Chapter 2602: So Serious

The last time he came in, he found several small boats by the shore, probably because Duan He Yun and the others sometimes went out to sea to check the distant kelp forests.

This boat is made of special wood, reinforced with a formation, and its controls are quite advanced—no need to row; just activate the "Charge Forward" formation carved on the stern, and the boat will cut through wind and waves on its own.

The formation is simple; He Lingchuan got the hang of it after a couple of tries.

Unexpectedly, the boat's speed rivals that of arrowfish—it shot forward into the deep sea in a flash.

From the moment he entered Yanxia Bay, his mission became a race against time, with not a second to waste.

He Lingchuan's sole objective in sneaking into Liuli Sea is:

To steal the body of the Hidden God!

After setting out to sea, the first thing he did was take out a monocle and put it on his eye.

This oval monocle is fixed with a gold wire frame; once worn, he no longer needs to hold it in his hand.

As soon as he put on the monocle, the scene seen through He Lingchuan's left eye changed instantly:

The lush kelp forest immediately became translucent; the long, massive kelp turned into thin, weak lines in his vision, while the rotary-mouthed sharks and other small fish swimming through the forest simplified into faint, barely visible specks of light.

This lens is naturally the divine artifact "Yangguan Dao."

He Lingchuan switched its mode; this time, instead of searching for consciousness bodies, it seeks life intensity!

Earlier, Dong Rui had judged that even if the Hidden God's body had dispersed into a kelp forest occupying the entire water area, its root system would ultimately converge into a single "total root."

It's like a towering tree with lush branches and leaves, but the lower it goes, the more it tapers, finally converging into the trunk and roots.

No matter the appearance, it remains a single entity in the end.

Therefore, within the entire kelp forest, the "total root" should have the highest life intensity.

This distinction is hard to discern with the naked eye—after all, underwater kelp floats and confuses vision, and different kelp look much the same.

But with the "Yangguan Dao," the relative strength of each kelp individual becomes immediately apparent.

This is a divine artifact that strikes at the essence; illusionary tactics are ineffective against it.

He Lingchuan's boat-handling skills were honed on the Yangshan Archipelago; now, speeding toward the deep sea, he barely pauses for breath.

The Blood Demon is equally anxious, demanding every few dozen breaths:

"Still not found it?"

"This kelp forest is just too huge!"

Thinking of the dangers of this mission, the Blood Demon feels impatient, his heart racing—ah, if it had a heart.

"Nope, nope!" the Soul-Capturing Mirror also can't see what's inside the monocle lens, equally irritable: "Don't disturb the master!"

He Lingchuan then set the "Yangguan Dao" to maximum range, allowing him to see the life energy of beings within five li. After the ancient Immortal-Demon War, Shou'an True Person used this function to search for living things across vast ruins.

At that moment, a blurry, massive shadow glided beneath the boat, followed by an unfamiliar voice in his mind:

"What are you looking for?"

He turned his head and saw a serpentine shadow moving alongside him.

Changlin Immortal Lord has arrived—but only with a head.

Duan He Yun and the other puppet masters occasionally sail their boats to the deep sea, but Gengyue God has never left the shore.

It has been waiting below the cliff for a while, still feeling it should come over to take a look.

Given the current state of the Lingyun Palace war, Changlin Immortal Lord isn't even napping anymore, thinking he ought to occasionally fulfill his duty.

He Lingchuan continues to look left and right, completely calm: "Earlier, when I infiltrated Liuli Sea, the spirit mountain spies threw something into the sea, possibly affecting the Hidden God. After Hulu Heavenly God learned of it, he ordered me to return and search."

His voice directly echoes in Changlin Immortal Lord's mind—no need to speak aloud.

"What thing?"

"A creature resembling sand and stone, able to disguise itself as a small crab, crawling swiftly on the seabed." He Lingchuan spoke with vivid detail, "They reproduce extremely fast and may seek the kelp forest's vital points to destroy them."

He said this because, last time he impersonated Hu Xin and came in, he kicked a few pebbles on the shore, disturbing the lurking enemy below the cliff.

The sea monster must certainly remember this incident.

Details—devils hide in the details.

To prove his point, he also took out a kelp fragment from behind him and showed it to the lurking enemy:

"Look, this is their egg, which I just found on the shore."

On the brownish back of the kelp, sure enough, clung a lump of pink round eggs, each with a black dot in the center.

The lurking enemy sank beneath the surface, opened its huge mouth, and seemed to let out a few roars.

He Lingchuan couldn't hear it on the boat, but he could see rotary-mouthed sharks rushing from all directions, lining up to circle the kelp forest.

The lurking enemy is their supervisor; as soon as it gives an order, the rotary-mouthed sharks begin searching for invasive species.

Within ten or so breaths, some rotary-mouthed sharks swam up to the surface, holding out their spoils for the lurking enemy and He Lingchuan.

This is a crab the size of a thumbnail, indeed as Gengyue God said—dull gray all over, even with some speckled gray-white spots; when it lies flat in the seabed mud, it looks like underwater gravel, utterly unremarkable.

But once it moves, its two front claws are absurdly large and extremely sharp.

At this moment, a few more rotary-mouthed sharks floated to the surface, belly-up, having actually breathed their last.

The lurking enemy examined this small crab closely—each front claw bore a needle-like protrusion; when pinching live prey, the fine needle could pierce the enemy's skin.

It seems this thing is poisonous—deadly poisonous.

Keep searching! It gave the order to the rotary-mouthed shark swarm.

While He Lingchuan was speeding the boat, the rotary-mouthed shark swarm was also searching for invasive small crabs.

In just a quarter of an hour, they found dozens, and many of the gently swaying kelp strands also had crab eggs attached—eyeing a new batch about to hatch.

"These damned things—how do they reproduce so fast!" the lurking enemy lamented, knowing this counts as his own negligence.

His duty is to monitor the entire kelp forest, yet he was silently invaded by this tiny creature.

But these small crabs are too small in size, too stealthy in movement, and can hide anywhere in the kelp forest—how could the lurking enemy have noticed them?

Going further into the deep sea, the number of small crabs brought up by the rotary-mouthed sharks clearly decreased.

Obviously they are spreading toward the deep sea, but it is not too late for Fuyu to now try to control their numbers.

"What the hell are these things?" Fuyu is also a sea overlord, but, "I have never seen them before."

"They are needle crabs specially bred by the enemy." He Lingchuan added, "From the confession of the prisoners we captured, otherwise we would not even know the kelp forest has been invaded. The juice of these crab eggs will hinder the deformation effect of kelp fragments."

In fact, these needle crabs are also demonic puppets, and they are the accidental creation of Dong Rui, a little monster made by hybridizing sandstone crabs and chicken-heart snails.