuo-toa, the rounds rapidly bloomed into bone coral, impaling swaths of the monsters where they flew.
The *Black Tide* spun continuously as bone-colonizing virus rounds swept across the incoming horde. Countless kuo-toa corpses, encased in rigid bone coral, plummeted back into the sea. The slaughter was so vicious and gory that Catherine's scalp prickled with horror.
She had never witnessed such an efficient method of butchery; the *Black Tide* had evolved beyond any ordinary engine of war.
What shocked Catherine even more was that, although countless kuo-toa were cut down every second, the creatures showed no hint of terror. Driven by the divine command of their goddess, they threw themselves into the meat grinder in relentless succession.
The moment the *Black Tide* finished its first salvo, dozens of kuo-toa seized the brief pause during reloading to crash onto the ship.
Most were hurled away by the hull's high-speed rotation, but several dug their sharp talons into the plating and clung fast. Once the first wave secured a grip, a second followed. Soon, kuo-toa blanketed the outer armor, frantically tearing at the gun barrels and artillery mounts.
More undead armaments unleashed their fury. Invisible, odorless undead vapors were vented outside, poisoning wave after wave of kuo-toa. Fleets of undead drones launched into the air, doing everything possible to intercept the attackers mid-flight.
Yet no matter how efficiently they killed, the effort felt futile. There were simply too many kuo-toa.
Beyond raw numbers, several kuo-toa sorcerers lurked within the towering water spouts, hurling spells at the *Black Tide*—and they opened with *Meteor Swarm*!
Anbaixiu could not tell whether a legendary kuo-toa champion had stepped onto the field or if wild magic had mutated an ordinary *Fireball* into a *Meteor Swarm*.
Four flaming meteors scraped the edge of the *Black Tide* before plunging into the depths. While they failed to destroy the airship, they crushed a great many kuo-toa below. Yet the monsters remained utterly indifferent to their losses. Within the goddess's domain, every kuo-toa was gripped by an effect akin to *Crown of Madness*, rendering them completely fearless of death!
A flurry of additional spells rained down upon the *Black Tide*'s plating, leaving gouges and scorched tears across its armor.
"She's truly insane! She doesn't care in the slightest how many kuo-toa die!"
Anbaixiu was at a loss. What kind of deity squandered her own worshippers like this? Blibdoolpoolp was genuinely prepared to see every last kuo-toa wiped out if it meant dragging Anbaixiu down with them.
Yet she knew she was facing a lich! Tearing this warship apart and destroying Anbaixiu's current vessel would merely inflict a minor loss; he would regenerate at his phylactery in short order.
How were these kuo-toa any different from sacrifices thrown away for nothing?
As expected, the hardest beings to deal with were lunatics; their actions defied all logical deduction.
Still, since she insisted on this madness, Anbaixiu had no intention of waiting around to be slaughtered.
The *Black Tide* was bloody expensive!
Anbaixiu turned to Catherine and commanded, "Stay inside and do not step out. I'll draw their attention. Find an opening to lift the ship and escape into the air. If all else fails, use the teleportation array in the cabin to get out. Don't worry about me—I have plenty of phylacteries!"
With that, Anbaixiu donned his mithral mecha and plunged straight out of the bomb bay.
The massive silver mecha plummeted at high speed, instantly drawing the gaze of countless kuo-toa.
A chaotic barrage of magic bombarded him in an instant. Anbaixiu could not even tell how many spells struck his frame; he could only expend his Dice of Fate to warp and deflect the worst of them. Drawing the swarm downward after him, just as he was about to hit the water, he abruptly spun around and raised his right hand toward the sky.
Even in a different vessel, the mark Talos had bestowed upon him continued to gleam with faint brilliance.
Without a shred of hesitation, Anbaixiu unleashed a ninth-tier spell: *Storm of Vengeance*!
Within this domain of chaotic magic, countless bolts of lightning sparked into being out of thin air, enveloping every kuo-toa pursuing him.
Electric serpents danced wildly. Every flash triggered new, bizarre effects spawned by the chaotic field.
Under Anbaixiu's absolute control, the fading of each lightning bolt birthed an entirely fresh wave of offensive magic.
In an instant, the pocket of space enclosed by the water wall became saturated with apocalyptic force.
Thunder, roaring flame, sonic booms, venom, caustic acid... It was practically a grand encyclopedia of destructive magic. Millions of fractured beams twisted into a grinding maelstrom that shredded every kuo-toa caught within.
*Storm of Vengeance* had never possessed such terrifying power, but this was a blessing from Talos—far stronger than any standard ninth-tier incantation. Compounded by the wild magic field and Anbaixiu's desperate throw of all his remaining Dice of Fate to ensure the tempest struck with peak fury, the spell erupted with tenfold its normal might!
Anbaixiu had never in his existence witnessed so many spells detonating at once. The blooming lights were more dazzling than fireworks. Wild sorcery tore scales, pulverized flesh, and ground kuo-toa bones into dust. Their mangled remains rained down like hail, dyeing the sea below crimson.
Anbaixiu had no idea how many kuo-toa that single *Storm of Vengeance* had slaughtered. Even those swimming inside the surrounding walls of water were caught in the blast, as though every living thing in sight had been wiped clean in a single strike.
At the same moment, the metal band around Anbaixiu's wrist went dark.
It was the bracelet given to him by the God of Alchemy. When it glowed, it signaled safety, meaning Talos had not directed his attention his way.
Now that the light had gone out, it meant Talos's gaze was resting squarely upon him.
It had to be because Anbaixiu had just invoked *Storm of Vengeance*, alerting the Lord of Storms and prompting him to cast down a curious glance.
Just then, the battered *Black Tide* came tumbling down from the heights, covered in a crawling carpet of kuo-toa.
The radius of *Storm of Vengeance* had simply not been large enough. Though the ship had struggled to climb, it had ultimately been dragged down by sheer weight of numbers.
Anbaixiu's soul trembled. That was his most expensive warship!
"Perish, every last one of you!"
Casting all caution aside, Anbaixiu summoned the Golden Throne and thrust his right hand deep toward the churning ocean.
The towering throne of gold shrank by half in an instant. A mass of pitch-black energy erupted from Anbaixiu's fingertips, rapidly spreading across the boiling surface before descending like a vast, suffocating net.
Ninth-tier spell—*Mass Power Word Kill*!
Ordinarily, *Power Word Kill* targeted only a single entity: those with insufficient vitality died instantly, while those hardy enough to survive the threshold suffered no harm at all.
This time, however, Anbaixiu poured the vast majority of the Golden Throne's accumulated hoard into the spell.
So long as he possessed sufficient gold, Anbaixiu wielded the greatest mortal casting power in the world. Magic that would have required an entire circle of mages chanting for half a day could be unleashed by his will alone.
Anbaixiu alone equated to ten thousand high mages casting in unison!
A dark net several kilometers wide ignored the barrier of the ocean, piercing straight down to the seabed. Everywhere it passed, all living souls were snuffed out in an instant!
A breath later, countless kuo-toa corpses floated to the surface, carpeting the waters as far as the eye could see.
Anbaixiu had no time to grieve the staggering wealth expended on that *Mass Power Word Kill*. He raised his head toward the towering Kuo-toa Goddess above. Her avatar of seawater remained, though she was evidently not completely insane; she had refrained from attacking Anbaixiu with her own hands, resorting solely to directing her minions to swarm him.
As though stunned by Anbaixiu's terrifying display, she seemed unable to fathom how a mortal could harness enough raw power to unleash such an apocalyptic spell.
The lobster head of the goddess let out a shrill shriek: "Talos! It is you! You disguise yourself as a mortal?! I smell the stench of your lightning! How dare you strike at my worshippers! Ao will punish you!"
Anbaixiu let out a low chuckle. Drifting slowly before the goddess's avatar, he raised his right hand and murmured softly to the mark of Talos etched upon his wrist: "Great Lord of Storms, I know you are watching me. Bear witness to my vow! I shall stage for you the grandest wedding imaginable: I will deliver the Kuo-toa Goddess Blibdoolpoolp straight into your divine realm, to do with as you please."
Chapter 449