189: Chapter 189 The Eve of the Storm, Three Lines Converge (1)

The next day at dawn, Chu Yunfei's message arrived.

The message came through the official communication channel of the Grain Supervision Office, with an internal military encryption Rank of Level Two. The Jade Slip was sent from the Royal Capital, relayed through the Zhenhai Fortress, and then sent to the Receiving Formation at the Lords Mansion on Blue Moon Island. During the relay process, the encrypted Array Patterns on the Jade Slip were verified at each station. After passing verification at each stop, one layer of the encryption was unlocked. By the time it reached Blue Moon Island, all encryption patterns had been unlocked, leaving only the military seal of the Grain Supervision Office on the front of the Jade Slip, which still emitted a faint, dark cyan glow.

In the Formation Affairs Room, Su Qingli saw a new signal light up on the Formation Plate of the Receiving Formation. The signal's encoding frequency was different from standard military communications. She adjusted the reception sensitivity by half a notch, confirming the signal originated from the Royal Capital direction with a Level Two encryption Rank. She stood up from beside the Receiving Formation, walked to the Lords Mansion, and woke Lu Changyuan.

When Lu Changyuan walked into the Formation Affairs Room, the sky had not yet brightened. Inside the room, only the circle of pale blue light patterns on the Receiving Formation's Formation Plate was glowing. The light patterns spread from the center of the plate outward, stopping at the fifth circle. The Formation Plate displayed the body of Chu Yunfei's message. The handwriting was in the standard communication script of the Grain Supervision Office, with extremely fine residual Array Pattern force lines embedded within the strokes of each character.

He took the Jade Slip off the Receiving Formation and pressed it against his palm to read it.

The message was divided into three sections. Between each section was a segment marker from the Grain Supervision Office, drawn with dark cyan array ink, reflecting a faint light on the surface of the Jade Slip.

The first section: The military at the Royal Capital is mobilizing forces from various war zones to assemble toward the Zhenhai Fortress. The scale of the mobilization is even larger than the estimate from three months ago, which predicted that "all factions in this sea area will be drawn in." The military has drawn at least ten full-strength legions from the eastern, southern, and western war zones in batches, with each legion at full capacity of approximately twelve thousand soldiers. Adding the vassal legions from each war zone and the auxiliary defense battalions of Loose Cultivators, the total force far exceeds the current garrison size of the Zhenhai Fortress. The assembly is directed entirely toward the first defensive line, with the Zhenhai Fortress as the core hub. In the message, Chu Yunfei used four words to describe the military's mobilization intensity: "Commit the entire army."

The second section: The main force of the Haiyuan Clan is gathering upward from the deep sea. The Grain Supervision Office deduced the direction and speed of the assembly by working backward from the changes in material consumption at various frontline outposts. The deduction method was not complex: the amount of Materials consumed monthly by each frontline outpost is fixed—spirit rice, armor plates, healing medicine, and Array Pattern repair Materials—if the material consumption at an outpost in a certain direction suddenly increases, it indicates additional troop movements or combat consumption in that direction. The Grain Supervision Office aggregated the material consumption data from all frontline outposts over the past two months and found that the consumption levels at all outposts in the Deep Water Zone direction jumped up by one level almost simultaneously. The jump varied from ten percent to thirty percent, with outposts closer to the front of the fortress seeing higher jumps. But what truly alarmed Chu Yunfei was not the Deep Water Zone; it was the Dragon Burial Trench direction. There are no frontline outposts in the direction of the Dragon Burial Trench, but by comparing the material consumption changes of the four surrounding outposts, the Grain Supervision Office discovered a common feature: the recovery volume of sea beast Materials at all four outposts had plummeted by nearly fifty percent in the past month. A decrease in sea beast material recovery means that the wild sea beasts in the periphery have been driven away or slaughtered, and the source of this driving and slaughtering is the Dragon Burial Trench. Someone is clearing the area at the trench entrance.

Chu Yunfei summarized the deduction result in one sentence: The main channels for the Haiyuan Clan's main force assembly are two—one is the Deep Water Zone defensive line in front of the Zhenhai Fortress, and the other is the Dragon Burial Trench. The one in the Deep Water Zone is blocked by the entire defensive line, but for the one in the Dragon Burial Trench, the first outpost encountered upon exiting the trench is Blue Moon Island.

The third section: Chu Yunfei said that after receiving the incomplete map and altar rubbing information that Lu Changyuan sent last time, he went to the intelligence division of the Grain Supervision Office and went through the old archives. In the old archive repository, there was a batch of exploration files sealed three years ago. The cover of the file was labeled "Topographical Survey of the Dragon Burial Trench Periphery," but most of the content inside had been removed. What remained were only a few torn pages, which recorded some fragmented information. He pieced the fragmented information together and formed three sentences. The first sentence: Deep within the Dragon Burial Trench exists a sealing facility left over from the ancient era—the facility dates back far earlier than the founding of the Zhenhai Fortress, estimated to be at least two thousand years old. The second sentence: The Sealing Pattern was not built by the Haiyuan Clan—it was built by ancient Cultivators. The Haiyuan Clan might have been one of the races sealed underneath by the ancient Cultivators back then. The third sentence: The thing sealed beneath the Sealing Pattern—the torn page used four characters to describe it: abyssal vein. But it did not explain what an abyssal vein is. The last line of the torn page had been ripped off—the tear ran diagonally across the paper, and the ripped-off part was exactly the explanatory paragraph following the two characters "abyssal vein."

Chu Yunfei added his own judgment at the end of the message: The Haiyuan Clan is anxious to activate the Sealing Pattern—not because the Sealing Pattern benefits them. The Sealing Pattern is what seals them—activating the Sealing Pattern is equivalent to picking the lock from the outside. Once the lock is picked, the thing sealed underneath will gush out from within. The Haiyuan Clan does not want the lock—they want what is under the lock.

Lu Changyuan moved the Jade Slip away from his palm. After moving it, he pressed his finger on the surface of the Jade Slip—pressing on that last sentence of Chu Yunfei's.

"The thing under the lock—" He handed the Jade Slip to Su Qingli. Su Qingli took it and read it—reading faster than him. After finishing, she placed the Jade Slip beside the Receiving Formation. When the Jade Slip was placed down, it bumped the edge of the Formation Plate—the circle of pale blue light patterns on the plate wobbled for a moment, then recovered.

"abyssal vein." Su Qingli repeated the term in her mouth. After saying it, she looked at the fluctuating signals still being received on the Formation Plate—six fluctuation sources, the closest one less than one hundred and twenty li away. The distribution of the six fluctuation sources spread in a fan shape from deep within the Dragon Burial Trench toward Blue Moon Island—the tip of the fan shape was advancing forward. "They open the sealing—release the abyssal vein. Then what can the abyssal vein give them?"

Lu Changyuan did not answer. He walked from the Formation Affairs Room to the Lords Mansion and spread out the four items on the sea chart table again. The incomplete map—that old animal skin from three years ago, with blood still seeping from the back of the hand of the person who drew it. Leng Feng's third trench exploration rubbing—the altar stone patterns were shrinking, and a teacup-sized dark red protrusion had risen in the center. Su Qingli's fluctuation source distribution map—six fluctuation sources were arranged from east to west on the map, with the nearest one about one hundred and twenty li from the Ring Reef. The military standard distribution list—the outpost number and defense conditions of Blue Moon Island.