Chapter 229: Striving for Self-Improvement is the Righteous Path
Darkness.
A deep darkness.
The dragonman youngster’s consciousness lay between half conscious and awake.
“Who am I?”
“What is this place?”
Soon after, a memory came to mind.
“I am an imperial knight, I pretended to be Zhen Jin…nowadays I am the commander of the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps, under the alias Long Fu!”
“I…why am I in this kind of situation again?”
The dragonman youngster thought back.
Once, on Mystifying Monster Island, he had sunk into this darkness, this was not the first time.
He didn’t expect that after he left the island, this dark dreamland would still disturb him.
The boundless darkness enveloped him; it was deathly silent.
The young man tried to walk through the darkness.
He felt his body move, but no matter where he went, his surroundings were still deeply dark, nothing changed whatsoever.
The now awake young man gradually couldn’t endure it, for the silent darkness was like a gigantic cage that trapped him.
“I want to leave!”
“But how can I leave?”
The young man knelt and tried to pray to the Justice God.
“My God, grand Justice God.”
“You are my lighthouse, my bright star.”
“Please have mercy on me, help me throw off this dark nightmare, please show me the road of righteousness, so I can carry out your path…”
God did not respond.
Regardless of what was prayed, only the deathly silent darkness greeted the young man.
The young man grew increasingly impatient and frustrated, but at that moment, an enormous sound came from the outside world.
A moment later, the dragonman youngster opened his eyes to reality.
He noticed he had fallen out of his bed, and as a matter of fact, the entire White Bandage was violently swaying.
“Enemy attack, enemy attack!” Mercenaries ran across the deck as their shouts reached the young man’s ears.
“What’s going on?” The dragonman youngster quickly ran out of the captain’s room and saw there were five or six gigantic tentacles twisting around the White Bandage.
“It is a silver level ocean beast – a luminous octopus.” The dragonman youngster’s heart moved as he identified it.
During the voyage, besides fulfilling is duty as commander, he also read things, including works on ocean magic beasts.
The dragonman youngster saw the tentacles were studded with yellow, fluorescent dots. The large swath of dots were at times dark, and at other times bright, as if they were breathing.
It was the notable trait of a luminous octopus.
“Was its attack the thing that roused me from my nightmare?” The dragonman youngster’s eyes flashed with deep thought.
Soon after, he felt baffled, “Wy didn’t Zi Di warn us ahead of time?”
The Deep Sea Monster Fish had strong detection capabilities, and based on common sense, Zi Di should have noticed and should have had the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps’ fleet avoid the latter beforehand.
In fact, during the last two days, the survivors had smoothly evaded many magic beasts because the Deep Sea Monster Fish had warned them.
At this time, Zong Ge’s medium sized ship was drawing close.
He was on the side of that ship, both commanding the fight and using an alchemy device to whisper an explanation to the dragonman youngster, “We noticed this magic beast was alone, I arranged for it to attack at night, using it as training.”
“We know you fell asleep, and didn’t want to wake you up.”
“Everything is under our control.”
“So that’s how it is.” The dragonman youngster nodded his approval.
Normally, when a leader found their subordinate covering something up, they were bound to be greatly vexed and deeply feel their power being threatened.
But the dragonman youngster didn’t, instead he felt this was normal.
Because their team was very special.
Their cultivated tacit understanding and organization’s founding crucially happened on Mystifying Monster Island.
It was a place with magical prohibition.
Even if one was a cultivator, they could only rely on their bodies and couldn’t use battle qi, magic, or other transcendent powers.
The survivors were extremely cautious, dealt with countless perils around them, and struggled at the edge of life and death.
Under such imminent crisis, the people had to decisively act, fight for a chance of survival, and if they had to get their leader’s permission to act, then they would have died tragically then and there.
In many desperate junctions, the survivors were forced to habitually trust their comrades.
Many times, they fought until they were spent and had to depend on their comrades’ protection while they took turns sleeping.
This mutual understanding and habits were retained by the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps.
The luminous octopus looked vicious and frightening, but actually, it was rather stupid and lacked explosive racial magic.
Its skin was rough and flesh thick, it made an excellent fleshy target.
Zong Ge first dispatched the Quick Knife battle squad.
The Quick Knife battle squad’s leader was still Kuai Tui.
During the battle for Two Eyes Island, his kidney had been pierced, but he had recovered completely for that now.
Whether it was Zi Di’s allocated healing medicine or the White Bandage’s bandages, both could keep him healthy and active.
The dogmen had new equipment now – ring swords.
These were all bronze level equipment, the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps acquired them from Two Eyes Island’s auction.
Some dogmen hacked up octopus tentacles with their ring swords, while others were hurling and catching other tentacles.
They weren’t worried about missing, because the octopus tentacles were enormous, and at such a close distance, they could hit them with their eyes closed.
With the ring swords, the Quick Knife battle squad’s attack distinctly rose by a lot.
However, the octopus tentacles were still very strong and powerful, and despite the many blades creating many cuts, they were light injuries to the luminous octopus.
The luminous octopus was a silver level, and because of racial discrepancies, its vitality, stamina, recovery, and defense far exceeded a silver level human fighter’s.
The luminous octopus didn’t pay attention to the Quick Knife squad, rather it was incessantly entangled with the White Bandage.
Although the White Bandage was only a bronze level alchemy ship, it didn’t have a problem vying with the luminous octopus for a short time.
Taking advantage of this golden opportunity, Zong Ge gave several orders and had mercenaries take turns fighting it at close quarters.
Tripleblade, Bai Ya, Lan Zao, and so on all had a chance to experience real combat and gain a profound understanding of how to fight a giant beast on the ocean.
The luminous octopus being tormented so caused its vicious nature to erupt.
But at this time, Chi Lai and Men Shi attacked at the same time.
When the luminous octopus encountered opponents on the same level as it, several of its tentacles were broken off and its blood flowed without end.
Due to these serious injuries, it wanted to flee, but then the White Bandage ejected a great amount of bandages that wrapped themselves around the luminous octopus’ tentacles, trapping it.
The luminous octopus mournfully cried, as if saying: let me go, release me, please…
But the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps remained unmoved and were still quite excited.
“It’s dying, it’ll die!”
“Quick, just a bit more, kill it!”
“I want to eat octopus meatballs!!”
“No, octopus sashimi is the most delicious.”
Tripleblade flew between the mast and octopus tentacles, the dagger in his hand “Sweet Talk”, paralyzed every tentacle that it hit, causing the octopus to lose feeling in them.
Bai Ya seized this chance to suddenly rush out and attack a bleeding wound with his cutlass, it drove itself deeply into it, casing a large splurge of blood to shoot into Bai Ya.
The big guy didn’t dare to get to close to the battle, that only happened when he was deeply provoked into a dreadful berserk state. But after experiencing the baptism of war, he also had remarkable progress. He summoned all of his courage to grab a number of casks, each throw of one accompanied by a shout that amplified his prestige.
The two alchemy puppets disguised as Cang Xu and Zi Di extended their fingers and activated their fire path rings, casting magic publicly.
The puppets used the Anti-investigation and Prophecy spell along with the Deceptive Disguise spell, not a single mercenary noticed any flaws.
Even Mu Ban joined in the fun, using his crossbow to riddle an octopus tenacle with arrows.
“Whose arrow is this!”
“Aiya, don’t shoot, you nearly hit my arm.”
Mu Ban had poor accuracy, but he craved doing this, so he quickly changed positions and fired another arrow.
Another crossbow arrow flew through the air and stuck itself into the deck.
The water pigman Gang Lie was in the middle of wrestling a tentacle, venting his anger accumulated during the day.
The tentacle quivered, knocking him back.
Gang Lie fell on his butt, and when he hit the deck, his eyes suddenly widened big as he trembled from head to toe.
A kind fellow water pigman grabbed his arm.
“Don’t…” Gang Lie had a premonition of trouble.
But the fellow water pigman was paying more attention to the octopus tentacle and they lifted him up!
“Ah ah ah ah!” As Gang Lie stood up, his hands balled into fists, his face twisted, and his mouth roared.
For a moment, everyone around Gang Lie looked at his fearsome display.
Some pain had to be kept to oneself!
Due to the many stares, Gang Lie had to tenaciously bite his jaw and continue attacking.
Luckily, the dimness of night masked the blood and wound on his buttocks.
The mercenaries’ morale grew more exuberant, until finally, the luminous octopus floated dead on the ocean, leading the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps’ fleet to burst out in vigorous cheers.
The mercenaries high fived and hugged each other.
This even included the last to enter the fray, the water pigmen, they too relinquished their hatred of that day, and for a brief moment, merged with the entire group. They were soaked completely in blood, laughing and smirking, living up the joy of victory.
Zong Ge nodded to himself when he saw this spectacle.
His good intentions had shown fruit.
Like on Mystifying Monster Island, where the survivors cultivated unity and trust with each other, the Dragon Lion Mercenary Corps could use external pressure to get closer together.
It was not the best way to train an army.
But when used here, it was just right.
That day’s solo training had stimulated the water pigmen’s battle intent and competitiveness but deepened the barriers between the human and the water pigmen.
Zong Ge understood this deeply.
It just so happened that during the night, a dim-witted luminous octopus wanted to hunt and Zong Ge forcefully grabbed hold of this golden opportunity.
From start to finish, he never acted.
It was just as he reported to the dragonman youngster – everything was under control.
The dragonman youngster also soaked in the joy of victory.
“Unwittingly, our strength has expanded by a step.”
“I didn’t need to act personally at all; they were able to deal with this kind of opponent.”
“Perhaps…this is my God’s revelation?”
The dragonman youngster’s gaze trembled.
He recalled the dark nightmare from before, then thought of the divine revelation Chi Lai had told him: justice exists at the point of a sword, at the mouth of a cannon, and in the hearts of people.
“Swords and cannons are symbols of strength.”
“Without strength, how can one ensure righteousness and carry out justice?”
“In short, striving to strengthen ourselves absolutely isn’t wrong!”
“That’s right, striving for self-improvement is the righteous path!”
For a split second, the young man felt he understood at last a piece of the divine revelation’s hidden meaning.
The Deep Sea Monster Fish.
Zi Di looked at everyone in a magic image, then finally focused her worried gaze on her beloved.
Seeing the dragonman youngster had both gained something and gotten over another thing, she was also happy for him.
The ghost girl could feel the young man was now motivated and had direction again.
Most of her worry dispelled, and she closed the magic image and returned to the alchemy cabin.
The alchemy cabin’s formation had been changed.
In the formation, there was a bright and dazzling silver colored mist.
In the bright mist, the survivors’ blood condensed into floating balls that were a distance from each other.
“The preceding processing has been finished; next I will examine what everyone’s bloodline is exactly.” Zi Di looked forward to this as she began to operate the formation.