Chapter 272: Merpeople Attack, Merqueen
After spending two days with Bai Ya, Ling Jiu picked his family up, and they went to Mars together early in the morning on the third day.
“This is Mars?”
It was Wangwang’s first trip to Mars. She stood high in the sky and looked down at the Martian land, surprise and shock filling her eyes.
“There are not only forests but also rivers and lakes. This is completely different from the Mars that I have imagined.”
“This is what Mars looks like after terraforming.”
“When your brother-in-law and I first came to Mars, there were only a few Arcana forests. Other than that, it was almost the same as the Mars that I had pictured,” Bai Ya explained with a smile. “After that, your brother-in-law directed carbon dioxide from Venus...”
With Bai Ya’s explanation, Wangwang gradually understood the reason for the tremendous changes on Mars and looked at Ling Jiu in admiration.
Ling Tianci, Yang Su, Yang Ling’er, and Ling Xiaotong had pride and adoration in their eyes. It was an undeniable fact that Ling Jiu should be credited for the large part of the changes on Mars.
Indeed, Mars was very different now.
First, the carbon dioxide concentration on Mars was high enough. The powerful greenhouse effect and light made the temperature of Mars more or less the same as that on Earth.
The wormhole between Venus and Mars was sealed again. Plus, the flow of CO2 was cut off since the CO2 concentration there had reached an acceptable level.
The second thing was water.
After half a year of water transfer, the ocean on the surface of Mars had started to take shape.
Seawater had gradually filled the canyons and low-lying land. These areas connected to become one vast ocean. The water at those adjoining places was still shallow, but it was ultimately one ocean.
Since seawater was abundant and the temperature was hospitable, algae—aside from Arcana trees—started to appear on Mars.
The purpose of this was simple: it was to produce oxygen and make the Martian atmosphere breathable for humans.
“Mars looks different every day.”
“This place will become a truly habitable planet for humans in a few years,” Ling Jiu exclaimed in awe.
“Most importantly, it is us who terraformed it,” Bai Ya said. “I believe that experts have accumulated a lot of experience in terraforming Mars. This experience will come in handy when we want to terraform other planets in the future.”
“Absolutely.”
They did not stay long on Mars before they passed through the wormhole and came to Europa. When they stood in the ocean, they could see no change here.
Europa’s ocean was still dark, and the water pressure was still extremely high. The water redistribution to Mars did not seem to have much effect on Europa.
However, Ling Jiu knew that this small moon was undergoing changes as more seawater poured into Mars.
When the seawater level on this moon dropped to a certain level, the ice layer on the surface would break and collapse.
When its mass was reduced to a certain extent, and the gravity from Jupiter weakened, perhaps its orbit would also change.
“Something is wrong, Ling Jiu!” Leoux was heard saying.
“What’s wrong?” Ling Jiu looked puzzled.
“I detected signs of life—many of them,” Leoux said. “They are approaching fast from a distance in this direction. These creatures have powerful signs of life. The weakest is comparable to a Class 9 Direbeast Emperor, while the strongest is reaching the first level of the Galactic class. There are many of them—I’m talking about over one million.”
Ling Jiu frowned when he heard those words. “Could it be the marine beasts in Europa’s Ocean?”
“That is strange. The Direbeasts in Europa’s Ocean are loosely organized. They live in different luminous floating mountains, and I have never heard of them coming together for collective action. Let’s watch them quietly. I want to know what these sea Direbeasts are up to,” Leoux said faintly, almost nonchalant. Apparently, the approaching marine beasts did not concern it at all.
It confused Bai Ya to see Ling Jiu standing there all of a sudden and looking deeper into the ocean. “Why aren’t you leaving, honey?”
“There is an army of marine beasts coming,” Ling Jiu said nonchalantly.
“An army of marine beasts?”
“What’s going on?”
His family members looked at each other.
“I can’t tell what the exact creatures are. But there is indeed an army of marine beasts traveling quickly in our direction.” Ling Jiu used Dimensional Peering, another Arcana that he had replicated from the Void Behemoth.
Everything within a radius of several kilometers was within view of his mind’s eye. He saw an army of marine beasts coming their way.
Just that...
“These marine beasts are a little strange, Leoux.” Ling Jiu frowned. “They look...”
“What’s going on?” Leoux was puzzled.
“They are not marine beasts, but like Merpeople.”
Ling Jiu took a deep breath. “Yes! They are best described as the Merpeople. They have the upper body of humans, and lower of fish.”
“The Merpeople?” Leoux was surprised. “Let me take a closer look.”
After about ten minutes, the so-called marine beast had finally arrived.
At first glance, they were densely packed like a swarm of swordfish.
There were too many to count.
They stopped in front of Ling Jiu and the others—more specifically, in front of the wormhole that was connected to Mars.
“Those are...”
Ling Tianci, Yang Su, and others were all shocked.
The marine beasts were not big—not even as large as many Class 2 or Class 3 Direbeasts. But their appearance was the most shocking aspect.
They had human bodies with fish tails...
Human bodies with shrimp tails...
Human bodies with crab lower halves...
Human bodies with octopus lower halves...
Human bodies with turtle shells.
...
Words such as mermaids, crab soldiers and generals, and ninja turtle came to mind when Ling Jiu looked at those marine beasts.
Was this army not comprised of Merpeople, crab people, shrimp people, turtle people?
Ling Jiu’s family was studying the Merpeople army just as the Merpeople were studying them.
Some of them were beautiful, while some were extremely ugly. But they all had one thing in common: they all stared at Ling Jiu and others with a pair of hatred and hostile eyes.
That look in their eyes...
It was hard to compare them with unintelligent marine beasts.
“They are the native intelligent beings on Europa, Leoux?” Ling Jiu slowly asked after scanning those Merpeople.
“Pretty much, by the looks of things,” Leoux said. “Neither you nor I have explored the ocean of Europa. We only know that there are many marine beasts. But we did not expect that there would be so many Merpeople among them.”
Ling Jiu nodded silently. He had been to Europa many times, but he had not really explored its ocean seriously.
All he knew was there were marine beasts, luminous floating mountains, and even energy crystals. But he did not know that there were intelligent life forms here.
He had got to admit that he had made a huge mistake.
These Merpeople were anything but weak. In other words, they were powerful. He had blundered when he had failed to notice such powerful beings around him.
“What should we do, honey?”
Bai Ya could feel how terrifying those Merpeople were. When she realized that they were a force capable of destroying everything, she spontaneously held Ling Jiu’s hand tightly.
Ling Tianci, Yang Su, Wangwang, and the others were quaking in their boots as they had never seen such a terrifying scene.
Never...
“Let’s see what they do and we will roll with the punches.” Ling Jiu looked calm although he was shocked.
A low rumble rose among the Merpeople army just then. The next moment, an astonishing thing happened.
The Merpeople in front opened their mouths and shot out water spikes that were ten meters long and over twenty centimeters in diameter.
The water spikes shot toward them like volley fire.
There were so many water spikes coming from all directions that it was impossible to dodge.
“Fall back!”
Upon seeing that, Ling Jiu got his family behind him and performed a Void Devouring.
The void in front of him, including the seawater and the water spikes shooting at him, was swallowed up as a massive black hole appeared in front of him.
The Merpeople’s attack vanished.
As the black hole gradually disappeared, the surrounding seawater rushed back to fill the void.
Those Merpeople saw what happened and were all in shock. They apparently did not expect that their attacks would be neutralized in such a way.
They looked at Ling Jiu with a hint of strange expression in their eyes.
Just then, another low roar rose from the rear of the Merpeople army. A passage then opened in the middle as the army split in half and moved to the side like they had been ordered to do so.
Immediately after, amidst a rush of current, ten giant marine beasts, each over 800 meters long, swam out from the rear. They looked like scaled dragons, with six legs under their bellies, and a spiral pointed horn on top of their heads.
There were two chains on each of these giant marine beasts, and together they were pulling a massive shell behind them.
Let’s call it a shell because it was so massive—over 2,000 meters in diameter—with colorful jewel inlays that glittered brightly.
This shell was like the sun in the darkness, dispelling darkness and bringing light to the ocean.
“I can sense it, Ling Jiu. These marine beasts that resemble scaled dragons rival the Class 8 Stellar beings,” Leoux said.
“I can sense it, too.” Ling Jiu took a breath. “Powerful is not the word for it when the figure sitting in the carriage can order ten Class 8 Stellar marine beasts to pull the carriage.”
“Absolutely,” Leoux replied jokingly.
The ten scaled-dragon marine beasts arrived and stared at Ling Jiu and his family with a vicious look in their eyes.
Ling Jiu ignored them. Instead, his eyes fell on the giant shell behind. The shell slowly opened, with a dazzling blue light shining out of it.
The blue light was so bright that everyone spontaneously squinted. As the shell continued to open, a palace appeared in front of everyone’s eyes.
There were blue pillars on both sides, a bright red carpet under the feet, and at the rear was a towering throne on which sat a woman.
A woman?
Not exactly correct.
It should be a mermaid sitting on the throne.
She was wearing a golden crown and a golden gauze dress. She was beautiful, with a sense of holiness and inviolability.
However, her lower body was that of a fish’s tail. Every scale was golden as if it were made of gold.
This mermaid sat high on the throne, like the sun in the sky, hanging high above, noble, sacred, and inviolable.
She was attractive in her looks and temperament. But a person with aesthetic perception impairment like Ling Jiu could not distinguish between beauty and ugliness.
It was the powerful coercive force emanating from this woman that attracted him. It was even more powerful than that of the one-armed old man of the Celtic Deities.
Obviously, this was a galactic being, a powerful existence above the stellar beings.
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