Chapter 129: The True Demon Queen (13)

Woo~~~~

In the low hum of the motor, the Sturgeon arrived at East Golden Cape where Levinde was located.

According to the rough sea chart, East Golden Cape is a large triangle tilted upward, causing the western coastline of the cape to generally run about 20 degrees north of east.

Thus, if you keep walking along the northern coastline of the White Continent, it's equivalent to making a big loop around the Golden Ocean.

Upon reaching the cape's tip, the distance to White Sturgeon Island is only about 1800 kilometers, far less than Kao's over 3000 kilometers.

The Flying Fish Islands lie directly north of the cape's tip, about 150 kilometers from the mainland.

Laerte Lis's mother, and the demon tribe she leads, live in the waters where the islands are.

"Although it's called an archipelago, it's actually a large area densely scattered with islands and reefs. The largest island is under 500 meters in diameter."

"But these waters are extremely rich, richer than the triangular sea, and the area is especially broad, possibly over 500 kilometers in radius. When I left, the number of sisters living here exceeded twenty thousand."

Laerte Lis, standing at the bow, gazed at the distant reefs and softly described the situation of the Flying Fish Islands.

Luosen listened attentively and curiously asked, "What's your mother's name?"

"Naifeiluoniya; when I left, she had mid‑seven‑ring mana, but that was over four hundred years ago."

"It's said she later improved, but I'm not sure how much. After all, we're far apart and rarely keep in touch."

Laerte Lis paused, and a hint of reverence appeared on her face.

"My mother is the strongest woman I've ever seen. She is the true queen of the demon tribe, her mana vast, her arts extraordinary, far stronger than me."

No sooner had she spoken than someone on deck pointed at the nearby water and shouted, "Lord, quick look—something seems to be in the water!"

Everyone turned and saw, sure enough, a pale white thing in the water.

A mage immediately cast Eagle Eye.

Now everyone could see clearly: it was an incomplete corpse.

A demon warrior flew over for a closer look and ended up screaming in fright.

She immediately flew back, crying, "It's a sister's corpse!"

Everyone was shocked.

Luosen immediately ordered, "Pull it up and have a look!"

A few minutes later, with a "plop," the corpse was hauled onto the deck.

Luosen drew near to examine it closely.

The corpse was bloated but not yet rotted; death occurred no more than two days ago.

Its dark‑blue hair indicated it was a deep‑sea demon.

The limbs were mostly intact, but the chest and abdomen bore a severe tear‑through wound, even piercing the body.

"Such wounds can't be made by blades or spells; they look like they were blasted head‑on by a powerful fire‑type magical device."

Or put another way, it was blown apart by a firearm.

Why would anyone come to the Flying Fish Islands and use this newfangled firearm to blast demons? I can't fathom it, but the weapon's terrifying power darkened everyone's faces.

Laerte Lis cast a Pure Water Divination on the demon corpse.

After a dozen seconds, a light‑blue aura rose from the corpse and stretched continuously across the sea toward the distance.

"The divination told me this sister's body drifted here from ahead."

After saying that, Laerte Lis infused the corpse with Pure Water Power and then pushed it back into the sea.

The corpse gradually dissipated and dissolved, finally disappearing into the seawater.

Having done all that, without her saying a word, Luosen issued an order to the helmsman.

"Follow the scent and chase it all the way."

Laerte Lis also began pointing out a safe route through the Flying Fish Islands.

The Sturgeon sped straight through the reefs.

After advancing for about an hour and a half, more and more debris began to appear on the sea surface.

There were corpses.

There were human corpses, demon corpses, and fish‑folk corpses, all fresh kills from just a few days ago.

Among them, the demon corpses mostly bore gunshot wounds, while the fish‑folk were slain by various group spells; the human corpses either drowned or fell to their deaths.

The human corpses wore standard leather armor, but oddly, though the armor was fine, no identity markings could be found—as if their identities had been deliberately concealed.

Besides that, there were many broken planks, sealed barrels, and various floating household items.

Finally, the group spotted a grounded ironclad warship over seventy meters long beside a hard reef.

Judging by its size, its displacement is at least over a thousand tons.

From afar, one could see a large hole blown in the ship's bottom, the whole vessel slanted and lying on the reef.

Also visible were many corpses above and around the wreck—most were fish‑folk, then humans, then demons.

"A horrendous battle took place here!"

Laerte Lis stood at the bow and began casting Pure Water Divination again.

As the spell took shape, a large blue glow appeared before her, within which faint images flickered, occasionally accompanied by piercing wails.

Luosen also watched closely.

According to the database of various countries' military readiness, he said, "This is an intermediate‑gold warship, fully crewed with about 450 soldiers."

"From the damage, it doesn't look like it was sunk by fish‑folk; rather, it unluckily struck a reef."

"The corpses show little decay and the damage is fresh; all indications point to the battle having erupted yesterday at noon."

Immediately afterward, he identified the main cause of the warship's grounding.

"The warship's mast was snapped, broken by a tremendous force."

"From the fracture marks, it seems a sudden, violent gust at sea blew the mast askew, causing the ship to lurch and finally hit the reef."

As Luosen drew his conclusion, Laerte Lis's divination also showed a similar vision.

In a expanse of pure water blue light, a blurry human figure suddenly spread its wings, gave a fierce flap, and the blurry warship's light and shadow violently shook, as if a deep-sea titan giant had suddenly shoved it, shifting it sideways tens of meters.

Laerte Lis shouted, "This is my mother! She personally took part in the battle!"

On the other side, Luosen also obtained more detailed information from the residual magical aura left at the scene, and this information secretly amazed him.

"Eight Rings strength magical residue, incredibly powerful wind spell. The siren queen named Nefeloniya is astonishingly strong!"

This is an ironclad warship weighing over a thousand tons, estimated to reach fifteen or sixteen hundred tons when fully loaded, yet it could be blown sideways by wind, even having its thick mast forcibly snapped!

The absolute power of this Eight Rings wind spell is so great.

If it appeared in ancient times, it would be the absolute ruler of the ocean, able to press land-dwelling humans so hard they wouldn't dare go to sea.

This spell's terrifying power also makes all the spells mastered by Luosen, a Ten Rings mage, look dim and lackluster.

"The source of the power should not be its own magical energy, but the gale that already exists over the sea. And what the siren queen did was likely to use magical energy to gather these gales together."

"Even so, the difficulty of casting reaches an astonishing level. It requires an extraordinary grasp of the gale's force to possibly draw forth such violent wind."

"Lili said her mother was the true siren queen, but looking now, that's an understatement; she should be called the siren goddess, right?"

What ordinary people cannot do is naturally divine. At this moment, Luosen suddenly sensed several strands of swiftly approaching magical undulations in the seawater, much like when he first discovered the siren in the Triangular Sea.

Laerte Lis also noticed; she immediately walked to the ship's side and emitted a silent screeching spell toward the sea surface.

"Hiss—"

"Splash—"

Suddenly, a dozen or so blue-haired sirens surged from the seawater, began to circle in the sky, and kept screeching at the Xunyu Hao.

The sound contained both anger and confusion.

Laerte Lis stood at the bow, spread her hands to form azure wings, gave a powerful flap, and shot up into the sky to join the sirens.

After the two communicated in the sky for a while, the opposing siren hesitated, then approached, and hesitantly landed on the deck of the Xunyu Hao.

Luosen looked over and found that this group of sirens was not much different from those in the Triangular Sea.

They were not completely naked; they had fashioned simple clothing from wide-leaf seaweed to cover their private parts as much as possible.

One siren with pearlescent blue feathers followed behind Laerte Lis, cautiously walking toward Luosen.

Sensing the other's faint hostility, Luosen eased his expression, trying to appear as gentle as possible.

"Lili, what on earth happened?"

Laerte Lis looked anxious: "The sisters told me that a group of evil warriors abducted my mother!"

Luosen also started: "When did this happen? Where were they taken?"

The siren with pearlescent blue feathers immediately said: "Just yesterday, Your Majesty led us in resisting the humans' ironclad ships."

"There were three of them in total, very formidable, and the sisters stood no chance against them."

"Your Majesty exerted herself fully, summoning a gale to veer the ironclad ship's course, ramming and sinking one, but she herself was consequently hit by many human mages' spells and knocked unconscious."

"After those evil humans fished Your Majesty out, they immediately turned and left, even disregarding their companions' lives."

Laerte Lis, already full of anxiety, immediately said: "I will sense my mother's location!"

Saying that, she began to release the pure water divination technique.

About three minutes later, she raised her hand and pointed in a direction: "Over there, right there, my mother is still alive, but her aura is very faint; her situation is terrible!"

Since that's the case, Luosen immediately waved his hand: "Turn around, full speed ahead!"

The siren chief of the Flying Fish Islands, seeing this, immediately said: "There is a very dreadful place on the coast in that direction, exactly where the Princess pointed."

"After many sisters are captured, they are locked up in there. They frenziedly torture the sisters; we can hear their anguished screams from over ten kilometers away."

"Those humans are extremely powerful, extremely evil, extremely cruel—basically demons of mankind!"

Luosen realized that it was almost certainly Levinde's specially established Magic Method Laboratory for researching sirens!

But why study sirens? Luosen isn't sure yet; perhaps he's simply curious about their power.

Because he had done similar things before—by studying sirens' bodies to research the azure blessing that grants them strong physiques.

Of course, because he possesses a magical sensitivity beyond that of ordinary mages, he proceeds gently—at most drawing a bit of siren blood, or using Laifu's fine control to probe their inner bodies with magical energy.

But if he lacked such magical sensitivity, had no Laifu assistance, and completely disregarded the sirens' right to life, then he would be conducting various inhumane live experiments.

This is nothing unusual.

Not to mention other worlds; even on Earth such things have always been happening, and even nowadays they are commonplace.

On the deck, Laerte Lis was so anxious that tears were about to fall.

"My mother is a very gentle person; unless driven to desperation, she would never resist so fiercely!"

"Why do those Levinde people treat the sisters so cruelly?!"

Even selling them as female slaves would be bad enough, but to torture them with all kinds of cruelty is truly horrific; just thinking of her mother suffering such fate makes Laerte Lis nearly go mad.

Luosen had nothing to say, so he could only hold her in his arms and softly comfort her.

The Xunyu Hao's speed surged to the extreme, cutting through waves all the way.

After running wildly for about three hours, a sliver of coastline appeared in the distance on the horizon.

The siren minor chief who had been following along quickly explained the situation.

"There's a concealed bay ahead, with several large ships anchored inside, holding over a thousand human warriors."

"They themselves aren't particularly strong, but they carry terrifying flame weapons that emit a fierce roar; their power is dreadful, and being hit means death."

"Moreover, the coast is also equipped with terrifying flame weapons, even more dreadful than those held by the warriors; even a graze means death, and a direct hit turns one into minced meat."

The siren minor chief's tone revealed deep fear.

Obviously, that is cannon!

Aaron produced the cannon, and Levinde and Kao quickly followed suit.

They not only equipped the soldiers with individual firearms, but also deployed them on the coast as shore-defense weapons.

The Sturgeon Ship has no cannons; if it gets hit once, the hull would be fine, but if the power components are struck, it would be troublesome.

He immediately ordered: "Slow down~~~don't rush to approach!"

Afterwards, he went to the bow, took out a spyglass, and observed the black line on the horizon from afar.

This distance is actually very far; even with a spyglass, it cannot be seen clearly.

But Luosen has Laifu to assist in analyzing the view, which can provide much more extra information.

However, due to the planet's curvature, here we can only see the tops of the cliffs on the high coast; the bay below and the ships in the bay cannot be seen at all.

It can also be imagined that, unless the enemy sets up an observation post on the cliff tops, they also cannot see us.

Then will the enemy set up an observation post on the cliff tops?

Of course they will; any commander knows the importance of intelligence.

The good news is, they are far enough away, the Sturgeon Ship isn't large, and its color is also dark blue.

Even if the enemy sets up an observation post on the cliff, they probably still cannot see us clearly.

But we definitely cannot continue forward.

Then how do we get past? Luosen thought for a moment and said: "Since a strong legion is stationed in the bay, a frontal assault is definitely out of the question; we must sneak past secretly underwater."

"Lili, just the two of us will go, so we don't alert the enemy's pure water mage to any movement in the water."

Laertelisi immediately nodded.

"You all retreat farther, stay concealed, and meet us in the sea. Once we rescue the people, we'll board the ship immediately and leave at full speed!"

"Yes, my lord."

Everyone responded in unison, accepting the order.

As they spoke, Luosen jumped directly into the seawater; upon reaching the deep sea, a flicker of his mana revealed his iron mermaid form.

Laertelisi immediately followed, staying at Luosen's side.

Immediately thereafter, Luosen's thought triggered the Six Rings' pure water barrier, the Silent Crystal Wall, enveloping both of their bodies.

"Go, let's sneak past slowly."

(End of chapter)