Under Bai Ya’s undeniable command, a confused Kulang had no choice but to follow her instructions. He moved the cannon’s bore until it reached the direction her finger pointed and pressed the firing switch.
The Magic Cannon began to consume its filled energy. A sphere of light containing magical power formed at the muzzle. As the energy was depleted bit by bit, the light sphere gradually expanded. The moment the energy was fully exhausted, the Magic Cannon would fire a devastating magical blast.
Kulang finished activating the Magic Cannon and used a giant rock to fix it in place, confirming it would remain stable even if swept by the violent winds. Ensuring the direction was absolutely precise, he and Bai Ya jogged back to a place where they could take shelter from the rain.
“Atchoo!” Bai Ya sniffled, her hand holding the flintlock instinctively protecting her abdomen while her body shook uncontrollably.
Kulang, on the other hand, was radiating heat. The moisture on his skin evaporated quickly; he was simply accelerating his own blood flow, a task that was easy for him.
“Exercising is a necessity, atchoo!” Bai Ya couldn’t help but sneeze again, feeling a bit envious of Kulang.
If nothing changed, and if she didn’t take off her wet underwear and change into dry clothes, catching a cold was a certainty.
Taking off her undergarments was a secondary concern—the key was dry clothing. Bai Ya watched the steaming Kulang with great interest for a long while. Estimating that enough time had passed, she raised her flintlock and forced him to strip.
A moment later, a shirtless Kulang sat in the corner questioning his life choices. Bai Ya was now wearing a loose, faded yellow cloth tunic. Her underwear had been wrung dry and placed inside the tunic’s pocket, ready to be hung out in the sun once the rain stopped.
“Ah, this really is big enough.” Bai Ya turned left and right to inspect the garment. The cloth tunic was large enough that the hem nearly touched the ground, saving her the trouble of wearing pants.
The sudden return to a “commando” state made Bai Ya a bit uncomfortable; evidently, she wasn’t naturally part of the no-underwear faction.
“In about one minute, the magic cannon will fire,” Kulang said, breaking the silence. He had been thinking for a long time but still didn’t understand what target Bai Ya claimed had a one-hundred-percent hit rate.
He looked in the direction Bai Ya had pointed, but he only saw a world covered by water.
When Kulang asked what target she saw, Bai Ya told him he could see it just by looking outside.
“I only see rain.”
“Water. That is a very good answer.”
***
Rinne Tenki moved forward through the torrential rain. The wings unfurled on her back did not grant her the ability to fly; the wing on her right shoulder was merely a hairless, withered bone wing. The pure white wing on her left shoulder alone could not lift her body into flight; it could only increase her movement speed.
Rinne Tenki was practically gliding across the ground, yet she still felt she wasn’t fast enough. By the time she reached the harbor, the pirate ships had already left the transport vessel, drifting on the violent sea and risking capsizing at any moment.
Encountering a storm while sailing was a stroke of bad luck. With visibility obstructed, one could easily lose their way and deviate from the original course.
Drenched and expressionless, Rinne Tenki stared at the gap in the steel wall. She maintained her racial demonized state; her heterochromatic eyes—one white, one black—could clearly see through the rain.
The pirate ships were drifting further away, about to vanish from sight. Rinne Tenki knew the situation was urgent. To rescue Lyumion from the pirates, she quickly found a relatively intact lifeboat, jumped onto it without hesitation, raised the sail, and took the helm herself.
“[Law of Life and Death]”
Going out to sea at a time like this was undoubtedly suicidal, so Rinne Tenki used her racial talent. Within a radius of over ten meters around her, all wind and rain instantly dissipated, and the sea grew calm.
Rinne Tenki knew she could do more than just kill living things; even inanimate objects were subject to her racial talent.
After sailing for a while, Rinne Tenki realized that her speed was nowhere near enough to catch the pirate ships, let alone rescue Lyumion.
She gave up on steering and sat quietly on the boat. The seawater around the vessel was very still, and the rain vanished without a trace before it could fall on her head. No sound disturbed her.
For the first time, Rinne Tenki felt a sense of failure. She was originally a weapon; her greatest specialty was combat. Yet, she had been tasked with a guardian’s role. While she had absolute confidence in her combat strength, other areas—like speed or defense—were not her domains.
Rinne Tenki also couldn’t swim. She knew that if the boat she was on was overturned by a wave, she would only drown unless she received help.
For a moment, the thought that she was useless surfaced. She could do nothing now, with no way to catch up to the pirates.
If the pirates escaped into the storm like this, Rinne Tenki understood that even if she returned to her country, she would be abandoned by His Majesty Spartacus and become ‘food’ for those ten people. Her incompetence would lead to a tragic end.
Rinne Tenki did not want that to happen, yet she was powerless.
Then, she noticed the pirate ships were growing larger in her vision, as if they were being pushed back. What was happening?
When she realized the cause, Rinne Tenki’s pupils constricted to their limit. She realized she had made a mistake—she should have killed Molly Cingia!
Molly Cingia’s racial talent, [Royal Holy Beast of the Sea], allowed her to manipulate the ocean. This was something Lyumion feared deeply, causing him to try to reach a reconciliation with Molly several times until it became impossible.
Rinne Tenki had assumed Lyumion was only afraid of that slave girl because he didn’t understand her own strength. Now it seemed Prince Lyumion was uneasy precisely because he knew Molly’s power.
Molly had once said that on the ocean, she was invincible! That statement appeared to be true.
A massive tsunami that seemed to connect with the horizon was currently approaching! The steel walls, dozens of meters high, would be useless as a barrier against it. Its range was too vast for the naked eye to see, essentially defining it as boundless!
This tsunami was unavoidable! The pirate ships were being driven back by the wall of water. Multiple vessels collapsed and were destroyed along the way, their crews lost to the sea.
The tsunami was slowly advancing toward the transport ship. Rinne Tenki knew clearly that under the impact of this tsunami, the transport ship would absolutely shatter!
This large-scale tsunami was not a natural phenomenon; it contained an abnormal destructive force and the aura of a racial talent. Rinne Tenki was certain that Molly was controlling it.
Molly could trigger tsunamis, and on the ocean, this ability would be significantly amplified, resulting in the scene before her.
This was what Lyumion feared most; Rinne Tenki finally understood.
If Molly could continuously trigger great tsunamis, this ocean would be hers to control. She would be the overlord of the seas—that was the terror of Molly Cingia.
Rinne Tenki knew she had to stop this. Molly had likely gone insane; the tsunami she triggered was destroying pirate ships one after another. Lyumion was imprisoned on one of the remaining ships; at this rate, he would eventually be buried in the ocean.
The best solution was to kill Molly. Without the control of the racial talent, the tsunami would stop. However, Rinne Tenki discarded this plan as soon as she thought of it. She couldn’t possibly kill Molly before the tsunami hit; she wasn’t specialized in speed, and in this critical situation, there was no time to travel.
Ultimately, Rinne Tenki chose to rely on her own racial talent to confront the tsunami. She would end the wave with her own hands and then rescue Lyumion.
In terms of combat power, Rinne Tenki had the confidence to rival anyone outside of those ten people. Molly was already her defeated opponent; since she was stronger than Molly, crushing the tsunami shouldn’t be difficult.
“Oh, deceased ones, heed the voice of the Underworld. The God of the Underworld has issued the sole command: invade the world of the living immediately!”
Molly had said she was invincible at sea.
In truth, Rinne Tenki believed that sentence applied to her as well.
“Awaken!”
At Rinne Tenki’s command, a stir appeared deep beneath the sea.
The blood of the Sea Dragon race flowed through Molly’s veins. Sea Dragons were powerful marine magical beasts, and the ocean was the most suitable field for her racial talent to activate.
“…” Sorrowful and pained voices echoed in Rinne Tenki’s mind one after another. She looked down at the surface, and dozens of skeletons of marine magical beasts emerged.
The blood of the Underworld Ghost Clan flowed through Rinne Tenki’s veins. The Underworld Ghost Clan was the sole living race of the world of the dead—the Underworld. They were a race that existed between life and death, though they leaned more toward death. Generally, those who saw an Underworld Ghost did not live long.
The Underworld Ghost Clan fed on souls; they were the messengers of death. The most suitable field for their racial talent to activate was a graveyard.
And the ocean was the graveyard for all marine life.
The number of skeletal remains of marine magical beasts floating on the sea increased. Many human and other racial skeletons appeared as well. Rinne Tenki continued to manifest her racial talent; the number of skeletons had not yet reached her expectations.
By the time the tsunami blotted out the sky above, Rinne Tenki had not yet finished her preparations. All she lacked was time.
***
West side of the transport ship.
The guards on the wall stared blankly at the tsunami, not even noticing when the weapons fell from their hands.
In the waters far beyond the western wall, a lifeboat was struggling in the storm. The people on the boat also witnessed this scene.
“Is this where we die…” Roshi muttered to himself. He had never seen such a massive tsunami. In fact, he had never intended to see one; this was simply too abnormal.
When the tsunami fell, its terrifying power would have no trouble destroying the lifeboat and tearing them all to pieces.
The pirates who had been threatening them had already been swept away by the waves along with their ships. Before they could even breathe a sigh of relief, this happened. Was the world intent on driving them to their deaths?
“It’s okay! It will definitely be okay! Sister Bai Ya will definitely save us!” Stia said urgently, trying to cheer everyone up as she saw their spirits sinking.
“The Savior…? No, it’s not that I doubt her, but this is simply asking too much. Even the Savior shouldn’t have a way to deal with this situation.” Looking at the scale of the tsunami, Vassago had already abandoned all hope.