Chapter 159 – Long Fish Scale Rain
Ten thousand bolts of lightning fell from on high, dense as a forest.
The cold blue light shield covering the Beast Taming Sect’s main sect shattered instantly. In the rolling thunder, terrifying white lightning bolts rained down upon the entire mountain range. Seawater, river water, white waves, black tides… In an instant, everyone was plunged into a blindingly bright light that swept over everything. The sea, reflecting the lightning as it surged over the mountainside, and the dark, layered clouds, broken by the lightning.
The mountain peaks floated in a white expanse, reduced to dark silhouettes.
People were like ants!
“It’s the hour of Xu!”
Fang Ying shouted, his voice raw and painful.
His desperate cry was drowned out by the roar of the universe on the brink of destruction… for they could find no other words to describe it. Huge, branching lightning bolts struck the sea, the force as terrifying as an angry dragon returning to the ocean. The deep pool beneath the bronze floodgate exploded into a silver mirror, water and lightning splashing, flashing, and erupting simultaneously.
Bai Chongqin, the Eldest Senior Sister of Changyu Peak, couldn’t hear his voice, but she saw the time plate he held high.
“Charge!”
Her rain cloak was pulled taut by the strong airflow. Bai Chongqin was the first to leap out, lunging toward the bronze gate at the end of the pool, which was now coated in a layer of electricity.
A dozen or so Changyu Peak disciples followed without hesitation.
***
Lightning continued to strike.
Myriad scales glinted as they leaped from the water in the blinding light. Within the Beast Taming Sect, all the mountain bells rang at once, their urgent, sonorous chimes converging, forcibly breaking through the sound of the wind and rain. Amidst the ringing of the mountain bells, the disciples who had been forced to retreat to the upper half of the mountain peaks all turned pale.
—Scales!
In the lightning’s glare, the sea surface was densely packed with scales.
“Heavens above…”
The Beast Taming Sect disciples who saw the scales clearly staggered back, nearly rolling off the mountain peak. Wave after wave of sea tide, as high as city walls, pushed forward, crashing against the floating island-like peaks. The tremors passed through the mountain rock to everyone’s feet, as if the very mountains were about to collapse. In the tidal waves, countless aquatic creatures—part dragon, part human, part fish, part turtle, part beast—broke through the sea.
The torrential rain washed over them.
They used their scales as armor, their bones as spears, and their teeth as sabers.
A million demons, a million blades.
“West Sea Demons…”
The voice of the Stopping Clouds Peak disciple was so weak it was almost a moan.
In the lightning’s flash, what appeared in everyone’s vision were the very West Sea Demons they had been so eager to march south and slay, to rid the world of for the sake of the common people… They had not followed the icebergs south, had not taken the shipping lanes to Glazed Bay, nor had they gone to fight for the Dragon’s Lair or Crane City.
Instead, like phantoms, on this night of thunder and storms, they had suddenly appeared directly outside the Beast Taming Sect’s main sect.
“How did they get here?”
The disciples of Stopping Clouds Peak had pale faces, their previous arrogance completely gone.
They held golden chains wrapped around their left hands and swords in their right. Though they held their swords, they were trembling uncontrollably, clearly just putting on a brave face. The golden chains connected them to the newly contracted flood dragons they rode, their whiskers and manes flying. The flood dragons, which had come from the dragon-rearing pool, stared fixedly at the sea demons emerging from the water, their dark red eyes showing no joy at seeing their own kind, only the violence of battle.
Lightning continued to fall, and in the frosty white expanse, ferocious demonic beasts faced each other coldly.
“…The Hundred Rivers flow south… Changlan Fjord,” the leading disciple of the Stopping Clouds Peak group, with his narrow sleeves, golden collar, and handsome but somewhat arrogant features, suddenly realized. “These beasts came directly from Changlan Fjord!!!”
The southward flow of the Hundred Rivers was very, very far from the West Continent, far from the Beast Taming Sect.
So far that it reached back to the end of the Primeval Era.
So far that the people of the West Continent’s cities and the Beast Taming Sect had forgotten.
—They had forgotten that there was an ancient sea route from Changlan Fjord to the main sect of the Beast Taming Sect.
A very short route that led directly there!
The West Continent was a land of alternating seas and mountains, running parallel and diagonally. This year, with the southward flow of the Hundred Rivers, the icebergs of the Ancient Sea had crashed into the numerous narrow bays on the west side of the West Continent. The bays, hundreds and thousands of meters high, stretched across the middle of the strait. The continuous torrential rain that had enveloped the West Continent, combined with the sea tide pushed by the harsh wind and ocean currents, had risen rapidly, submerging the rolling mountains of the fjords—the parallel seas and mountains were thus connected.
While the whale clan traveled south along the fjords, slaughtering and creating the tragedy of the thirty-six cities, the main force of the West Sea Demons had entered horizontally from the Changlan Fjord. Like a sharp knife, they had taken advantage of the rising sea level, following the ancient sea route that had been lost for ten thousand years, cutting through the nine veins and eleven rivers, and appearing directly outside the Beast Taming main sect.
The waves piled up like mountains, coming in rows.
At the head of the turbid tide, the West Sea Demons no longer hid.
They slowly emerged from the water, making no attempt to conceal their killing intent. Their ferocious giant bows were slowly drawn, bone spears serving as arrows, nocked on the strings.
When did they arrive? How long had they been hiding in the sea and rivers?
No one knew.
The mountain bells, which should have given some warning, had lost their original function after the dragon-rearing pool was opened—the hostile aura of the tens of thousands of flood dragons within the eight trigram mountains was too strong, and had instead become an aid for the West Sea Demons to conceal their movements. In fact, if the sect hadn’t activated the floodgates and released the water from the giant lake, the sea and river levels around the sect would not have risen so quickly.
“Disciples of the Beast Taming Sect, heed my command—”
Sect Master Zhuang Xuan’s steady voice came from the direction of the eight trigram mountains, carrying an invisible force that forcibly suppressed the raging waves stirred up by the West Sea Demons within the sect.
“Defend!”
Between the pale white of the lightning, the deep black of the mountains, and the evil green of the sea demons, streaks of golden light broke through the rain.
Although they were almost out of their minds from the shock of the scenes before them, at Sect Master Zhuang’s command, the Beast Taming Sect disciples still instinctively began to activate their defensive formations—no words were needed. Over the long course of a thousand years, they had become accustomed to suppressing and slaughtering demonic beasts. In the thousand years that Zhuang Xuan had been in charge of the sect, the belief that “humans and demons are separate, and their lives and deaths are a struggle” had become deeply ingrained.
—Demons cannot be reasoned with, demons cannot be trusted, demons cannot follow the Dao.
Only through suppression, complete control, could the immense power of the demonic creatures be harnessed for their own use, and only then could they prevent giant elephants from breaking down city walls and prevent the deaths of countless people.
Countless disciples simultaneously extended their left hands, and the golden chains on their left wrists flew up at the same time. The low roars of the flood dragons, filled with ferocity, merged into one. With the suppression lifted, the dragons’ bodies swelled in the wind, emerging through the rain.
Led by a vicious flood dragon as thick as a giant wall, flood dragons of all sizes followed behind.
The momentum was immense.
However, unlike in the past, this time, as the decisive command to kill spread through the thousand peaks of the West Continent’s dragon head where the main sect was located, the terrifying-looking demonic beasts in the waves of the sea tide all raised their heads at the same time, revealing ferocious smiles at the peaks floating on the sea. The lightning illuminated their menacing fangs.
They shot forward like lightning, faster and more ferocious than the flood dragons enslaved by the Beast Taming Sect!
The first batch of vicious flood dragons clashed with the first batch of West Sea Demons.
A dark-skinned, half-human, half-fish sea creature extended its four arms, tightly gripping a dark red flood dragon. With a single exertion of its four arms, the flood dragon was torn into several pieces, and blood splattered in the air like a bloody rainbow. But soon, a giant flood dragon with black scales coiled around it, constricting it like a python. The black flood dragon raised its head and roared, its muscles contracting, its scales clashing, and flesh and blood splattered in the clanging sound… Flood dragons fought with turtles, flood dragons fought with crocodiles, flood dragons fought with flood dragons.
In just one exchange, the seawater was churned into a cyan-red color.
The sea tide crashed against the mountain peaks, splitting into torrents of backward-rolling currents.
“Ugh…”
The backward-rolling sea tide, carrying a bloody color, fell along with the torrential rain, drenching the disciples who had retreated to the mountain top with intestines, eyeballs with skin and flesh. The stench and horror were a rare sight in their lives.
Some couldn’t bear it and vomited on the spot.
The disciples, their blood stirred, yearned for the scene of commanding a host of demons, sweeping all before them, yearned for the legends of heroes charging in and out seven times, as written by storytellers. Or, they were consumed by hatred and prejudice, eager for the moment to slay the foreign race with their own hands and settle the blood debt. Only when the slaughter truly unfolded before them would they realize how ridiculous all their previous fantasies were!
Barbaric! Primitive! Violent! Bloody!
This was not the struggle they used to watch from high above, riding Vermilion Birds in the clouds, coldly observing demonic beasts fighting among themselves. This was a war they could not arrogantly look down upon—a flood dragon’s body crashed into the mountain rock, and its master, unable to get out of the way in time, was crushed into a pulp by the very demonic beast he had contracted.
The red-faced, leopard-headed, fish-bodied sea creature that had thrown the contracted flood dragon was covered in blood and crashed onto the mountain peak like a meteor.
“Heh heh…”
A Stopping Clouds Peak disciple was grabbed by the throat and lifted up.
He struggled to issue the command to summon his tamed beast, but couldn’t even form a proper syllable. The West Sea Demons had appeared too suddenly, and the distance between the two sides was too close. The enemy had not given them the space and opportunity to leisurely summon their tamed beasts and arrange their formations. In just one exchange, they had closed in on the mountain peaks where the Beast Taming Sect disciples were located with the fastest speed and most ferocious charge.
“Line up—”
The bronze beast token at his waist had just begun to glow when, with a muffled thud, the disciple who had struggled to activate the token was slammed hard against the solid mountain rock. From the neck up, he instantly exploded into a blurry mass of flesh and blood.
“Retreat! Retreat!”
The Vermilion Bird soared into the sky. The handsome and arrogant leading disciple of Stopping Clouds Peak had a pale face as he shouted sternly.
“Retreat to the second mountain range!”
The location of the Beast Taming main sect had always been known as the “Thousand Peaks Dragon Head.” The precipitous and rugged mountain peaks and the crisscrossing, rushing seas and rivers formed a giant dragon’s head gripping the land of the West Continent, its mouth swallowing the eye of the West Sea, occupying a vast area. The ancient mountain range was continuous. If divided by its general trend, it could be counted as twelve inner and outer ranges.
Now, the West Sea Demons were coming on fiercely. If they stayed in the first range, the Beast Taming Sect disciples would be torn to pieces by the close-quarters West Sea Demons before all their tamed demonic beasts had awakened.
The orders to retreat rose and fell one after another.
The Beast Taming Sect disciples located in the first mountain range, while retreating in a disheveled state on their flying birds, sternly commanded their tamed demonic beasts to meet the blood-soaked West Sea race head-on.
A sea tide a hundred meters high crashed against the mountain peak.
A Human-faced Long Fish leaped into the air. As it turned, its sharp, scythe-like tail cut a Vermilion Bird, which was about to take flight, in half at the waist. The leading disciple of Stopping Clouds Peak, who was riding the bird, fell. Before he could even let out a scream, his head was bitten off in one go. With a crunching sound, the Human-faced Long Fish’s fangs were stained red and white, and the headless body in its magnificent clothes fell into the water, disappearing in the blink of an eye, swallowed by the seawater and dismembered limbs.
“Abomination!”
The Stopping Clouds Peak elder who had rushed over from the direction of the eight trigram mountains had eyes that were about to split with rage.
He roared angrily, and the clothes on his arms shattered. They swelled to dozens of times their size, covered in bronze-like scales, and he brought them down in a clasped grip. A huge crater was smashed into the water’s surface, and all the sea creatures within the crater, along with the tamed beasts they were fighting, were turned into a bloody pulp.
“Abominations, how dare you invade our mountain gate!”
With his arms hanging by his sides, the elder stood on the bloody pulp, his voice stern and severe.
More and more elders arrived, finally intercepting the first wave of the sea demon tide outside the second mountain range. But by this time, a tide of corpses had already piled up on the periphery of the twelve-fold thousand peaks of the Beast Taming main sect, the bodies of humans and demons rising and falling. The waves, carrying the tide of corpses, crashed against the cliff walls, leaving behind bloody foam that was quickly washed away by the torrential rain.
As soon as his voice fell, the water in the wide sea between the peaks churned loudly.
A giant whale bone leaped out of the sea.
Turbid, bloody water dripped from its skeleton. Its ribs were hung with swollen, pale white threads that swayed in the wind, like the dense maggots on a dead cow or horse. It wasn’t until the whale bone turned and fell back to the sea surface that the elders and disciples on the mountain peak could see clearly that those swaying maggots were countless corpses.
There were men and women, old and young, all residents of Yun-Whale City.
They clung tightly to the whale bone, just as they had in life.
Upon suddenly witnessing such a tragic human scene, the Beast Taming Sect disciples almost vomited, and even the elders’ faces changed dramatically.
“…You vile beasts dare to be so audacious!” an elder shouted, his voice trembling.
“Audacious? What’s so audacious about this?”
Tinkle, tinkle.
The sound of ethereal bells rang out.
In the lightning’s flash, a girl with crimson-gold eyes, her frosty white hair loose, and silver bells tied to her ankles, floated on the whale.
She raised her head and sneered coldly:
“If I don’t tear you all to pieces, what’s so audacious about that!”