Chapter 177 Black Sea and Dragon Kingdom

Though intelligence suggested the West Sea King and South Sea King pirate groups had set off for the far west seas more than half a month ago,

Suren wasn't particularly surprised by the news.

The [One-Eyed Hanged Man] tarot card had passed through many collectors' hands, and its hidden information might have been deciphered.

Pirates lived off the sea, and they possessed more untamed charts of the outer seas than the Royal Cartography Institute of Luying. In particular, pirates loved collecting treasure maps, and piecing together various ancient treasure maps might well reveal the approximate location of the Dragon Kingdom.

Then there were divination and prophecy...

Since the deities of the Celestial God Plane knew the location of the [Mimir's Well] in the shattered Alchemy Plane, they had plenty of means to find it if they were truly determined.

But Suren and his crew weren't in a rush to chase after them.

The Dawnbreaker Syndicate had a copy of [Black Sam's World Sea Chart], and they knew very well that the route wasn't easy.

Moreover, the Eternal Night's top speed was several times that of ordinary sailing ships, so even if they left later, they could still catch up.

It was all the better if someone went ahead to tread the dangerous route for them.

More importantly, the South Sea Fleet had an "informant" from the Dawnbreaker Syndicate.

...

One day, Suren was meditating in his cabin when the communicator suddenly rang.

"Oh, Suren, you must be careful approaching the Nightmare Sea! This sea not only has perpetually chaotic storms, but the sea also hides super terrifying deep-sea behemoths. Heavens, no one expected there to be so many, densely packed, the entire sea is full of them... The South Sea Fleet suffered heavy casualties, losing over seventy percent of their warships. If it weren't for luck, and that eighth-order Crusader, I fear I would've been buried in a shark's belly with my ship last night..."

"Crusader? Are you sure that's what he's called?"

"Yes, that's what the vice-admiral said. I didn't even know there was such a person in the fleet before. It was only when we encountered that eighth-order 'overlord-level' dragon shark, bigger than a mountain, that the guy took action, using a lightning spell that incinerated the sea and wiped out the sea monsters in one move. Otherwise, the fleet wouldn't have been able to cross this sea."

"Senior Kit, then be careful. That Crusader mage is very powerful and usually has some special abilities. Don't get discovered."

"Oh, of course. My disguise isn't so easily exposed. But if you're following, remember to be careful. I've left marks along the way."

"Okay, you be careful too."

"..."

That's right, the Dawnbreaker Syndicate's spy was Kit.

Those people from the Celestial God Plane knew that the [One-Eyed Hanged Man] tarot card and the Mirror Library were related to him, so they had been looking for him.

There were bounties for this guy all over the black market now. Suren originally told him to come to the syndicate to hide, but this guy couldn't stay idle.

The top-tier members of the Thieves' Guild were no longer ordinary thieves, but a group of adventurous and chivalrous fellows.

Now that the planes were invading, they were actively taking action, collecting intelligence on the invaders everywhere.

Since the last time he stole the Royal Library of Luying's collection and completed the "Ultimate Challenge" in Lingdun, Kit had become even more famous.

Since they were hunting him everywhere, he went the other way and infiltrated the South Sea Fleet, which had been recruited by the Celestial Gods.

Then he sailed with them.

Which was perfect for planting a spy for the Dawnbreaker Syndicate.

Ending the call, Suren frowned and fell into thought.

The dangerous route was expected.

What he didn't expect was that there was actually an eighth-order Crusader among the treasure hunters in the West Sea? This was a level of combat power not even found in the magic towers of the plane channels.

"Now it seems that the Celestial Gods value the search for the [Mimir's Well] even more than the plane invasion..."

Suren pondered in his heart.

Although the "West Sea King" Moloch Bourbon and the "South Sea King" William Kidd were both eighth-order professionals, and their fleets also had many sixth and seventh-order experts,

The pirate groups that were once impossible to resist were no longer a major threat to the Dawnbreaker Syndicate.

As for numbers, they meant even less to Suren.

What he cared more about were the Celestial God Plane mages hidden in the fleet.

...

The West Sea and South Sea pirate groups had set off more than half a month earlier than the Dawnbreaker Syndicate.

But Suren and his crew had accurate navigation charts and took many shortcuts. "Pirate King" Black Sam had charted some unknown routes, which allowed them to bypass some unnecessary dangerous areas.

The Eternal Night chased all the way, and the distance was getting shorter and shorter.

When they heard from Kit, the Eternal Night was only three to five days away from those pirate fleets.

Two more days passed, and Suren suddenly opened his eyes from his meditation.

He suddenly heard the sound of thunder and lightning and violent waves, faint, and feeling very far away.

He also stood up and walked out of the cabin.

When he arrived on the deck, Qiandiao, Barrett, and "Blood Duke" Wordsworth, the seventh-order combatants in the syndicate, were already on the deck.

In the communicator, Tani was loudly commanding: "Everyone be careful, we are about to enter the 'Eternal Night Black Sea'! Sail handlers, get in position!"

In the distance, a patch of pitch-black thunderclouds.

This was the high-risk sea area marked on Black Sam's World Sea Chart - the Eternal Night Black Sea.

Because this sea area had dense rainstorms and storms all year round, even during the day, sunlight was rare, as if it were eternal night.

But this was the only way to get to the Dragon Kingdom.

Which was also what Kit said earlier, the extremely dangerous sea area that had cost the two major pirate groups six or seventy percent of their warships.

Because they had been sailing all the way following the marks left by Kit, broken planks and oak barrels could be seen everywhere on the sea. These were the fragments of pirate ships that had been smashed a few days ago. Occasionally, one or two corpses, soaked white and gnawed to pieces by sea fish, could also be seen.

Looking at the fragments and corpses on the sea, everyone's expressions were solemn.

The road that someone had walked was always better.

The Dawnbreaker Syndicate also chose to take the same route.

At least in terms of the marine food chain, the number of overlord-level sea monsters in an area was limited. The overlord-level dragon shark that had almost wiped out the South Sea Fleet had been killed, so they were unlikely to encounter another eighth-order overlord-level deep-sea behemoth if they passed through this route.

Before long, the surrounding light suddenly dimmed.

The sea ship had sailed into the endless thunderclouds.

Lightning flashed in the sky, and large raindrops beat against the hull like bullets, crackling.

The waves rose and fell violently, and everyone felt the extreme sensory stimulation of weightlessness, like riding a roller coaster.

Even though the "Eternal Night Emperor" was the largest sailing warship of its time, with a length of more than three hundred meters, it was like a leaf on the water when riding on those giant waves, and could be overturned at any time.

Everything in this dangerous sea area seemed so huge.

The dark clouds were very low and looked very large, the waves were also very huge, and the monsters in the sea were especially huge!

The Eternal Night shone its lights, like the only star lit in the dark sea.

The aura of humans on the ship also attracted sea beasts within a hundred miles.

After sailing for about a dozen nautical miles, Tani in the cockpit discovered something and suddenly said: "Everyone be careful, the fish in the water say that many big guys are swimming towards us!"

Hearing this, the faces of Suren and the others on the deck all showed high fighting spirit.

They had been mentally prepared and were not afraid of a fierce battle.

...

The fact that the West Sea and South Sea pirate groups suffered heavy losses and nearly total annihilation in this sea area didn't mean that the Dawnbreaker Syndicate couldn't pass through.

Tani had the ability to control the waves and listen to the voices of sea beasts. With him as the navigator, the threat from the sea would be much smaller.

As for the battle, there were others.

Suren, with a black crow on his shoulder and a black scythe gleaming in his hand, had already sensed the guys in the sea who had smelled the scent, and muttered: "There are quite a few of them."

Beside him, Qiandiao rested her hand on her waist, looking at the lightning and thunder in the distance, a cold light flashing in her eyes: "Tsk tsk... we have to improve our meals these days."

Barrett also stroked his silver arm and smiled indifferently: "Yeah. There aren't so many dense deep-sea behemoths in other sea areas."

"Blood Duke" Wordsworth had already transformed into a demon form, and the wings behind him had already changed. The old vampire's laughter was always very creepy, "Jie jie, the blood of high-level sea monsters is a great supplement. If there are more, maybe I still have hope of advancing to the eighth order..."

For this expedition, almost all the experts of the Dawnbreaker Syndicate had come.

Upon discovering the sea monster attack, these high-end combatants had already released their aura.

Even though the ship was violently undulating, their legs seemed to be welded to the deck, motionless.

And even more strangely, the raindrops were blocked by an invisible domain field one foot outside their bodies.

The other members of the Dawnbreaker Syndicate on the deck, looking at this scene of the group, were inexplicably shocked and their courage was born.

One by one, they shouted and prepared for battle.

In the control room, Dora also saw all this.

During these days together, how could she not have discovered that the Dawnbreaker Syndicate was a very cohesive team?

This was simply incomparable to any ordinary pirate group.

Therefore, even when sailing into such an extremely dangerous sea area, she also had an inexplicable confidence in her heart, as if all difficulties would be solved easily.

Usually, the Dawnbreaker Syndicate also had the routine of hunting sea beasts for food, so they were not panicked at all when encountering sea monster attacks.

Harpoons, steel rope nets, capstan hooks... everything was ready.

The ship had recently been equipped with many steam-powered mechanical devices, and there was no problem in hunting large sea beasts.

Before long, the first wave of monsters attacked.

It was a group of sea crabs.

The observer suddenly shouted: "Everyone be careful, the monsters are boarding!"

Click, click, click...

The dense cracking sound of touching was completely different from raindrops.

Outside the hull, dense crabs suddenly climbed up from the sea.

Each crab was several meters in size, and one claw was even larger than a human.

The Dawnbreaker Syndicate chose to attack as soon as they were discovered. On the side of the ship, everyone raised their guns and fired.

After trying the strength, alchemical bullets could kill them, and the atmosphere became relaxed.

"Oh, what a big crab! I've never eaten such a big crab in my life..."

"Hahaha... if this crab were to be bought at the seafood market, I'm afraid one would sell for tens of thousands."

"Let those big crabs come up, otherwise if they fall into the sea, the money for the bullets will be lost."

"..."

Even if Suren and the others didn't take action, there was no problem for the members of the Dawnbreaker Syndicate to deal with them.

After the plane channel was established, advancement became easier and easier. The Dawnbreaker Syndicate did not lack resources and various cultivation classics. As long as they were willing to work hard and had a little talent, alchemists could advance to the fourth order.

A group of people put the crabs on the deck and hacked and killed them in various ways.

The crab corpses slid directly into the storage room, and after processing, they would become everyone's food in the future.

High-level professionals consumed a lot of food every day, and this high-quality protein was also an excellent ingredient for strengthening the body.

After killing many small fries, someone shouted again: "Captain, there are big guys in the sea!"

Everyone suddenly felt that the hull was tilted a lot to one side, obviously a big guy had climbed up.

Before long, a huge blue crab with a body length of hundreds of meters waved its giant claws ferociously and climbed onto the deck arrogantly.

Fortunately, the Eternal Night was large enough and strong enough. If it were an ordinary pirate ship, this crab would probably be able to shatter the hull with a few pincers.

Suren glanced at it, identified some information, but let out a light "huh": "Titan bloodline?"

[Titan Ironclad Crab King (Gold)]

Details: Fifth-order golden deep-sea behemoth, has a trace of Titan bloodline, which gives it super iron armor and strength.

Fifth-order sea monsters were not too big a threat.

In comparison, Suren was more curious as to why this kind of creature existed.

Before they came, they knew that there were many huge sea monsters in this sea area.

But why were the sea monsters in this sea area generally many times larger than those in the near seas of Luying?

Even Dr. Banks, after hearing that there were dense, oversized monsters in this sea, rarely came out of the laboratory in the Small Void Realm, intending to take samples for research.

The Omniscient Eye allowed Suren to directly identify the source of the bloodline, and he casually introduced a few words.

"The Titan race in mythology?"

Dr. Banks, who was beside him, listened, pondered for a moment, and guessed: "It's hard to determine the cause of the ecosystem in this sea area with individual cases. But in the gene chain of the 'Titan bloodline', there is indeed a dominant gene that makes creatures gigantic. If other sea monsters in this sea also have this bloodline, it can almost be determined that there are descendants of ancient Titans with high pure blood that have bred, or that a fallen deity has contaminated the sea... I need to collect some samples, perhaps I can extract the gene chain of the Titan bloodline and make bloodline potions."

"Yeah."

Suren listened and was thoughtful.

Whichever it was, it could be determined that some ancient secrets were hidden in this sea area.

The Crab King climbed onto the deck, very arrogant.

Even if alchemical bullets hit the blue armor, they only sparked with a "clang" sound.

And not only was its defense and strength amazing, but it also spewed out a mouthful of acid bubbles, which could corrode ordinary swords into rusty iron. The air was filled with a pungent, ammonia-like smell.

The huge size and mythical bloodline added extra combat power, and this blue crab had far surpassed the combat power of ordinary sixth-order golden magical beasts.

Lolota and several members of the Dawnbreaker Syndicate took on the blue crab, and their fighting power was good. Sword energy also cut out many cracks on the hard, iron-like blue crab shell, but it was not fatal in a short time.

The giant crab smashed around on the ship with its pair of large pincers.

Qiandiao, who was next to her, looked at it, flicked the knife from her waist out of its sheath, and said: "We have to kill it. Otherwise, this big guy will hurt the ship."

She, the Sword Saint, was best suited to deal with this kind of heavy-armored monster.

Just as the voice fell, a thunderous sword energy had already been slashed out.

Looking again, Qiandiao had already put the knife back into its sheath.

And the blue crab in the distance had already "swished" and split into two, blue blood flowed all over the ground, and it could not be dead anymore.

The sword energy was controlled very precisely, and only the blue crab was killed, and no traces were left on the deck.

This slash made everyone's eyes clear, and they all let out a light "huh".

After Qiandiao advanced to the seventh order, she had not seen her take action except for Mr. Mirror.

Just this slash made Suren's scalp tingle, and he sighed: "So strong, Sister Qiandiao."

Even "Blood Duke" Wordsworth, an old vampire who had lived for hundreds of years, was very impressed.

Barrett did not hide his admiration: "Captain Qiandiao's sword energy is really sharp. I'm afraid no one in the seventh order can withstand this slash."

Lolota in the distance was also full of stars in her eyes: "Wow... Teacher is so amazing!"

Qiandiao shrugged indifferently, as if she had just slashed out this knife casually.

After the first knife, the momentum accumulated on her body became stronger and stronger.

...

Qiandiao killed the golden blue crab king with one slash, and the other minion crabs fled in a mess and disappeared into the sea in a blink of an eye.

Hundreds of crab corpses were left on the deck, and everyone shouted and collected the corpses.

The heavy rain quickly washed the deck, and the blood and minced meat were washed away cleanly.

After relaxing for a moment, everyone re-entered the state of alert.

Because this was just an appetizer.

They had only just entered the outer edge of this "Eternal Night Black Sea", and the sea beasts were not too fierce. And the deeper they went, the bigger the monsters would be, and the higher the ranks would be.

And they still had to sail in this black sea for at least two days and two nights.

After the giant blue crab, almost every ten nautical miles, they would encounter a large wave of deep-sea behemoths.

The members of the Dawnbreaker Syndicate killed all the way, and the battle almost never stopped.

Gradually, the frequency of encountering giant sea monsters became higher and higher, the size became larger and larger, and they became more and more thorny.

After sailing for a day, they arrived at the central area of the Black Sea, where there were patches of giant marine life. Even the shrimp-level fish had the combat power of first- and second-order professionals.

Silver-level, gold-level, lord-level...

The sea here seemed to be bottomless, and sea monsters came in droves.

There were even monsters with a body length of thousands of meters.

This was still because they had Tani, and they avoided some of the troubles of being wiped out.

He could sense the existence of those that made the seas feel "particularly dangerous" very far in advance, and then maneuver the sailing ship to avoid them.

[Titan Anglerfish], [Dragonscale Ice Crocodile], [Flame Pistol Shrimp], [Titan Three-Headed Corrosive Black Eel], [Lightning Dragon Tail Ray]...

Suren's identification also found the law, as long as it was a big guy, 80% of them were creatures with "Titan bloodline" or "Dragon bloodline".

Dr. Banks also collected a large number of biological samples.

Dragons were lustful and liked to mate with various creatures, so it was reasonable for there to be dragon-blooded monsters in the sea for countless years.

They were just curious, where did the Titan bloodline come from?

It seemed that because of this reason, the creatures in this sea area were generally gigantic.

...

On the second day of entering the Black Sea, the members of the Dawnbreaker Syndicate were already tired of killing.

Even though this route had been traveled by the two major fleets of West Sea and South Sea before, they did not travel easily.

The high-level combatants took turns resting and killing those deep-sea behemoths, and that was how they barely protected themselves.

Fortunately, the Dawnbreaker Syndicate had the best sailing ship, the best navigator, super many high-level combatants... and Suren, the perpetual motion machine whose combat power alone could withstand an army, and the mechanically invincible Number Nineteen.

Even the Dawnbreaker Syndicate's current powerful configuration was so thrilling, so it was expected that the two major pirate fleets would have lost more than 70% of their forces before.

But with danger, there were also many gains.

All kinds of super giant deep-sea monster meat was stored, not only as food, but also as advanced materials with extraordinary characteristics.

These dragon-blooded sea monsters and Titan sea monsters had very strong vitality, far stronger than ordinary high-level magical beasts.

This was a rare nutrient, and Suren also swallowed it all the way with [Blood Devour], and his body strength and muscles skyrocketed again.

This was a big improvement that had not been seen for a long time since the Lingdun Cataclysm.

And "Blood Duke" Wordsworth and the group of blood descendants he brought also sucked happily. The special physique of the blood clan allowed them to absorb the elements in the blood of alien creatures to strengthen themselves, and many of them showed signs of breakthrough.

Occasionally, there were various treasures in the bellies of sea monsters, and even in the belly of a giant fish that was a thousand meters long, an ancient shipwreck was found...

In short, the gains and risks were completely proportional.

If they were not wiped out in the Black Sea, they would have gained huge gains.

...

Finally, on the morning of the third day, Suren and the others saw the sunlight outside the clouds on the horizon.

They finally came out of this Eternal Night Black Sea.

"Wow~ we finally came out!"

"I can finally rest for a while. Oh, the smell of sea monster blood on my body is almost marinated."

"Hahahaha..."

When the sun shone on the sailing ship again, brilliant laughter broke out on the deck.

The edge of the [World Sea Chart] drawn by Pirate King Black Sam was also here.

After two days and two nights of hard fighting, most of the people were tired and leaning on various places on the deck.

Although tired, the eyes of the people were still shining with excitement.

They had completed an adventure journey that most navigators could not complete in their lifetime, and stepped into a new sea area - the Dragon Kingdom.

This was also the reason why Suren did not choose to teleport directly here before.

Adventure, harvest, and discovery of new routes were the most important meanings of sailing.

The members also needed such combat and grinding, and needed to be tempered in adversity...

The weather was clear today, the waves were calm, and the visibility was very high.

At the end of the field of vision, some lush islands finally appeared.

Suren teleported into the sky and overlooked all the nearby islands.

After identifying the reference objects, he immediately confirmed that this was the edge of the [Dragon Kingdom Sea Area Map] drawn!

"It's really here!"

Suren was overjoyed.

He landed on the deck and pointed out the location on the title map to Tani.

This was Tani's professional navigator, and this was also his hometown.

This was an extremely dangerous sea area with dragons, cyclops, gorgons... that could wipe out even Pirate King Black Sam.

Suren did not dare to be careless in any way.

Rushing in rashly was not a good choice.

If possible, he wanted to find some clues first.

For example: to find Tani's naga clan, perhaps he could get some intelligence help.

However, the two pirate fleets of West Sea and South Sea had arrived in the Dragon Kingdom sea area two or three days earlier.

Kit was also paying attention to the movements of the Dawnbreaker Syndicate at all times.

Just after they came out not long ago, a new communication came from there: "Oh, Suren, you came out safely? I have a new situation here... Now I am stationed on an island with people from the South Sea Fleet. An ancient ruins has been discovered here, it seems that someone has found a colorful well. Now five mages have come to the group, and they are staying in the cabin, not knowing what they are doing, as if they are casting spells..."

As soon as Suren heard this, he was familiar with this arrangement, and quickly responded: "Leave quickly! Those guys are going to sacrifice you!"

On the other end of the communicator, Kit screamed: "What? Damn it!"