Ultragene Warlord

Chapter 553: The Sea of Mists

He turned to Zhu. "Was this the boat your father saw?"

"No, it's somewhat different. I'm certain my father told me the boat he was on was made of wood, whereas this one is made entirely of steel."

"Interesting, very interesting!" Zhang Lie became even more curious. Just what lay hidden in this sea of mists? Where did these ghost ships come from, and what secret did they harbor?

As they entered the sea of mists, a dense layer of mist shrouded them, so thick they could barely see an arm's length away.

Just then, a song could be heard over the distance, the voices thrumming with mysterious power.

Zhu's eyes widened. "Quick, cover your ears! These are sirens. You'll be charmed by their songs, fall into a daze and swim over to be eaten by them!"

"Oh? I have to meet such interesting lifeforms for myself."

Zhang Lie's eyes lit up. Might the soulshards that dropped from these lifeforms be able to attract other lifeforms nearby? If he were lucky enough to get one or two siren soulshards, Renhuang would be able to make full use of them to hunt down large quantities of genetic lifeforms.

"I'll kill them and return quickly." Zhang Lie spread his wings and flew out of the warship.

Zhu cried out, "Please, don't go! I'm scared!"

Zhang Lie ignored Zhu and followed the sound toward its origin, toward these supposed sirens.

It turned out that there was only one siren, a ghastly creature that floated on the sea, so large it had to weigh almost a ton. From this grotesque creature came a lovely melody, so loud it was almost frightening.

As Zhang Lie came closer, the siren began to sing even more eagerly, the song echoing throughout the air. Zhang Lie was entirely unaffected by the song; with his strength, he was more or less immune to mental compulsion.

"[Fists of the Silent Sea: Quake]!" His fist caused a geyser of water to erupt. The sea and the sky shook. Without understanding what had happened, the siren was disintegrated whole.

[You successfully killed a peak-grade siren. By consuming the flesh of the peak-grade siren, you may receive one to ten peak gene fragments.]

Unfortunately for him, no soulshard had dropped. Zhang Lie sighed, then turned back and activated his dragon's pupils, trying to sense Zhu's soul in order to return to the warship.

However, no matter how he flapped his wings, he found that he was unable to make any noticeable progress. It was as though he were flying in place while the warship grew farther and farther away.

Zhang Lie frowned. With his strength, with his willpower, nothing should have been able to mislead his sensory organs.

He swung an arm through the mist.

"So this is it—the power of space!" Not only could these mists block his vision, they even introduced spatial distortions above the sea of mists.

"[Fists of the Silent Sea: Soar]!" Waves of energy, so intense they warped space, radiated from his arm. Ripples of energy spread from Zhang Lie and dissipated the mists, revealing a patch of clear sea. Zhu's warship was within sight.

With a leap, Zhang Lie vanished from his original location and appeared on the warship in the next.

Zhu pounced on him. "I thought you were going to desert me!"

"Don't be afraid. You know so much about these seas that I could hardly discard you now—I just went to kill that annoying siren."

Zhu's brows furrowed. "That was dangerous! No living creature has ever made it out of the mists safely."

"Didn't I return?"

Zhu looked him up and down. "Are you sure you're classified as a living creature?"

Zhang Lie kneaded her head, causing her to scream and giggle.

"There are plenty of sirens in the sea of mists. Even if you kill one, there'll be lots more nearby. After all, this is their home."

"Oh? That's a great sign!" In that case, he was much more likely to be able to acquire a siren soulshard.

Suddenly, he heard the creaking of wood around him. Turning to the source of the noise, Zhang Lie found an even more ancient wooden ship floating to their side. The wood was so weathered that Zhang Lie was surprised that it was still seaworthy. Half its mast had broken off, and its sails were tattered.

When Zhu saw the ship that had appeared out of nowhere, she suddenly jumped up in fright and darted behind Zhang Lie.

"What's this?" On the ship, he could almost see a number of illusory figures crewing it. "It looks like a ghost ship..."

Zhu stuck even tighter to Zhang Lie. "What? How could there be ghosts in this world?!"

Zhang Lie seemed unperturbed. "What's there to be worried about? Calm down. I think our ship is a ghost ship too."

"What?!" Zhu's face turned white.

Zhang Lie hollered at the ancient ghost ship, hoping for a response, but he never received any. His dragon's pupils revealed not a single soul in the vicinity; it was as if the entire ship was a mirage.

"A punch will reveal what exactly you are, won't it? [Fists of the Silent Sea: Fade]!"

A black serpent shot out of Zhang Lie's fist toward the ghost ship, smashing a hole in its hull. The serpent continued to make a mess of the ship. The ghostly crew tried to prevent its destruction, but it was no match for the serpent, and the ship slowly sank to the sea.

Zhu poked her head out from behind him. "Do you know what it is now?"

Zhang Lie glanced at the sea. After the ghost ship fell apart, the logs that had made it up had disappeared completely.

Zhang Lie shook his head. "No, I don't. If we want an answer, I think it'll lie deeper within the sea."

After being told that their warship was likewise a ghost ship, Zhu began glancing surreptitiously all around her, and she refused to let go of Zhang Lie's hand.

Zhang Lie rolled his eyes at her. "There's no need to be so frightened. If these ghosts wanted to attack us, they would have done so already. Even when I left you to hunt down a siren, nothing from the ship attacked you. We're safe, at least temporarily."

Zhu's brows furrowed again. "Mister, you weren't trying to use me as bait when you left the ship, were you?"

"Nonsense! I inspected the ship beforehand, and I knew that there was nothing hiding aboard. Otherwise, I wouldn't have left you behind," Zhang Lie replied. "What did your father say about the sea of mists?"

Zhu thought back to her father's words. What he had recounted to her were essentially bedtime stories, and Zhu wasn't confident she remembered all the details.

"Exploring the sea of mists is an endeavor that claims nine lives in ten," she began.