Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 1232: Chapter 1231: A Remarkably Effective Local Specialty

On the western side of the land known as "Aeo Continent," the vast Immigrant Starship Antawen Vessel is stranded at the edge of the coast, its massive creation largely submerged in seawater. Its front end runs along the continental shelf, extending towards the seabed, slanting across the near sea trench, with its forward structure deeply embedded in the seafloor, becoming a part of the seabed landscape over long years.

In the ship’s impact zone, high-powered lighting devices floating in the water dispel the endless darkness of the deep sea. The light permeates the water, making the seafloor visible. The massive metal structure inclines, connecting with the seabed’s rocky layers, and an expansive impact structure extends from Antawen Vessel’s bow towards the dark sea. In the flat area at the center of the impact structure, thick energy and material pipelines extend from a crack at the ship’s front, linking several supply stations and monitoring points on the impact zone’s edge.

At the center of the ship’s impact zone, powerful Tide Masters have already gathered. They have set up large-scale stabilization equipment in the area where the Antawen Vessel’s bow contacts the seafloor and are reshaping an elemental gateway that was closed years ago—a massive light blue vortex has taken shape undersea. The vortex is almost the size of a castle, its swirling currents flickering with bright energy light, purging all "impurities" from the material world within its span. The Sea Demon Queen Petia floats quietly before the vortex, her light-colored eyes reflecting the rotating seawater.

She can already sense the aura of the elemental world from the depths of the vortex, and this gateway will soon be open.

In a way, this gateway could almost be considered the greatest ill fortune between the sea demon clan and this world’s "native water elementals."

The Antawen Vessel’s crash landing on this planet years ago was earth-shattering, the terrible impact permanently changing the geological structure around the landing site. The massive energy leak from inside the ship pierced the boundary between the material world and the elemental world. Figuratively speaking, Antawen Vessel’s crash shattered the water elementals’ "home dome," and it was a permanent destruction, with the core of this destruction being the ship’s bow impact zone below the sea.

Petia can still vaguely recall the terrifying scenes here back then... the boundary between the elemental world and the material world was torn apart, and the area near Antawen Vessel’s bow became the vent point of chaotic elemental power. Countless elemental rifts riddled the seabed, geological disasters ravaged day and night, the deep sea turned lifeless, and the sea demons who should have addressed the crisis immediately... fell into a grave "world rejection state," making it exceedingly difficult for them to even maintain their physical forms for a long time.

As the sea demons barely recovered, they encountered the furious water element army and the elemental lords coming to settle accounts—though they had long taken notice of Antawen Vessel, this colossal interstellar colony ship was beyond their control. Only when the sea demons reformed their bodies around the starship did the unlucky native water elementals finally seize the chance to "claim compensation"... which instead sparked more extensive, uncontrollable chaos...

The aftermath misunderstandings and conflicts from that chaos even dragged on intermittently for hundreds of thousands of years—the contradictions between elemental creatures are truly exasperating in such a way.

Petia slightly shook her head, temporarily putting aside those overly distant memories. Regardless, the misunderstandings of the past have eventually been resolved, albeit with remaining tensions and "hostility" between the sea demons and local water elementals. At the very least, everyone has been at peace over the years, and this negotiation should go without incident, especially since... she brought a special gift along.

The Deep Sea Sovereign glanced back, seeing the accompanying personnel gathered around the enormous "native gift": the Force Field Generator there produced a nearly ten-meter-sided pure water cube, within which was confined a premium "Big Squid Tentacle." The tentacle’s surface, black-brown and covered with mysterious and eerie patterns, occasionally twitched inside the force field due to some residual nerve impulse, its cut surface smooth and flat, its entire form complete and proportional. A long ribbon tied near the tentacle’s severed end formed a beautiful bow, with a small plaque inscribed with blessings hanging on it...

This sincerity almost overflowed from the Binding Force Field.

...

Water Elemental Realm.

Endless bodies of water fill the entire world, blurring the boundary between the distant "sky" and "sea surface." Torrential rains pour incessantly, forming dense "rain curtains" that could almost suffocate ordinary species on this endless sea. Above all things, where there supposedly should be "sky," no sun, moon, or stars can be seen, only another shimmering water surface—an upside-down sea, continuously sending rains down to "this side," creating an eternal cycle within this realm dominated by water elements.

Suddenly, great waves rolled up in the endless sea. A form took shape from the undifferentiated elements of the Sea of Elements—a humanoid outline with a body that constantly surged and transformed stood up from the ocean. The giant seemed like the avatar of a whole sea region’s will. As he stood up, the ocean instantly calmed, along with the torrential rains constantly falling from the sky and the inverted sea above becoming tranquil—the giant then gazed around, his sight soon landing on a whirlpool forming not far on the sea surface. The whirlpool completely ignored the giant’s dominion, appearing abruptly above the water and expanding visibly.

"What’s going on?" the giant exclaimed in astonishment, his voice like thousands of great waves rolling across the sea, "Why has this ancient passage reopened?!"

As soon as he finished speaking, several massive powerful water elements gathered in the suddenly tranquillized sea. These were the "sentinel towers" responsible for monitoring this region. One among them "stood" out, using the bright Elemental Core floating in pure water to meet the giant standing in the ocean: "Feudal lord, we just received a message from the material world. The ’Great Harvester’ wants to reopen this ancient rift, and she says she has an issue to discuss with you."

"The Great Harvester?!" The giant in the sea was startled, his body’s surging even slowed slightly, "What does she want? We’ve already signed a contract, and we’re each sovereign over different domains, mutually non-infringing—what trouble is she looking for now?"

"Things are not very clear from over there," the sentry said while a rumbling sound came from within, "She only mentioned setting up a sentinel station on our side to monitor this planet’s energy cycle..."

"Absurd!" The giant’s tone carried discernible anger, "She’s clearly preparing an excuse to break the contract—this long-lived group from the material world is indeed untrustworthy!"

"So..." The water elemental sentinels hesitated, another sentinel couldn’t help but ask, "Should we forcibly close this rift then? It hasn’t fully opened yet; we can still..."

"... No, let it open," the giant calmed down, his booming voice deciding after brief consideration, "The Great Harvester has prepared an excuse; now I want to see how many more justifications she has ready—for these material world dwellers act strangely, I’m quite curious about them now."

Amidst the conversation, the whirlpool on the distant sea surface once again enlarged, gradually showing signs of solidification. The giant and the sentinels quivered into silence, watching the ancient rift linking the material world and the elemental world, awaiting the "visitors" stepping through from the other side of the rift.

The sentinels started to be on alert, crystal spears formed entirely from elemental power appeared in their hands, and in the deep sea beside the giant, countless elemental shadows gradually began to gather.

The Great Harvester is unkillable—even though most elemental creatures are difficult to completely kill, those guys who came from who knows where are even harder to kill than the elemental creatures on this planet. Especially their leader, who, while being completely unkillable, possesses power comparable to the Elemental Sovereign, making her an extremely dangerous opponent under any circumstances.

Nonetheless, the giant has made up his mind. If that guy wants to tear up the covenant here, he will show the invaders something, no matter what the cost.

While pondering this, the enormous elemental vortex finally took shape, standing like a door upon the calm sea, with flowing light in the depths of the vortex forming a stable passageway. The giant standing in the sea nervously fixed his gaze at the deepest part of the passage, and soon he saw a figure he hadn’t seen for years, yet he could recognize at a glance no matter when he saw it, emerge from within.

The Sea Demon Queen, leader of the "Harvester" group, Petia.

And after Petia stepped into this tranquil sea area, over ten more sea demons serving as attendants poured out from the Elemental Rift.

They did not bring those weird weapons, and didn’t appear hostile. They seemed indeed not here to fight—the giant and the sentinels thought this way, but even so, they dared not relax one bit, instead staying highly alert to these unexpected visitors who suddenly reopened the rift.

Petia walked a few steps along the sea surface as calm as a mirror, her long snake tail seemingly crawling over a solid and stable surface. She hadn’t visited this place for many years, yet it remained unchanged as ever—the tense native water elementals and their leader appeared unchanged as well.

She raised her head, looking toward the giant standing above the sea, and the giant at the same time looked down at her. She heard a rumbling voice rise between the two seas: "Great Harvester, it’s been years—why do you suddenly break the covenant?"

"Hello there, rumble," Petia revealed a slight smile, trying to use a friendly tone to greet this overly tense and vigilant Elemental Sovereign, "We haven’t violated the covenant. Back then, the covenant merely stated that sea demons and native water elementals would not invade each other, coexist peacefully, and not interfere with each other’s existence. It never said we couldn’t visit each other under peaceful terms—I’m just here to have a look, and by the way, discuss something with you."

"My name is Glugruno!" the giant shouted with a tone full of anger, "Stop beating around the bush, be straightforward like an elemental creature, what exactly are you here for?"

"Ah... sorry, I seem to have remembered the name wrong," Petia first appeared surprised, then hastily apologized, before saying earnestly, "We wish to establish a sentinel outpost here—you can be assured it’s purely for peaceful purposes, and we have very important reasons..."

"Outpost? Reasons? Do you know what you are talking about?!" Sovereign Glugruno exclaimed loudly, while the nearby water element sentinels immediately approached a step forward wielding their crystal spears. "I sometimes truly don’t understand what you ’sea demons’ rely on to choose your leader... humor?"

"Wait wait, don’t be so tense," upon seeing the reaction from the other side, Petia knew the situation was as expected, hastily said while turning her head toward the direction of the elemental rift, "We indeed come with peaceful intentions, look, I even brought local specialties for you... ah, where’s my specialty?"

She stared in astonishment toward the direction she arrived from, seeing only emptiness near the elemental rift, the accompanying sea demons looking at each other, it took a long time before one finally reacted: "Your Majesty, it seems the force field boundary is too large, it got stuck while passing through the rift..."

"Stuck?" Petia was dumbfounded but quickly reacted, "It’s okay, I’ll expand the passage myself, it should be easier to handle from this side."

As she spoke, the Deep Sea Sovereign raised her finger toward the direction of the vortex, almost instantly, a massive elemental power was forced out of control under her will, becoming part of the vortex to expand the inner passageway, the roaring and thundering sound of the sea waves echoed from deep within the vortex, while the already highly tense water elementals around raised their weapons instantaneously, Sovereign Glugruno saw this scene and took a step forward immediately, the overwhelming waves coagulated behind him: "Stop! You’re doing..."

His words cut off halfway, because Petia truly simply expanded the elemental passage within the vortex—she didn’t summon millions of troops from it. Emerging from the elemental passage was merely a limb of an ancient god, still faintly twitching, trapped within a pure water cube, with decorative butterfly ribbon tied on it, and a message card hanging...

Glugruno’s gaze instantly fell on that still twitching "squid tentacle," and the next moment he recognized what it was. On the blurred and continually shifting face of this Elemental Sovereign emerged a clearly human-like shock and confusion. His voice erupted across the sea surface: "Damn it... why did you bring this thing here? Hurry up and take it away!!"

Petia enthusiastically replied: "Oh, don’t be so tense, rumble, this thing isn’t dangerous to you... don’t you want to try a bite?"

"Enough! Don’t come closer! You immediately take that thing back where it came from! The elemental world doesn’t need this ’impurity’!"

"But..."

"I believe you now, Petia! I believe you!"