Magic Array, Dead-Soul Cage

From afar, they could see a village on the island. Yet strangely, there were no boats anywhere near the entire island.

Even a fishing village should have fishing boats.

The sky was the same as in the Storm Sea, forever gray and overcast, with heavy black clouds seeming to hang directly overhead.

Before nightfall, the Undead reached the island. Finding a flat stretch of land, Yang Mu led the crew ashore.

The island was deathly quiet. There were no lights in the village, not even traces of human activity. But once they entered, they caught a pungent fishy stench.

Slick, translucent, gelatinous slime was everywhere. The pungent odor came from that slime, and there were no lighting facilities anywhere in the village. The stoves were covered in dust and had clearly not been used for a long time.

"Looks like we came to the right place. This is indeed the kind of environment Fishmen prefer. The only question is, where did all the Fishmen in the village go?"

The moment Yang Mu saw the surroundings, he confirmed that this was the Fishman settlement he had been looking for. They searched the area, but failed to find a single Fishman.

However, the traces of life showed that a large number of Fishmen had been living here until recently. Yang Mu naturally would not give up so easily. Besides, with no one around, he could calmly make some preparations, provided he did not want to use that unlucky demon.

Jack and the others carried down large quantities of materials from the Undead, while all of Jack's undead disembarked as well. Drawing on his experience fighting on Shipwreck Island, Jack had acquired all the heavy armor he could get his hands on in a short time.

The number of his heavily armored Walking Corpses had reached twenty, which was also the limit of his precise control. Any more, and he would be unable to command them properly.

At that point, those Walking Corpses would not be using the swords in their hands to chop people down. They would be using their teeth to bite.

Yang Mu also released that pile of useless Walking Corpses, ordering them to lie in wait in concealed locations or underground.

He himself drew magic arrays in various places. By the time everything was finished, the moon was already high in the sky, and movement had begun to stir in the sea.

After Yang Mu and the others had moved their things onto the island, the Undead did not remain nearby. It did not even wait on the surface; instead, it submerged and quietly hid in a patch of shadow.

Though the Undead had a bit of a temper, it did not dare disobey Yang Mu's orders. It stayed in the darkness, aggrieved, its little tentacles swaying as though it had suffered a terrible injustice.

Far away from it, Fishmen crawled out of the ocean one after another. The scales on their bodies gradually faded away, though that sticky, foul-smelling slime still clung to them.

They carried large quantities of fish hunted from the sea. Each found an article of clothing belonging to them by the shore, and only after getting dressed did they slowly enter the village.

Fish-oil lamps lit up one after another, and the silent village regained a faint trace of life.

Yang Mu and the others stood within a magic array. The Fishmen passed right in front of them, yet acted as though they could not see them at all. The magic array had distorted their senses.

Only after every Fishman had returned home, sat at a table, and begun eating the food they had brought from the sea raw—

Did purple light begin to shine from the ground throughout the village, illuminating the entire place.

Dense black threads rose from all around the village, forming a birdcage-like hemispherical barrier over it.

Magic Array: Dead-Soul Cage.

The Fishmen who had been eating were startled and hurried out of their homes to see what had happened.

What greeted them were countless Walking Corpses, as well as Jack, clad in Bone Armor, wielding twin blades, and wearing a savage expression.

The village was not large. There were only a little over a hundred Fishmen in total, and the instant they stepped outside, the Walking Corpses hidden underground surrounded them.

What followed was a fight to the death.

The situation was already clear. The Fishmen had no need to consider anything else. They transformed one after another, swinging their claws and smacking the heads off Walking Corpses.

Sweeping away the Walking Corpses before them with raised legs, the Fishmen charged toward the center of the village, intending to regroup.

But as they rushed into the horde of Walking Corpses, a nimble figure clad in black armor and carrying a black holy sword darted among them.

Every time she passed a Fishman, one Fishman fell, its body slowly splitting in two.

At the same time, a massive monster made entirely of steel was continuously tearing Fishmen apart.

As a First Order undead specialized purely in physical combat, the Steel-Bone Tyrant's attacks were undoubtedly far more violent.

Yang Mu had been waiting in the middle of the village all along. As for why he had chosen to wait here rather than somewhere else—

The main reason was a statue here with indistinct features. If Yang Mu's senses were not mistaken, this statue represented a deity.

Once Yang Mu saw the statue, he understood why such chaotic bloodline factors had managed to be passed down intact as a race.

This race, which in Yang Mu's eyes should have long since destroyed itself due to its chaotic bloodline factors, was very likely the creation of some god.

They would naturally worship their creator. That was common to all god-created beings.

When attacked, they would seek their creator's protection like children, and this was where their creator resided.

"Who are you? Why are you attacking us?"

Upon seeing Yang Mu, the strongest Fishman spoke first. Yang Mu was the only human he had seen who could communicate.

Yang Mu never answered the questions of experimental materials. Once most of the Fishmen had gathered, he prepared to collect his materials.

He tapped his cane against the ground, and another magic array rose from the earth. All the Fishmen within it screamed as their souls separated from their bodies.

Just as Yang Mu was about to gather all the souls, the unrecognizable statue beside him emitted a deep blue light, stopping him.

"Oh, I forgot you were here. My apologies."

As he spoke, Yang Mu raised a hand and pointed. A beam of black light pierced the statue, which bore no discernible features, and it began to crumble. It was the Entropy Annihilation Finger, perfectly suited for dealing with such strange existences.

The statue did not resist at all. Yang Mu simply destroyed it, and it did not even leave behind a mark like the Moon God had.

The reason was that although this deity existed on the Material Plane, it was either asleep or sealed away.

Yang Mu personally leaned toward the latter. After all, the fact that it could respond to the pleas of so few creations meant that its consciousness was awake.

Yet its failure to stop Yang Mu from taking the souls of its creations showed that its power was restricted.