Beginning with the Ubume Bird Chapter 189

Chapter 189: Chapter 26 Brief Curtain Call

Although the situation of the Demon Thieves was worse than that of the Red Flag Gang, with numerous sea monsters having boarded their ships, they were barely holding up. In particular, the appearance of a few gaunt-cheeked men draped in thick black robes who stomped their feet and chanted spells without any obvious glow managed to calm the bloodthirsty monsters considerably, presumably due to the effects of some Taiping Document.

Unfortunately, among them was a pirate who, thinking himself clever, poured flaming oil on the heads of monsters climbing up the ship's planks. Other pirates followed his lead, throwing all the ship's oil out, and then with a single torch, they ignited it and caused a huge mess.

Many sea monsters couldn't stand the flames, hopping and leaping about on the ship. They set fire to ropes, sails, and pirate flags, and soon the Demon Thieves' large vessel had become a sea of fire, as bodies of sea monsters and pirates dropped into the water like dumplings.

A wave struck, capsizing the Demon Thieves' pirate ship, and the sea surface was ablaze with red flames. Any survivors were undoubtedly doomed in such an environment.

After the entire crew of the Yishi's green Pegasus Cargo Ship was wiped out, the Demon Thieves' fleet of several hundred men also met with total annihilation.

Li Yan stood alone at the head of the deck, his eyes bloodshot. His over three-meter-long Tiger Head Great Spear danced like the eye of a storm. Behind him, a girl with black hair and white feathers appeared now and then, her white frost cracks spreading far. Cold air scattered in all directions as a sea cow, with wrinkled hide and a ruby necklace in its mouth, leaped high attempting to jump over Li Yan but was split in half by the Devouring Blade raised high, along with a shower of ruby fragments. When the body fell, it had become a frozen corpse, with no blood flowing.

A pirate of the Red Flag hacked an ugly sea cucumber, but a nearby face-of-ships starfish seized the chance to plunge forward, and it seemed the pirate would die miserably on the spot. Then, a sudden surge of aqua pulled him back to safety.

Turning to thank his rescuer, the pirate saw a woman's face he'd never seen before — her eyebrows like a painting, her allure bone-deep. Behind the woman, trail of aqua spiraled, lending her an aura of the divine.

“Has Mazu appeared? Mazu has appeared!”

“I am not…”

Lady Dan wanted to say something but then thought that this might actually be an encouragement to everyone, so she kept silent.

Constrained by certain limits, Lady Dan's aqua had hardly killed any of the sea beasts, primarily using it to distract and save people. Soon, the pirates also noticed this miracle-like woman, and the claim “Mazu has appeared” spread like wildfire. One after another, the pirates rescued by her looked at Lady Dan with eyes full of reverence.

Lady Dan's beautiful eyes glanced at Li Yan's figure leading at the front, worry flashing in her gaze.

Li Yan, with a single spear, commanded the attention of at least one-third of the sea beasts. A continuous stream of oddly shaped, exaggerated, and aggressive sea monsters with sticky secretions incessantly lunged at him, only to be invariably smashed away or impaled by the whirling Tiger Head Great Spear.

Li Yan's spearwork was extremely precise, and with the long reach of the spear, even the few corrosive liquids couldn't touch him. However, the bright edge of the Tiger Head Devouring Blade had dulled significantly, which greatly pained him.

It was at this moment that the casual golden tentacle that had bisected the colossal “Wrath” burst through the waves, and its utterance “join me in drinking” seemed to dim the world.

The sea beasts' assault paused, and their heads uniformly turned in one direction, oblivious to the blades and axes threatening their lives.

As the crew of the East India Company plunged into the water, the Dongpo Turban Skull atop the tower ship let out a long laugh. From the massive ship's hold, rows of fish skeletons assembled into four-foot-tall figures tossed countless old barrels into the sea, all of which were, without exception, empty…

[Fish Bone Azhen]: One of the three thousand varieties of crossing the sea.

The little fish bone figures leaped into the water, following the empty barrels, and headed toward the floundering British mercenaries.

An empty barrel collided with an unlucky, blue-capped mercenary who screamed as seven or eight bone spurs suddenly grew from his clothes. His face swelled up and burst into a tentacled octopus head, and in an instant, he became a bona fide sea monster, screaming as it crawled into the barrel. Fish Bone Azhen swam over, secured the barrel lid, sat on it, and along with the encased barrel, slowly sank into the depths.

Occurrences like this kept happening one after another. In a short span, the sea surface was littered with clothing and packed barrels…

Musket fire, crossbows, bursting hoops of cannons, the small fragments from the Wrath atop the seven ships, along with the tea, porcelain, jewels, opium transported by the East India Company, were all packed into these tossed barrels, which Fish Bone Azhen then sat upon and sank to the bottom of the sea.

An ancient voice swept through the air, so clear even Cha Xiaodao and the others who had escaped calamity could hear it.

“Lu's surname! This is the third toast!”

On the black ship, the skull wearing the Dongpo Turban watched the fully laden barrel floating on the sea and slowly sinking, bowing politely to the golden tentacle.

“Mr. Yan, with this toast consumed, you have seven more to fulfill the ten-toast agreement with the Heavenly Mother,” the skull with the Dongpo Turban said.

The golden tentacle crushed the wine cup, and the blood-red wine soaked into its smooth skin.

“…I'll wait for you to brew the remaining seven toasts.”

That “Mr. Yan” spoke with a dark tone, withdrawing back to the depths of the sea, along with the colossal skull, thousands of meters tall, sinking into the ocean.

The skull with the surname Lu lowered its head, its decaying face inscrutable.

“A night of thunderstorms drives away the drought demon…”

It spread open its hands.

“Only then do we realize that the heavy rains come from the human realm! Hahaha~”

At the edge of the tower ship, waves crashed and swept over again. The entire Pegasus Cargo Ship, with a mighty force, slowly submerged into the sea.

Cha Xiaodao, unaffected, caught a glimpse of the event, but Li Yan saw everything–from this vantage point, not a single detail was missed.

The tentacle that made heaven and earth lose their color, Mr. Yan.

The mysterious and terrifying Lu surname skull on the tower ship.

The Heavenly Mother's agreement of ten toasts.

Li Yan had never felt so vividly that the Yan Fu Fruit was a real, vast, mysterious, and profound world. A world filled with mysteries and terrors that an outsider could spend an entire lifetime trying to understand.

The so-called Yan Fu explorers were never the protagonists of this world. These things before him, he would not be able to touch for a long time.

In the midst of the sea monster tide, a fish-headed dwarf gasped for air and screeched skyward before plunging back into the sea with a splash.

This seemed to be a signal; various fierce sea creatures followed suit and dived into the ocean. However, some of them twisted their faces in anguish and did not leave. Instead, they looked even more viciously at the Red Flag Gang's broad ship.

Li Yan also shifted his gaze. There lay the spoils and wreckage of Demon Thief pirates and Yishi pirates. More importantly, Wrath, one of the seven great ships, and a vast expanse of ruins were still adrift at sea.

He shook his long spear, pointing it at the remaining sea monsters.

“We're all pressed for time. After I have sent you on your way, I still have things to salvage. Come on then.”

Chapter end