Chapter 1018 - 851: Sea Race Girl Serafina (2)

Duke tilted his head slightly, extending his Spiritual Power down beneath the hull without betraying any emotion.

Beneath the sea, in the deep-water layer where moonlight could no longer penetrate, something was moving.

Duke could feel these things keeping a fixed distance from one another, rising toward the surface from the deep sea at a speed far surpassing ordinary marine creatures.

Their energy fluctuations carried an extremely faint Water Element aura—they were of the Sea Race.

Hundreds of meters below the surface, in that deep-water layer, those neatly arrayed energy signals suddenly halted.

They hovered and formed ranks not far beneath the keel of the Seawind, like soldiers awaiting inspection.

Immediately after, a surge of Water Element fluctuations far greater and purer than the rest slowly rose from the depths below; with every span it ascended, the surrounding seawater parted of its own accord to either side, forming a vertical, transparent corridor within the deep.

Within the corridor, a slender figure was rapidly ascending.

On the deck, the two sailors on night watch remained completely oblivious.

Old Joseph yawned at the helm; the sailor leaning against the mast rolled over in his sleep, the flask in his arms tumbling onto the deck and striking it with a dull thud.

The sea surface suddenly split open—yet no Wave splashed up.

The seawater seemed lifted by an invisible hand, smoothly pushing outward in all directions, forming a flat disc of water several meters across.

A Coral Imperial Chariot drawn by four Sea Dragons rose soundlessly from beneath the surface; the Sea Dragons’ bodies were covered in deep-blue scale armor, the edges of each scale glimmering with a ghostly green phosphorescence. Their long necks curved in elegant arcs, and between their jaws they held reins condensed from Water Element.

The Coral Imperial Chariot was entirely formed by the natural growth of dark-red deep-sea Coral, bearing no trace of carving; dozens of fist-sized Luminous Pearls were set between its coral branches, their gentle radiance bathing the whole chariot so that it looked like a palace rising from the depths.

On both sides of the chariot, hundreds of Deep Sea Knights stood in orderly ranks.

Their lower bodies were fish tails of various shapes, their upper bodies clad in deep-blue armor forged from Deep Sea Ore, and in their hands they gripped tridents condensed from Water Element and Coral Crystal.

The tip of every trident burned with a cluster of ghostly blue cold flames, casting the entire stretch of sea into a field strewn with chill-colored starlight.

On the perimeter of the Deep Sea Knights, several massive giant whales of the deep slowly surfaced, their broad backs crowded with Sea Race Archers wielding Shell Longbows.

The chariot halted not far off the Seawind’s hull, and Coral Steps automatically grew and extended from the chariot’s edge, flowing like a living thing to bridge onto the ship’s rail.

A slender figure stepped out of the chariot and set foot upon the Coral Steps.

It was a girl who looked around sixteen or seventeen; her azure curls fell like a waterfall to her waist, studded with countless tiny pearls and Deep Sea Crystal Stones that swayed lightly with her steps.

She wore an exceedingly luxurious deep-blue court gown, its hem woven from some unknown Deep Sea Silk Thread, shimmering under the moonlight with a flowing sheen like rippling water.

Thousands of exceedingly fine diamonds were set into the body of the dress, each one cut into the shape of a shell, together forming upon the fabric a vivid tableau of all the beasts of the deep sea.

Sea Dragons, giant whales, Coral, Seaweed—as though the vitality of the entire ocean had been embroidered into the hem of her skirt.

Upon her head rested a crown carved from the rarest Sapphire Coral of the deep sea; at its heart was set an oval Aquamarine Crystal Stone, within which the circulating light looked as if the very heart of the ocean had been sealed inside.

The instant she stepped onto the deck, all the Sea Race guards bowed their heads in unison, raising their tridents upright before their chests.

Even those few deep-sea giant whales sank slightly beneath the water, leaving only a small portion of their backs exposed, as if paying the highest respect to this girl.

On the deck, the two sailors on watch were already completely rigid. Old Joseph clenched the helm in a death grip, the veins on the backs of his hands bulging thickly.

He had lived off the sea since his teens, had seen pirates, seen storms, seen shipwrecks and the tragedies of lives lost, had seen countless things he thought would haunt his nightmares—but he had never seen anything like the sight before him.

The sea was flattened like a pancake, giant whales rose from the depths, and hundreds of Sea Race Knights sealed a merchant ship in an impenetrable ring.

He opened his mouth; a sound rasped out of his throat, hoarse to the point of almost inaudible.

Several merchants, jolted awake by the rocking of the ship, stumbled out of the cabins; one of them, the moment he pushed open the door, went weak in the legs and collapsed straight to the floor, while another, somewhat older, sucked in a sharp breath of cold air, unable to utter a single word.

No one knew who first went soft in the knees and knelt, but in the next moment the merchants dropped to the deck one after another. Old Joseph remained frozen where he stood, neither kneeling nor speaking, only staring fixedly at the girl descending from the Coral Steps, his eyeballs nearly bulging from their sockets.

The girl seemed wholly unaware of these mortals’ reactions.

Once she stepped onto the deck, her gaze passed directly over the merchants kneeling all over the place, over Old Joseph rigid at the helm, and through the cargo crates and ropes piled at the stern, locking unerringly onto Duke.

Those deep-sea Aquamarine eyes flickered under the moonlight with a rapid cascade of complex emotions—excitement, nervousness, expectation, and the faintest trace of grievance.

"Duke."

Serafina’s voice carried the clarity and softness unique to a young girl, yet every syllable landed with precision upon the eardrums of everyone on deck.

She lifted her chin slightly; the magnificent Sapphire Coral crown swayed gently with the motion, as if reminding all present that the one standing before them was no ordinary Sea Race girl, but the most orthodox scion of the Sea Race Royal Family.

"Duke." She called him again, this time her voice a few tones lower than before, as though confirming she was not dreaming.

Then she lifted her skirt and climbed the Coral Steps onto the ship. Several Deep Sea Maidens followed hurriedly behind her, only to halt at the edge of the steps beneath the slightest motion of her hand, daring not take another step forward.

Serafina walked alone across the deck, stopping three paces before Duke.

"I’ve finally found you." she said. In her tone were the joy of reunion after long separation, the pride of one born Royal, and a soft feeling impossible to put into words. "You know perfectly well that I can sense your location through the Sea Race aura on your body, yet you’ve never once taken the initiative to seek me out.

These years I’ve stayed in the Deep Sea Sanctuary; the waters closest to the Central Islands are only a few hundred miles away, but you’ve never come. Every time I sensed your aura appear on the West Coast, by the time I rushed over, you’d already teleported away. You always leave so quickly—so quickly that no matter how I chase, I can never catch up."

She got this far before suddenly realizing she might have spoken too hastily. Her lips pressed together in a small pout as she re-assumed that dignified Royal composure, yet the faint flush on her cheeks and the fingers tightly clenched around her skirt betrayed her nervousness.

"So this time, I decided I won’t let you run away again." She raised her eyes, those deep-sea Aquamarine pupils gazing straight at Duke. "Come back to my territory with me, just once, alright? I have so much I want to say to you, and here... here, there are too many people."

Duke probed the aura emanating from Serafina’s body; under the moonlight his pupils contracted slightly—Level 4.

That quality of Rules drawn inward, that self-contained circulation of aura, was a trait that only appeared after a Divine Status had condensed. There was no mistaking it.

A few years ago, when he had found that girl curled up inside a Beauty Shell at the Bottom of the Abyss, the energy fluctuations on her body had been less than Level 1, blank as a sheet of paper.

Yet the girl now standing before him with a crown on her head was already a genuine Level 4 powerhouse.

In just a few short years, to grow from an ordinary member of the Sea Race into a Level 4 Life—such speed could no longer be described as merely "extraordinary Talent."

The secret hidden behind those three words, Beauty Shell, was far deeper and more unfathomable than what he had guessed back at the Bottom of the Abyss.

Duke’s gaze passed over Serafina’s shoulder without a trace, looking toward the stretch of sea behind her sealed tight by Deep Sea Knights.

Among the hundreds of Deep Sea Knights and several giant whales, in that expanse of seemingly empty water behind the chariot, he sensed a wisp of exceedingly concealed aura.