Nine Omens Descend (Part 2)

A second wave of tentacles reached out.

This time, there were ten of them. Ten tentacles emerged from the black mist, each precisely coiling toward a dragon boat. The dragons on the boats closed their eyes in despair. Mothers held their children close, while elder dragons silently gripped their walking sticks, ready to detonate their dragon souls for even a single breath of time for their kin.

At that moment, a fierce roar came from the northern sea.

"Loose arrows!"

Three thousand armor-piercing crossbow bolts were fired simultaneously from the naval warships. The bolts were engraved with silver-white armor-breaking runes, each tracing three thousand silver arcs across the night sky—like a meteor shower flying in reverse.

Armor-piercing crossbows—runic weapons specifically designed to counter aberrations.

The three thousand bolts struck the ten tentacles with precision, and the silver-white rune light exploded upon contact.

The human faces on the tentacles let out piercing screams. The impact of the arrow barrage knocked the ten tentacles off course. Three of them were severed outright by the dense volley. The broken tentacles fell into the sea, turning into black pus.

"Fire!" He Lanyue stood at the prow of the flagship, holding a giant armor-piercing crossbow that was taller than he was. The spirit stones embedded in the crossbow glowed with blinding white light in the gloom. "Blast them to hell!"

Fifty warships of the Great Xia Southern Navy formed three columns on the sea. All the armor-piercing crossbows on board aimed at the aberrations in the black mist. Each warship carried at least a hundred crossbows, their arrowheads etched with the "Aberration-Banishing Rune" newly developed by the Zhennanguan Rune Workshop—an evolution of standard runes crafted by Great Xia runemasters, dealing at least fifty percent more damage to aberrations than ordinary armor-piercing runes.

The volley of five thousand bolts was more spectacular than any fireworks display.

The silver rain of arrows wove an impenetrable web of light across the night sky, shredding the first wave of aberrant tentacles that lunged at the fleet of the old and weak.

The tentacles of the Soul-Devouring Lord writhed wildly in the hail of arrows. The human faces on them were scorched and mangled by the banishing runes. Black blood gushed from the wounds, staining the sea black.

"The Great Xia Navy!" Ao Yue cried out, her voice trembling with overwhelming relief. "They've come—they really came!"

But there was no joy on He Lanyue's face.

Because he knew that five thousand crossbow bolts could only buy time—they could not change the outcome of the battle.

A ninth-grade aberration could not be killed by armor-piercing crossbows. Those were fourth-grade runic weapons, devastating against sixth-grade aberrations and below, effective against seventh-grade, and barely able to interfere with eighth-grade—but the Soul-Devouring Lord was peak ninth-grade. The crossbows were nothing more than an annoyance.

True enough, after a brief moment of pain, the Soul-Devouring Lord's tentacles only became more frenzied.

The three severed tentacles regenerated in a matter of breaths. The newly grown tentacles were covered with even more human faces—the visages of the old dragons who had just been devoured, their expressions frozen in the terror and agony of their final moments.

Meanwhile, the other eight ninth-grade aberrations began to stir.

The Bone-Shattering Lichee Lord spread its skeletal wings, spanning over ten thousand zhangs. Every bone spur on those wings was like a black bone sword a thousand zhangs long, dripping with eerie green corrosive liquid.

With a beat of its wings, the colossal body burst out of the black mist and barreled toward the navy warships with overwhelming force.

The Myriad-Soul Mother turned into a torrent of black fog, flanking the navy's arrow defenses and lunging straight for the midsection of the fleet of the old and weak. Within the black mist, a host of distorted human forms stretched out countless translucent hands, trying to drag the dragons on board into the abyss.

The Corpse-Mountain Stitcher was the most straightforward. It rammed the warships using the corpse of the First Dragon King of the Southern Sea—despite being dead for seventy thousand years, the residual draconic power in the remains was still terrifying. Everywhere it passed, seawater parted automatically, creating a vacuum trench dozens of li long.

The Giant Sea Anemone's tentacles rose from the seabed, each densely covered with barbs. They coiled around the keels of warships, flipping one over directly. Five hundred marines aboard screamed as they fell into the sea, only to be impaled by the anemone's barbs the moment they hit the water. Blood dyed the sea red.

The Skeletal Sphere opened its maw and spewed a black shockwave that swept across the surface. Three warships were struck. The ship-guarding arrays on their hulls shattered simultaneously, and the vessels exploded into fragments.

The Black Giant Serpent opened its jaws and swallowed a warship whole.

In the first exchange, the fifty warships lost eight.

He Lanyue's eyes were bulging with rage.

"Retreat!" he ordered through gritted teeth. "All ships, cover the fleet of the old and weak as they withdraw north! Do not engage!"

It wasn't that he didn't want to fight—it was that they simply couldn't win.

The Great Xia Southern Navy was only equipped for standard operations; its limit was dealing with seventh-grade aberrations. Now, facing nine ninth-grade aberrations and one half-step tenth-grade aberration, even the bravest marines barely qualified as cannon fodder.

But retreat was no easier.

The ships of the old and weak were too slow, and the ninth-grade aberrations were too fast. Even with the navy sacrificing itself to buy time, every half-incense period, another group of dragons would be caught and devoured. More and more dragon corpses floated on the surface of the sea, the waters stained gold with dragon blood.

Ao Yue stood at the prow of her ship, watching her kin die one after another. Her heart was torn to pieces.

The baby in her arms began to cry again. The little one seemed to have sensed his mother's utter despair; his wails were louder and more piercing than ever before.

"Almost there," Ao Yue whispered, her voice hoarse and barely audible.

"Almost there."

Then she saw it: more warships appeared on the northern horizon.

This time, not fifty—but five hundred.

The main force of the Eastern Wasteland's Eastern Sea Navy had arrived.

At the prow of the Eastern Sea Fleet's flagship, Zhenhai, stood a burly old general in black armor. A five-clawed black dragon was embossed on his breastplate—the insignia of the Governor-General of the Eastern Wasteland Navy, Han Shanyue, the Marquis of Jinghai.

Behind Han Shanyue were the three hundred capital ships of the Eastern Sea Fleet and the two hundred capital ships of the Southern Sea Fleet. Every vessel was equipped with the Eastern Wasteland's most advanced runic cannons—the runes glowing faint blue along the muzzles, dangerous fluctuations of spiritual energy swirling within the barrels.

"Runic cannon battery, fire!"

At Han Shanyue's command, the five hundred warships' one thousand five hundred runic cannons fired simultaneously.

The muzzles did not launch shells; instead, they belched one thousand five hundred beams of blue spiritual energy. Each beam was as thick as a well's mouth, carrying compressed spiritual power at extreme temperatures—enough to instantly melt a small mountain.

One thousand five hundred beams wove a net of destruction in the air, like fifteen hundred divine swords of judgment descending from the heavens, all slashing toward the ninth-grade aberrations in the black mist.

The Bone-Shattering Lichee Lord bore the brunt of the assault.

Hundreds of beams struck its skeletal wings at once. The corrosive liquid on its bone spurs was instantly vaporized by the spiritual-energy bombardment, and the osseous structure began to disintegrate under the high-energy impact.

Cracks spread at visible speed across the bone wing, until with a sharp snap, the right half of the Abyssal Dragon General’s wing was shattered completely. The broken wing fell into the sea, kicking up waves dozens of feet high.

Hundreds of beams of light pierced the black mist of the Myriad Soul Entity. The humanoid shape within the mist writhed in agony, thrashing wildly among the beams until its body was burned to smoke by the spiritual energy.

The Corpse Mountain Stitched Abomination fared the worst—its body, made from the remains of a primordial dragon king, was riddled with dozens of holes from the beams. The residual draconic power within the corpse violently reacted with the spiritual energy in the beams, and the entire body exploded in a thunderous blast. The shockwave scattered nearly half of the stitched abomination’s other parts.

The giant sea anemone’s tentacles were all severed by the dense beams, shards of barbed hooks flying in all directions.

The shockwave from the Skull Sphere was broken apart by the beams, and the backlash shattered half of its own skull.

The colossal black serpent was pinned in place by hundreds of beams, forced to spit out the wreckage of the warship it held in its mouth and dive back into the water.

All nine Level Nine Aberrations staggered backward under the assault of the runic cannon formation.

They were not defeated—only suppressed.

The runic cannons were powerful, but the regenerative power of Level Nine Aberrations was far more terrifying. Severed tentacles, wings, and limbs began regrowing within mere breaths. Spiritual energy beams naturally lost lethality against Aberrations—these were not beings of flesh and blood. Without a concept of fatal injury, as long as their core remained intact, they could regenerate indefinitely.

Yet this volley bought precious time for the Grand Xia Navy and the fleet of the dragon clan’s old and weak.

“All ships, full speed ahead! Move to support the dragon clan’s retreating fleet!” Han Shanyue roared from the prow of his command ship. “Cover with Counter-Bane Crossbows! Keep the runic cannons firing! All generals at Sky-Soaring Realm or above, follow me out to intercept the Aberrations!”

From the decks of the East Sea Fleet and the South Sea Fleet, figures shot into the air.

Three hundred generals, each at the first layer of the Sky-Soaring Realm, rose simultaneously from five hundred warships. Their battle aura ignited around them in flames of every color, illuminating the entire night sky as if it were day. Han Shanyue, at the first layer of the Martial God Realm—recently broken through during last year’s Northern Border campaign—cultivated water-element techniques. Now, his battle aura surged skyward as a column of water, within which a coiled water dragon could faintly be seen.

The fleet’s highest combat power was Han Shanyue and three other Martial God Realm generals; the rest were all Sky-Soaring Realm. On any normal day, such a force could crush any sea-demon faction with ease. But facing nine Level Nine Aberrations and a single Half-Step Tenth Level Aberration, it was still like throwing eggs against rocks.

But Han Shanyue could not afford to think about that.

He was the Marquis of Jinghai of the Eastern Wastelands, and the seas of Grand Xia were his jurisdiction. Though the South Sea Dragon Clan had not yet signed any treaty, He Lanyue had already opened the town’s southern barrier gates. That made these dragons guests of Grand Xia—or at least prospective guests.

“The law of the Eastern Wastelands of Grand Xia is this—if our guests are to die, they die after their hosts!”

With a roar, Han Shanyue’s water dragon charged at the Abyssal Dragon General. Behind him, the three hundred Sky-Soaring generals surged forward, each unleashing their strongest martial techniques, forming a makeshift line of battle aura on the sea’s surface.

The water dragon collided with the bone dragon, and two vastly different forces exploded across the sea.

Han Shanyue was thrown backward by the recoil, his chest armor marked with three deep gouges from bone spurs. His water dragon was shattered in the bone dragon’s jaws, scattering into countless droplets that fell into the sea, but he did not retreat a single step.

Because he was a general of the Eastern Wastelands—and generals of the Eastern Wastelands never retreated.

“Damn it!” He Lanyue cursed through gritted teeth as he watched from the retreating warship. He turned to his deputy and ordered, “Take the fleet of the weak and elderly and continue north! I’m going to help Governor Han!”

He too soared into the air and plunged into the battle.

Two Martial God Realm warriors, three hundred Sky-Soaring Realm generals, fought a desperate battle against nine Level Nine Aberrations and one Half-Step Tenth Level Aberration.

And at the very edge of the battlefield, in the sky above the black mist, the enormous black hand—with the fist-sized eye in its palm—had not moved at all.

It simply watched everything below in silence, a gleam of near-mocking amusement shifting in its pupil.

This was a Half-Step Tenth Level Aberration. It was cultivating a Gu—a breeding chamber.

It was using its own domain to drive the nine Level Nine Aberrations to devour blood and flesh. The more they consumed, the stronger they grew. When they were powerful enough, it would devour them all itself, completing its final evolution.

In its eyes, these humans of the Eastern Wasteland Navy were nothing more than fodder for its Gu-raising scheme.