A Damn Powerful Attack

"Why was the mood so heavy?"

Everyone on deck stared at Yug in silence. The grilled fish on his plate suddenly didn't taste so good, but this time, no one contradicted him.

He tried to reassure them. "It's just a war. What's there to be so nervous about?"

"I never knew you had this side to you, Young Master."

The captain came to his senses and was the first to smooth things over. That speech just now didn't sound like something the Young Master they knew would say. Though his prediction sounded far-fetched, once they followed his line of thought, they couldn't think of a way to refute it.

But...

The captain glanced at Lily. Her head was bowed, her arms wrapped around her shoulders, and her body trembled slightly.

It was clear that what Yug had said had brought back memories of her past.

Lily was from the Empire, and the title of Saint held a special significance for her. When Young Master Yug had "found" her on his first voyage, she'd been dressed in tattered clothes, filthy, and covered in scars. A group of traffickers had captured her and were about to ship her elsewhere as cargo.

Many people were already there.

The captain felt that perhaps no one understood the meaning of those words better than Lily. She had crawled out of the abyss herself.

"Lily" was also a nickname Young Master Yug had given her. During her first days aboard the ship, she never spoke to anyone, and almost everyone thought she was mute.

From then on, she'd stayed by the Young Master's side as his maid.

Although Lily disliked talking about her past, the crew had learned that she'd once had a happy family, with parents who loved her dearly. That was, until a battle between Saints reached her hometown. When she crawled out from beneath the rubble, the entire town had been reduced to ruins.

Bodies lay everywhere, with mutilated limbs scattered across the ground.

During her first days aboard the ship, Lily had woken from nightmares almost every night. And the Saint who had destroyed her hometown remained an object of admiration to countless people.

—Necessary sacrifices.

—Our highest respects to the fallen.

Those were the Empire's most common lines. As long as someone stood in the square and shouted them with raised arms, people would soon forget those who had died in the war.

The captain cleared his throat and dragged the conversation back on track. "I admit you've grown a lot, Young Master, but there's no way those twenty Ice Arrow Scrolls weren't a scam! You can say whatever you like, but you were still scammed!"

The crew immediately chimed in. "Definitely a scam!"

"Thirty Gold Lions for twenty Ice Arrow Scrolls."

"We should put this in the ship's log!"

Yug wasn't angry. Instead, a smile appeared on his face. "Since you're all so sure, let's make a bet. I bet Heisenberg didn't scam me."

Heisenberg had mentioned that because the Three-in-One Ice Arrow Scroll was so powerful, he didn't recommend using it in town. He'd also said that if there was a water source nearby, the Ice Arrow's power would increase to some extent. Their ship had already left the Empire's waters, and all they could see in every direction was an endless expanse of blue.

There was no better place to test the Three-in-One Ice Arrow Scroll.

A plump crewman was the first to speak up. "Sure. What do you want to bet? I can put up twenty Silver Antelopes. Any more and my wife will give me an earful when I get back."

"Thirty Silver Antelopes!"

"I'll put up fifty!"

"Hold it, hold it!"

Yug waved his hand. "This bet has nothing to do with money. At the end of the day, Lily was the one who brought this up, so if you lose, she should get something out of it."

"What kind of something?"

The black-haired maid furrowed her brow. Yug was grinning like a child making a bet, full of provocation. It made her want to pinch his cheek, just like she had when they were kids.

Young Master Yug's cheeks were surprisingly nice to pinch.

The banter between Yug and the captain had lifted some of the gloom in her heart.

"If I win, you have to tell me ten jokes and keep going until you make me laugh. If I lose, I'll tell you ten jokes."

What a...idiot!

Yug's intentions were all too obvious. But there was probably only one idiot of a young master in the world who'd care about a servant's feelings and try to cheer her up.

Lily said, "You're definitely going to lose. Don't come crying to me afterward."

"You're the one who's definitely going to lose. Don't underestimate the bond between Old Sen and me! You can start preparing your jokes now."

Yug declared his victory. He was determined to win this one.

Of course, losing wouldn't matter much, either.

The Selected Empire Jokes he'd bought on his first day browsing the bookshop was about to come in handy.

The group headed toward the bow in a grand procession. The captain and crew exchanged knowing glances. A bit of underhanded scheming was already underway.

Their goal was to cheer up the Head Maid, so even if the scroll really could be used as one, they'd pretend not to notice.

Young Master Yug was bound to lose this bet.

After all, even if three Ice Arrow Scrolls were combined, the result should only be an Ice Arrow a little larger than usual, with somewhat more penetrating power. But they were at sea, with no specific target. Wasn't the question of how powerful it was entirely up to them to decide?

"Just accept your fate, Young Master!"

The crew watched as Yug took out three scrolls at once. Since the outcome had been decided before the bet even began, this was the part they'd been looking forward to most: heckling and teasing him.

The three scrolls gave off a faint blue glow. The plump crewman had already thought of what to say. "Look at Young Master Yug's Ice Arrow. It's as small as a chick—"

The oncoming icy blast caught in his throat. He felt as if his teeth were about to freeze.

The plump crewman saw the captain's expression.

The captain had been ready to laugh and liven up the gloomy atmosphere, but now he just stood there with his mouth open, unable to make the slightest sound.

That made the plump crewman realize that what he was seeing wasn't an illusion.

The ship came to a halt.

A jagged glacier had blocked their course. The iceberg had appeared out of nowhere, cleaving through the sea and dividing the entire ocean in two. Endless ice spikes stretched into the distance, and they couldn't see where the glacier ended.

Before long, they smelled blood.

The sea breeze carried it into their noses.

The remains of sea creatures, pierced and torn apart by the ice spikes, gradually floated to the surface. Among them were many dangerous monsters. Some spikes were stained with blood; others had impaled monster corpses outright. The blood had dyed the ice red, but froze solid before it could run down.

It was as if time itself had frozen there.

"Damn—"

After who knew how long, time began to flow again. The plump crewman's cut-off word pulled everyone back to reality. He let out a breath of warm air, and everyone instinctively did the same thing: wrapped their arms around their shoulders and huddled together.

It was so cold!

The temperature had dropped by at least thirty degrees in an instant!

Even Yug stood frozen at the bow.

"This..."

The captain voiced what everyone was thinking. "What the hell is that!?"

He didn't understand.

How could these three scrolls have anything whatsoever to do with Ice Arrow?

Whose Ice Arrow looked like that?

Yug gazed into the distance for a long time. At last, he understood why Heisenberg had warned him not to use it in town.

His mind was filled with Heisenberg's safety instructions and all the other information he'd given him about Ice Arrow.

Yug turned to the captain, dazed, and answered his question. "A damn powerful attack."

It took him a few minutes to get his tongue working again before he ordered the captain, "Turn around! Head back at once. The moment we get back, have the consortium's magician come over. Tell him to set up Teleportation Magic at my estate. I'm going to Fireplace Bay!"

He'd even forgotten that Lily owed him ten jokes, pacing frantically back and forth across the deck.

For the first time in his life, Yug was dissatisfied with Steam Power. He rushed into the control room himself. They were all racing against time.

Heisenberg had said he'd stay in Fireplace Bay, but what if someone else learned how powerful the Three-in-One Ice Arrow Scroll was and hired him away with a long-term contract?

The thought robbed Yug of his usual composure. "Is this really Steam Power? Why are you moving as slowly as a snail?"

(Next week is the second round of trial recommendations. I hope you won't let the book pile up—please read it every day. Daily reads affect future recommendations and exposure. If this book gets good subscription numbers when it goes on sale, I'll post five chapters a day for the first month, at least ten thousand words. Thanks, everyone!)

Thanks to Kouxin Ziwèn for the 100 Qidian Coins!

Thanks to Xiaoming and Xiaohong for the 100 Qidian Coins!

Thanks to Kaisha Kai for the 10,000 Qidian Coins!

Thanks to Shiyan Fuxiu for the 100 Qidian Coins!

Thanks, everyone, for the monthly tickets and daily reads~