6kv Chapter 24 "Ze"
Chapter 24 "Ze"
Falling, falling, falling...
I don't know how much time passed.
Perhaps it was a moment, perhaps a thousand years, when Gu Shenyan opened his eyes.
What you see is a deep, dark blue.
The blue was so thick it seemed to press down in layers, like an inverted sky or the gaping mouth of an abyss.
The water pressure was immense.
An ordinary flesh and blood body would have been crushed to dust by this pressure long ago.
But at this moment, the body is perfectly fine.
The skin no longer needed to breathe air; every scale trembled slightly, drawing something from the seawater.
The feeling was magical, like my whole being turned into water, and water turning into me, merging together, indistinguishable from one another.
He looked down and saw his hands—slender and long, covered with a layer of silver scales, with webbing connecting his fingers.
Looking further down, below the waist, the human body transforms into a fish tail.
Its tail was long and powerful, each scale as finely crafted as silver.
With a gentle sway, it can swim freely in the water, its agility exceeding all expectations.
He did indeed become a mermaid.
The power of the Nine Nether Soul-Guiding Incense sent his consciousness back to the distant past, where it possessed the body of a creature named "Ze".
Memories flooded back like a tide.
Six months ago, countless lights suddenly appeared on the sea.
Those lights were like fallen stars.
They descended from the sky, forming a great array that enveloped the entire merfolk habitat.
The clan chief led his elite troops to meet the enemy.
But that wasn't a battle at all; it was a massacre.
The spells of human cultivators were overwhelming, evaporating, freezing, and tearing the seawater apart.
The water manipulation techniques that the Merfolk were so proud of were as fragile as a sheet of paper in front of those cultivators.
The chieftain and his elite troops were all killed, and the survivors were captured and brought here to be "farmed" as cargo.
Gu Shenyan looked up and surveyed his surroundings.
The area, spanning dozens of miles, was completely enveloped by a transparent barrier, which completely isolated this sea area from the outside world.
This is a huge fishpond, but instead of fish, it raises merfolk.
Gu Shenyan looked around and saw his fellow clansmen.
Hundreds of merfolk are trapped here, each with black shackles on their wrists.
Those shackles are called "Spirit-Binding Iron," specifically designed to restrain the innate supernatural abilities of demons.
The merfolk gathered in twos and threes, their eyes vacant and filled with despair.
Most of them were women and children; there were very few strong males.
Ze's memories told him that he was the weakest male in his tribe.
He was not good at fighting from a young age and was always bullied.
The only reason I survived the catastrophe six months ago was because I was too weak.
He was so weak that even human cultivators considered him no threat and casually threw him into this cage.
The original "Ze" wept day after day in despair, turning into pearls, until she exhausted her last tear and died in melancholy.
But now, Gu Shenyan has taken over this body.
He could sense the lingering emotions in "Ze": fear, humiliation, and deep resentment.
Those emotions surged in his chest like lava, burning him so much that he could hardly breathe.
He took a deep breath of seawater, filling his lungs with the cold liquid, and forcibly suppressed these emotions.
After thinking for a moment, he tried to activate the bronze mirror and check his own state in his consciousness:
【Name: Ze (Possessed)】
[Bloodline: Mermaid]
[Supernatural Power: Water Control (Spiritual Grade, Lower Level)]
[Proficiency Level: Beginner (8/100)]
Lifespan: 38/300
Gu Shenyan was pleasantly surprised; the water control ability of this merman body was the complete version.
Just then, he sensed ripples in the water around him, as if merfolk were approaching.
He looked up and saw a young female merman swimming towards him.
Her upper body was that of a stunningly beautiful young girl, with skin that shimmered like pearls and glowed faintly in the dark seawater.
Her long hair floated in the water like seaweed, its dark green strands glowing faintly, undulating with her movements, making her seem like a living creature.
This is the young clan leader, Lan, the clan leader's only daughter, with the purest bloodline and the most outstanding talent in the clan.
Lan is inspecting her clansmen.
She swam slowly, her gaze falling on each of her kind, her eyes filled with sorrow.
But beneath that grief lay an indomitable fire, faint yet never extinguished.
Her gaze paused noticeably when it swept over Gu Shenyan.
That gaze carried scrutiny, disappointment, and contempt for the weak.
In Ze's memory, he had seen such a gaze countless times.
Lan quickly looked away and continued to survey the other clansmen.
After a while, just as Gu Shenyan was still getting used to his new body, voices suddenly came from outside the formation.
Gu Shenyan looked in the direction of the sound.
Through the transparent barrier, two human monks could be seen patrolling the shore.
They wore gray-blue Taoist robes, with ritual implements hanging from their waists and lanterns in their hands.
The two monks walked and talked, their voices carrying clearly into the fishing grounds.
"This batch of goods is quite good," one of them laughed, his tone full of pride.
"We can produce three hundred teardrops a month, that's enough to get us out of trouble."
"More than that," another person chimed in.
"Especially that young clan leader, see him? He's the one with the blue tail."
Her tears are of the highest quality; one tear is worth ten ordinary mermaid tears.
"Tsk tsk, what a pity for such a beauty."
"A beauty? A demon is a demon, so what if she's beautiful?"
"That's true."
The two took a few more steps, then suddenly raised their voices, just enough for the merfolk in the fishing grounds to hear clearly:
"Oh, right, a message came from above."
"What did you say?"
"They said the harvest was sufficient, so this batch of goods... can be disposed of."
"Get rid of it?"
"Yes, tears are valuable, but their blood is the real treasure."
Mermaid blood can be used to refine elixirs, forge weapons, and set up formations... it has many uses.
Keeping these things around is too much trouble; it's better to just squeeze them dry all at once, that's much more satisfying.
"That makes sense. So when should we make our move?"
"It'll be soon. The higher-ups said to wait another month until all the teardrops are collected before starting the bloodletting."
Then my brother and I can share some of the profits, hehe..."
The sound of their laughter gradually faded into the distance.
The laughter echoed through the fishing grounds like a demonic sound.
All the merfolk who overheard the conversation were horrified and shocked.
The women and children huddled together, trembling. Several male mermen clenched their fists so tightly that their nails dug into their flesh, but they had no way to resist.
The entire clan will be killed!
A single, thorough draining of blood, squeezing out every last drop of value!
These words were clearly spoken by the two cultivators on purpose for the merfolk to hear.
After all, merfolk need to shed tears to produce pearls, so they need to instill fear in these prisoners, who are mostly old, weak, women and children.
The deeper the fear, the more tears are shed; the more tears, the more pearls are produced.
Gu Shenyan silently sensed the auras of the two cultivators.
These two men's strength was far less unfathomable than Father Moore's.
Perhaps they are all just apprentices in the arts of cultivation, minor figures who have just stepped into the threshold of cultivation.
Yet even such a minor character can easily control the lives of hundreds of merfolk.
When the topic of blood collection came up, he suddenly understood a long-standing question in his mind.
Including the previous warriors who died in battle, so many merfolk have died here. Perhaps this is why there are spirit fish in the near seas of later generations that possess a trace of merfolk blood.
Too many merfolk were killed, even though most of their blood was extracted.
However, many were not handled properly and were eaten by the surrounding spirit fish.
After the two monks had walked away, a while later...
Gu Shenyan saw that a crack had appeared at the top of the formation, indicating that it was time to release the food.
More than fifty "silver-scaled fish" were thrown in through the opening, leaving streaks of silver light in the water as they swam in all directions of the fishing grounds.
In an instant, the once lifeless fishing grounds suddenly came to life!