A Pawn's Passage

After looking through the titles of these ancient Daoist texts, Qi Xuansu said, “It seems a group of Longevous once attempted to reach the Southern Continent, only to sink here. The question is, where did those Longevous end up?”

Utu replied, “Give me one day. Perhaps that severed head can provide us with the answer.”

Qi Xuansu nodded. “Very well.”

They then opened the remaining chests and barrels. Apart from a few bizarre traps, they found a barrel of expired talisman water and mouldy white rice. These were evidently materials used in Daoist rituals, bearing the distinctly primitive style of the Ancient Daoist Order, further confirming that this ship had belonged to the Longevous.

This was merely a brief interlude. Qi Xuansu had no intention of delving into the secrets of the Longevous for now. Should he wish to make some scholarly achievements or breakthroughs, he might investigate their mysteries after becoming a Palace Master. By then, he would write several thousand pages on the subject and publish them. Just as the great Confucian scholars established their doctrines through writing, that would count as him leaving behind a lasting intellectual legacy.

Old Pang had another special assignment on this voyage. He had to chart these waters. Since they had gone to such lengths to reach this unexplored sea, they might as well turn the unknown into the known. The next time the Western Daoist Order ventured into these waters, they would no longer be sailing completely blind.

Qi Xuansu specifically instructed them to carefully mark the location of the shipwreck. If the opportunity arose in the future, they could return for a full salvage operation.

Since they did not know the exact location of Blue Cloud Island and only knew the general area, the Horned Dragon remained on the sea instead of taking to the air, making it easier to search for the island.

The Daoist Order’s flying ships were all capable of both sea and air travel. Their drawback was that they could not easily land on solid ground and required specially constructed ports. Their advantage was that they could also function perfectly well as ordinary seagoing vessels.

This was how Qi Xuansu’s party spent their first night after entering this uncharted sea.

Perhaps they had not yet ventured deep enough, or perhaps they were not so lucky. They did not see the legendary Yin Moon. Instead, an enormous full moon hung high overhead, bathing the sea in shimmering silver. As Utu liked to say, every time he looked upon the bright moon above, he was reminded of his goddess’s radiant smile.

Hun Ahau’s assessment was simple. “He’s beyond saving.”

At Qi Xuansu’s level of cultivation, there was little need for sleep. He normally spent the time meditating instead. Having just meditated for four hours, he was interrupted by a knock at the door.

Hun Ahau reported, “Sage, a fog has risen over the sea.”

Qi Xuansu and Hun Ahau stepped out onto the deck, where Utu, Yang Shaozhen, and Old Pang were already waiting.

“What’s the story behind this fog?” Qi Xuansu asked. He knew very little when it came to the sea.

Old Pang replied, “Sage Qi, according to the legends of the sea, this fog, like the Yin Moon, originates from the Eye of the Sea deep beneath the ocean. Yin energy rises from the depths to the surface. Most of it ascends into the sky and becomes the Yin Moon, but part of it disperses along the way, transforming into sea fog. Once a vessel enters the fog, there is no returning. Some ships even become ghost ships, wandering endlessly wherever the sea fog drifts.”

Utu said, “I can indeed sense yin energy.”

Qi Xuansu gazed into the distance. Beneath the moonlight, he could make out wisps of black mist steadily spreading towards them. At first glance, it looked like rain clouds that gathered before a storm.

Everyone turned to Qi Xuansu to make a decision—whether they should steer clear of the mist or knowingly head straight into danger despite knowing what awaited them.

Although Old Pang’s description had sounded terrifying, that was from the perspective of ordinary seagoing vessels. For an active-duty flying warship carrying two Pseudo-Immortals in addition to Qi Xuansu himself, such dangers might not amount to much.

Qi Xuansu pondered for a moment before saying, “If I remember correctly, Blue Cloud Island is also shrouded in mist. Since we’re searching for it, we’ll have to encounter this sooner or later. I say better sooner than later. We might as well use this opportunity to test the waters. Pass down my orders—activate the Horned Dragon’s formations and prepare the Starcrusher at level-one readiness.”

Yang Shaozhen acknowledged the order and withdrew to carry it out.

They were going to sail straight into the sea fog.

Once the Horned Dragon’s formations were activated, they would be completely sealed off from the outside world. Until those formations were breached, no spell or yin energy could affect them inside.

Yang Shaozhen, Old Pang, and the others headed for the bridge, leaving only Qi Xuansu, Utu, and Hun Ahau standing on the deck.

The three men’s cultivation was high enough that they had nothing to fear from such things. If this mist could injure them, then the Horned Dragon’s formations probably wouldn’t be able to stop it either.

As the sea fog rolled toward them, Qi Xuansu ordered the Horned Dragon to charge directly into it. Both sides were now heading straight for one another.

As the distance between them rapidly closed, the yin energy grew denser, while black clouds gradually concealed the moon overhead.

The once relatively calm sea turned violently turbulent. It began with a light drizzle before escalating into a raging storm of wind and rain. The waves rose higher and higher until they resembled towering mountains and city walls.

An ordinary boat would have been capsized by a single wave. However, the Horned Dragon was different. Setting aside its combat capabilities, its sheer size alone was every bit the equal of a Yinglong Warship. It dwarfed ordinary flying ships, resembling a small city drifting across the sea. Even without the protection of its formations, its immense bulk alone was enough to withstand the fury of the storm.

The three men stood amidst the howling wind and torrential rain. Hun Ahau no longer restrained the circulation of his blood qi. Merely by releasing it outward, he vaporized all the rain at a 10-meter radius. The closer a Martial Arts Practitioner came to becoming a Manly Immortal, the more hot-blooded they became. As soon as they reached the Manly Immortal realm, the blood qi within their body resembled molten lava. There was not the slightest exaggeration in that description.

Hun Ahau said, “Old Pang wasn’t entirely wrong. If the storm travels together with the mist, then any ship that plunges into it really would have no chance of returning. I’d quite like to see a ghost ship with my own eyes.”

No sooner had the words left his mouth that a multi-masted sailing ship emerged from beneath the sea. First came the bow, then the hull, and finally the stern, with countless streams of water cascading down its sides.

This was not a vessel of the Longevous, but a typical Western sailing ship armed with 24 cannons. In its own era, it would have been considered a formidable giant, but beside the Horned Dragon, it was utterly insignificant.

After the Western multi-masted sailing ship emerged, one sunken vessel after another surfaced from the depths, seemingly unaffected by the storm. Among this fleet of ghost ships was an ironclad warship.

A careful count revealed that there were more than a dozen of them.

Utu could not help saying, “Brother, you’ve really jinxed us. Whatever you say comes true.”

Hun Ahau cleared his throat awkwardly and could only turn his gaze toward the ghost ships.

Neither the storm nor the mist could obstruct the True Eyes of a Pseudo-Immortal Martial Arts Practitioner.

The ghost ships were empty, shrouded in pitch-black darkness, with not a single human figure in sight.

Qi Xuansu said nothing. He merely raised his hand and made a gesture to open fire. Since the area where Qi Xuansu and the others stood was illuminated by Hun Ahau’s blood qi, Yang Shaozhen, who was on the bridge, could clearly see his signal.

Already at level-one readiness, the Starcrusher immediately let out a thunderous roar. Although they did not deploy the Grade-A Series Two Dragon Eye Bomb, a normal shot was enough to sink a steamship.

The Starcrusher did not even enter a cooldown period. Given its sheer scale, this sort of ordinary bombardment was trivial. Eliminating the ghost ships one by one was merely a matter of time.

The ghost ships seemed to realize that remaining passive meant certain destruction. Throwing everything they had into the effort, they charged toward the Horned Dragon.

“Are they trying to board us?” Hun Ahau asked. Though he was a general of land armies, he knew a little about naval warfare as well. “Their bridges aren’t even as high as our deck. How are they planning to get aboard? Grappling hooks?”

Utu replied, “They can climb.”

The next instant, countless ghostly figures leaped from the ghost ships. Neither the raging wind nor the torrential rain affected them in the slightest as they bounded toward the Horned Dragon’s deck.

Utu narrowed his eyes. “What kind of hellish things are these?”

As the master over the domain of death, Utu himself had long been eroded by the divine power of death, making him half-man and half-ghost. Yet even he described these black figures as hellish abominations because these creatures were genuinely too bizarre even by his standards.

At first glance, they had humanoid forms. However, their faces resembled those of squids or octopuses. Where a mouth should have been, a circular maw lined with layer upon layer of razor-sharp teeth took its place. Their limbs were tentacles covered in suction cups. Even great demons who had achieved high levels of cultivation still possessed true forms. These things, on the other hand, looked more like the product of some grotesque mutation of human beings.

Although these abominations could not leap directly onto the deck, they were able to latch onto the ship’s hull with their suction cups and climb up like geckos.

A gigantic scythe materialized in Utu’s hand as he manifested his Spiritual Statue.

Although his Spiritual Statue was massive, the Horned Dragon was even larger, and its deck easily accommodated him. He swung the enormous scythe in his hands, the arc of its blade sweeping across a fan-shaped area that encompassed nearly every ghost ship as well as all of the abominations.

Yet Utu’s attack failed to achieve any effect.

The reason was that Utu’s scythe reaped souls rather than harming lifeless matter. These creatures had no souls at all. They were nothing more than animated corpses.

“Is something controlling them?” Hun Ahau said as he made his move. Unlike Utu, his methods were anything but flashy. He simply threw punches. Yet his fists moved so quickly that they left behind one afterimage after another, as though dozens of Hun Ahaus were striking from different directions at the same time.

From beginning to end, Qi Xuansu never made a move. These abominations looked terrifying, but they were not difficult to deal with.

Meanwhile, the Starcrusher never ceased firing, methodically picking off one target after another. More than half of the ghost ships had already been sunk.

This was not an ordinary naval bombardment that merely punched a large hole through a ship’s hull, slowly leaving it to sink. A single shot from the Starcrusher blasted away nearly half a vessel, leaving behind nothing but burning wreckage.

The Horned Dragon continued advancing with unstoppable momentum.

The times have changed. The age when ghost ships and storms could be used to terrorize the seas had come to an end.

This was the age of colossal warships and heavy artillery, allowing them to break through the storm.