Chapter Seventy: Unextinguished Wails.

"...Mei, I'm not a child."

Kiana awkwardly rubbed the cheek Sirin had just pinched. She felt that Mei thought she needed a little too much looking after.

Mei withdrew her hand rather regretfully. The thought Kiana's face is so soft flashed through her mind.

"The car accident you mentioned just now?"

"It wasn't us. We ran into an accident on the road when we went out last night. A car suddenly caught fire by itself in the middle of the street."

"Caught fire by itself?"

Something like that shouldn't have been enough to keep her awake. After all... she had already seen things much bloodier.

On the day the Thunder Calamity appeared, someone had been killed by a Kishin. Kiana's mental resilience was insufficient, and she would have seemed dazed that day.

But she hadn't.

She had been somewhat sad, but it hadn't affected her condition.

"It wasn't an accident. I saw something run away, but I didn't get a clear look at what it was."

Kiana said awkwardly, "I'm a little concerned about whatever ran away."

She had also learned the identity of the person who died from Sirin, as well as the evil hidden beneath the flames.

That kind of thing was more upsetting than death itself.

"Just because of that? Since you're so curious, I can have someone else continue investigating. Wouldn't the truth come to light then?"

"...I was only curious about the thing I couldn't see clearly. Forget it. That guy deserved to die."

As they spoke, they had already drawn close to that stretch of sea. It really wasn't far from Shanhai City.

Looking back, they could even see the outlines of Shanhai City's skyscrapers. If they fought here, the slightest lapse in attention could affect Shanhai.

A huge ship was floating on the sea. This should be where they would stay.

They transferred onto the ship.

Walking along the deck at the bow, Kiana looked down at the calm sea, but she couldn't see anything.

Forget Kishin—even the fish were gone.

"We agreed earlier that I'd try my hand first."

Kiana was worried that Mei might change her mind. After all, they were over the sea, and any mistake could send her falling into the water.

She currently couldn't fly.

"Don't be reckless."

"Don't worry. I'll be careful!"

"You want to go out there too?"

Sirin had just finished talking with the others standing by on the ship and walked over.

"Yes."

Sirin looked at her, then suddenly laughed. "For something like this, shouldn't you obviously discuss it with me? Raiden Mei can't let you fight at sea."

"...You can?"

"I can!"

Sirin placed the Edict Blade in front of her for Kiana to see. "Use this."

"I don't use swords."

Kiana thought Sirin wanted to lend her the Edict Blade and hurriedly shook her head. She was here to test the weapon's damage against unarmed attacks.

What was the point of using Sirin's Edict Blade?

Sirin unhappily took the blade back and said, "Stupid. I mean, I can use the Edict Blade to create steps for you to stand on, so you won't fall into the water when you have nowhere to put your feet."

"Step on air?"

"You can understand it that way if you want."

"If I have somewhere to stand, I won't have to worry about slipping and falling. That is pretty practical."

"So beg me."

Sirin looked at Kiana expectantly.

Kiana froze and looked Sirin up and down. Before she could say anything, Mei said, "Ignore her. This is her job in the first place."

Whale Monster had a whole crowd of followers with it. A battle couldn't be resolved with a single slash.

"Huh?"

"You found me out? You learned quite a lot overnight, didn't you?"

"Chat time's over."

Yae Sakura walked out from inside and said, "Get ready. Their torpedoes are about to launch."

This was also to prevent complications from arising later.

They had collected nearly all the data they needed. They could now wipe out this nest of hidden threats.

Before long, the sea, which had been calm just moments ago, suddenly became turbulent. Even the ship they were on began to rock with the waves.

Only after Sirin tapped the deck with her blade, sending golden ripples outward, did the ship stop being affected.

It was as though they were no longer in the same space.

No matter how violently the waves raged below, the ship wasn't affected in the slightest.

"Impressive, Sirin!"

"There'll be something even more impressive later."

The sea turned pitch-black, as if some enormous creature were stirring up trouble beneath it. The sky was affected as well, with thick clouds covering the entire area.

An indescribably mournful sound, like a whale's wail, rang out. Then a gigantic bone fish, as large as a ship, rose from the sea.

Its entire body had become skeletal. Two clusters of eerie green flames burned where its eyes should have been, while black aura resembling resentment coiled around its grim white bones.

It looked like a ghost from hell.

The sea around it churned as if boiling. Then an astonishing scene unfolded.

One ancient ship after another appeared, battered and rotten beyond recognition, as though they had sunk on the seabed for hundreds of years.

The ancient ships held nothing but pairs of eerie green eyes without physical forms within the black aura. These things clearly did not belong to the world of the living.

More strange Kishin and bizarre ghost ships appeared, forming a terrifying fleet across the sea in the blink of an eye.

"So many?"

Sirin frowned, but when she remembered that she was only providing support this time and that Raiden Mei was the main force, her tightly furrowed brows relaxed.

She drew the Edict Blade, laying strips of golden roads across the sea.

"Can you two handle all of these?"

"I don't think it'll be a problem."

There were indeed quite a lot of them, but after thinking it over, Kiana decided it wasn't too troublesome.

She could deal with them.

Mei nodded as well. "I can."

She alone was actually enough. Numbers weren't an advantage before her.

"Then I'll leave it to you."

As Sirin spoke, she turned to Yae Sakura and said, "Go record the battle data with them. This is the first time we've seen a Kishin appear with ships."

Seventy

Chapter Seventy: Unextinguished Wails.

The black mist that appeared alongside them enveloped the entire ghost-ship fleet. Strange and bizarre Kishin were mixed within it, making the scene even more terrifying.

If this scene were photographed, it could be used directly as the promotional image for a horror movie.

Kiana picked out a Kishin, took aim, and fired. The bullet's power was terrifying, blowing its head apart in a single shot. But that wasn't all—the true power of the attack had only just appeared. After being killed, the Kishin transformed into a vortex resembling the Grim Reaper, dragging every living thing nearby into it and swallowing them.

That area was emptied in an instant.

The power was pretty good.

Unfortunately, there was no kill notification, so she didn't know what level of Kishin she had just killed instantly.

Kiana leaped from the bow and nimbly stepped onto the stairs Sirin had constructed, approaching Whale Monster.

Mei followed close behind.

However, she didn't attack. She merely followed Kiana while observing the battlefield.

The moment the piercing sonic attack appeared, Kiana detected its position. She deftly dodged the other bizarre attacks as well, continuously inflicting casualties.

Then Whale Monster spat out a vast expanse of green mist. She had no time to wonder how a bone fish reduced to nothing but a skeleton could exhale.

Anyone could tell that the oily green mist wasn't healing—it was an extremely powerful poisonous fog.

Kiana didn't know how potent the poison was, so she had to temporarily avoid it rather than risk testing it with her body.

As she retreated, crescent-shaped lightning sword auras shot out from several directions. They cleaved through the poisonous fog and struck Whale Monster's skeletal body.

Kiana also temporarily abandoned suppressing the cannon fodder and fired all her remaining bullets at Whale Monster.

"What incredible defense!"

Mei's sword aura could instantly kill the other Kishin, but when it landed on Whale Monster, it only knocked it back slightly and enraged it. Not a single bone on its body had broken.

The bullets did pierce its skeletal defenses, but they couldn't kill it. It had no flesh, only a skeletal body, and a few bullet holes couldn't deal a fatal blow.

And if it didn't die, her passive couldn't activate.

There were no Kishin immediately beside it, either. Those Kishin and ghost ships guarded it from all around.

The bullets were gone. Next...

Kiana leaped into the air, jumping extremely high. Sirin, supporting her from behind, understood what she meant and constructed a temporary foothold in midair, giving Kiana somewhere to push off from as she rapidly approached Whale Monster.

Seeing this, Mei took a deep breath. "Thunder is coming."

The Kishin attempting to ambush Kiana from the air was struck by blood-red lightning descending from the heavens, leaving behind only a mass of gray-black aura.

Whale Monster had astonishing defenses and could also spew poisonous fog. An ordinary person would truly have trouble dealing with it.

The Kishin blocking and attacking them along the way were all cut down by Mei. Kiana weaved through the danger, rapidly drawing closer and closer. Then a jolt shook her spirit.

Whale Monster's eyes, decorated with ghostly flames, possessed the power to attack the mind.

But Kiana only lost focus for a moment before leaping from the stairs. She was already directly above Whale Monster.

There was no need for any other flashy tricks.

She couldn't use any other flashy tricks now, either. She could only use her fists to deliver a shocking blow.

"It's over!"

Just as she had leaped from the skyscraper before, Kiana swung her fist with all her strength and precisely smashed it into Whale Monster's skull.

A massive wave exploded around Whale Monster, as if something had fallen from an altitude of tens of thousands of meters. As that plain-looking punch landed, Whale Monster's body—countless times harder than steel—couldn't withstand the tremendous force. It was smashed into the seabed and shattered with a thunderous crash.

"Kiana!"

Mei no longer held back. She swung the Resonating Blade at the trembling ghost-ship fleet, and three enormous sword auras appeared from thin air and slashed out at tremendous speed.

They landed among the fleet and exploded, trapping all the Kishin within a prison of lightning.

"I told you the Resonating Blade was suited for attacking, didn't I?"

Sirin clicked her tongue in amazement as she watched the Kishin fleet being torn apart by lightning.

The battle hadn't even lasted three minutes.

"...You could do it too if you wanted."

"Forget it. I don't have a habit of using a cannon to swat a mosquito. It's not as if I'm the one who caused the curse erosion."