Chapter 194 : Mutual Slaughter
Chapter 194: Mutual Slaughter
Black-Veil Sea Region, Inner Sea.
The sky stretched ten thousand miles without a single cloud, and the waves rolled as high as mountains.
A sea vessel pressed forward amidst the raging waves, moving slowly, yet at any moment it could be swallowed whole by towering tides. The scene appeared exceedingly perilous.
Li Lin squatted on the deck, her eyes faintly glowing.
“Senior Sister, northwest direction, four waves out—there’s a school of Four-Seasons Fish.”
Hearing this, Senior Sister Lin hurriedly steered the vessel toward the northwest.
Another female disciple, Zhao Jing, swiftly loosened the Cold-Silk Net coiled around the mast.
“Cast the net!”
As Li Lin’s words fell, Zhao Jing immediately activated her technique. The entire Cold-Silk Net, like the radiance of a bright moon, sank into the sea, then gradually vanished from sight.
“Splashhh!”
A quarter-hour later, the surging sea suddenly boiled.
Looking closely, the boiling waves were stirred up by countless Four-Seasons Fish struggling within the Cold-Silk Net.
At the moment Zhao Jing exerted her spiritual power to haul up the net, Senior Sister Lin’s hand seals shifted, casting a Frosting Art. Wisps of misty frost instantly spread along the net, freezing the trapped fish within.
“Rise!”
Seeing this, Li Lin ceased using her Spirit-Gazing Eyes. Instead, she infused spiritual power into her hands, gripping the fishing net, and together with her senior sister dragged the ten-zhang-long Cold-Silk Net onto the vessel.
The Four-Seasons Fish was unique to the Black-Veil Sea Region. Its flesh was tough, its stench overwhelming, without any nourishing effect—unworthy even of being called a First-Tier Exotic Fish. Even gourmands fond of sea fish would shake their heads at the sight of it.
But the Four-Seasons Fish was not entirely useless. The Second-Tier Spirit Fish, the Black-Veil Fish, had an unusual taste and favored the former as food.
This was why Li Lin and the others risked venturing into the sea to capture Four-Seasons Fish schools—only to lure Black-Veil Fish.
For within the sect, the price of Black-Veil Fish remained sky-high. A single one could sell for tens of thousands of low-grade Spirit Stones.
If exchanged through the Mission Hall, a single Black-Veil Fish could be worth four thousand contribution points.
“Senior Sister, did we get any?” Zhao Jing looked at Senior Sister Lin.
“No, not a single Black-Veil Fish.” The latter frowned, staring at the net with a look of disbelief.
To track Four-Seasons Fish schools, she had led her two junior sisters roaming the Black-Veil Sea Region for over two months.
Yet after finally finding a school this large, to not catch even one Black-Veil Fish—this was nothing short of a blood loss.
“Senior Sister, could it be a Black-Veil Fish King?” Li Lin asked in suspicion.
The Black-Veil Fish King was a mutated Third-Tier Treasure Fish, highly intelligent, able to lead its school in concealment, evading capture by human cultivators. It was extremely troublesome.
“Treasure Fish of the Fish King level usually only appear in the core seas. It’s unlikely to be in the inner sea.” Senior Sister Lin explained patiently.
Catching Black-Veil Fish was indeed a fast path to contribution points, but the threshold was extremely high.
Without a Second-Tier high-grade sea vessel sturdy enough to withstand the inner sea’s tides, and without a Foundation Establishment cultivator skilled in Spirit-Gazing Arts to track Four-Seasons Fish and not lose direction, it was impossible to even glimpse a Black-Veil Fish.
Even if all conditions were met, with poor luck and no fishing experience, cultivators could sail the inner sea for three or four years without catching a single one.
Thus, though Senior Sister Lin felt the last two months had been wasted, she did not dwell on it.
Only junior sisters who had joined the sect for a few years still imagined treasures of heaven and earth were as common as weeds by the roadside.
What a joke.
Third-Tier Treasure Fish were incomparably rare. She had fished in the inner seas of the Black-Veil Region for fifty years and had never once laid eyes on a Black-Veil Fish King.
If one truly appeared, even Golden Core True Persons in the sect would not remain idle.
For the effect of a Black-Veil Fish King was simple and brutal—after being consumed by a Golden Core cultivator, it could temporarily heighten comprehension, greatly increasing the chance of breaking through bottlenecks.
“Junior Sister Li, trouble you to search for the Four-Seasons Fish again.”
Nodding at these words, Li Lin did not argue. She activated her Fate-Gazing Spirit Eyes, sweeping the surroundings.
Boom!
Sensing a terrifying beastly aura hidden beneath the sea, Li Lin’s pupils contracted. She could not suppress the panic rising on her face.
“Senior Sister, flee quickly!”
Senior Sister Lin’s expression shifted. Yet before she could react, a jet-black bone spike shot forth from the waves.
“Bang!”
As the Second-Tier sea vessel’s defensive barrier emerged to block the incoming strike, a visible white shockwave exploded, surging waves to the sky.
At the same time, Zhao Jing groaned, staring in terror at the shattered jade talisman at her waist and the pulverized bone spike before her.
Had she not been cautious by nature, always carrying protective artifacts, she would have perished under that blow.
“Attack! It’s trying to destroy the ship!”
In this life-and-death moment, Senior Sister Lin could not spare the cost. She crushed a Second-Tier Azure-Light Talisman. A halo of azure light enveloped the vessel.
“Roar!”
With a terrifying roar, a colossal beast over four zhang long emerged, crowned with a thorned crown of bone atop its head.
Its body was clad in black crescent-shaped scales, radiating tangible pressure.
“We’re finished!”
Seeing its form, the three disciples’ faces turned deathly pale.
For the sea beast that attacked them was not an ordinary Foundation Establishment beast, but the Thorn-Bone King Fish, infamous in the core seas, with strength at Late-Stage Foundation Establishment—far beyond what three early-stage cultivators could resist.
“Creak! Creak!”
Hearing the ship groan under unbearable strain, Senior Sister Lin’s eyes flashed ruthlessly. She suddenly kicked hard.
Standing to her right, Junior Sister Zhao Jing, who had been controlling her artifact, was struck with immense force. Her body shot out like a cannonball, hurled toward the Thorn-Bone King Fish.
“Why?” Li Lin’s eyes widened in disbelief.
At such a critical juncture, they should have been fighting together against the ferocious beast.
Why had the senior sister she so revered turned on her own?
The Thorn-Bone King Fish lifted its head, the crown of bone easily impaling Zhao Jing’s body.
Taking the opportunity, Senior Sister Lin urged the vessel into the sky, fleeing in the opposite direction at full speed.
“There is no why! Survival is all that matters!”
Fearing Li Lin might falter in the moment of crisis, Senior Sister Lin shouted loudly.
The Thorn-Bone King Fish’s cold gaze fixed on the vessel. It opened its maw and spat a black beam.
Evidently, the flesh of one Foundation Establishment cultivator was far from satisfying its hunger.
As the black beam spread, towering black waves collapsed downward, slapping toward the vessel as though swatting a fly.
“Damn it! Explode for me!”
Senior Sister Lin’s eyes turned blood-red. She triggered the restriction hidden within Zhao Jing’s body. A terrifying cold burst forth, enough to freeze all things.
“Roar!”
A furious bellow shook the seas, and the towering black waves collapsed instantly.
Even the Thorn-Bone King Fish could not withstand the self-destruction of a Foundation Establishment cultivator shattering her Dao Foundation.
But it only roused the beast’s ferocity. Its figure turned into black light, chasing after the fleeing vessel, quickly closing the distance.
“Gulu?” (“Should we make a move?”)
Golden Egg looked at Chen Beiwu.
‘Wait a little longer. This Thorn-Bone King Fish is no easy foe.’ Chen Beiwu’s eyes narrowed.
He had not expected to encounter such a scene while traveling.
At first, seeing fellow sect members in danger, Chen Beiwu had considered secretly loosing an arrow to help them escape, then slipping away via the Gate of Ten Directions.
But the scene of fellow disciples turning on each other upon the vessel made him change his mind.