Chapter 577 Quick Entry, Clean Kill

The core of Stodd, the Isle of a Thousand Piles.

Hum—

As the secret realm ritual came to a complete end, the barrier that had shrouded the island shattered. The pale blue beam of light shooting straight into the sky rapidly shrank into nothingness.

Thud.

A heavy figure draped in a surcoat plummeted from midair, slamming viciously into the ground.

With his physique approaching the Transcendent Tier, a fall from such a height shouldn't have caused him any harm. But an unprecedented wave of weakness washed over his entire body, wringing a pained whimper from his throat the moment he landed.

He wasn't a pure-blooded dragonborn; he still retained obvious human features across his body.

As if he had just been through an exhausting workout, "Algae Scale" Dodd panted heavily. His arms trembled as he propped himself up, leaving him sitting right there on the freezing ground.

Beneath fine platinum scales, a pair of amber slitted pupils stared at the small pavilion woven from Water-Iron Wood ahead. His pale, bloodless face looked even more feeble and frail under the glow of the pale blue runes inside the pavilion, which were now fading and going out because the ritual had ended.

"It failed—"

The advancement ritual he had prepared for years, pouring in a massive amount of time and energy, wagering nearly his entire life's savings, and even risking the hostility of most factions in the Southern Archipelagos to hold—

At this moment, it had completely turned to dust.

If he had never seen a glimmer of hope for success, maybe he would have felt a little better right now.

But it just had to be at the very end, when the ritual was on the verge of success and only a handful of adventurers remained in the entire secret realm—

It was hard to describe Dodd's feelings at this moment with words.

Fury, regret, confusion—these complex emotions completely filled his heart, swelling as though they would burst his very flesh.

They left the expression on Dodd's face locked in a puppet-like numbness and emptiness.

His mind went completely blank, his consciousness swallowed by emotion.

He sat there motionless for nearly ten minutes before he finally recovered a little. His chest heaved violently as he took a deep breath, slowly and rather wretchedly climbing to his feet.

After all, he was a veteran adventurer who had sailed the seas for years. Even facing a catastrophic failure at what should have been the turning point of his life, "Algae Scale" Dodd had suffered a heavy blow to his morale, but he wouldn't completely lose his will to fight and just give up.

His long tail swayed slowly behind him, flicking away a few fallen leaves stuck to his fleshy scales.

Dodd forced himself to focus, carefully pondering his current predicament.

According to the original plan, he had cooperated with the Sahuagin. They provided the Deep-Sea Resonance Stones required for the ritual, and he would hand over the adventurers weakened by the secret realm for them to slaughter as sacrifices.

This way, even if the adventurers he had forcibly dragged into the secret realm as stepping stones held a grudge against him, the fishmen would kill most of them first. Then, after advancing to the Transcendent Tier, he could make an example of a couple to intimidate the rest, or simply uproot and kill them all. The fallout from this incident would be kept to an absolute minimum.

But the situation was different now.

As the most critical step, his Transcendent Tier ritual had failed completely. Losing the status of a Transcendent Tier meant all the privileges afforded to the strong were gone.

Predictably, in the near future, his act of colluding with a different race to sell out his own kind would wreck his reputation in the Southern Archipelagos to an abysmal degree.

His name would be dragged through the mud even among underground factions like pirates and fugitives.

If he wanted to keep operating in the Southern Archipelagos—at least until he advanced to the Transcendent Tier through other means—he would face immense resistance.

This was a future Dodd could clearly foresee.

As for exactly where he should go from here, though he hated to admit it, he had indeed prepared for the worst-case scenario of a failed advancement before starting the ritual, leaving himself a way out.

First of all, now that he had escaped the secret realm, there was one thing he had to do.

—Run.

Well—that word might seem a bit too pathetic. "Retreat" would probably be more dignified.

Right now, Dodd wasn't just in a weakened state because the beast he possessed in the secret realm had been killed. The failure of the advancement ritual built around him had inflicted a secondary, all-encompassing weakening on his body.

Under these conditions, he might still hold a decent combat advantage over ordinary adventurers, but expecting to face the siege of nearly a hundred veteran adventurers and their teammates dragged into the secret realm was clearly unrealistic.

The smartest choice was to leave the battlefield to the Sahuagin coming ashore to harvest sacrifices, while he took advantage of the chaos on the island to beat a hasty retreat and look for another chance to reach the Transcendent Tier in the future.

To that end, Dodd had arranged for subordinates and a ship on a hidden coast at the edge of the island many days in advance as a backup plan.

Now, it was exactly what he needed.

As for how many of the adventurers on the island would survive the Sahuagin massacre?

Dodd didn't care in the slightest. He even hoped the fishmen would kill more of them, ideally slaughtering all the civilians on Stodd Island too.

That way, no one would leak intelligence, and his bad reputation might spread a little slower. Plus, he would have fewer enemies.

With these thoughts in mind, he took a moment to get his bearings in the forest.

Harboring deep resentment, "Algae Scale" Dodd shot one last glance toward the ritual array.

He reached up to his neck, feeling through his surcoat to confirm that the metal ring pendant of strange texture was still there.

Only then did he turn and walk away quickly, hurrying toward the coast.

Whoosh!!!

Orange-red flames left a fleeting, dazzling trail in the air as a scorching scimitar chopped down, faintly distorting the space around it.

Clang!

The sharp sound of colliding metal erupted, and the flames wrapped around the scimitar shuddered from the impact.

A rigid harpoon, forged from deep-sea ore, blocked the scimitar flawlessly.

"Now!"

Her combat experience was extremely rich, and she sharply seized upon the momentary stiffness her opponent fell into from blocking her attack.

The woman with long, fiery red curls, who was vastly smaller than the fishman commander across from her but matched it evenly in strength, suddenly drew a sharp breath!

Her cheeks puffed out high, and a scorching breath drifted upward alongside the firelight spilling from her nose and mouth.

Aiming at the elite fishman in front of her, Lorraine opened her tightly shut mouth.

Whoosh—A searing wind surged as a torrent of blinding orange-red flames spewed from her mouth, engulfing the fishman commander in a fan-shaped blast.

But just a second before the liquid fire touched the fishman's body, an intensely bright magical light rose from beneath the sea a short distance behind it. It traced a lightning-fast arc through the air and landed on the fishman.

Thrum!

The magical light turned into a translucent membrane clinging tightly to its skin.

It completely blocked out the flames that would have otherwise scorched its scales raw and charred its flesh.

The brief window for attack vanished in a flash. Lorraine, originally locked in a contest of strength, fell to a disadvantage from using her combat technique. The scimitar in her hand lost its empowered force, and the harpoon pressing up from below gave a violent shove, sending her flying backward.

Fortunately, it was just the sheer impact of raw strength, so she didn't sustain any actual injuries.

Adjusting her center of gravity midair, she executed a backflip, stumbled two steps, and barely managed to steady herself.

"Damn it."

With a curse on her lips, Lorraine fixed her eyes forward.

Over there, the fishman commander that had recently come ashore casually swung its harpoon, completely scattering the residual flames curling around its body.

The ugly fish eyes glaring viciously at her were brimming with cruelty and savagery.

By now, several dozen minutes had passed since they broke out of the secret realm.

Clearly, the situation on the battlefield was anything but optimistic.

The Sahuagin that had assaulted the docks earlier were likely just a vanguard meant to test the waters.

When the ritual set up by "Algae Scale" Dodd drew to a close, the main Sahuagin force hiding in the nearby waters swarmed ashore under their commander's lead, launching an outright frenzied offensive against the adventurers.

Lorraine couldn't gauge just how many Sahuagin were currently besieging the docks, but there were obviously far more than the adventurers on the field could handle.

This was especially true since the vast majority of the veterans, who should have shouldered the brunt of the fighting, had their combat strength severely weakened by their ordeal in the secret realm.

The situation on the field was in grave peril.

Fishmen endlessly roared as they swam ashore, while the priest Spellcasters lurking beneath the waves constantly shifted positions, providing support to their allies on land just like the one she had just faced.

Worse yet, unlike any Sahuagin tribes she had seen before, these fishmen clearly operated on a detailed and meticulous battle plan. Under the command of the leader right in front of her, they unleashed a destructive power far beyond the norm.

Even against weakened adventurers, they weren't careless in the slightest.

She could see that a large portion of the Sahuagin, who clearly could have come ashore, remained in the water instead, shifting their attacks to the ships moored at the docks.

This undoubtedly struck the adventurers right in their weak spot.

Whether for their functionality as transport or their symbolic value to an Adventurer Squad's identity, every active adventurer in the Southern Archipelagos knew just how important their ships were.

They belonged to different teams to begin with, possessed almost zero cooperative experience, and had no trust to speak of. They had only banded together temporarily because of a common enemy and shared danger.

Seeing their ships under attack by the fishmen, the adventurers who had barely managed to form a defensive line on the shore instantly broke apart.

By now, under the Sahuagin siege, the adventurers on the beach had been fragmented into isolated little groups centered around their respective ships. Unable to even fend for themselves, how could they possibly regroup and mount a counterattack against the Sahuagin?

The Blade of Vengeance was no exception.

It was just that they had more core members remaining at the port. Plus, Lorraine, Sasha, and Sarissa had all survived until the end of the secret realm because of Xia Nan, so they hadn't died inside and suffered the weakening penalty.

This was why they didn't seem quite as hard-pressed as the other crews.

Right now, several crew members were locked in a fierce brawl on the deck with a burly Shark Beast that had leaped aboard from the flank, and they were faintly holding the upper hand.

She knew that if this situation was allowed to continue, the scattered adventurers fighting their own battles would be overrun by the Sahuagin one by one.

Captain Lorraine, who still had strength to spare amidst the fishmen's charge, had intended to use her unweakened, peak condition to find a breakthrough.

But the moment she leaped off the deck, she was noticed by the fishman commander leading the entire force. It personally entered the fray, pinning her down exactly where she stood.

The surrounding fishmen were also faintly showing signs of closing in to surround her.

'What other options are there? Where's the opening?'

Lorraine's mind raced, searching for a way to break the deadlock.

But clearly, the fishman commander in front of her wasn't going to give her that kind of time.

Thrum!

Another dazzling beam of magical light shot out of the sea, landing on the fishman commander.

As the light flickered, accompanied by the crackle of electricity, blinding purple lightning coiled like tiny snakes around the harpoon in the fishman's hands.

"Garu!!!"

The commander let out a roar, raising its harpoon high.

Lorraine felt an inexplicable sense of crisis well up in her heart and subconsciously took a few steps back.

Boom—

The purple lightning crashed down exactly where she had just been standing. Charred wood splinters flew everywhere as the blast blew a massive hole through the wooden pier platform, revealing the rolling sea below.

Refusing to give its opponent even a sliver of time to breathe, the commander roared and charged at Lorraine with its crackling harpoon almost at the exact same moment the lightning struck.

The fishman's actual physical stats hadn't been enhanced and were entirely within Lorraine's ability to handle. However, compared to before, the faint electrical currents carried by its attacks traveled down the hilt of her scimitar into her arms, making her feel increasingly numb and sluggish whenever she exerted force.

As a result, her whole body's movements slowed down by a fraction.

Torrents of flame surged, weaving orange-red fire and dark purple lightning together in the air.

At a visible rate, Lorraine—who had previously been deadlocked with the commander—gradually fell to a disadvantage.

Strum—

Just as the battle on the field grew increasingly desperate, a crisp, melodious strum of a lute suddenly rang out, echoing far and wide.

A warm current from an unknown source rose in the hearts of all the adventurers present, soothing their pain and fatigue, and replenishing their rapidly drying reserves of stamina.

Framed by the melodious lute notes, a high, profound wolf howl closed in from a distance in an instant.

The spatial distance was crossed in a flash, shattered by an exaggerated speed that practically left afterimages in the air.

The Sahuagin lackeys could hardly react, but the priest Spellcaster lurking in the water and controlling the overall battlefield noticed it.

Two flares of magical light shot out from beneath the sea almost simultaneously—one pink, one blue—landing one after another on the sprinting figure.

The former seemed to be some sort of enchantment spell, but it was negated by a Saving Throw thanks to the mental resistance of [Gaze into the Abyss], inflicting backlash damage upon the Spellcaster beneath the surface.

The latter was taken head-on, but he still passed the Saving Throw courtesy of his 11-Point Agility Attribute gained after the secret realm.

A spell combo powerful enough to interrupt the attack of any adventurer on the field failed to slow the black blur down for even a single second.

The fishman commander had just turned around when the black-haired youth, wielding the Gray-Black Straight Sword, arrived right in front of it.

Orange-red flames slammed into the fishman's back, drawing away part of its attention while inflicting burn damage.

[Gravity Control] took effect in an instant. Focused onto a single point, it made the harpoon the fishman was trying to raise in defense several times heavier.

Forcing the harpoon up to guard its front against the inexplicable resistance, the multiplied gravity suddenly released. The heavy ore weapon suddenly felt as light as cotton, exposing a fatal flaw in the monster's center of gravity.

The pitch-black Arm Shield didn't exert much force at all. With just a light tap against the harpoon, the fishman's already swaying center of gravity spiraled completely out of control under the effects of max-level [Heavy Tide]. The towering body plunged into a state of "Imbalance."

Hum—

An ochre-red arc of a sharp shadow vanished in a flash through the faintly distorted air, bursting with forcefield energy as it formed an elongated blade light.

Slash.

Its center of gravity ruined, the fishman's body toppled backward.

But its severed head, separated from its neck, lingered in midair.

Spraying fresh blood, it spun higher into the sky.