Landlord Shows Its Might, Whale Shuts Up

"Gurgle."

The sound was not loud.

Yet it abruptly cut off the singing from the center of the lake.

Bai Zhu had been ready to squeeze himself into a crack in the tree hollow. Hearing that sound, his fingers still pressed against his sword hilt, he froze where he stood.

Milluki's voice trembled slightly.

"It answered?"

Bai Zhu swallowed.

"Young Master, watch your wording."

"What wording?"

"This is my actual dad now."

Gela Jiang had no time to pay them any mind. Both hands were still braced against the water membrane, veins bulging across the backs of his hands.

"Something's wrong outside."

Morel's expression turned incomparably grave.

"The whale seems to have changed."

Bai Zhu looked out through the opening of the tree hollow.

At the center of the lake, the White Whale had stopped dancing.

The Merfolk surrounded it. After their song had been interrupted by that "gurgle," they forcibly picked it back up, but the melody had already fallen apart. The lead singer's mouth hung open, and the sound emerging from its throat grew increasingly shrill.

The White Whale's deep-blue eye slowly turned red.

Not the red of bloodshot veins.

It was burning outward from its pupil.

The newly formed Black-Gold crystal at its broken horn trembled violently. Several fine cracks split across the surface of the one-third-grown horn tip.

Bai Zhu's scalp tingled.

"It looks like it's panicking."

Milluki frantically tapped at his terminal. Rows upon rows of warnings scrolled up the screen so quickly that even he could barely keep up.

"It doesn't just look like it! It really is panicking!"

Morel lowered his voice.

"It recognizes this tree."

Gela Jiang added,

"And it hates it."

The next second, the White Whale raised its head.

Its cry exploded.

The water membrane and Purple Smoke outside the