Chapter 1271 - 325: Vanquishing Bandits Amid the Gossip Mist, Defending the Homeland with Mighty Palms (Part 6)

Just a few fathoms down, the deep sea suddenly illuminated with a ghostly blue phosphorescence.

Countless swordfish sprang from the mist, their pointed snouts glowing with an eerie blue light, none other than the infamous "Ghost Kiss Swordfish" of the East Sea.

Bai Zhi’s jade flute lay across his lips, playing an ancient melody from Miaojiang, summoning the Hundred Poison Spider King which spun a protective web with silver threads in the water.

Yet the swarm of swordfish was as frenzied as demons, shattering the spider’s web in an instant.

"These beasts have been bewitched!" Shi Feiyang’s figure gleamed with a sheen of Liuli, activating the Bright Jade Technique to "Supreme Forgetting Emotions Ice Soul Cold Prison." The ice shield formed by the cold aura instantly froze three swordfish into icicles.

His palms were like a Mountain-Opening Axe, the edge of "Cangsong Welcoming Guest" emitted a golden-white saber aura, stirring a massive vortex in the water, and the blood spewed from the swordfish’s wounds spread like a blood-red cloud in the deep sea.

Shan Zhi hid in the crevice of the reef, throwing plum blossom darts aiming for the swordfish’s eyes: "Grand Squad Leader, the more these pirate fish are killed, the more they come!"

Shi Xiong’s White Rainbow Sword spun flowers of sword moves relentlessly: "What are you afraid of! Back in the Northern Desert, killing horse thieves was far more exhilarating!" Though speaking boldly, his forehead was beading with cold sweat—the swordfish swarm seemed driven by invisible hands, crashing into them incessantly.

Seeing the perilous situation, Shi Feiyang cried out with all his Inner Strength: "Form the array!"

The four stood back-to-back, forming the Heroic Sakura Association’s "Four Symbols Array."

Shi Feiyang unleashed the ultimate killing move of the Hundred Victories Saber Technique, "Slash Heaven and Earth," golden saber lights as if splitting the sky and earth, shredding the surrounding swordfish into minced flesh. Amidst the swirling blood, a peculiar flute sound emerged from the sea floor, the melody sinister like a soul-hooking rope.

"It’s the Wind Demon Lineage’s demon technique!" Shi Feiyang’s heart trembled violently. Looking ahead, three ninjas clad in black shark gauze stepped through the water, the waves from their bone flutes making the seawater ripple. The swordfish swarm abandoned the bewitching insects and charged directly at them.

"Courting death!" Shi Feiyang’s cold aura surged overwhelmingly, the vortex suction of the Bright Jade Technique stirred the seawater into a black hole, absorbing the swordfish and ninjas together.

He clasped a ninja’s pulse gate with his left hand, and the cold spread through the meridians, instantly freezing him into an ice sculpture; his right hand emitted saber aura, with the palm wind of "Golden Dragon Claw", wherever it passed, swordfish flesh flew scattered.

As the last swordfish sank to the seabed, the four were all clad in shark gauze stained with blood.

Bai Zhi’s silver adornments were covered with fragmented flesh, Shan Zhi’s dart pouch was empty, Shi Xiong’s White Rainbow Sword was riddled with notches.

And what was even more startling, beneath the remains of a dead whale, a coral-wrapped sunken ship loomed faintly, the ship body marred with the word "Qi" that spoke of historical vicissitudes in the ghostly blue seawater.

Shi Feiyang swam closer to the sunken ship, through the coiling coral vines, he vaguely saw the stone walls inside the cabin engraved with the diagram of the "Twelve Styles of Defeating Japanese."

Just as he was about to take a closer look, eerie laughter of Japanese pirates echoed from the sea surface: "Hero Shi, this seabed Dragon Palace shall be your burial ground!" Before Shi Feiyang and others could even touch the sunken ship engraved with the "Twelve Styles of Defeating Japanese", the deep sea suddenly emitted a sinister phosphorescent blue mist.

This mist, as though alive, entwined their limbs strand by strand, Bai Zhi’s wrist bell suddenly ringing sharply: "Watch out! There’s the poison of the South Seas’ ’Soul-devouring Vine’ in the mist!"

Before the words fall, a lamenting song arose from the deep sea.

The voice was ethereal and enchanting, as if emerging from the Land of the Nine Netherworld, Shan Zhi’s plum blossom dart in hand quivered slightly, he gritted his teeth and said: "It’s the Merfolk! Legend has it their singing can steal souls!" In the ghostly blue mist appeared dozens of half-human half-fish figures, the Merfolk holding spears embedded with sharp shells, scales gleaming ghostly green in the darkness, their fish tails stirring up dark currents.

Shi Xiong held the White Rainbow Sword horizontally in front of him, its blade glowing an alert green: "Grand Squad Leader, these Merfolk carry the scent of Japanese enemies!" Indeed, the Merfolk had bamboo tubes carved with sakura patterns hanging from their waists, evidently controlled by Japanese bewitching insects.

The leading banshee-like female Merfolk caressed her pearl necklace, the song suddenly becoming shrill, and the Merfolks charged like arrows off a bowstring, the poison on their spears tracing sinister black marks in the water.