165: Chapter 165 Internal Strife Collapses, The Capital Chess Game (1)

The early morning of the third day.

The horizon was just transitioning from deep black to grayish blue—the sea outside the gorge entrance was still dark.

The transmission talisman at the Death Squad Leader's waist lit up—not the kind of light from a Formation Plate connection, but the full talismanic glow indicating the transmission talisman had switched from standby to receiving mode.

The talisman's light illuminated his palm from beneath the face covering—the lines on his palm appeared even denser in the dark red glow.

The voice on the other end of the transmission talisman was kept extremely low—so low that the sibilants and guttural sounds of every word were mixed together and almost indistinguishable, but the rhythm of the breathing in the voice was extremely rapid—not from running, but from fear.

"The fleet has docked at Broken Star Reef—it arrived half a day ago."

The Death Squad Leader clenched the transmission talisman in his palm.

The veins on the back of his hand bulged from the inside of his wrist toward his knuckles—a very thin arc of veins rose above the edge of his black cloth cuff.

His hand clutching the transmission talisman did not tremble—his fingers tightened on the talisman's surface, and once tightened to the limit, the jade edge of the talisman cut into the crevices of the calluses on his palm.

The Death Squad Leader sat in the rock crevice for a full three breaths.

Within those three breaths, after his fingers moved away from the transmission talisman, his entire body remained motionless—his knees kept the posture of squatting in the recessed rock hole, his back against the stone wall, and his hands resting on his knees.

The young Death Squad member behind him watched his back—watching the black robe on his back get soaked by the condensation seeping from the stone wall.

The damp patch spread from the middle of his shoulder blades down to his waist—the water vapor steamed out by body heat at the edge of the damp patch rose into extremely thin white threads in the mist.

Then he stood up.

The movement of standing up was very steady—his knees did not tremble during the process of straightening up, his waist and back were straight, and as his feet pressed onto the ground of the rock crevice, his toes touched the ground first before pressing down his heels.

The two Death Squad members behind him saw his movement and also stood up—one of them opened his mouth, about halfway, his mouth shape forming the first half of the word "ship," and then he saw the Death Squad Leader's eyes.

The Death Squad Leader's eyes, above the face covering, were not looking at anyone—he was looking at the gray reef wall opposite the rock crevice.

There was nothing on the reef wall—only fish-scale-like stone patterns formed after being weathered by the sea wind for hundreds of years.

The young Death Squad member closed his mouth.

The Death Squad Leader took the nautical chart out from his bosom.

In the five days of dampness, the nautical chart had begun to soften from the edges toward the center—a ring of extremely fine white mold had grown on the corners of the animal skin.

He unfolded the nautical chart—his movements were not fast, and after unfolding it, the ink lines on the chart marking the stone walls, the gorge entrance, the gorge passage, and the boarding position were still clear.

He looked at the nautical chart for three breaths—then tore the nautical chart in half from the middle.

The tear was not along the fold line—it was crooked.

The crooked tear cut diagonally across the very center of Storm Gorge—separating the stone walls on both sides of the gorge entrance onto two halves of the paper.

He stacked the two halves of the torn nautical chart together—and tore it again.

This time it was torn into four pieces.

The four pieces of torn paper were clenched in his palm—after clenching tightly, the joints of his fingers protruded from under the sleeves of his leather robe.

He calculated in his mind.

Going back to tell Right Commander Li Feng that the ship did not arrive—was equivalent to admitting the failure of the mission.

Right Commander Li Feng had no one left at his disposal now—three of his trusted aides had been beheaded by Commander Tie Zhan at the oath-taking ceremony, Vice Commander Han Yi had been taken away, and the only people he could mobilize were this peripheral death squad of three.

If this last batch of peripheral death squad members returned empty-handed—Right Commander Li Feng would no longer tolerate a piece of trash who had spent Spirit Stones to buy information, squatted for five days and five nights, and in the end, hadn't even touched the shadow of the target.

A Death Squad member without value would be discarded—discarded meant cutting off the supply of Spirit Stones, stopping the subsequent Cultivation Technique practice, and stopping that anti-backlash pill used to suppress old injuries.

The old scar on the Death Squad Leader's waist began to itch after squatting in the damp rock crevice for five days—that was a wound torn open from inside the Dantian by the backlash of his Cultivation Technique, which needed to be suppressed every three months with a special anti-backlash pill.

The pill was given by Right Commander Li Feng—only Right Commander Li Feng had the recipe.

Push the blame onto the Haiyuan Clan.

The Old Demon changed his mind at the last minute—having received news, he feared an ambush on the ship and refused to go into the water.

Right Commander Li Feng could not go to the Haiyuan Clan to confront them—as a Right Commander of the Zhenhai Fortress, it was impossible for him to personally run to the bottom of the sea to question a peripheral vassal.

The Haiyuan Clan vassal would not take the initiative to come find him either—the vassal only communicated with the Death Squad members and did not know Right Commander Li Feng personally.

If this line was broken, then it was broken—rotting in the fog of Storm Gorge.

He stuffed the torn paper scraps into his sleeve.

Then he turned and walked toward the outside of the rock crevice—having walked less than three steps.

A muffled sound of splashing water came from the direction of the water surface—not the light splash of a small fish flicking its tail, but the sound of a living creature weighing over two hundred catties rushing up from the bottom of the water and breaking the surface.

Two rows of dark green dorsal fins underwater turned ninety degrees toward the reef simultaneously—the tips of the twenty dorsal fins pointed straight at the low reef outside the rock crevice.

The Old Demon surfaced from the water—the position where he surfaced was exactly blocking the path between the Death Squad Leader and the outer edge of the reef.

His eyes had no nictitating membrane protection—after staying outside the rock crevice for a day and a night, the nictitating membrane had already turned white and swollen to the point where it could not be normally flipped out.

The Old Demon raised his right hand from under the water surface—the edges of the scales on his arm had flipped up, revealing an extremely wide white border.

Scales in saltwater with salinity are close to the skin—but after soaking in the freshwater mist for two consecutive days and nights, the roots of the scales had absorbed full moisture, and the roots swelled upward, pushing the scales that were originally close to the skin outward.

The edges of the scales changed from clinging to the skin to flipping outward by about half a rice grain in thickness.

The flipped edges of the scales were grayish-white—the stratum corneum had its outer waterproof membrane soaked off by the freshwater, and the scale substance underneath was exposed to the air and began to turn brittle.

Between the gaps of the flipped scales, strips of extremely fine, pale pink flesh were exposed.

"You said the ship would come—" The Old Demon's voice was enunciated word by word over the water surface.

His gill slits flared outward in the air—this time it was not because of breathing, but because of anger.

When the gill slits opened, a few drops of grayish-green gill fluid sprayed out from the gill cavity.

The gill fluid splashed onto the reef half a foot away from the Death Squad Leader's feet—the surface of the reef where it touched the gill fluid bubbled with extremely fine white air bubbles.

"I have been soaking in the water for two days and two nights—look—" He reached his arm forward.

The arm reached less than three feet in front of the Death Squad Leader—the flipped edges of the scales were clearly visible in the morning mist.

The edge of every single scale was flipped upward, and the flipped white border curved along the arc of the scale into an irregular semicircle.

The flesh under the scales was pale pink—pale pink meant that the epidermis had already begun to be damaged.

The part of the flesh exposed to the air began to wrinkle after being blown by the morning wind—it was dehydrated.

"If a vassal soaks in freshwater mist for too long, the scales will crack—can you see that?"