At nightfall, in the outskirts of Moncarlo shrouded in mist, on the scarred battlefield, the battle between the Lord of Moncarlo, the former great pirate Edward, and the Black Dream Hunter Group's Chasing Moth, Ku Chi, continued. Due to Edward fighting on his home ground and having an intelligence advantage, he held a significant initiative throughout the entire battle. By now, he held a complete advantage.
"Cough... cough cough..."
Clutching his chest, Ku Chi coughed out large mouthfuls of blood. His face was deathly pale, and his body trembled uncontrollably. Earlier, he had been ambushed by Edward using hidden Spirituality to target his internal organs. Although Ku Chi had promptly used the Pseudo-Moth's tentacles to clear the abnormal Spirituality from his body, his internal organs had still suffered terrible damage. His entire body was practically churned into a pulp; not only were his lungs and intestines shredded, but even his heart was damaged. If Ku Chi hadn't activated the Mad Banquet rune hidden in his ring at the critical moment to greatly strengthen his physique for a short period and prolong his life, he would have already died.
However, facing this level of damage, even the Mad Banquet rune, which represented the power of the second-tier "Cup", wouldn't last long. He had to act immediately, otherwise, once the effect of the Mad Banquet rune weakened slightly, or Edward launched a full-scale attack, he would be finished.
Clearly, Edward was unwilling to let go of this excellent opportunity he had created. The moment Ku Chi was heavily injured, he immediately launched another attack. With a wave of his hand, countless thick water arrows instantly condensed in space and shot rapidly towards Ku Chi. At the same time, holding a water blade sword, he propelled himself forward like a rocket by spraying high-pressure water downwards from his elemental feet, slashing towards Ku Chi.
Under Edward's fierce attack, the numerous giant Dream World tentacles protecting Ku Chi scattered and broke, dissolving into nothingness in the air. If Ku Chi hadn't sensed that something was wrong in advance and retracted most of the Dream World tentacles originally used for offense to defend himself before Edward launched his hidden Spirituality attack, Edward's thrust would have completely pierced through all of Ku Chi's defenses in one go.
When Edward had almost destroyed all the defensive Spirituality tentacles and his main body had advanced to Ku Chi's front, Ku Chi finally completed his countermeasure. After barely using the rune to keep himself alive, he immediately took out a small, exquisite carved silver Hollow (hollowed out) ball from his clothes. This Hollow (hollowed out) metal ball was inlaid with dense, tiny gems of various colors. Looking into the ball through the Hollow (hollowed out) parts, one could only see layers upon layers of nested spheres within, completely unsure how many layers were nested inside or what kind of object was at the very center.
The moment Ku Chi took out the Hollow (hollowed out) silver ball, a sweet-smelling smoke began to rapidly emerge from the ball's Hollow (hollowed out) parts. This smoke quickly spread around Ku Chi, gradually enveloping his entire body. When Edward broke through all defenses and attacked to Ku Chi's front, what he saw was already a figure shrouded in ethereal smoke. Seeing this situation, Edward's brows furrowed slightly, and he immediately accelerated his attack, slashing the condensed smoke with the water sword in his hand.
However, at this moment, an unexpected situation occurred. The moment Edward's water blade sword touched the smoke, it actually began to become illusory and blurry, and even more transparent. It shimmered with colorful light, like a dream, which was exactly the same as the Dream World tentacles controlled by Ku Chi.
This smoke has some kind of corrosive effect!
Seeing this scene, Edward immediately made this astonished judgment in his mind. Then he saw his water blade sword, which had been transformed into a Dream World entity, break free from his control and sever from his hand. The Spirituality attached to it was also dispersed, and the strange smoke surrounding Ku Chi began to surge outwards, seemingly trying to engulf the nearby Edward.
Seeing this scene before him, Edward immediately retreated. The powerful high-pressure water jets from his elemental body's legs propelled him backward at an extremely high speed, allowing him to escape the spreading smoke.
After reopening the distance with Ku Chi, Edward stood still again, cautiously observing the situation of his distant enemy. He saw that the outward-spreading smoke did not last long before gradually dissipating into space. After the smoke dissipated, Ku Chi's figure reappeared before Edward, but at this time, Ku Chi himself had undergone a tremendous change.
A translucent body, a blurry face, flowing colors. At this moment, after being enveloped by the smoke, Ku Chi had transformed into a Dream World entity. At this moment, he had briefly escaped the various constraints of his physical body and turned into a semi-Dream World creature.
"It's actually... Inner World transformation..."
Looking at Ku Chi's transformation before him, Edward couldn't help but murmur. And Ku Chi, who had transformed into a Dream World entity, did not stop there. He immediately began his next action.
"Moth... descend upon my body..."
Opening his hand, Ku Chi murmured in a distant voice, and immediately, his body began to undergo drastic changes.
Ku Chi, who had been standing on the ground, began to levitate. The illusory wings behind him suddenly began to swell dramatically, and the tentacles extending from his Spirituality outer garment also began to dance wildly, growing rapidly. The entire Dream World entity's Dream World Spirituality outer garment began to deform, growing crazily forward and backward.
Seeing this scene, Edward's face sank. Then, with a wave of his hand, he caused the water mist within a vast area to condense into water arrows and pierce towards Ku Chi. Instantly, they blotted out the sky and the earth. Tens of thousands of thick water arrows shot towards Ku Chi from all directions, scattering and shattering the rapidly growing Dream World entity outside Ku Chi's body. However, the speed of scattering could not keep up with the growth speed of Ku Chi's Dream World outer garment.
Finally, after rapidly growing, Ku Chi's Dream World outer garment gradually took shape, forming a giant fantastical creature flying in the sky above Moncarlo. It was an incredibly huge, translucent, strange flying insect. On its giant, tattered insect wings were numerous flowing colors and mesmerizing, swirling patterns. On its long, bloated abdomen were densely packed, countless small, glowing cocoon-like objects. From the segmented middle sections where insect limbs should have grown, countless wriggling tentacles extended. The insect head had no mouthparts or eyes, but a smooth surface, with only two antennae extending out.
This is the powerful semi-Dream World creature, Pseudo-Moth, cultivated from the scale powder of the god worshipped by the Black Dream Hunter Group, the Pan Moth. Members of the Black Dream Hunter Group obtain extraordinary abilities by coexisting with the Pseudo-Moth. One Pseudo-Moth can coexist with countless Black Dream members, and the Black Dream member who is the symbiotic subject has the ability to control the Pseudo-Moth's actions.
A fully developed Pseudo-Moth possesses the power of the Crimson Tier, and the Black Dream member who coexists with a mature Pseudo-Moth is the Black Dream's Scarlet. Ku Chi is such an existence. Now, he has completely summoned his symbiotic body from the Dream World to the real world, allowing it to appear in the sky above Moncarlo.
"Is this... the Black Dream's symbiotic Dream Moth?"
Looking at the giant, psychedelic moth suspended in the sky, which was about thirty meters long, Edward couldn't help but murmur. At this moment, Ku Chi, located in the center of the Pseudo-Moth, also began to use the power of the symbiotic body to heal his injuries. Although Ku Chi did not have the ability to heal this level of physical damage, he could use the power of extraordinary items to temporarily transform himself into a Dream World entity, and then let the Pseudo-Moth, which coexisted with him, heal him. The Pseudo-Moth's self-healing ability could be transmitted to him, allowing his injuries to recover quickly. And after his injuries had recovered, Ku Chi also manipulated the Pseudo-Moth to take new action.
"—"
Gently flapping its wings, the giant Pseudo-Moth suspended in the sky unleashed an invisible wave outwards. This wave, centered on the Pseudo-Moth, quickly swept across the entire Moncarlo. Instantly, the hundreds of thousands of people on Moncarlo Island who were still curious about the heavy fog felt an unprecedented drowsiness in an instant, and one after another, they fell to the ground asleep. For a time, besides Ku Chi and Edward, there was no one left awake on the entire main island of Moncarlo.
This was a hypnotic wave, a powerful hypnotic wave released by a complete Pseudo-Moth. Previously, the wave released by Ku Chi himself only had a range of two to three kilometers and had no effect on Edward, who had a mental anchor. This time, the hypnotic wave released by the Pseudo-Moth covered the entire island of Moncarlo, causing everyone to fall asleep instantly, and even caused Edward's mental anchor to waver for a moment, making his consciousness temporarily unclear.
"Hmm..."
Affected by the Pseudo-Moth's hypnotic wave, Edward's body swayed slightly due to the sudden drowsiness, and he couldn't help but cover his temples. Seeing this, Ku Chi, who was inside the Pseudo-Moth, activated the Pseudo-Moth's ability again.
"Heart Nightmare Manifestation..."
Along with Ku Chi's murmur, four shadows appeared out of thin air around Edward, whose consciousness was somewhat confused. These four shadows quickly wriggled and deformed, and after a moment, they actually formed four dark Dream World entities!
These four Dream World entities, each with their own form, were a fat Light inquisitor with a solemn face holding a holy book, a sailor covered in blood, a native pirate woman wearing a snake-patterned robe, braided snake hair, and holding a scale blade sword, and Edward himself, so old that he was leaning on a cane and had lost all his teeth.
"Everyone in this village is suspected of colluding with a cult! All shall be executed by fire!" The obese inquisitor, clutching the holy scripture, declared the judgment while burning translucent flames towards Edward.
"Captain... save us! Save us! Please don't leave us here!" A blood-soaked sailor cried out, slashing his scimitar towards Edward.
"Blood Wave... you'll pay for what you did sooner or later!" The woman with snake braids said fiercely, slashing her snake scale sword towards Edward.
"It's useless... it's useless... no method works, everything is futile... all options are exhausted..." The even older Edward stumbled towards the main body of Edward.
"This..."
Facing the four dream bodies attacking him, Edward's eyes widened and he couldn't help but retreat several steps. While dodging the dream bodies' attacks, he condensed water swords and water blades and continuously counterattacked the four of them. However, unlike dealing with the Pseudo-Moth tentacles, less than a second after Edward dispersed these four dream bodies, they would automatically regenerate at other locations around Edward and continue attacking. Even if Edward moved at high speed to other places, these four black dream bodies would instantly teleport to his side like ghosts, following him like shadows. He couldn't dodge or destroy them, and their attacks could truly damage Edward's spirit.
Finally, after dodging for a while, Edward seemed to have discovered or realized something. He stood still and condensed water arrows again, but this time the water arrows were not aimed at the dream bodies around him, but at himself.
"Disappear... Illusion!"
After a sharp shout, Edward controlled the water arrows to shoot out rapidly, piercing his body, and simultaneously canceled his body's elementalization. Instantly, Edward's withered flesh was pierced by several of his own small water arrows. Rich blood flowed from the wounds. In an intense pain that came from his whole body, Edward's originally muddled spirit suddenly became much clearer, his previously shaky spiritual anchor stabilized again, and the black dream bodies that had been attacking him vanished into nothingness.
"Huff... huff... huff..."
Panting, after dispelling the harassment of the black dream bodies, the old pirate, covered in blood, slowly straightened up and raised his head to look at the sky again. His gaze pierced through the fog, and what he saw was the giant dream moth spreading its wings and flying away in the dark night sky.
Ku Chi knew that fighting Edward on his territory was impossible to win. Therefore, after releasing the Heart Demon Illusion on Edward, Ku Chi immediately controlled the Pseudo-Moth to escape. In the short time Edward was entangled by the black dream bodies, the Pseudo-Moth had already flown a super long distance, reaching the edge of Moncarlo main island, and was about to fly out of Moncarlo's range.
During this process, the Pseudo-Moth's already semi-transparent body began to become increasingly transparent, seeming to gradually disappear. This was because Ku Chi was making the Pseudo-Moth escape completely by temporarily entering the Dream World. On Moncarlo main island, the pervasive fog had the ability to prevent the Pseudo-Moth from completely escaping into the inner realm. He had to leave the range of Moncarlo island to successfully enter the inner realm.
"Don't even think about running..."
Facing this situation, Edward said coldly. While staring at the Pseudo-Moth in the distance that was about to escape, he took out a broken copper short staff from his body. Then Edward gripped the short staff tightly, and immediately, faint glowing marks appeared on the copper short staff.
As Edward made his move again, the sea around Moncarlo main island suddenly churned. Waves and huge swells rose and fell one after another, and the rumbling sound of the currents instantly became deafening.
Subsequently, on the surging sea, large water snakes with a diameter of seven or eight meters shot out from the surface, directly pouncing on the Pseudo-Moth that had just flown out of Moncarlo main island. Their speed was extremely fast, instantly rising to the Pseudo-Moth's altitude. Seeing this, Ku Chi immediately controlled the Pseudo-Moth's tentacles to strike at those water snakes. However, because there were too many and they were too large, the Pseudo-Moth was actually unable to deal with all of them in one go.
Instantly, more than ten water snakes shot up to the Pseudo-Moth's altitude together. These water snakes opened their huge mouths and bit at the Pseudo-Moth together. In an instant, the Pseudo-Moth was bitten simultaneously by more than ten huge mouths on various parts of its body, making it difficult to continue flying forward for a moment.
"What..."
Seeing the Pseudo-Moth bitten by the water snakes' huge mouths, Ku Chi's heart suddenly panicked. He wanted to control the Pseudo-Moth to try its best to break free, but because there were too many water snakes biting the Pseudo-Moth, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make the Pseudo-Moth break free. Instead, the Pseudo-Moth was at risk of being completely dragged down by these water snakes.
"You can't escape... This is my sea..."
Looking at the struggling Pseudo-Moth in the distance, Edward immediately tightened his restraint on it. In an instant, more water snakes emerged from the sea, biting at the Pseudo-Moth in the sky. Just as he said, on this territory he had managed for hundreds of years, he had an absolute home-field advantage. As long as he went all out, Ku Chi would not be able to escape from Moncarlo.
Seeing more large water snakes attacking him from the sea, Ku Chi felt a wave of despair for a moment. Even after summoning the complete Pseudo-Moth, he still couldn't escape from Edward's grasp. On Moncarlo island, he couldn't enter the Dream World, and in the waters outside the island, Edward had set up a killing blow. The sea was even more his home ground. Under these circumstances, it was basically extremely difficult for Ku Chi to escape.
"Boom!!"
Just as Ku Chi was feeling despair, among the large water snakes biting the Pseudo-Moth, the long body of one of them suddenly experienced a violent explosion. Intense flames and shockwaves erupted in mid-air. A large section of the large water snake's body was directly blown apart by the explosion. The upper and lower ends of its entire body were connected only by a thin column of water, looking precarious.
Seeing this scene, both Edward and Ku Chi were momentarily stunned, wondering what had happened. Where did this explosion come from? Neither of the opposing sides should have similar abilities, right?
Just as Edward was suspecting if this was some talisman used by Ku Chi, he suddenly heard a smaller rumbling sound coming from the island. Then, after a moment, another explosion sounded. The location of the explosion was the giant water snake that had just been blown up. The thin water column connecting the upper and lower ends of the water snake was broken in this explosion. After losing contact with the sea surface, the head of the entire giant water snake turned into ordinary seawater and fell into the sea.
"This is... artillery fire!"
After hearing the sound clearly this time, Edward immediately realized what had happened. Someone had shelled the water snakes he summoned with cannonballs! And judging by the sound of the cannons, it was from the coastal defense guns in the coastal defense fortifications he had built on Moncarlo island!
"That guy... when did he remotely dream-walk the troops in the coastal defense fortress! He still has such an ability!?"
After realizing the truth of the situation, Edward suddenly thought this in his heart. His first thought was that his soldiers had been controlled by Ku Chi. In fact, Ku Chi at this moment was also wondering where the explosion just came from. He hadn't even recognized it as cannon fire.
"This is... what happened?"
At this very moment, on the strategic key points at the edge of Moncarlo main island and the surrounding islets and reefs, within one of the countless sturdy coastal defense fortresses built by Edward and his descendants, the city guards were all lying concentrated on the open ground outside the fortress, sleeping soundly. On the gun platforms inside the fortress, several men in different clothes were tacitly operating the heavy cannons, aiming them at the huge sea snakes extending from the sea surface in the distance.
Not far from the gunners, several men were handling cannonballs. Some of them skillfully used professional tools to dismantle the warheads of the cannonballs, take out a tiny bit of charge, put a small insect inside, and then reassemble the warhead. Then they sent the shell and propellant together to the heavy coastal cannons for loading. Similar scenes could be seen in many coastal defense fortresses in Moncarlo at this time.
In the near sea of Moncarlo, Dorothy hovered above the sea surface, overpaying Spirituality, fully controlling dozens or hundreds of Corpse Puppets to perform similar operations. Under her control, countless dark cannon muzzles were aimed at the distant sea snakes.
"Sorry... Captain... this moth is my prey, I can't let it fall here."
With a slight smile, Dorothy murmured, and then she gave an order in her heart, followed by the simultaneous firing of all cannons.