Inside the pirate ship's cabin, the four of them huddled together, peering out the small porthole. Outside, dense Black Mist and storm clouds had rged into a single indistinguishable mass.
Their hearts sank together.
In weather like this, waiting for an escape was out of the question—the phenonon itself was an unpredictable danger all its own.
"Are we really going to die here?" Mingde's aged eyes grew wet.
Beside him, Weiwei stared blankly. She was trying to decide what posture and state of mind she would choose to et her final monts, if it ca to that.
It was a morbid thought. But the endless days and nights of grinding labor aboard this ship had slowly extinguished whatever hope she had once carried, hollowing her into a numb, chanical thing.
Thinking about aningless trivia like that was all she had left.
The ship shuddered violently.
Their spirits dropped further. Then, just as they teetered on the edge of despair, a startled cry rang out from the opposite side of the cabin.
"Look—what is that!?"
"Shooting stars!? They look like shooting stars! But how can there be shooting stars in a place like this?"
"They're so bright!"
"And red—they look like they're on fire!"
The four exchanged bewildered glances, then found the so-called shooting stars for themselves.
From their vantage point through the porthole, crimson streaks tore through the dark, fog-choked sky—long tails of fla blazing behind them as they plunged straight toward the thickest heart of the Black Mist.
"No—those aren't shooting stars!" A white-haired old man across the cabin suddenly shouted. "Those are Moth Carriages! I once saw how they accelerate during long-distance flights in Tianchong City—it looks exactly like that!"
"Moth Carriages!? Gods above—whoever is inside those must be soone important. Flying straight into the center of the Black Mist like that... are they going to eradicate this disaster?"
"Maybe this is our turning point!" Mingchen's gaze sharpened. He t the eyes of his two martial brothers, and a sliver of hope cut through the despair.
…
High in the sky.
Lin Hui stood inside the Moth Carriage, flying straight toward the heart of the Black Mist.
Ouyang Yining stood half a step behind him, continuously making fine adjustnts to a miniature rhombus-shaped purple crystal in her hands.
With each adjustnt, the fleet's heading shifted by a hair. The crystal was the core of the isolation Relic array enveloping the convoy—its purpose to shield the carriages from the Black Mist's erosive influence.
Before long, the flas on the Moth Carriages' wings died out. Their speed dropped sharply, and the convoy gradually ca to a hover.
"They've sensed our approach," Ouyang Yining said, her voice tight.
She had every right to be. This Black Mist anomaly had already consud nurous exploration teams. Even as a Blood Ancestor, facing a threat of this scale set her nerves on edge.
"Your Excellency, how do you wish to proceed?" She looked to Lin Hui expectantly.
From the mont she chose to follow him, she had staked her future on this decision—one made after exhaustive research into intelligence and data. Now, she would find out if she had chosen wisely.
Facing this sky-filling sea of Black Mist, Lin Hui was, frankly, at a slight loss. He had never handled a situation like this before; he had only accepted the mission on the strength of his absolute confidence in himself.
He stared at the rolling darkness and ran through his options.
Law Seals? Those only enhanced himself.
The Wild Wind Sword Technique? Its range was too small.
The Typhoon Sword Technique? The range might be enough—whether it could scatter the Black Mist was uncertain, but worth attempting.
Sealing? He had never tried sealing a target of this scale. Besides, the Nine Eyes could only seal living organisms—unless this entire mass of mist was a single creature.
He settled on starting with the Typhoon Sword Technique. If it failed, he would fall back on his Wind Disaster Force.
My thods for handling complex situations are still a bit thin, he reflected. No wonder Relics are so sought after. They clearly fill in the gaps that personal strength alone can't cover.
He made a ntal note to look into acquiring so. Then he reached out and drew his sword in a slow, unhurried motion.
The tip of Ruyi cleared the sheath, leveling forward.
Subtle, invisible fluctuations spread outward from him in all directions.
A low rumble rolled through the air. Vast currents of air surged skyward, coalescing into dark storm clouds that crackled with lightning as they spun. A gigantic cyclonic vortex took shape in an instant, blanketing the entire sea.
"Fall back and wait."
Lin Hui stepped out of the Moth Carriage and hung motionless in the open air. He raised Ruyi and swung it downward in a single, unhurried arc.
Typhoon Sword Technique—Returning Wind with One Sword.
An ordinary sword move. But under the typhoon's terrifying augntation —
With a world-shaking boom, a massive grayish-black tornado erupted from behind him. It rose from the churning ocean swells and, roaring like a gray dragon, swept past Lin Hui and hurled itself into the sea of Black Mist.
The shockwave of its passing destabilized the Moth Carriage fleet, tossing the carriages about and nearly dragging them into the Black Mist's edge.
The tornado—spanning thousands of ters across—struck the heart of the Black Mist with a deafening crash. It was like a massive spoon driven violently through a cup of black ink. Vast swathes of Black Mist were churned, compressed, and torn apart.
"Insolence!" An authoritative, furious roar erupted from deep within the Mist.
A towering figure rose in answer—human torso, fish tail, clad in black scale armor and wielding a golden bident. He flew toward the grayish-black tornado wreathed in faint golden light, raised the bident overhead, and drove it forward. The Black Mist surged behind him in answer, coalescing into a colossal spectral bident that crashed into the tornado alongside his strike.
Boom!
Tornado and Black Mist bident tore into each other, both obliterated.
But a second later, three more giant tornadoes rose behind Lin Hui—howling like hunting beasts as they bore down on the Black Mist.
He slowly sheathed his sword and held his position in the air, watching the three new tornadoes clash with the hulking, golden-lit rman below.
So long as the cyclone overhead held, the attacks would not stop. That was the martial intent of the Typhoon Sword Technique. Short of breaking the weather phenonon itself, the tornadoes were inexhaustible—and even if they dissipated, summoning another wave cost him nothing.
Dozens of seconds later, those three tornadoes were destroyed. The rman stared up, gasping, as ten more rose behind Lin Hui.
"Ahhh!" A final, despairing roar tore from his throat.
He charged in with his golden bident—and was swallowed whole, subsud by the storm without a trace.
"Comndable courage," Lin Hui said, hovering high above. His eyes were calm. "But our positions are what they are. I'm sorry, warrior."
He watched the ten grayish-black tornadoes slowly rend the sea of Black Mist apart.
"Kill!!"
"It's the Black Cloud City—attack together! Buy the ritual ti!"
"Do not falter! Death is only the beginning of a new life! Our Lord watches over us—the future belongs to us!"
The fog split open.
A vast, uncountable horde of rman experts erupted into the sky. So rode atop shrimp chariots; others flew under their own power. So fought bare-handed; others wore heavy armor. Their weapons ranged from sabers, swords, spears, and bidents to tube-shaped weapons that resembled rocket launchers.
Dense as a locust swarm and stretching as far as the eye could see, a legion no smaller than a hundred thousand strong surged toward Lin Hui.
The ten gray tornadoes howled into their ranks in answer, shredding every lifeform they touched—grinding them to nothing and drawing them into the storm.
"The sorrow of the weak," Lin Hui said softly. It was precisely this truth that had driven him to cultivate without rest, never permitting himself a single day of complacency. He had no desire to know this kind of helplessness from the inside.
Freedom was the right of the strong. The weak could only be ruled.
That was the fundantal law of this world.
Just as he thought the enemy had been routed, a black chain shot out from the deepest recess of the Black Mist, as fast as a lightning strike. Golden light rippled across every link. In an instant, it pierced through one grayish-black tornado—then the second, third, and fourth.
In monts, all ten tornadoes were skewered and destroyed.
The chain's leading section was larger than a house—over a hundred ters across. Atop it stood a man. Long-haired, broad-shouldered, with three black horizontal stripes painted across his face. He wore magnificent black full-plate armor, his hair whipping in the wind, a golden bident in hand, and a many-colored eye glowing between his brows.
"Human of bloody courage—I am Ka Qiusi, Divine Descendant of the Lost Path and the Hearth." His voice ca through a rough mind-spirit transmission, clumsy but just barely comprehensible. "Lay down your weapon. Those who surrender will not die."
Lin Hui didn't bother to reply. His mind-spirit flared, and twenty grayish-black tornadoes erupted behind him—blotting out the sky as they swept forward and closed on the black-armored Divine Descendant.
Using the Typhoon Sword Technique for area-of-effect suppression at range, avoiding direct physical engagent—that was the strategy he had settled on. He hadn't yet brought out the Typhoon Sword Technique's true killing moves. He hadn't activated his Law Seals, hadn't drawn on any of his special effects. With practical sword technique alone, he had locked down every breath the enemy took.
He was more than just a notch stronger than he had been when he fought Tuyue.
A Divine Descendant—their strength is the ceiling below a Mist God, isn't it? He had the composure to transmit the question backward to Ouyang Yining.
Generally, yes. Though Divine Descendants and low-tier Mist Gods can blur together—promotions and replacents happen. The strongest Divine Descendants aren't far behind the weakest Mist Gods, ca her prompt reply.
Then he'll do, Lin Hui thought, and returned his attention to the fight.
An unspoken understanding seed to have ford between the two of them. Neither escalated beyond a certain threshold as they traded blows, and the Black Mist retreated inch by inch.
About an hour later, it dispersed entirely, revealing a ruined ritual island beneath. The island was strewn with shattered tallic ritual tracks and drifting remnants of Black Mist.
Ka Qiusi had fought a careful retreating battle, ultimately choosing to abandon the island rather than die for it. Both he and Lin Hui could sense that the other was holding sothing back.
And so they had simply cooperated in staging a convincing performance.
Ka Qiusi clearly understood that Black Cloud City's capacity to deploy forces was essentially limitless. Yielding the sea region was the rational choice.
But if they were willing to yield it in the end—what was the point of all this? All that manpower, all those resources. There had to be a purpose.
Lin Hui floated above the small island, turning the thought over.
Regardless, that question falls to the Extre Desire Heaven's Elders. It's not our concern. Ouyang Yining's transmission ca from just behind him. We've completed our mission objective. Thank you for your effort on this trip, Your Excellency.
Fair enough. Lin Hui gave a small nod.
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