Chapter 212 ·My Fish!

Lilia narrowed her eyes, trying to pierce through the gray haze and see the shadow atop the distant bone palace clearly.

But it was too far—she couldn’t make it out.

“Dora.” Lilia reached out and poked the dragon girl beside her. “No matter how I look at it, doesn’t that look like a piece of air-dried cured meat that’s been hanging there for centuries?”

Dora raised her head and stared fixedly at the white figure for a long time, then finally sniffed and swallowed her saliva.

“Oh, looks like it’s dead.”

Her tone was so flat, as if she were commenting on a random rock by the roadside.

Lilia’s foot slipped, and she nearly dropped to her knees on the hard frozen ground.

“Dead?”

Lilia felt like her train of thought couldn’t keep up with this dragon at all. “Didn’t you say before that she was very powerful? How can she just be dead like that?”

Even if she wasn’t on Hera’s level, at least she should be on par with a figure like Duke Camilla, right?

“Being powerful doesn’t mean you won’t die.”

Dora retorted matter-of-factly, her thick black tail swaying behind her. “I’m powerful too, but if I don’t eat for a hundred years, I’ll starve to death. Everyone dies. What’s so strange about that?”

Lilia was left speechless.

She turned to look at the white figure again, the sense of unease in her heart growing heavier.

“Then how did she die?” Lilia asked. “Was she killed? Or did she just reach the end of her lifespan?”

“Can’t tell.”

Dora shook her head, a hint of confusion appearing on her delicate face. “If she was killed, that palace would’ve collapsed long ago. When I came before, that place was already run-down, and now it’s still the same—not even a single brick has fallen.”

That was true.

If there had been a great battle, this Black Sea wouldn’t be so calm.

Lilia took a deep breath and looked toward the palace again.

“Dead is good.”

Dora suddenly chuckled, her golden eyes flickering with a strange excitement. “When it’s alive, it moves around—hard to eat. If it’s dead, it won’t resist. I can eat it however I want.”

Does this dragon have anything in her brain besides food?

Lilia looked at Dora speechlessly. “That’s a corpse. And who knows how long it’s been hanging there. Aren’t you afraid of getting sick from eating it?”

“I’m a dragon.”

Dora patted her seemingly unimpressive chest with a dull thump, looking proud. “Besides, you can roast it with fire, sprinkle that fragrant powder of yours—it’ll definitely taste good.”

Lilia didn’t want to continue discussing food safety with this gluttonous loli.

She turned her gaze to Bulara, who had been silently floating behind them.

“Bulara, can you check the situation over there?”

“The distance is too far for accurate detection. However, it can be determined that there are no life signs in the target area.”

So it really is dead?

Lilia’s heart skipped a beat.

“But.” Bulara suddenly changed tone. “High-frequency vibration waves have been detected beneath the Black Sea.”

Below?

Lilia frowned.

“You mean there’s something under the sea?”

Before Bulara could answer—

Boom!

A deep, muffled explosion rang out from the distance without warning.

The frozen ground beneath their feet trembled violently, as if some enormous creature had turned over beneath the earth.

Xiao Hong, who had been held by Lilia by the collar, let out a frightened cry and clung to Lilia’s leg with all four limbs.

Lilia instinctively lowered her center of gravity, one hand pressing down on Dora’s shoulder.

“Look over there!”

Dora pointed ahead excitedly.

The previously mirror-like black sea surface suddenly began boiling like water.

A column of black water shot into the sky, reaching over a hundred meters high.

Within the water column were mixed black sludge, white bone fragments, and bursts of firelight from explosions.

Immediately after—

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Several consecutive explosions erupted.

Black waves spread outward, crashing violently against the cliffs along the shore, sending up a sky full of black rain.

“Wow!”

Dora jumped excitedly, her tail spinning like a propeller. “Fish bombing! Someone’s helping me bomb fish!”

Her eyes gleamed, looking like she wanted to rush down immediately and scavenge.

“Bomb your head!”

Lilia grabbed the back of this stupid dragon’s collar and yanked her back.

As the water mist gradually dispersed, Lilia finally saw the culprits behind the explosions.

They were several oddly shaped black ships.

The hulls were pitch black, long and narrow, resembling giant black coffins.

Around the ships floated circles of gray-white magic runes, flickering with ominous light, continuously pouring energy projectiles downward.

Lilia’s pupils shrank.

That style of runes, that nauseating magic fluctuation—

It was far too familiar.

She had seen it before in that underground cavern filled with bio-engineered stench.

“The Immortality Society.”

Lilia forced the words out through clenched teeth.

“Leader, high-energy reaction detected.”

Bulara’s voice suddenly became urgent, the purple flames in her eyes flickering violently. “Thirty degrees to the left front. The largest black ship is accumulating energy.”

Lilia looked in the direction Bulara indicated.

That was the flagship of the fleet.

It was twice the size of the surrounding “coffin ships,” with a ferocious skull carved at its bow.

At that moment, the skull’s mouth was open, and a blinding dark green light was rapidly gathering inside.

And the direction it was aimed at was not the sea, nor the shore—

But the bone palace floating in the middle of the sea.

And the motionless “corpse” at its top.

“What are they trying to do?”

An absurd thought flashed through Lilia’s mind.

“This is bad!”

Even though she didn’t know their purpose, anything the Immortality Society wanted to do couldn’t possibly be good.

Even if it was just to vent anger on behalf of Hera, she couldn’t let them succeed.

But before she could act—

That dark green light had already finished charging.

Zzz—Boom!

A thick beam tore through the air, carrying a piercing screech as it blasted toward the solitary palace.

Wherever the beam passed, even space itself seemed to ripple and distort.

“My braised fish!”

Dora let out a heart-wrenching scream, even more painful than being beaten herself. “Don’t blow it to pieces! It won’t taste good if it’s blown apart!”

The beam crossed several kilometers in an instant and struck the bone palace with precision.

There was no earth-shattering explosion as expected.

At the very moment the beam was about to touch the white figure atop the palace—