Yuan Tong
Chapter 587 City of Chaos
Shakira peeked out from behind a black boulder, watching the direction of Nasaton, her face growing increasingly grim. After a moment, she withdrew her head: "There's an unexpected situation… it won't be easy to get in, I'm afraid."
Hao Ren's eyes twitched: "What is it?"
"See that faint blue barrier outside the city walls?" Shakira pointed to Nasaton's shield with her tail tip, "That's the city's Water Dome. The Tarani crystals on the walls are glowing, which means the Water Dome has been spirit-infused. In this state, that barrier is connected to Her Majesty the Queen's mind. Anything that passes through the Water Dome will be sensed by the Queen. She'll discover that you're not sirens and use that water membrane to cut the intruders into pieces."
Lili opened her mouth: "...What kind of principle is this?"
"Water is shapeless, it can become a person, or it can become a city. The Tarani crystals can amplify the Queen's mental power, turning the Water Dome into an extension of her body. This is the key to her controlling the entire city," Soma sighed, "This was originally meant to be the Queen's last resort for protecting the city in times of danger, but who would have thought it would now be used to imprison her own people."
Izhaks stroked his chin: "This kind of thing must consume a lot of energy. Can that Queen connect her mind to the Water Dome forever? She must have time to rest, right?"
Shakira shook her head: "The Core of Surging Water will bear most of the magic consumption. As long as the Queen stands above the Core of Surging Water, her magic and energy will be endless. Oh, the Core of Surging Water is the city's energy core, it's inside the palace."
Hao Ren slapped his forehead: "Damn it, why do you guys have so much high-tech stuff... Couldn't you just be your mermaids?"
At this time, Doudou boldly swam outwards. Being small, even if someone saw her from afar, she would be mistaken for a small fish. She swam close to the beach to behind another large rock, and suddenly seemed to discover something, darting back in a flash: "Daddy, over there, there's something! Big boat!"
The little one gesticulated, unable to explain clearly. After everyone was confused, they decided to go and see what was going on. Shakira controlled the water flow to form a barrier that could interfere with siren perception to a certain extent, shielding the team as they came to behind a nearby boulder. Doudou immediately tugged on Hao Ren's arm: "That!"
"Holy..." Hao Ren was shocked when he saw the scene on the beach in the distance, "How is this thing here?!"
Lying on the beach hundreds of meters away was a rusty, almost wreckage-like black steel creation. It had a large open hole in the middle section, which was probably the reason it sank here. Apart from that, the wreckage's portholes, propellers, tail rudder, and upper structure were still clearly visible. Nangong Wuyue stared at the torpedo launcher at the front of the thing for a long time, then pursed her lips: "It's a Soviet submarine, can't tell the model."
"You've seen this thing before?" Shakira asked in surprise. After coming ashore, she had been living in seclusion in the deep mountains and forests, and didn't know much about modern human weapons like submarines and warships – apart from coastal defense guns.
"I've seen it a few times while swimming, but I didn't dare get close," Nangong Wuyue nodded. "This thing probably got lost near the Isle of Mists and stumbled in by mistake. The deep-sea water pressure isn't something these old-model submarines can withstand."
"It was dragged here," Nangong Sanba suddenly pointed to the beach behind the old submarine. There was a huge gully there, and judging from the aquatic plants near the gully, this thing had probably been lying here for many years. "Do you sirens also collect human ships?"
"No, we usually throw these things into the trenches, or push them to the human coastline – depending on whether we can push them," Shakira shook her head, then suddenly shrank her body, "Wait, someone's coming!"
Everyone quickly hid themselves, and then they saw that the water area in front of the old submarine suddenly twisted, and streams of water quickly converged into a human form, a siren in the form of a sea serpent. The siren held a blue-glowing long halberd in her hand, with a large aquamarine inlaid between the two curved blades at the tip of the halberd. She raised the halberd in front of the submarine and began to chant an ancient curse song in a bizarre and creepy tone, then stuck the halberd on the beach: "Get up, it's time to work!"
Clusters of smoky, fine sand immediately swirled around the submarine, and then dozens of figures emerged from the submarine's broken hole and the nearby sand. These figures were wrapped in rotten, shroud-like military uniforms that were about to fall apart. Although their bodies were intact, their skin and muscles were all decaying and deathly gray. Some people could still see swollen and grotesque wounds on their bodies, from which fine sand was constantly flowing out.
Hao Ren stared in astonishment at all this. Those soldiers were undoubtedly not normal living people. They had a gray-blue crystal embedded in their chest, which must be the reason they could move.
These controlled warriors looked blankly at the siren in front of them. The muscles on their bodies twitched slightly, as if a stubborn intention to resist still remained deep in their hearts, but the crystal in their chest and the long halberd in the siren's hand constantly resonated, preventing these people from resisting. And the siren standing in front of them was obviously not a free being either: her eyes were dark, and the expression on her face was stiff as a dead person. This showed that she was much more severely affected than the previous siren general. She had completely lost her self-will and had now become a remote-controlled machine that faithfully carried out orders.
The siren raised her halberd and swam away into the distance: "Work."
The dumbfounded Hao Ren and his party watched this astonishing team leave the submarine area. After a long while, Shakira broke the silence through gritted teeth: "How can the Queen allow this kind of thing? It doesn't conform to siren tradition!"
"It's not the Queen, it's the mind flayer," Vivian pressed Shakira's shoulder, "We'd better follow and see what's going on. The work that siren mentioned is very concerning."
Shakira nodded silently, following the water aura left by the previous siren.
Everyone followed the "undead team" from a distance, and after swimming along the beach for a while, they entered a beach full of towering gray-white porous rocks. This place was very close to Nasaton's outer wall, and they had to be careful not to be discovered by the sentries on the city's high walls, but the surrounding white porous rocks could provide some cover. Vivian suddenly frowned halfway: "I feel... more auras here."
"I feel it too, it's the aura of the dead," Hasson said in a low voice, "Be vigilant."
Gun Gun had been following Hao Ren obediently, and she was finally being sensible this time. After swimming for a while, she suddenly nudged Hao Ren's arm: "Big cat, over there."
Hao Ren lowered his body and peeked out from beside a porous rock, and was shocked to see a very large construction site!
There was a large open space in the center of the porous rock group, where tense and busy construction was underway. Groups of undead were working under the supervision of siren foremen. The undead were basically all World War II sailors in tattered military uniforms, with grayish-blue skin, stiff faces, and strange gray-blue crystals embedded in their chests. They were wearing all kinds of military uniforms - Hao Ren could hardly recognize the clothes, but Lili identified that they included at least British, Soviet, and American soldiers, all Allied soldiers.
Considering that there had never been reports of sirens directly attacking human warships and being witnessed, these soldiers must have sunk to the bottom of the sea during the war and were then "collected" by the sirens.
A dozen sirens holding long halberds with expressionless faces were patrolling near the open space. Under their supervision, the undead were assembling coral-like metal branches and installing them on a huge, silver-white pillar deeply buried in the ground. This silver-white pillar stretched far away at the other end of the construction site, arranged neatly like a strange metal forest.
The data terminal read amazing energy readings from those devices.
"These things can cross the spatial stratum, their lower parts must be nailed deep into the stratum," Izhaks' voice was very serious, "They are extracting the energy of the Earth's core... but I can feel that its energy flow is not complete, there should be other devices connected to them."
"There are not only dead people here," Nangong Sanba suddenly pointed to the other end of the open space, "Look over there."
Following the direction of Nangong Sanba's finger, you could see another group of slaves working busily under the supervision of the sirens – a group of alien races, including strong werewolves, pale vampires, and shadowy shadow demons with dark temperaments and twisted limbs.
Obviously, they were all living people.