PFC Chapter 553
Chapter 553
The spirit boat's keel groaned as if on the verge of shattering amidst the raging waves. Its sails were billowed by the hurricane, and salty spray constantly gushed from between the teeth of the dragon head statue at the bow. Dongfang Wan'er gripped the merman's rope tightly to the hull, her knuckles white from the force. Her gaze pierced the rain, looking towards the horizon—where the coral reefs floated like festering wounds, countless white bones wedged between the greyish-purple coral branches, their eerie outlines revealed when lightning struck. Ye Jiuchen planted the Dragon's Roar Sword in the deck to steady himself, his other hand gripping Little White, who was nearly swept away by the wind. The snow wolf's mane was matted with rain, yet it still stubbornly raised its head, gazing towards that deadly sea.
“Three more miles.” Ye Jiuchen’s voice mingled with the sound of rain, the scabbard of his Taotie-patterned sword at his waist was burning hot—an ancient artifact’s warning of evil spirits. Dongfang Wan’er removed the mermaid scale bracers from her wrists, artifacts damaged in the battle with the Netherworld Beasts. Now, they suddenly emitted a faint light, and water droplets seeping from the gaps in the scales condensed into arrows in mid-air, pointing to the highest pile of bones in the center of the coral graveyard. “The Sea-Suppressing Pearl is there.” She pulled open her soaked cloak, revealing the Big Dipper embroidered on the lining, a treasure-hunting pattern secretly passed down by the Heavenly Mystery Pavilion. At this moment, one of the stars shone brightly like a blazing fire.
As the spirit boat ran aground, skimming the edge of the coral reef, a faint scraping sound suddenly came from below deck. Little White arched its back in warning, but its front paws recoiled sharply upon touching the ground—beneath the mountain of white bones lay a dense mass of purple tendrils of bone-eating vines, each vine adorned with human finger bones. Dongfang Wan'er held her breath and leaped into the pile of bones. The crisp sound of her boots crushing skulls sent a chill down her spine. She gathered spiritual energy at her fingertips and brushed them across the bones, suddenly feeling a warm pulse between the ribs of a merman skeleton. "Here!" She parted the layers of vertebrae, and the fragment of the Sea-Suppressing Pearl that her palm touched emitted a ghostly blue light. But at that moment, the entire pile of bones emitted a teeth-grinding creaking sound.
Ye Jiuchen's Dragon Roar Sword had already cleaved three crawling skeleton soldiers in two. These monsters, composed of bones and vines, could reassemble themselves even after being cut, and a putrid black mist seeped from their joints. He caught a glimpse of the light in Dongfang Wan'er's hand and was about to warn her to retreat when the central pile of bones erupted like a volcano—hundreds of skeleton soldiers surged forward, stepping on each other's shoulders. The skeletal knight at the forefront was riding the spine of a megalodon, his rusty sword still wrapped with half a sail. Little White leaped into the air towards the knight's face, but its claws were entangled in vines. The snow wolf flipped in mid-air, its breath spitting out spiritual fire that crackled and burned the surrounding vines.
"Catch!" Ye Jiuchen tossed out his spare spiritual weapon, "Azure Frost," and Dongfang Wan'er spun around, swinging her sword. The Frost Whip clashed with the Azure Frost Sword, unleashing a chilling sword aura that repelled the approaching skeleton soldiers by three zhang. She seized the opportunity to join the two fragments of the Sea-Suppressing Pearl together, only to see sparks suddenly burst from between them—the sealing power of the First Sea God was repelling the external force. From afar came the shrill cry of a sea monster, a being even more bizarre than the Abyss Beast: its body was composed of countless glowing jellyfish tentacles, but its head was a rotting, beautiful skull, and instead of eyeballs, countless carrion-eating fish emerged from its eye sockets.
"Watch out for its tentacles!" Just as Ye Jiuchen's sword cleaved through the encirclement of skeleton soldiers, the siren's tentacles pierced the deck and wrapped around Dongfang Wan'er's ankle. These transparent tentacles were covered in purple suckers, which released paralyzing toxins upon contact with skin. Little White, having somehow circled behind the siren, bit its tail and pulled sharply, only to see the gland burst open, the splattering fluorescent droplets landing on the skeleton soldiers and making them move three times faster. Dongfang Wan'er bit her tongue, spitting blood onto the Sea-Suppressing Pearl. Her spiritual energy flowed along the blood, injecting into the fragment, and the blue light suddenly surged into a pillar, shattering the bones within a thirty-foot radius into dust.
As the two Sea-Suppressing Pearls finally merged into a complete rhombus-shaped magical artifact, the dark clouds in the sky condensed into an inky vortex, with a faint pearly luster visible from the direction of the South China Sea at its center. The sea monster let out a resentful shriek, but its tentacles crumbled inch by inch in the blue light, revealing the figure of a girl curled up at its core—it was the mermaid princess trapped inside the monster's body by evil magic.