This Emperor, How Many More Cards Does He Have Up His Sleeve

"Sixth Palm."

The palm print was larger and more ferocious than the fifth. The golden imprint slammed into the tentacle barrier, shattering most of the outer tentacles.

Fragments of broken tentacles exploded across the sea surface, black pus raining down like a torrential storm.

But the freak octopus's regenerative abilities kicked in once again—the shattered tentacles regrew within a few breaths, the new ones thicker and tougher than before.

"Seventh Palm."

Wang Hao took a deep breath, channeling the power of the Annihilation Dao Pattern into his palm.

A palld platinum-gold palm print descended from the heavens, no longer golden but translucent white—the mark of the Annihilation Dao Pattern fused into the palm technique.

The moment the palm print touched the tentacle barrier, the barrier silently annihilated. Not shattered—obliterated, erased from existence itself.

The freak octopus's main body was now exposed before Wang Hao.

Under the suppression of the Annihilation Dao Pattern, the black fleshy mass trembled violently, eyes on its surface bursting one after another, each eruption spraying jets of black pus.

"Eighth Palm."

Wang Hao gave the freak octopus no chance to recover. The eighth palm followed immediately.

The palm print struck the fleshy mass directly, splitting it apart.

Fragments of the mass exploded across the sea, revealing a black core from within—a fist-sized black pearl, its surface flowing with dense, malevolent power.

Wang Hao reached out and grabbed the core in his hand.

The core was ice-cold to the touch, like holding a block of frozen metal.

He could feel the malevolent power inside the core thrashing wildly, trying to break free from his grip, but the national fortune power in his palm held it firmly suppressed.

"Sword-bitch, catch!"

He hurled the core toward Heavenly Sword. Heavenly Sword was locked in combat with two Grade Eight horrors, sensed the core flying over, caught it with one hand, and tossed it into his mouth without even looking.

"Any more?" His voice brimmed with excitement. "Your lord can still eat!"

"Wait. I'll deal with that after we finish up."

Wang Hao turned his gaze to the remaining horrors on the sea.

With the freak octopus slain, the lower-ranked horrors it had brought lost their leader and began drifting aimlessly across the waves. But the Grade Eight horrors from other directions still remained—Demon Lord was tangled with a Grade Eight freak sea serpent, Yue Ji and Feng Wanli were jointly engaging a Grade Eight freak jellyfish, and Xue Wuhen was single-handedly chasing down a Grade Eight freak starfish.

"End this quickly," Wang Hao ordered. "Once this wave is done, fall back and restock. The next wave might be worse."

The battle concluded at noon.

Three of the five Grade Eight horrors were slain; the other two fled back to the deep sea with severe wounds. Over ten thousand lower-ranked horrors were destroyed, and the scattered survivors posed no immediate threat.

But Wang Hao knew this was only temporary.

That half-Step-Ten horror was nursing its injuries deep in the South Sea, driving low-tier horrors forward to wear down Da Xia's defenses.

It wasn't in a hurry—it had all the time in the world.

It had waited seventy thousand years; a few more months meant nothing to it.

But Da Xia couldn't afford to wait.

Spirit stone reserves had been largely consumed by the Ninefold Annihilation Array ten days ago, and coastal defenses were draining massive amounts of spirit stones and ammunition every single day.

The people trusted the court, but a prolonged state of war would weary their hearts.

The soldiers fought bravely, but continuous combat sapped their strength and eroded morale.

"We need a plan, a way to solve this once and for all," Wang Hao said in the war council chamber.

A trace of gravity flickered in Demon Lord's pitch-black vortex-like eyes. "Your Majesty, you mean to take the fight to the South Sea?"

"Not to attack the South Sea," Wang Hao said, a cold, calculating smile spreading across his face. "It's to make that half-Step-Ten horror—crawl back to where it belongs."

He paused, then added, "And, while we're at it, give it something else to worry about."

Demon Lord froze for a moment, then read something in Wang Hao's smile.

He had seen that smile before. Ten days ago, when Wang Hao set the trap that wiped out twenty-nine martial gods, that was the exact same smile.

The third wave of the horror tide arrived on the fifth day.

Seven prongs this time—seven Grade Eight horrors striking simultaneously.

The defenders were exhausted.

Five straight days of battle, and the soldiers had barely gotten a full night's sleep—no sooner would they lie down than the alarm horns would blare from the battlements, dragging everyone from their beds and sending them scrambling to their posts.

The infirmary was overflowing.

The city god temple at Zhennan Pass, the dragon king temple at the naval harbor, the county magistrate's hall in Linhai County—every place that could shelter people was crammed with wounded.

Those lightly injured wrapped their bandages and returned to the walls; the severely wounded lay on stretchers moaning, and some who moaned eventually fell silent.

The ammunition stockpile for rune cannons had dropped below dangerous levels.

The Ministry of Works worked day and night forging new shells, but production couldn't keep pace with consumption. The cannons' firing rate fell from a volley every quarter-hour to one every double-hour—firepower density had dropped dramatically.

Spirit stone reserves were also draining fast. The city's grand protective formation consumed spirit stones continuously to stay operational, and stockpiles shrank by over a hundred million per day.

The Minister of Revenue had spent three straight days kneeling outside the council hall, begging Wang Hao to "curb expenditures." Wang Hao always said, "Noted," then signed another allocation order.

But the horror tide showed no sign of weakening.

On the contrary, each wave hit harder than the last.

The number of Grade Eight horrors climbed from two to three, to five, to seven—as if the deep waters of the South Sea held an endless supply.

"It makes no sense," Demon Lord said during the war analysis meeting, brows knitted into a deep furrow.

"No matter how many horrors the South Sea holds, it can't field seven Grade Eights in five days. Grade Eight horrors aren't cabbages—each one needs a thousand years of accumulation just to take shape."

"Unless—" Yue Ji picked up the thread, a dawning understanding flickering in her dead-gray eyes. "The half-Step-Ten is deliberately driving those Grade Eights to their deaths."

"To their deaths?" He Lanyue was taken aback. "What does it gain from that?"

"Gain?" Wang Hao spoke up suddenly, leaning back in his chair, fingers drumming on the armrest.

"It gains the cores of dead Grade Eight horrors. My people collect them, and Heavenly Sword eats them—but he only eats a portion. The cores that aren't recovered sink to the seabed, and the half-Step-Ten collects them. It's using the deaths of low-rank horrors to feed itself high-grade cores for healing."

The council chamber fell into dead silence.

If this theory held, the half-Step-Ten's intelligence was terrifying. It wasn't passively healing—it was actively harvesting, trading the lives of low-tier horrors for high-tier cores to speed up its own recovery.

"So what do we do now?" Han Shanyue's iron leg clanged against his chair in agitation. "We just stop fighting? Let it eat?"

"We fight, of course we fight," Wang Hao rose to his feet. "But we can't keep fighting like this. At this rate, our spirit stone reserves will run dry within a month, and the soldiers' strength will collapse within half a month. We need a new approach."

He walked to the sand table and traced a large circle over the South Sea with his finger.

"Strike first. Don't let them get close to the coast—cut them off halfway."

The Demon Lord frowned. "Your Majesty, our warships' speed can't match the aberrations. We won't catch them."

"No need for the navy to chase." Wang Hao looked toward the Heavenly Sword. "We'll have the Sword-bitch chase them."

The Heavenly Sword, manifested in human form, lounged against a pillar with arms crossed. At this, he raised an eyebrow. "Me, alone? Seven or eight grade-eight aberrations scattered across a thousand li of ocean—even at my speed, there's no way I can intercept them all."

"You won't be alone." Wang Hao produced an object from his sleeve. "Use this."

It was a fist-sized black incense burner, its surface densely carved with runes in a dark crimson hue, as if drawn in a mix of blood and cinnabar. At the top of the burner was a small hole, from which a faint wisp of gray smoke drifted lazily.

"This is something I obtained from today's check-in—Aberration-Alluring Incense." Wang Hao placed the burner beside the sand table. "Once lit, the scent it emits is lethally irresistible to aberrations. Any aberration within a hundred li, regardless of rank, will be drawn to this smell and swarm madly toward the burner."

The Demon Lord's pupils constricted sharply. "Your Majesty's meaning is—use the incense to gather the aberrations together, then wipe them out in one sweep?"

"Not just gather them." A cold, razor-edged smile crept onto Wang Hao's face. "The incense has another effect—it drives aberrations into a berserk state. In that state, they lose all reason, no longer obey the commands of higher-ranked aberrations, and chase only the scent by pure instinct. In other words, that half-step tenth-rank can no longer use lesser aberrations to whittle us down—because every aberration will be lured by the incense and slip out of its control."

Silence fell over the war council again.

Everyone stared at the fist-sized black incense burner, a storm of complex emotions churning in their eyes—shock, wariness, hope, and a sliver of fear they didn't even acknowledge. Just how many more cards did this emperor have hidden up his sleeve?

"Your Majesty, how long does the incense last?" Yue Ji asked.

"Six hours." Wang Hao raised six fingers. "Within those six hours, the aberrations it attracts will launch frenzied attacks on any living thing around the burner. So we need to set up a kill zone around it—once enough aberrations have gathered, we finish them all at once."

"How many people will the trap require?"

"The more, the better. He Lanyue, mobilize every border soldier you can spare from the Southern Frontier and bring them to Zhennan Pass. Han Shanyue, assemble the entire fleet in the waters off Zhennan Pass. Demon Lord, deploy all one hundred thousand elites of your Dark Legion to the outer perimeter of Zhennan Pass. Ao Guang, every battle-ready warrior of the South Sea Dragon Clan takes the field."

Wang Hao rose to his feet, planting both hands on the edge of the sand table, his gaze sweeping across everyone present.

"I'm going to set a trap outside Zhennan Pass—bigger than the last one."

His voice was low, but every word struck like a nail driven into the ears of everyone in the room.

"Last time, the trap buried twenty-nine War Gods. This time—what I'm burying isn't people. It's aberrations. Seven, eight, ten—no matter how many come, I'll take them all."

The Heavenly Sword straightened from the pillar, that insufferable grin spreading across his face.

"Wang Hao, I'm actually looking forward to this."

"To what?"

"To seeing the expression on that half-step tenth-rank aberration when it realizes its cannon fodder just got served up in one bowl."

Wang Hao smiled too.

"I'm looking forward to it as well."

The incense was lit at dawn on the sixth day.

Wang Hao personally placed the burner on a deserted islet thirty li outside Zhennan Pass. The islet spanned only a few li in circumference, surrounded by open sea with no cover whatsoever.

The burner was set at the islet's highest point. The moment it was lit, a wisp of gray smoke rose from the hole at its top, slowly spreading in the morning breeze.

The smoke spread faster than Wang Hao had anticipated. Within less than the time it takes to burn a stick of incense, the gray smoke blanketed dozens of li of ocean, forming a thin, hazy layer over the water's surface.

The haze carried no trace of aberration aura—indeed, it was completely odorless to living beings. Only aberrations could detect its scent.

But to aberrations, that scent was an irresistible lure.

The first to arrive was a grade-six aberration: a Phantom Serpent.

It surfaced from the deep, its head breaking the water, and flicked its forked tongue toward the islet.

Then it charged the islet like a thing possessed, its speed carving a white wake across the sea.

It surged onto the shore, lunging for the burner—only to be cleaved in two by a golden sword arc ten zhang short of its target.