Heirs of the Seven Swords of the Qin Dynasty

Chapter 1964: The Seven Constellations of the Azure Dragon (Eleven)

While everyone on the mirage could not see, hear, or feel anything, a stream of fire fell from the sky, cutting through the fog and heading straight for the mirage that was roaring and screaming.

It probably also felt threatened. Its shell, which was stained with an unknown liquid that was probably its blood, kept opening and closing, spewing out thick fog one after another.

The newly emitted mist was thicker than the fog that had previously filled the sea. There was almost no white left, only black and gray.

The thick fog spread and expanded rapidly, and in the blink of an eye it enveloped the falling fire that was Gu Xun's incarnation.

But this did not stop Gu Xun's attack, nor did it slow him down at all, it only ignited an even more intense fire.

Seeing that he was about to suffer a serious disaster, the mirage stopped its meaningless exhalation of mist and started to "inhale" instead.

All the white mist was quickly swallowed back into the mirage's "belly" under the influence of the terrifying suction from the clam shell. Even Gu Xun was affected by the suction and rushed straight to the clam mouth where it inhaled air.

In just a blink of an eye, most of the fog that spread over the sea was sucked away.

Immediately afterwards, the flowing fire transformed by Gu Xun fell from the sky and smashed straight into the mirage's mouth.

After a hissing sound caused by the collision of water and fire, the mirage's clam mouth, which had been opening and closing continuously, stopped moving and weakly squeezed together. Finally, the whole body slowly sank to the bottom of the sea, leaving only some clam shell fragments floating on the sea.

Gu Xun rushed out of the sea with a whoosh, glanced at the sea surface, and after making sure that there was nothing worthy of attention, he turned into a stream of fire again and returned to the mirage.

At the same time, with the complete death of the mirage, the remaining fog on the sea quickly dissipated in just a cup of tea.

The fog dissipated, and the people trapped in the mirage woke up... Of course, many people would rather drown themselves in the illusion.

After waking up, Xinghun glanced around, frowned and said gloomily, "The fog has dissipated... Is the monster dead?"

The Moon Goddess's expression also looked bad, probably because she couldn't accept that she had suffered such a big loss in the field of illusion.

She replied in a cold tone, "Probably... The Cloud-Breaking Crossbow must have severely damaged it, but it failed to kill it on the spot, so it died of its injuries afterwards."

Xinghun's eyes kept scanning the sea surface, wondering, "But...where's the body? That thing should be quite big, right?"

"Perhaps it sank into the sea." Moon Goddess replied calmly, "Drive the boat closer and search it, and you will find out."

Xinghun glanced at her and said nothing more. He turned around and went directly to the control room.

The Moon Goddess walked to the edge of the deck, looked at the sea that had returned to calm, and some doubts arose in her heart.

Theoretically speaking, her and Xinghun's guesses should be correct and reasonable.

But when she thought that the mirage was a legendary "demon beast" that they had never seen before, had never encountered, and had no idea about, she felt that things were going too smoothly.

As a monster, is its counterattack on the verge of death just to pull them all into the illusion?

This illusion didn't even control them to kill each other, it just let them go crazy.

Although it has achieved the effect of social death to a certain extent, its lethality is still too low.

Is this the only extent that Mirage can achieve? Or is it that it didn't have time to control the illusion to the next stage?
If it's the former...it would be inconsistent with the fog's ability to instantly pull everyone into the illusion.

The Moon Goddess was not very accepting of this.

If it's the latter... it means that this monster doesn't seem to have any brains. It doesn't even have a clear idea of ​​how badly injured it is. It killed itself halfway through its counterattack.

It was still hard for the Moon Goddess to accept.

As a 'monster', its abilities and intelligence shouldn't be so poor, right?
Of course, it is also possible that the Moon Goddess overestimated it.

After all, they had no intuitive understanding of the strange beasts hidden in the fog.

The so-called "mirage" identity was just something they forcibly assigned to it based on myths and legends, after finding a suitable name.

No one can tell whether it is right or not.

Maybe... it is just a sea beast with special abilities. It has nothing to do with a monster and does not have intelligence beyond that of other animals. Apart from being able to inhale and exhale fog with hallucinogenic effects, it has no other special abilities.

While the Moon Goddess was daydreaming, the Mirage finally started moving again, slowly heading towards the location where the Mirage was originally locked.

In order to avoid missing important clues, Mirage drove slowly throughout the entire journey, and it took more than a quarter of an hour to travel a short distance of just a few miles.

The subsequent search and salvage phase took nearly two hours, and the sun almost disappeared completely from the sea level.

Fortunately, they not only wasted a lot of time, but also gained little.

To be more precise, some fragments of the mirage's shell were salvaged.

Looking at the large and small pieces of debris on the deck, Xinghun crossed his arms, looking unhappy, "After all this trouble, this is all you get?"

The person in charge of the salvage work on the side trembled and hurriedly defended himself:

"Replying to Lord Xinghun, we have searched the entire sea area nearby and found these. There is absolutely nothing left out!"

Mirage does not have deep-sea salvage equipment.

It’s not that the Gongshu family can’t do it, but no one has thought of it at all.

Yun Zhongjun went out to sea to look for the fairy mountain, not to salvage a shipwreck, so of course no one would specially prepare equipment for underwater salvage.

Without special equipment, the people responsible for the search and salvage would definitely not be able to find the mirage beast's corpse that had already sunk to the bottom of the sea.

They couldn't even see a shadow!

"So is this ghost thing dead or not?" Xing Hun sneered and asked the person who was reporting.

The other party broke out in a cold sweat, but didn't dare to say a word.

He couldn't guarantee that.

Yun Zhongjun picked up a palm-sized piece of debris and tested its hardness. He found that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make it deform in any way visible to the naked eye. He threw it back to the ground and said:

"It seems that these are the shells of the 'Mirage'... or are they scales?"

With Yun Zhongjun interrupting, Xinghun was too lazy to embarrass the salvage worker. He waved his hand to signal him to get out, and continued with Yun Zhongjun's words:

"It can't be scales. It's just a whole piece of shell."

"Some of these fragments can still be put together."

Although it's not a perfect fit, it's correct judging by the edge breaks.

Yun Zhongjun looked at the large piece of wreckage on the ground. Some were only the size of a palm, some were as big as a human face, and the largest was even nearly ten feet long.

Based on these fragments, Yun Zhongjun judged that the size of the mirage must be at least ten feet long:

"It seems that this guy is quite big."

"No matter how big it is, these are all that are left now." Xinghun replied calmly with his eyes downcast, obviously not satisfied with the result. But he couldn't do anything about it, because the mirage's body had obviously either sunk into the sea or escaped - the latter was relatively unlikely, and it would not fall into their hands anyway.

The Moon Goddess didn't seem to care at all. Seeing that Xinghun was about to have a manic attack, she didn't know whether to persuade or add fuel to the fire and replied:
"The monster's affairs have nothing to do with us, why should Lord Xinghun care?"

Xinghun looked at the Moon Goddess and pulled the corner of his mouth with a fake smile, "Lord Moon Goddess is loyal and always keeps our goal in mind. Yunzhongjun, you should learn from her!"

Although Yun Zhongjun had already decided to distance himself from the Moon Goddess, he did not dare to join Xinghun in confronting her head-on. Upon hearing this, he could only smile awkwardly and remain silent.

The Moon Goddess was too lazy to pay attention to Xinghun and turned away, leaving only one sentence:

"Keep sailing!"

Xing Hun stared at the back of Yue Shen with a gloomy expression, and became more and more certain of his guess.

There must be something wrong with the mirage!

He didn't know what was wrong exactly, but he was sure that there must be some situation on the ship that shouldn't exist and was extremely unfavorable to him.

Because the Moon Goddess's attitude towards him was strange.

In the past, the two of them were at loggerheads, with Star Soul being more aggressive and Moon Goddess being more defensive.

The Moon God knows more than the Star Soul, so the Star Soul must take the initiative to try to get the information he needs from the Moon God, or just kill him.

On the other hand, the Moon Goddess needs to be on guard against the Star Soul, but also wants to get rid of the person once and for all.

It’s different now. The Star Soul’s aggressiveness has not diminished, and has even become more urgent as the Mirage sets sail.

But the Moon Goddess began to simply ignore him.

He neither makes any move nor responds to any challenge. He just shrinks away every day and ignores everything except the necessary work.

She seemed to no longer care about the outcome of Mirage's voyage, and she was no longer worried that Star Soul would take the opportunity to steal the results of Mirage's voyage.

No matter how aggressive the Star Soul is, it is impossible for it to break into the Moon Goddess's bedroom and fight her to the death. It can only stare and do nothing.

This is obviously not normal.

Xinghun didn't believe that the Moon Goddess really didn't care about the outcome of Mirage's voyage, so there was only one possibility - she was sure that she could seize the fruits of victory in the end!

This sudden change in mentality must be caused by some major change in reality - what Xinghun wants to figure out now is what exactly happened.

What's even more terrible is, why didn't he notice anything wrong?

How did the Moon Goddess hide this from me?
Many questions arose in Xinghun's mind, but they soon disappeared.

He may not have much time left.

It is unlikely that he will be able to find the answer to the problem that he couldn't figure out before in a short period of time, so he must change his thinking!

Thinking of this, the balance in Xinghun's heart gradually tilted to one side...

A hint of determination and ruthlessness flashed in his enchanting eyes. Xing Hun loosened his hands that had been clenched unconsciously, then turned his back and left.

Seeing this, Yun Zhongjun hurriedly followed.

He didn't notice the subtle changes in Xinghun, but he also realized that something was wrong with Yueshen - and that was why he made up his mind to lean further towards Xinghun.

He had no control over the changes in the Moon Goddess, and faced with the unknown, he could only choose someone he knew better as a teammate.

………………

When the Moon Goddess returned to her bedroom, Yan Fei had been waiting for her there for a long time.

"Did you gain anything?" Yan Fei asked.

The Moon Goddess shook her head and replied calmly, "Except for some debris that are probably the shells of mirage beasts, and some strange liquids on the sea surface, there is nothing."

"We can't even be sure whether the mirage is dead or alive."

"Do you think it's possible for it to still be alive?" Yan Fei raised her eyebrows slightly and asked with a hint of playfulness.

The Moon Goddess nodded slightly, "Of course... We know nothing about it, so naturally everything is possible."

Everything that happened before can be explained by the situation that 'the severely injured Mirage launched a dying counterattack but died before it could really complete the counterattack', but it can also be explained by the situation that 'the severely injured Mirage spread fog to prevent them from launching further attacks in order to buy a chance to escape'.

Both make sense and are possible. After all, they don't know what abilities the mirage has, nor do they know how intelligent it is.

Yan Fei thought about it carefully and felt that there was nothing wrong with what Yue Shen said.

Without considering the interference of additional special factors, the life or death of the mirage is indeed an unknown.

The Moon Goddess then asked her back, "Were you also trapped in an illusion at that time?"

Yan Fei shook her head, "No, but I was greatly restricted and could not observe the situation carefully."

"So you're not sure if something special happened at that time?"

Yan Fei shook her head again. "The time that the mirage was shrouded in fog was not long. Before I could even try to take action, everything was over."

Hearing this answer, the Moon Goddess fell silent.

The reason why she and Xinghun both had great doubts about Shen's death was because everything ended too quickly.

From the time the mirage was shrouded in fog and they all fell into the illusion, to the time the fog dissipated and the mirage beast disappeared, less than an incense stick of time had passed.

It's a monster after all. Is this the only time it can hold on after being injured?
Or was it that the injuries caused by the Cloud-Breaking Crossbow were too severe?
The most difficult part about this matter is not that the mirage's life or death is in doubt, but that the probability of each possibility being true is low, or in other words... very average.

The Moon Goddess could only put the matter aside for the time being and turned to Yan Fei and said, "Xinghun should be suspicious."

"Let him be." Yan Fei didn't care about it at all.

Xinghun... has the strength but has lost his brain. However, his strength does not constitute an advantage over Yueshen and Yanfei.

Because of hatred, he pursued power wholeheartedly, but was deceived by Donghuang Taiyi. He had no idea what he was chasing and just moved forward blindly. To describe him, he could be described as a sad clown using a term that Gu Xun once mentioned to Yan Fei.

In Yan Fei's view, his ending was already doomed - when Mirage reached the end of its journey, she would send him off and end his sad life!
"A single star soul is nothing, but I'm worried that the woman in Sakura Prison is not honest." Moon Goddess expressed her concerns.

Yan Fei thought for a moment and replied, "She... don't worry. Even if she has some small thoughts, she knows her limits."

The Moon Goddess glanced at her sister and asked with a sneer, "You actually think a gambler who is about to lose everything will have a sense of propriety?"

"If she crosses the line, I will kill her!" Yan Fei replied in a cold and decisive tone.

This answer made Yue Shen's face change, "Kill her? If she dies..."

At the end of the conversation, Moon God suddenly took back the words on the tip of his tongue and changed his words, "Then you might as well kill Xinghun now!"