Chapter 897
Shen Lang began his speech, his voice ringing out for all to hear.
“Well said, General Haimon. Very well said indeed. Why should you choose to follow me? Because I jumped from the Empress’s Terrace? Because I made countless sea monsters retreat? That’s not enough. Far from it. And why would I look down on you? Because you chose Douglas, waiting for him to save you. What a disgrace! The Children of the Abyss are the overlords of the sea, the most formidable pirate fleet in the world. Since when did you need someone else to save you? Only the weak need saving. The strong always save themselves.”
“That is why I look down on you. I’ve said time and again that I would win the loyalty of the Children of the Abyss, but I have no need for a weak version like you. You are not worthy of my attention! Douglas kept asking me if I had a way to save you, a way to lead you out of this place. I do. I have a way. But there’s an old saying in the Eastern world: ‘If a man will not save himself, no one else can save him!’”
“What is it that has trapped you? The Lost Demon Mother and the Cursed Empress. The Cursed Empress is the leader of millions of sea monsters and the supreme ruler of this cursed sea. Anyone who enters these waters falls under her dominion, forever losing their sense of direction. Her powerful psychic energy blankets the entire region, plunging people into illusion. Her wail, like the cry of a ghost, covers the whole land. You cannot hear it with your ears, but you can with your mind. It fills you with melancholy and despair, even driving you to the brink of a mental collapse.”
“What you see when you go out to sea is not always real. It is merely an image the Lost Demon Mother shows you. You thought you were sailing north, but in reality, you were just circling these waters. If the heavens had eyes, they would find it utterly ridiculous. Why does that fleet keep going in circles?”
“This is the truth of why you cannot leave this sea! To save you, Hella’s mother, Angela Tang, the Chieftain, chose a sea burial. But was it truly a sea burial? No. She was bravely declaring war on the Lost Demon Mother. But Angela failed, for she fought alone. So she died, buried by countless sea monsters, devoured by the Lost Demon Mother.”
“Yes, the very octopus you saw, the one as large as a fortress—that is the Lost Demon Mother of this sea. She is immensely powerful, ruling over millions of sea monsters. If you want to leave this place and go home, there is no other way. You must defeat the Lost Demon Mother and her army of a million sea monsters.”
“Douglas Seilun, your method has already failed. Now, let’s try mine. I am going to create a miracle. But I am not here to lead you in an escape; I am here to lead you into battle. Let us fight a decisive battle against the Lost Demon Mother. Let us fight a decisive battle against her million sea monsters. The once-mighty Angela Tang confronted the Lost Demon Mother, failed, and died a tragic death. I am nothing compared to her, but I will still attempt to face the Lost Demon Mother. I once said that I am no coward. Any true member of the Children of the Abyss will follow me and fight. Uncle Jack Tang, please bring it out. That keepsake of Chieftain Angela Tang.”
Jack Tang took out a red conch. It seemed to burn with the flames of battle, filled with a desire for combat. Before her sea burial, Angela Tang had blown this conch. The pirates thought she was performing some kind of ritual. In truth, she was declaring war on the Lost Demon Mother.
“You didn't know, but to save the Children of the Abyss, Angela climbed the pyramid atop the snowy mountain. The person inside the pyramid told her the very same thing: ‘If you do not save yourself, no one can save you!’ Then, they brought out two conches. One was red, the other green. The red conch was for declaring war, while the green one could repel all sea monsters. Which conch do you think Chieftain Angela Tang chose?”
Princess Hella recognized the conch. The ancient horn she had obtained in the Devil’s Triangle was the green conch. When blown, it would make all sea monsters retreat in fear. Before she left to find Shen Lang, she had entrusted it to Xue Yin. To think that the red conch was here.
“Which would you have chosen? Anyone else would have picked the green conch and blown it to drive away all the sea monsters. But Queen Angela chose the red one. Because her fighting spirit was not yet dead, and hot blood still coursed through her veins. This is that red conch. You should all recognize it.”
Shen Lang held the red battle conch high. Seeing it, all the Children of the Abyss gasped, and an endlessly terrifying memory surged forth. Back then, after Angela Tang blew this very conch, innumerable sea monsters had appeared. Finally, an octopus as large as a fortress had emerged. It was not only massive, but it radiated an aura mixed with energy, a terrifying presence as if from the depths of hell. A single glance was enough to make one’s soul flee their body and wet their pants.
The day that colossal octopus appeared, countless pirates of the Children of the Abyss collapsed to the ground, their courage to resist completely shattered. But Angela Tang drew her greatsword, shouted, “Long live the Children of the Abyss,” and leaped from the Empress’s Terrace. She charged toward the fortress-sized octopus without hesitation, but no one followed her. In the end, she died. Died without a trace, with no grave to mark her passing. The pirates who witnessed that scene were all terrified, and from that day on, their fighting spirit was castrated. They, who had ceaselessly battled sea monsters before, no longer dared to venture out to sea, hiding all day within the Empress’s Harbor.
Hearing Shen Lang’s words, Hella wept and asked, “Uncle Jack Tang, is all of that true? Why didn't I know any of this?”
Jack Tang’s voice trembled. “It’s all true. Mothers are all selfish. After deciding to sacrifice herself, she locked you away. In fact, she left you a letter.”
“What letter? Why don’t I know about it?”
Shen Lang told her, “That portrait, the one of our father, concealed the letter Chieftain Angela Tang wrote to you, sister. It seems she both wanted you to see it and didn't want you to see it. In the end, I was the one who saw it.”
Shen Lang took out the large portrait of Jiang Li dressed as a pirate. Angela Tang would gaze at this portrait every day, longing for him.
Jack Tang said, “That day, when I saw that colossal octopus, not only the other pirates of the Children of the Abyss, but Haimon, Haiyuan, and even I were terrified. That’s why I placed my hopes of leaving this place on Douglas, hoping he could lead the Children of the Abyss away. I am deeply ashamed of that.”
Shen Lang turned to the pirates of the Children of the Abyss and shouted once more, “I will say it again: I will not lead you in an escape. I will lead you into battle! The day Chieftain Angela Tang blew this red conch, you all collapsed in fear. You lost all your will to fight and left her to die a tragic death alone. Now, I will blow this battle horn again and summon the Lost Demon Mother and her army of a million sea monsters. Are you going to let me fight alone?”
“Douglas, I am not you. I will not hide in a corner, scheming for success. I will lead the Children of the Abyss to fight to the very end. Only then am I worthy of being their supreme chieftain!”
Shen Lang closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and with all his might, blew the battle conch.
*“Bwoooooooh.”*
A sound that seemed to have endured the ages echoed out.
*Rumble, crack!*
At the same time, startlingly, thunder and lightning erupted from the sky, creating an incomparably dreadful scene. Countless sea monsters rose to the surface—thousands, tens of thousands, and soon, hundreds of thousands. In the end, the entire sea surface within view was packed tight with sea monsters, sending a chill down even Princess Hella’s spine. She had never seen so many.
*CRACK!*
Another astonishingly loud sound rang out. A thunderous roar boomed from the heavens as a massive bolt of lightning flashed, crazily striking down and illuminating the entire sea. The vast ocean split in two, and an octopus as large as a fortress suddenly burst forth. This was the Lost Demon Mother, the Cursed Empress. This was the ruler of the cursed sea, the very reason no one could ever leave.
Shen Lang turned back, smiled faintly at the tens of thousands of the Children of the Abyss, and said, “Everyone, I am about to fight a decisive battle with the Lost Demon Mother. Will you follow me? Or would you prefer I fight alone? Children of the Abyss, will you reclaim your lost fighting spirit? Decide now: will you fight gloriously to the end and save yourselves, or will you pathetically kneel on the ground, weeping and soiling yourselves?”
With that, Shen Lang went to the sea, boarded a small boat, and drifted toward the colossal, fortress-like octopus.
But wasn't this picture somewhat off? When had Shen Lang become such a hot-blooded person? Wasn't he someone who never let his blood run hot? The truth about him was this: he was a man who constantly changed. He could be lazy when laziness was called for, and he could display fiery passion when the situation demanded it. Life was like a play, and what mattered most was acting well. At critical moments, Shen Lang knew how to take risks and go all in.
For instance, when his identity was exposed, he had the audacity to laugh and jest before Ning Han and Ji Xuan. He even had the courage to use himself as a vector to infect them with the plague. To put it bluntly, he was capable of actions that could be described as madness. Was the current situation worthy of such madness? Of course, it was. Shen Lang wasn't just trying to seize control of the Children of the Abyss; he himself was trapped and needed to break through this encirclement. But… he had never shown such a hot-blooded attitude for his own affairs.
Before coming to the Lost Nation, Shen Lang had thought the same as Douglas. Misled by Hella’s escape, they all believed that saving the Children of the Abyss and escaping this place merely required detonating a few ancient core energies. But after arriving, Shen Lang realized things were not so simple. Especially after reading Angela Tang’s last letter, he thought deeply, questioned many people, and analyzed a large amount of the ghost-wail-like energy waves.
He soon reached one conclusion: the source of the cursed sea was in the ocean, not on land, and there was no such thing as an energy field preventing them from leaving. Later, Shen Lang came to another interesting conclusion. He asked Jack Tang and many others to draw the colossal octopus they had witnessed and found discrepancies in their drawings. It wasn't that their memories were faulty; they swore they had seen exactly what they had drawn. Unfortunately, Shen Lang found no ancient texts in the ruins of the Lost Nation, but Jiang Li's diary mentioned a certain term: "Cursed Empress."