241: Chapter 241 All-Out War Begins, The Truth About the Ruins

At the third quarter of the Hai hour (9:45 PM).

The seawater in front of the Ring Reef of Blue Moon Island—was no longer just water.

When the first row of bone armor crashed up from beneath the ink-black water surface, the lens of Leng Feng's observation scope was instantly overexposed by the reflection—he pressed the scope barrel down by nearly half an inch before he could see clearly again.

Less than twenty miles outside the Ring Reef—thirty Golden Core Stage Abyssal Beasts were arranged in three rows, ten in each row, with their bone armor colors ranging from deep ink-green to dark gold.

The ten in the front row had already entered the interception range of the Killing Array's outer ring sword threads—the two rows behind were accelerating.

Leng Feng mounted his observation scope on the second-floor windowsill of the Lords Mansion—the same position as every previous observation.

But this time, his right hand was constantly gripped on the Killing Array Formation Flag at his waist.

"Outer ring—fully open."

Su Qingli received his voice from the communication Formation slip in the Formation Affairs Room—her left hand pressed onto the trigger line of the outer ring Formation eye on the Receiving Formation plate, while her right hand simultaneously pushed open the spiritual power valves of the sixteen Formation eyes.

Three main Formation bases infused with spiritual marrow lit up in the same instant—blue-white cold light shone up from beneath the floor of the Formation Affairs Room, illuminating the stone slab under Su Qingli's rattan stool until it looked like a block of ice.

Outside the Ring Reef—sixteen Formation eyes simultaneously erupted with blue-white sword threads.

The new sword threads were nearly twenty percent thicker than the old ones—the outer edge of each sword thread was no longer a silver-gray metallic luster, but a faint, translucent blue-white light.

The seawater brought up when the sword threads emerged from the water was illuminated into a pale blue by the cold light of the sword threads themselves—then the sword threads began to rotate.

The sixteen sword threads intertwined in the outer ring to form a Sword Net covering the entire front of the Ring Reef—the density of the mesh was at least thirty percent higher than before.

The first Golden Core Stage Abyssal Beast to crash into the Sword Net exploded in a burst of blinding dark golden sparks at the point of contact.

The sound of the bone armor rubbing against the sword threads was not a metallic sound—it was a deep, low humming, like someone using a giant hammer to strike a reef under the sea that had been pressed by water for two thousand years.

The sword threads cut less than two inches into the Golden Core Stage Abyssal Beast's chest armor—then stopped.

The hardness of Golden Core Stage bone armor was not in the same league as Late Foundation Establishment Stage—the old sword threads would have been rebounded by the bone armor at this depth; although the new sword threads had cut in, they could not cut through.

That Golden Core Stage Abyssal Beast thrust its bone spear through the mesh of the Sword Net—the dark blue crystal fragments embedded on the spear tip exploded with spiritual light on the inside of the Sword Net.

The mesh of the Sword Net was torn open by a rift nearly a zhang long—nearly twice as large as the half-zhang rift torn by the False Core Commander in Chapter 153.

"Inner ring—patch the rift."

Leng Feng's voice had no fluctuations.

Su Qingli switched the trigger line of the inner ring Sword Net from automatic to manual mode—eight sword threads simultaneously pierced into the rift from different angles, weaving a temporary patch net at the edges of the rift.

The color of the patch net was even fainter than the outer ring Sword Net—almost transparent—but when the Golden Core Stage Abyssal Beast's second spear thrust in, the spear tip slid on the patch net.

The patch net did not break.

Su Qingli's fingertips paused on the Formation Plate.

Then she quickly wrote a number on her monitoring log with a charcoal pencil—New sword threads resistance to Golden Core Stage impact: first strike cut in two inches, second strike patch net deflected it.

She drew a circle next to this number—under the circle she wrote, "Resilience sufficient—thickness insufficient."

The first wave of impact on the front—was not just being borne by Blue Moon Island.

The twelve warships of the Royal Capital Fleet were arranged in two rows of artillery Formations less than fifteen miles outside the Ring Reef—the vanguard ships were three heavy warships equipped with three front-mounted spiritual cannons, the protective Formation layers on both sides of the hulls glowing with a pale golden halo in the night.

The main cannons of the three vanguard ships fired simultaneously when the Golden Core Stage Abyssal Beasts entered the ten-mile range—three spiritual cannonballs smashed into the front row of the Golden Core Stage Abyssal Beasts' Formation, the resulting water columns exploding with a diameter of over thirty zhang.

Two Golden Core Stage Abyssal Beasts were hit directly by the spiritual cannons—one had half of its shoulder armor blown off, revealing the dark gray inner layer of bone plates beneath; the other was knocked staggering, sliding horizontally across the water for nearly twenty zhang.

But the third one—the one that wasn't hit—accelerated during the interval between the three spiritual cannon shots.

The acceleration of Golden Core Stage Abyssal Beasts in water was nearly three times faster than that of Late Foundation Establishment Stage.

It rushed from ten miles to less than three miles within the ten breaths it took for the spiritual cannons to cool down—then thrust upward from beneath the water surface.

The bone spear pierced into the protective Formation layer at the bottom of the vanguard ship—the dark blue crystal fragments on the spear tip exploded on the inside of the protective Formation layer—the pale golden halo of the protective Formation layer dimmed at the bottom of the ship.

The second Golden Core Stage Abyssal Beast crashed into the broadside of the same vanguard ship at the same moment.

The hull broke in the middle.

It didn't crack—it broke.

The heavy warship, over a hundred zhang long, was snapped in half at the waist under the pincer attack of the two Golden Core Stage Abyssal Beasts, the bow and stern both tilting upward—the sound of the keel breaking in the middle of the hull reached the Blue Moon Island Ring Reef, like the tearing sound of a thousand-year-old tree being uprooted.

The Cultivators on the ship fell into the water like dumplings—and then those Late Foundation Establishment Stage Abyssal Beasts that had been lurking beneath the water surface swarmed up.

Leng Feng saw through the observation scope—some of the fallen Cultivators activated their protective spiritual shields, the shields looking like dark yellow beads underwater.

Then the bone spears of three or four Late Foundation Establishment Stage Abyssal Beasts simultaneously stabbed at the protective shields—the beads shattered.

The water surface churned with dark red splashes, which were washed away by the waves in less than three breaths.

"Sin Battalion—First Page—shield wall to the front of the Ring Reef."

"Second Page—move the spare shields onto the stone platform."

Commander Cai heard Leng Feng's voice coming down from the second floor of the Lords Mansion on the Pier—just like every time before, Leng Feng's voice carried no emotion.

But this time his speech speed was nearly twice as fast as usual.

Commander Cai pulled the pipe from his mouth—without knocking out the ash, he stuffed it directly into his belt—and turned to run toward the Sin Battalion station.

As he ran, he stepped over the batch of spare shields that had just been unloaded on the Pier—an old soldier from the Second Page was squatting next to the pile of shields, and the old soldier looked up at him.

Commander Cai didn't stop—"Move them. Move them all onto the stone platform."

The flank defense line of Blue Moon Island—the widest section along the entire front of the Ring Reef—withstood the heaviest pressure of the first wave of impact.

The blue-white sword threads erupted from the sixteen outer ring Formation eyes continued to rotate—although the Sword Net did not directly kill the Golden Core Stage Abyssal Beasts, it shredded all the Late Foundation Establishment Stage Abyssal Beasts that attempted to break in from the flanks.

The bone armor of the Late Foundation Establishment Stage Abyssal Beasts was like dry mud in front of the sword threads upgraded by spiritual marrow—the sword threads cut in from the joints of the bone armor, cut outward from the inside, and pulled back from the edges of the carapace—broken bones and dark green body fluids piled up into a floating debris belt less than five miles outside the Ring Reef.

But the rifts in the outer ring Sword Net caused by the Golden Core Stage Abyssal Beasts were becoming more numerous.

The bone spear of every Golden Core Stage Abyssal Beast could tear open a rift at least one zhang long in the Sword Net—Su Qingli was simultaneously patching six rifts in the Formation Affairs Room, and the fourth rattan strand of her rattan stool also broke.

She picked up half a broken Formation line from the floor—bit off one end with her teeth—and re-tied the broken rattan strand.

Then all the red dots on the Receiving Formation—moved simultaneously.

They were not pushing forward.

They were retreating in the same direction.

From fifty miles outside the Ring Reef to two hundred miles deep into the Dragon Burial Trench—the dense red dots on the Formation Plate retreated as a whole by nearly ten miles in less than ten breaths.

Su Qingli pressed her fingers onto the Formation Plate—the direction of the red dots' contraction was not a rout, but a regrouping.

After the main force of the Haiyuan Clan had been crashing against the front of the Ring Reef for nearly half an hour—they stopped voluntarily for the first time.

The floating debris belt on the sea surface dragged slowly toward the Dragon Burial Trench in the ebbing current—bone armor fragments, broken bone spears, and a few fragments of hull planks from the Royal Capital Fleet's warships.

Then the door to Lu Changyuan's Chart Room was pushed open.

Special Commissioner Wei Yuan stood at the door.

The right shoulder of his Inspectorate military uniform was soaked through with seawater—seawater was still dripping down—his left hand was clutching a Jade Slip.

His breathing was nearly twice as fast as usual—this was the breathing frequency a Late Foundation Establishment Stage Cultivator would have when unleashing their full spiritual power for a sprint.

Behind him—on the sea surface outside the Ring Reef, the Royal Capital Fleet was regrouping.

There were only two of the three vanguard ships left—the stern of the broken vanguard ship was still exposed on the water surface, the tilted rudder looking like a crooked cross in the night.

"This is what you wanted."

Special Commissioner Wei Yuan slapped the Jade Slip onto Lu Changyuan's chart table.

The Jade Slip clattered when it hit the table—there were sweat prints from the burn scar on Special Commissioner Wei Yuan's left hand on the surface of the Jade Slip.

He had fulfilled the first item of the transaction from Chapter 178—abyssal vein exploration data.

Lu Changyuan did not ask any more questions.

He pressed the Jade Slip into the reading slot on the side of the chart table—his Divine Sense swept in.

The exploration data was not a written report.

It was a complete spiritual power scan map—the scanning range was from the mouth of the Dragon Burial Trench to a depth of nearly three thousand miles at the bottom.

The scan map used different colors to mark three spiritual power density levels: shallow layer—abyssal vein dissipated spiritual power and Haiyuan Clan Formations; middle layer—the spiritual power flow of the three sub-patterns of the Seal (The Lid/Lock Core/Connection Node—the three-circle routing was exactly the same as what was marked on Su Qingli's Receiving Formation); deep layer—the spiritual power structure directly beneath the base of the Seal.

Lu Changyuan's Divine Sense stopped on the deep-layer spiritual power structure.

Beneath the base of the Seal—in the rock layer about two thousand zhang deep—it was not a point.

It was not a vein.

It was an area.

A huge spiritual power void pressed directly beneath the two-thousand-year-old base of the Seal—the shape of the void was not a naturally formed cave, but a regular geometric structure artificially excavated.

The scan map marked four words at this location—the handwriting was not Special Commissioner Wei Yuan's, but was carved directly into the Jade Slip with Divine Sense by someone older than Special Commissioner Wei Yuan.

"Haiyuan Holy Land."

Lu Changyuan continued to read.

The outer layer Seal of the Haiyuan Holy Land—was the three sub-patterns of the Seal itself.

Special Commissioner Wei Yuan's exploration team had already confirmed half a year ago: the three sub-patterns were a two-way Seal—sealing the abyssal vein from the outside in, and sealing the Holy Land from the inside out.

When the ancient Cultivators sealed the abyssal vein two thousand years ago, they had pressed the core Holy Land of the Haiyuan Clan of that time underneath the base of the Seal as well.

But the exploration team discovered a layer of Restriction at the bottom of the Holy Land ruins that did not belong to the Seal—a layer of dark red spiritual power membrane covering the entire entrance to the Holy Land.

The exploration report called it the "Blood Restriction."

The spiritual power frequency of the Blood Restriction was completely inconsistent with the three sub-patterns of the Seal—the Seal was Array Pattern spiritual power, while the Blood Restriction was Bloodline spiritual power.

The ancient Cultivators had set this Restriction using their own Bloodline—only descendants of the same Bloodline, or the life force/blood of enough Human Race Cultivators, could break it.

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Lu Changyuan flipped to the last layer of the scan. The thickness of the spiritual energy of the Blood Restriction was fully intact half a year ago—but the scan marked the changes over the past three months. The thickness of the Blood Restriction was decaying at a rate of nearly five percent every month. The rate of decay was positively correlated with the frequency of the Haiyuan Clan's attacks—every time a Human Race Cultivator died on the front lines, and every drop of a Human Race Cultivator's blood qi carried away by the seawater, would be drawn into the depths by the blood-drawing array pathways at the base of the Seal.

The Haiyuan Clan launched an all-out war—not to occupy any inch of land. What they needed was not territory, but casualties—the blood qi of Human Race Cultivators. With every person who died on the sea—regardless of whether they were fortress defenders or Royal Capital reinforcements—the Blood Restriction thinned by a fraction. Every day Zhenhai Fortress stood here, every battle fought, and every Cultivator who fell was watering that door for the Haiyuan Clan.

Lu Changyuan withdrew his Divine Sense from the Jade Slip.

The Chart Room fell silent for about five breaths. The cold light stone lamp illuminated the chart on the table until it looked pale—on the chart, the position of Zhenhai Fortress was circled in vermilion ink by Commander Tie Zhan, to the right of the circle was the outlet of the Dragon Burial Trench, and Blue Moon Island was right on its flank. Special Commissioner Wei Yuan stood on the other side of the table—silent, the sweat on his left hand already dry, the burn scar gleaming with the waxy white characteristic of old wounds under the cold light.

"Did your people find out what is beneath the Blood Restriction?"

"We can't probe it. The Blood Restriction blocks Divine Sense—even those at the Golden Core Stage cannot peer through it." Special Commissioner Wei Yuan's voice returned to a normal pace—but his left thumb was unconsciously rubbing the ring callus on his right index finger, a rubbing motion almost identical to the way Shen Qinghan pressed her finger against the doorframe when silently writing down the network of connections in the shack area. "But judging from the outer layout of the temple ruins—there is at least one altar inside. The scale of the altar is on par with the sealing Main Hub—or even larger. The Haiyuan Clan treated this temple as their most core source of combat power before the continental shelf sank into the deep sea. The altar can directly draw energy from the abyssal vein—two thousand years ago, the Haiyuan Clan relied on this altar to mass-produce Nascent Soul-grade generals."

"So the ancient Cultivators sealed it."

"So the ancient Cultivators sealed it with their Bloodline. The sealing can only suppress the abyssal vein—what can suppress the Blood Restriction is only the blood of the Human Race Cultivators themselves."

Lu Changyuan pulled the Jade Slip out of the reading slot. The surface of the Jade Slip was slightly warm—heat generated by long-term reading with Divine Sense. He put the Jade Slip into the inner pocket of his sleeve—stacking it together with Commander Tie Zhan's "defend to the death" military order, the shadow-recording bead, the simplified diagram of soul-searching fragments, the list of the network of connections, the rubbing of the first page of the account book, the defense handover documents, and the comparison chart of new and old sword threads. The inner pocket of his sleeve was already bulging at the seams—he pressed the pocket opening tight again.

Defending to the death would only turn Blue Moon Island into nourishment for the Blood Restriction. The Haiyuan Clan did not need to win—they only needed to keep the war going. With every clash, the more people died, the thinner the Blood Restriction became. Blue Moon Island's current defense was stronger than ever before—but the stronger it was, the more it attracted the Haiyuan Clan to push more Golden Core-level combat power in this direction. The Killing Array could kill Foundation Establishment—but it could not outlast Golden Core. The outer cracks caused by Golden Core-level Abyssal Beasts were still increasing—Su Qingli could only patch six cracks at the same time with her two hands. Once the Golden Core-level Abyssal Beasts broke through the outer Sword Net, the inner Sword Net would not last half a stick of incense against the Golden Core-level bone spears.

He had to establish a local advantage in this meat grinder that would not be worn down to death. Not to kill more—but to turn Blue Moon Island from "the party being consumed" into "the party consuming others."

Lu Changyuan stood up—and walked to the windowsill. Outside the window—on the sea surface in front of the Ring Reef, the first wave of the beast tide was reorganizing its Formation. The reflections of the bone armor of the Golden Core-level Abyssal Beasts rearranged themselves in the night—changing from the previous three rows into a single curved array. The two ends of the curved array were extending outward—the Haiyuan Clan was widening their attack front, forcing Blue Moon Island and the Royal Capital Fleet to disperse their firepower.

Then, a Golden Core Abyssal Beast in the dead center of the curved array—the one furthest back in the three-row Formation—whose bone armor was darker than all the Golden Core Abyssal Beasts in front, so dark it was nearly black—did not line up with the other Abyssal Beasts. It stopped about five miles behind the curved array—motionless. With its bone spear standing upright in front of it—the tip pointing upward, three dark blue crystal shards were embedded in the blade of the spear, and the flickering frequency of the shards' spiritual light was completely identical to that of the new main wave source on the Receiving Formation.

Leng Feng's observation scope was aimed at it.

"That Golden Core Abyssal Beast staying in the rear—not lining up, not moving, with its bone spear held upright in front of it—what is it waiting for?"

On Su Qingli's Receiving Formation—at a position about two hundred miles deep in the Dragon Burial Trench, the depth of the new main wave source stopped rising. It stopped at a depth of about one hundred miles from the sea surface. The intensity of the wave did not increase further—but the waveform of the wave changed. From intermittent pulses to continuous output—like a heart turning from beating to a sustained, forceful contraction.

Lu Changyuan turned around from the windowsill. Just as he was about to speak—he was interrupted by a muffled thud.

It was not thunder. It was not gunfire. It was the sound of a ship's keel snapping—exactly the same as the sound of the previous vanguard ship breaking, but this time it was much closer. Close enough that the window shutters on the second floor of the Lords Mansion rattled from the vibration.

Leng Feng turned his observation scope nearly fifteen degrees to the right. In the scope—an auxiliary ship at the very rear of the Royal Capital Fleet was sinking. The protective Formation of the auxiliary ship was nearly half as thin as that of the vanguard ship—two Golden Core Abyssal Beasts had slipped in from the blind spot of the fleet's rear firepower. The stern of the auxiliary ship was pierced from bottom to top by bone spears—the hull plunged into the water at an angle, and the people on the deck slid down into the water from the tilting deck.

"Who is on the ship?"

Leng Feng adjusted the focal length of his observation scope to the maximum. On the deck—a dozen or so figures were scrambling onto the ship's railing. Some wore the standard military robes of the Royal Capital military—but there were no rank insignia on the cuffs. Some wore plain clothes—the cuffs of their plain clothes bore the cloud-patterned armbands of the Inspectorate. And some—wearing old gray-blue cloth robes, gripped not weapons, but rolls of array diagrams wrapped in oilcloth. The cuffs of their cloth robes were stained with array ink—varying in shade, with old stains from different years layered together.

"They are not combat personnel." Leng Feng's observation scope stopped on a white-haired elder—the elder was holding a roll of array diagrams over his head, wading through waist-deep seawater toward the reef wall. The right half of his cloth robe was stained with at least dozens of layers of array ink—the way his right hand gripped the diagram was exactly the same as Old Mo's way of holding rubbing paper. "They are accompanying Array Master and talisman masters. At least a dozen of them."

The stern of the auxiliary ship sank completely below the water surface in less than ten breaths. A dozen or so heads remained on the sea surface—some clinging to broken sampans, others paddling toward the reef wall on driftwood. The Haiyuan Clan's Late Foundation Establishment Stage Abyssal Beasts gathered around underwater like sharks—but two frigates at the rear of the Royal Capital Fleet turned around in time, firing two shots from their shipboard spiritual cannons into the water—temporarily forcing the Abyssal Beasts back.

The dozen or so people were washed ashore by the sea onto the northern corner of the Blue Moon Island Pier.

The first to crawl onto the stone slabs of the Pier was the white-haired elder—the one in the observation scope who had held the array diagram over his head. He lay on the ground, coughing for nearly ten breaths—the seawater he coughed up was mixed with streaks of blood. Then he stood up—unrolling the oilcloth-wrapped array diagram to inspect it. The oilcloth was not torn; the array diagram was dry. He wrapped the array diagram back up—only then lifting his head to scan the Blue Moon Island Pier.

On the Pier, the old soldiers from the second page of the Sin Battalion were carrying spare shields onto the reef wall—no one stopped to look at him.

Behind the elder—a dozen or so people crawled out of the water one after another. Some wore the same gray-blue standard old robes as the consecrated masters of the Royal Capital Array Bureau, some had half-carved blank Formation Plates hanging from their waists, and some clutched talisman papers soaked and ruined by the seawater—the cinnabar lines on the talisman papers had already smeared into a patch of red. The last three who came up were carrying an ironwood chest half-submerged in seawater—the chest was affixed with the Seal of the Capital Ministry of War Array Bureau. The blue filing stamp on the Seal was exactly the same as the stamps on those twenty-year-old scrolls on Old Mo's bookshelf.

Leng Feng came down from the second floor of the Lords Mansion—and walked onto the Pier. His hand rested on his sword hilt—the scabbard clasp was unfastened.

"The rule on the island—no freeloaders."

"We are consecrated masters of the Capital Ministry of War Array Bureau. We came with the military fleet—our ship was sunk. We need a stone room—to dry our equipment first." He tucked the oilcloth-wrapped array diagram under his arm, and tapped a blue-green Array Bureau consecrated master badge on his collar with his right index finger. "This is a D-grade outpost, right? Go get someone in charge."

Leng Feng's scabbard clasp remained unfastened.

"The person in charge will come. But before they do—you stand here first." He unclipped the observation scope from his waist—and scanned the crowd behind Elder He one by one, pausing when he reached the ironwood chest. "What's in the chest?"

"array ink raw materials and blank jade talismans. Array Bureau supplies—not the military's." The elder paused—he pulled the array diagram out from under his arm—and held it with both hands again. "This old man's surname is He—a consecrated master of the Capital Ministry of War Array Bureau. I am the most senior among this group. If you want to find the person in charge—then go find them quickly. We have been soaking in seawater for the time it takes to burn a stick of incense—"

"Elder He—the people on their Pier are carrying shields," a young Formation Master whispered beside him. On the Pier, five or six old soldiers from the second page of the Sin Battalion were carrying basket after basket of spare shields out of the warehouse—the shields were old, with several white marks scraped by bone spears on their iron plating, but the handles on the back of the shields had all been re-wrapped with new leather straps. A porter missing half of his little finger carried three shields past Elder He—glancing at Elder He, but did not stop.

Elder He withdrew his gaze from the porter—and looked back at Leng Feng.

Make sure you format the JSON correctly. Leng Feng did not speak. He hung the observation scope back on his waist—stepped aside—and revealed the wartime rules on the bulletin board behind the Pier. Rule number one—those entering the island must obey combat readiness allocation, otherwise they will be expelled; Rule number two—those who do not participate in defense will not be allocated spiritual rice, Medicinal Pills, or beds; Rule number three—methods of acquiring contribution points: ten points for rush-repairing the Formation base, three points for drawing third-tier talismans, five points for carving Formation Plates, and two points for guarding the reef at night. Below was Lu Changyuan's lord's Seal and the Blue Moon Island wartime Seal. The handwriting was Su Qingli's—neat, not large, with each character leaving an indentation on the paper.