Chapter 766
Chapter 766
“My lady, can you use your abilities to see if there are any survivors nearby? Let's find the rest of them and kill them all at once.”
Mulan said nothing.
*My lord, I can sense the great outdoors, I can sense danger. But what you're asking for... I truly cannot do.*
Shen Lang had thought that if Mulan closed her eyes, she could send out a radar to scan all living creatures in the vicinity, but in truth, she couldn't do such a thing. Mulan's senses were attuned to the vastness of nature, like the sea and the weather; her perception of living beings was extremely vague. Moreover, while her senses grew particularly sharp in the primeval jungles of the Savage Tribes, the sea was not her main domain.
In the end, Shen Lang gave the order to search the entire island and kill any survivors they found. His three thousand men searched for an entire day but couldn't find a single living person. Shen Lang was astonished by this.
*Could they all have died just like that? Swept away by a single tsunami, and not one survivor out of thirty thousand? It can't be such a coincidence!*
But they truly found no one. Shen Lang returned to the bay of Rapture Island. Yesterday, he had ordered all the ships to be secured to the reefs with iron chains. The bay hadn't taken a direct hit from the tsunami, so the island itself was preserved, but as expected, a disastrous sight awaited him. Of the eighteen warships, eight had sunk and vanished, and five were severely damaged. Only five remained in relatively good condition. It was impossible to fit all three thousand people from the island onto just five ships. Thus, Shen Lang ordered the ships to be repaired and waited in the bay.
Several more hours passed before nineteen warships appeared on the sea. Where had these warships come from? They were, of course, Shen Lang's fleet. When Yan Nanfei tried to lure him into the Yao'e Sea, Shen Lang and Mulan had already seen through his plot. If they hadn't pretended to fall for his plan, Yan Nanfei wouldn't have fallen for Shen Lang's scheme. Only by making his fleet appear extremely weak and fleeing could Shen Lang entice Yan Nanfei to order a full pursuit, and only then could he lure them into the area where the great tsunami would strike.
In reality, only two of Shen Lang's ships had struck the reefs in the Yao'e Sea at that time. They had deceived the enemy in the thick fog by creating various sound effects like warning bells and loud thuds, and by shouting, "We've fallen into a trap! We've hit the reefs! The ship is sinking!"
In fact, Shen Lang's main fleet had split into two groups. One group circled around and continued east, while the other headed straight north. One of these groups had hidden in the bay behind Rapture Island, and the other had completely left the tsunami zone, waiting for the storm to fully subside before returning to Rapture Island to rendezvous with Shen Lang's party.
***
A little over two hours later, Shen Lang and his thousands of men had all boarded the warships and left Rapture Island. Thus, of the forty ships he had mobilized in total, only twenty-four remained. One had sunk after accidentally colliding with the Xue Clan's fleet, two had sunk in the Yao'e Sea as part of the deception, and thirteen had been wrecked by the great tsunami. Four thousand men were packed tightly, barely fitting onto the twenty-four ships. However, Shen Lang did not leave immediately. He circled Rapture Island, continuing to patrol relentlessly, trying to find any survivors, but still, he found no one.
"My Lord, what should we do now? Do we attack the Southern Continent Archipelago directly?"
To attack the Southern Continent Archipelago, they would have to head due west.
"Head east and search every island."
In Shen Lang's view, if there were any survivors, they would have most likely been swept away by the tsunami. Since the tsunami had moved east, any survivors would have likely washed ashore on the islands to the east. He was determined not to let a single fish slip through the net.
***
An unknown amount of time passed. Xue Pan, the heir of the Xue Clan, opened his eyes.
"Blech, ugh, blech!"
He coughed up seawater relentlessly. He had truly thought he was going to die. His martial arts were formidable, but before the tsunami, he was utterly powerless. He had no strength to resist it whatsoever. In almost an instant, the entire fleet had vanished, and the warship he was on had shattered into pieces. Perhaps driven by the instinct to survive, Xue Pan had clung to a log and refused to let go, even in the face of death. He never thought he would actually survive. Slowly sitting up, he saw that he was on a small island, and a few dozen people were gathered around a fire in front of him.
"Young Master, you're awake? This is grilled fish, and this is juice squeezed from the roots of a plant on the island. Please, eat quickly."
The person approached with a bowl of white liquid in one hand and a fish in the other; the bowl was woven from leaves. Xue Pan took them and ate with difficulty.
"How long was I unconscious?"
"A full day and night have passed."
"Where are we?"
"An unnamed islet. It's probably about three hundred *li* from Rapture Island."
Xue Pan was puzzled.
*We came this far?*
The tsunami's speed had been so immense that it had swept them hundreds of *li* away in a very short time. Soon, Xue Pan realized that none of the direct-line masters who had been protecting him were present. The dozens who had luckily survived were all dark-skinned men. They were all sailors. When a great tsunami strikes, it's not necessarily those with high martial arts who survive, but those with extreme luck and excellent swimming skills who might get by.
"My uncle?"
"We haven't seen the commander."
Xue Pan ate the fish and drank the plant juice. At first, he felt the elation of survival, but soon, sorrow flooded his heart. The thirty-thousand-strong allied army and two hundred warships had been annihilated. The army the Xue Clan had spent decades of painstaking effort to build had vanished in an instant. Without that fleet, how could they maintain their trade in the southern seas? The Xue Clan prioritized the sea, so their military power was also focused on it. No matter how much Xue Pan thought about it, he couldn't understand.
*Was this also Shen Lang's scheme, luring our fleet into hell? But how could he have known that an undersea earthquake would cause a tsunami?*
The event felt too deliberate to be a coincidence. Moreover, Shen Lang had moored his fleet in the bay behind Rapture Island beforehand and had taken all his men ashore to the top of the mountain. That clearly meant he had prepared for the tsunami. He was truly a terrifying man. A man who seemed to know everything... such a person should not be allowed to live in this world.
But with the Xue Clan's fleet destroyed, what was he to do now? Should he ask Fudao Mountain for help? Or the Empire? Shen Lang's ability to use a tsunami to eliminate thirty thousand men was so astounding that neither Fudao Mountain nor the Empire would tolerate him.
Xue Pan considered his next steps. He would first escape the island and go to the Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion, then to Blackstone Island where the people of Fudao Mountain were. He resolved to desperately persuade the two transcendent powers to step in and annihilate Shen Lang's entire clan. He would boast that Shen Lang possessed divine abilities that could startle heaven and earth and make ghosts weep. The more magnificently and exaggeratedly he described Shen Lang, the more certain it was that Fudao Mountain and the Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion would not tolerate him.
*I will kill this bastard. I must! If the Xue Clan's power isn't enough to kill him, I'll borrow the power of others to do it.*
After finishing the grilled fish and the plant juice, Xue Pan asked the sailors.
"Are you all sailors of our Xue Clan?"
At his question, the dozens of sailors gave a bitter smile.
"The heir would not remember insignificant people like us."
Xue Pan certainly didn't remember them. He had stayed on land for a long time, spending most of his days in Tianyue City. But looking closely at the sailors, he saw they all wore the Xue Clan's clothing and had the clan's tattoos on their necks.
"How do you plan to leave this place?"
Xue Pan asked, and a Xue Clan sailor replied.
"We plan to stay on this islet for a few days. After confirming that Shen Lang's fleet is far away, we'll make a thick smoke signal to attract a merchant ship to come and pick us up."
"Couldn't we build a raft, make several oars, and attach a sail to leave this islet by boat? How far is it from here to the Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion?"
"About two thousand *li*."
"Can a raft we build travel two thousand *li*?"
The leader of the sailors answered.
"We'd have to brave the risks, but the chances of success are high."
"Then hurry up and build a raft. Let's leave this place at the fastest possible speed and head for the Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion. If we succeed, I will reward you all handsomely."
The dozens of sailors looked at him, then nodded and replied.
"Thank you."
Soon, they procured materials from the islet and built a large, sturdy raft. They even found a few scraps of sailcloth, which they stitched together to create a small sail. In just a few hours, the large, sturdy raft was complete.
"Young Master, you may board!"
"Let's go, right now!"
Xue Pan commanded. He believed that the cunning Shen Lang would surely search all the surrounding islands. Therefore, he had to leave this place as quickly as possible, head to the Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion, and persuade Ying Han and Zhu Hongxue. He intended to cast aside all his pride and devote himself to killing Shen Lang and Jin Mulan. As Xue Pan stepped onto the raft, five of the sailors from the island boarded with him to adjust the sail and row the boat forward.
Sailing on the sea is an exceedingly monotonous affair. The scenery was always the same. Moreover, the sky was now gloomy, and neither the stars nor the moon showed their light. The sea was unnaturally calm, without the slightest ripple, as if they were rowing across a mirror.
"You have performed a great service. If you successfully get me to the Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion, I will ensure you rise in station and enjoy wealth and glory."
At Xue Pan's words, they all spoke up.
"Then we'll be counting on the heir."
"The heir must remember our humble names."
The five sailors all told Xue Pan their names. Xue Pan repeated each of their names, then chatted with them, listening to their family situations. As they kept talking, he grew thirsty again. He felt severely dehydrated, but he couldn't drink the seawater. They had prepared some plant juice on the raft. It wasn't tasty, but it was drinkable water.
"You've all worked hard. Why don't you have something to drink?"
The sailors wet their lips slightly and said.
"It's still a long way to the Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion. We should conserve a little."
Xue Pan also only wet his lips.
"Young Master, you can sleep if you're tired."
Xue Pan sneered inwardly.
*How could I possibly sleep? I need to be on guard every single moment. If I don't, what use will these five useless sailors be when danger strikes?*
But for some reason, Xue Pan felt his whole body begin to go numb, and his vision turned black.
"No..."