40: Chapter 40 Killing the Chicken to Warn the Monkey, Dragon King's Ruins

When that thing was slammed onto the ground, everyone in the great hall smelled a fishy, slimy scent of sea mud.

It was not large, barely half a person's height when curled up, but its appearance was truly hideous. Its entire body was covered in a layer of translucent mucus, its torso resembling both a clam and a fish, with two limp fleshy tentacles trailing behind its back. Its face was crumpled into a ball, yet it possessed a pair of small, rolling, beady green eyes that made people feel disgusted at first glance.

More importantly, it was not some sea beast casually scooped up during a sea patrol.

A severed thin water-line was wrapped around its body, and a bone tablet carved with crude sea patterns hung at its waist. It had clearly snuck to the outer edge of Blue Moon Island with a purpose.

Smashed to the ground, the monster spat out a mouthful of bubbly saltwater. It looked up, only to lock eyes with over a dozen Foundation Establishment Cultivators in the hall who had just completed their Breakthroughs and whose auras had not yet fully stabilized. Its face turned pale on the spot.

But pale as it was, its mouth was incredibly quick.

"A misunderstanding! It's all a misunderstanding!"

"This small one was just passing by, just passing by! I saw the spiritual tide in chaos here and only took a look from afar. How would I dare offend you high immortals..."

Before it could finish, Lu Hu stepped on half of its shell-back, stomping the rest of its sentence right back down its throat.

"Passing by?" Lu Hu sneered. "Can you bury a water-line at Blue Moon Island's Outer Port tide-mouth just by passing by? Can you pass by while carrying a bone tablet, hiding a probe, and trying to sneak into the shallow bay?"

The monster howled in pain from being stepped on, but its eyes still darted around, clearly trying desperately to come up with an excuse.

Su Qingli took only a few looks before whispering, "He's the lowest tier of scout among the Sea Race, likely of mixed Clam Spirit bloodline. Soft skin, tough life, cowardly, but with the slickest tongue."

Lu Changyuan slowly rose from his high seat and walked over to it.

The hall instantly fell silent.

For everyone knew that the current Lu Changyuan was no longer on the same level as yesterday.

The Clam Spirit clearly felt it too. The moment it looked up and met his eyes, its entire wrinkled face froze, and even the crying tone it had prepared got choked back. It could tell that the man before it was not just the master of this group, but a ruthless character who would truly strike with a blade at the slightest displeasure.

Yet it still refused to give up, squeezing out a flattering smile. "High immortal, please be discerning. This small one is called Loach, just trying to make a living in the sea, with truly no other intentions. The bone tablet was picked up, the water-line is old, and I only ended up here because I was washed ashore by the waves..."

Clang.

A longsword unsheathed.

Lu Changyuan did not give it a chance to finish speaking at all.

In the next instant, a sword light flashed by, and one of Loach's limp fleshy tentacles on the left was severed from the root, dropping to the ground with a splat. A stream of foul-smelling blue blood instantly sprayed from the cut.

Loach—no, the entire demon beast—blanked out for a moment before letting out a miserable wail that almost blew the roof off the hall.

"Aaaaaah—"

Lu Changyuan lowered the tip of his sword, pointing it directly at the center of its brow, his voice flat without a single ripple of emotion.

"If your next sentence is nonsense, it won't just be a tentacle that gets cut."

The entire hall instantly became so quiet that a falling needle could be heard.

Even Lu Hu and the others, who had just completed their Breakthroughs and were at their most spirited, were suppressed by this act and did not speak again.

Lu Changyuan's strike was too decisive, so decisive that there was absolutely no intention of "testing the waters with a few words first." Clam Spirits were best at using lies to stall for time and test boundaries. But by crippling a tentacle right off the bat, he had essentially laid down the rules clearly.

Loach trembled all over from the pain, rolling around the floor, yet he did not dare to actually bump against the sword tip.

He finally understood that the group before him was different from the Loose Cultivators, pirates, and even some small outer-sea clans he had encountered before. When others captured a scout, they would more or less calculate whether they could trade for intelligence, safe passage, or benefits first; but this Blue Moon Island Lord was clearly questioning him on the premise of "if you dare make up more lies, I will cut you until you can't lie anymore."

"I'll talk! I'll talk!"

"Loach no longer dared to play tricks, his crying tone now completely genuine. "This small one is really called Loach, a runner and scout for several Sea Race clans on the outer edge of the Black Tide. Recently, the outer sea has fallen into complete chaos. The Merfolk and the Blood Shark Pirates are fighting viciously, and packs of sea demons are running wild. Many great clans are pulling their people and lines back into the deep sea. This small one was just sent out to see which force was the first to stick its head out here..."

Lu Changyuan remained expressionless. "Why are they all pulling back to the deep sea?"

Loach opened his mouth, subconsciously wanting to beat around the bush again.

The tip of Lu Changyuan's sword immediately advanced half an inch.

The chill pressing against his brow terrified Loach so much that his entire face contorted, and he hurriedly screamed, "Because of the Dragon King Palace! Because the Dragon King Palace is about to open!"

Everyone in the hall shuddered in unison.

Deep within Lu Changyuan's Sea of Consciousness, the heavenly secret jade slip also grew slightly warm at this moment—as if activated by the words "Dragon King Palace," an ancient and blurry aura slowly spread along his Divine Sense. It was like a mark that had slept for countless years, letting out its first echo upon hearing the name of its former master.

Even if no one knew exactly what the name signified, they could hear the weight it carried.

Seeing that they had finally reached the main topic, Loach immediately spilled everything like beans pouring out of a bag. "The beast tide in the outer sea came early lately not just because the sea demons went mad, but also because that ancient ruins deep under the sea is breathing! Those old sea demons and old Sea Race members all say that the outer Restriction of the Dragon King Palace is about to loosen. Inside, there are fate-changing items, ancient treasures, pathfinders, and even true inheritances that can turn the entire sea territory upside down..."

"The larger the clan, the less they dare to delay; they have all been rushing over there recently. Lowly scouts like me were scattered to probe the borders and see if the Human Race had caught wind of it beforehand."

Su Qingli's brow furrowed immediately.

If this news was true, then many of the seemingly scattered anomalies from before would all connect.

The early beast tide, the sea demons wandering in chaos, the agitation of high-order fierce beasts in the deep sea, and even the reason why this Clam Spirit scout had snuck to the outer edge of Blue Moon Island—everything suddenly had a root cause.

Lu Hu was more direct. "How do you prove you didn't just make this up on the spot?"

Loach immediately nodded his head like a chicken pecking at rice. "There's a map! This small one has a map!"

Pinned down and unable to move, he could only twist his body with difficulty, using his remaining fleshy tentacle to desperately reach for the wet little leather pouch at his waist. Seeing that he wasn't playing any tricks, Lu Hu lifted his foot and yielded half an inch. In a flurry, Loach pulled out a rolled-up old sea-skin map from the pouch, trembling as he handed it up.

The map was not large, still stained with sea mud and ink spots, clearly just a fragmented corner of a larger one.

But once it was spread out, the expressions of several core figures in the hall who had just returned from the battle at the Cold Iron Mine changed.

This was because the locations drawn on the map vaguely aligned with the deep-sea trench where they had previously fought for the mine and the rift valley region further below.

Further in the depths, a giant palace resembling an open dragon's mouth was sketched in an extremely peculiar Sea Race handwriting. Alongside it, several outer waterways and dangerous dark whirlpools were marked intermittently. Although it was far from complete, it was enough to show that this was definitely not something Loach had drawn on the spot.

Lu Changyuan took the sea map, his gaze falling upon the dragon-head-like palace shape, remaining motionless for a long time.

Seeing him remain silent, Loach grew even more panicked, his voice carrying a crying tone. "High immortal, this small one truly only knows this much! I am just the lowest-tier scout, not even qualified to approach the periphery of the Dragon King Palace. This map is also just a corner I secretly copied while delivering goods for someone in the past. It really wasn't made up by me..."

"This small one has confessed everything. I beg the high immortal for mercy, spare my life..."

Lu Changyuan finally looked up at him.

That glance was neither cold nor warm, yet it made Loach almost collapse on the spot.

After a long while, Lu Changyuan slowly spoke, "Take him down and lock him up for now."

Lu Hu was taken aback. "Not killing him?"

"He still knows the way," Lu Changyuan said. "And for a creature that fears death like this, as long as you don't cut him to death the first time, you can usually squeeze a second layer of information out of him later."

Loach had thought he would at least lose half his life first. Hearing this, he almost collapsed directly into a puddle of mush, kowtowing repeatedly without end.

But indeed, no one in the great hall looked at him anymore.

Everyone's eyes fell upon that fragmented sea map.

Lu Changyuan slowly smoothed out the map, his fingertips gently tracing along the few broken lines leading to the deep sea.

The harshness in his eyes, which had originally been continuously intensified just to survive the beast tide, finally gained a touch of deeper ambition at this moment.

If the source of the beast tide was truly related to the Dragon King Palace, then what Blue Moon Island had to face next was not just defending.

They also had to seize.

Seize the initiative, seize the routes, and seize everything they could get their hands on before that ruins truly spewed out the great tide.

He raised his head, looking at the dozen or so core members in the hall who had just completed their first round of qualitative change, and then at the foundation of Blue Moon Island outside, which was still expanding and had gaps, yet had already begun donning Cold Iron Armor. His voice finally fell heavily:

"The source of the beast tide is actually an ancient ruins."

"Pass the order to the entire army."

"The Cold Iron Mine is to fully focus on forging armor first. The Sea Cavalry Battalion and ballista positions are prioritized for re-equipping."

"Then push the outer sea scouting lines deeper, and map out the borders that can be reached around the periphery of the Dragon King Palace first."

Lu Changyuan's fingertip tapped on the outline of the giant dragon-head palace on the sea map. There was not a hint of fear in his eyes, only a ruthless determination that grew sharper as he was pushed to the absolute limit.

"Once this round of war preparations on the island stabilizes."

"I will personally lead men into the sea to explore it."