Volume 2: Shenzhou Academy & The Battle of Venice
Chapter 182
Raid on Heavenly Port Island
The November sea wind lashed in violent, bone-chilling gusts against the jagged reefs off the coast of Whale Sea.
The pitch-black night spilled across the expanse like a jar of spilled Indian ink, swallowing the entire horizon. The sky was completely devoid of moon and stars; heavy, leaden clouds roiled just above the water’s surface, pressing the atmosphere down to a suffocating, maddening degree. Pitch-black waves surged upward, crashing violently against the towering, rugged granite monoliths, bursting into white foam before instantly vanishing into the deep, gaping darkness of the midnight ocean.
Amidst this raging torrent of rough waves, five figures cloaked in jet-black nocturnal robes glided across the undulating sea surface without producing a single ripple of shockwave.
Lin Feng’s boots tapped lightly against the crest of a silvery wave. Thanks to the refined operation of external Wind-type magical energy combined with a layer of magical mist enveloping the soles of his shoes, his body weight was as light as a goose feather. He raised his left fist, signaling the entire team to halt immediately behind a hammer-shaped, protruding submerged reef.
The four figures behind him immediately pressed their backs against the moss-slicked stone wall, simultaneously and thoroughly withdrawing every trace of magical energy circulating within their meridians.
“We’ve arrived.”
Lin Feng lowered his voice to a pitch that could only travel through the ultra-short acoustic vibrations of his team’s magical earpieces. His gaze pierced through the thick, salty sea mist, staring dead-ahead at the towering, looming structure roughly four hundred meters away.
That was Heavenly Port Island.
It had originally been a military naval fortress outpost of the Shenzhou military over a century ago. After the coastal defense line was pushed back to Whale Sea Port and the major lighthouse cluster, this ancient fortress had been abandoned to the erosion of storms for a hundred years. Viewed from afar in the dark night, the entire island resembled a prehistoric behemoth crouching amidst the ocean. The thick, dark-gray stone walls, a meter thick, were mottled with cracks, while countless barnacles and moss clung tightly, forming ghastly, uneven patches. On the watchtower bastions protruding over the cliff edge, several rusted heavy cannons lowered their barrels toward the sea like withered, paralyzed zombie arms.
Externally, it looked desolate and ruined, no different from a floating graveyard.
Yet, under the sharp vision of an elite mage, Lin Feng clearly saw faint purple-black threads of magical energy writhing around the stone crevices, intertwining densely like a giant spiderweb sealing off the entire island.
“The Netherworld Church has occupied this place for at least half a year.” Ye Qingwan leaned close to Lin Feng, her long hair neatly tied behind her nape fluttering slightly in the wind. Her voice was as soft as a mosquito’s hum yet filled with tension: “According to the declassified military map Principal Xiao Yan gave us, this fortress has three surface levels and at least five subterranean armory basements burrowed deep into the bedrock. But the dark magical energy radiating from that reef... is five times denser than the reconnaissance report.”
“They aren’t just using this place as a transit station for smuggled magic tools.” Han Yue leaned against the stone wall; her shimmering platinum hair, though hidden beneath her cloak’s hood, still radiated an icy, frosty aura. Her deep blue lapis lazuli eyes narrowed slightly: “I smell the stench of rotting blood mixed in the sea wind. A very heavy stench... This is the sign of a heretical sacrificial altar.”
Xie Zhaoyuan gripped a light-diffusion crystal sphere tightly within his palm, lowering his voice in a reminder: “The reef zone from the water’s edge to the base of the city wall is a dead zone. The cultists are extremely fond of scattering magical poison traps and dark explosive mines. If we trigger a single alarm point, the entire island will detonate instantly, and the hostages inside will be executed before reinforcements can arrive.”
“Don’t worry, they won’t get a chance to ring the bell.”
Lin Feng took a deep breath. His hand gently touched his chest, where the Archaic Dragon Talisman was pressed tightly against his flesh.
The moment his fingertips touched the ancient coiling dragon carvings, a warm current of heat rushed straight into his spiritual sea. The Dark Shadow System Star Nebula in his chest trembled slightly. Seven glittering purple-black Star-to-Stars connected into a flawless, pristine Star Orbit.
“Shadow Escape: Void.”
Lin Feng’s figure faded instantly.
Under the miraculous blessing of the Dragon Talisman’s dragon aura, his entire body dissolved into a thin, intangible black mist, gliding smoothly just above the sharp, submerged rocks.
Simultaneously, Lin Feng’s right eye flashed with a faint golden speck of light. The absolute magical energy sensing capability of the Archaic Dragon Talisman was fully activated!
Within his field of vision, the dark world abruptly transformed. The submerged reefs protruding from the water’s edge were no longer inert rocks, but were densely packed with pitch-black qi buried beneath them.
Three steps northwest of his feet: A ‘Soul-Corrupting Thunder’ buried under damp sand, connected to a trapwire as thin as a hair.
Five steps angled to the right: Three bone-corroding, highly venomous spikes known as ‘Dark Demon Needles’ lay waiting; the slightest trigger of magical pressure would launch them into the air to shred the target.
Dense, layer upon layer, forming a deadly minefield stretching across two hundred meters of rocky shoreline!
Lin Feng did not hesitate for even half a beat. He glided like a phantom through the narrow crevices of the death zone. Every time he passed a dead point, his fingertips flicked out a wisp of faint dark breath, forming ink-colored fluorescent spots visible only to teammates wearing magical filter goggles.
“Step in my footsteps. Absolutely do not deviate by even half an inch.” Lin Feng’s voice transmitted directly into each person’s mind.
The four behind him held their breaths, carefully placing each exact footstep onto the safe spots mapped out by Lin Feng. Gu Xiaowei walked in the fourth position, her hands clenched tightly, palms drenched in sweat. She clearly felt the destructive magical energy slumbering right beneath the soles of her feet, separated by barely a hand’s breadth. A single misstep, and the dark flames and corrosive toxins would tear anyone into absolute shreds.
The leading teenager’s back was as sturdy as an unassailable bastion. Lin Feng’s every step was unhurried, astonishingly precise, guiding the team through every fatal crevice.
In less than three minutes, the five-member squad safely crossed the entire two-meter-plus magical minefield, pressing against the base of the sheer cliff nearly thirty meters high beneath the fortress.
The sea wind here shrieked through the granite fissures, producing terrifying sounds like wailing ghosts.
Atop the cliff edge protruded a reinforced concrete guard post discolored to a yellowish hue. Inside the guard post, illuminated by the faint, dreary glow of ghostly green magic torches, three cultists clad in black robes wrapping their faces tightly leaned against the iron railing. Embroidered on their chests was the insignia of a bleeding eye entwined by a deep-sea serpent—the symbol of the Black Water sub-sect of the Netherworld Church.
One held a heavy-duty magic crossbow loaded with a lightning bolt arrow, while the other two kept their hands resting perpetually on an iron lever connected to the alarm bell hanging from the center of the guard post ceiling. The moment any abnormal magical energy fluctuation entered their sight, the bell would instantly ring out, alerting the entire subterranean stronghold.
“Thirty-two meters distance.” Ye Qingwan raised her head, her fingers trembling slightly as she prepared to condense a wind blade: “The wind is blowing against the ocean; if we use long-range magic, the sound of the wind-splitting might alert the two inside.”
“Leave it to me.”
A cold, crisp voice echoed in their ears.
Han Yue stepped forward by half a step. Her expression was cold without a ripple, her deep ice-blue pupils reflecting the silhouette of the guard post atop the cliff.
She did not chant aloud, nor did any brilliant Star Orbit halos erupt around her body to reveal her position. As an Ice-type prodigy who had reached the peak of the Intermediate Level, her mastery over elemental ice had reached an ethereal, transcendent realm.
She raised her slender, snowy-white palm toward the guard post, her fingers curling inward.
“Ice Lock: Breath of Nirvana.”
Swish!
No howling wind-splitting sound, no blinding flash of light!
An invisible wave of frigid air at absolute zero temperature instantly enveloped the entire guard post on the cliff top. The speed at which this cold current spread surpassed human neural reflexes.
The cultist who was mid-yawn hadn’t even had time to close his mouth when a blue-green mist plunged deep into his throat. The blood in his aorta, the fluid in his eyeballs, the breath just exhaled from his chest... everything froze instantly into sharp ice crystals in less than a tenth of a second!
The other two maintained their postures with their hands touching the alarm lever, but their entire bodies had turned into two transparent ice statues shimmering under the pitch-black night.
Not a single scream, not a single drop of blood fell, even the magical iron bell was coated in a half-inch-thick layer of ice, thoroughly losing its ability to vibrate!
The entire process of eliminating the three sentries took a mere two seconds, chillingly silent!
Xie Zhaoyuan swallowed a mouthful of saliva, his heart filled with awe. The Ice Phoenix’s Divine Eye lived up to its legendary reputation; this single strike required not only formidable magical energy but also micro-level elemental compression and damage range control of terrifying proportions.
“The path to the summit is clear.” Han Yue withdrew her sleeve, turning to look at Lin Feng: “But the main iron gate of the fortress has been welded shut with magical titanium alloy, outfitted with Intermediate-level magical boundary barriers. If we use Fire or Lightning magic to breach the gate, the explosion will echo for ten miles.”
Lin Feng nodded, his gaze directing toward the base of the fortress wall covered in thick moss:
“We aren’t taking the front door. Gu Xiaowei, it’s your turn.”
Gu Xiaowei smiled with confidence as she stepped up to the base of the ancient stone wall. The young girl squatted down, brushing away the rotten moss and barnacles clinging to the large granite slab beneath her feet, and gently pressed both of her petite palms flat against the damp earth.
Within her spiritual sea, the brown-yellow Earth-type Star Nebula blazed brilliantly. Soft magical veins akin to underground currents of the mother earth threaded deep into the geological structure of the island.
“Earth Wave: Realm Control!”
A faintly golden magical ripple radiated from beneath Gu Xiaowei’s palms, spreading deep into the earth with every steady heartbeat. The ground beneath the five people’s feet vibrated faintly within a tight radius of barely three square meters, thoroughly isolated from the surrounding area.
“Found it!” Gu Xiaowei’s eyes lit up brightly: “About four meters below ground, there’s an ancient underground drainage tunnel leading straight from the hillside into the second basement level of the fortress. Although the outer drainage opening was sealed shut with rubble and magical cement by the Netherworld Church, the internal structure is still intact!”
“Open the path, with the smallest possible movement.” Lin Feng instructed in a deep voice.
“Understood, captain!”
Gu Xiaowei’s hands rotated over the ground. Under her exquisite magical manipulation, the rigid granite became as soft as liquid mud. The massive stone blocks automatically separated to both sides smoothly without producing any screeching friction noise, revealing a pitch-black vertical well opening leading into the deep subterranean abyss.
A wave of damp, moldy air reeking heavily of sewage surged straight up their noses.
“Move!”
Lin Feng did not hesitate for even a second, his figure agilely leaping down into the tunnel entrance first.
The other four closely followed. The moment the last person, Gu Xiaowei, slipped inside the drainage tunnel, she gently waved her hand, and the mud and stone above immediately rose, sealing the pit opening back to its flat state without leaving any trace of disturbance on the surface.
Inside the underground drainage tunnel, it was pitch-black.
The surrounding stone walls were slick with green moss and black sludge accumulated over centuries. Black sewage reached up to their ankles, and every step required using sound-dampening wind magic to squelch quietly.
Xie Zhaoyuan raised his index finger; a pea-sized milky-white speck of light rested upon his fingertip: ‘Light Drop: Faint Light’. The light spot emitted only a dim halo within a half-meter radius around his body, just enough to clearly illuminate the rugged stone steps ahead without letting light leak through the ventilation gaps.
The squad moved cautiously in an arrowhead formation. The deeper they penetrated the stone mountain, the steeper the tunnel sloped downward, burrowing deep into the fortress’s core.
And right at this moment, a repulsive transformation began to manifest.
The musty smell of moss and mud was gradually overpowered by a stench so suffocating and foul it made one retch. It wasn’t the ordinary smell of sewer mud, but the reek of uncoagulated fresh blood mixed with the smell of rotting flesh!
Streaks of thick, dark-red liquid began oozing from the cracks in the granite arched ceiling, dripping plop-plop onto the black water beneath their feet.
Drip... drip... drip...
Each falling droplet of blood created crimson ripples across the muddy water surface.
Gu Xiaowei had to cover her nose tightly, her delicate face turning pale with nausea. Ye Qingwan waved her hand slightly, summoning a gentle purifying breeze that swirled around the team’s noses to help filter out the toxic, foul air.
Yet, what made their scalps tingle wasn’t just the smell of blood.
Grrr... Rumble... Rumble...
From the deepest subterranean level below, muffled, monstrous roars began echoing through the thick stone walls. The sounds of claws frantically scratching against metal shrieked with metallic screeches, accompanied by the heavy, wheezing breaths of unusually large creatures.
That was the roar of deep-sea fierce beasts!
Moreover, it wasn’t just one, but dozens of them being agitated by something, emitting outbursts of violent, bloodthirsty sounds!
“They’re raising demons at the bottom of the fortress...” Ye Qingwan clenched her fists, her knuckles turning white: “What on earth is the Netherworld Church plotting on Heavenly Port Island?!”
“They’re preparing a blood sacrifice to open a large-scale sea beast summoning gate.”
Lin Feng spoke coldly, his voice laden with bone-chilling killing intent.
Through the Archaic Dragon Talisman, he clearly perceived wave after wave of monstrous resentment and monstrous evil intent surging turbulently at the end of the tunnel. The resentment of wrongfully slain souls combined with the dark magical energy of the Netherworld Church to form a pitch-black vortex of death qi, frantically eroding every inch of the fortress’s earth veins.
These cultists didn’t just want revenge against him; they were conspiring toward a disaster even more terrifying than the Bian’an City incident of the past!
The squad continued to snake past two underground guard posts on the third basement level. Thanks to flawless coordination, Lin Feng used shadow assassination to snap the necks of two patrolling cultists, while Han Yue instantly froze their corpses so the blood wouldn’t spill onto the floor and cause a strange odor.
Five minutes later, they stood before the dead end of the drainage tunnel.
Blocking them was a gigantic, sturdy cast-steel door standing six meters tall and four meters wide. Welded onto the door surface were thigh-thick steel beams, carved with writhing blood-red curse runes resembling wriggling maggots.
From behind the steel door, chaotic noise spilled out clearly: the muffled evil chanting of hundreds of people in black robes, the sound of leather whips lashing flesh to shred the night, the desperate weeping of women and children, and the sound of boiling water bubbling like an infernal oil cauldron!
“All the hostages... are inside this door.”
Xie Zhaoyuan pressed his ear against the gap in the steel door, his chest heaving violently, flames of fury burning in the eyes of the ordinarily composed young master.
Lin Feng stepped up before the steel door. He didn’t say a word, but his right hand clenched tightly into a fist.
Sparks of spiderweb-like purple-black lightning began quietly crawling across his arm, intertwining with the scorching red heat of Scarlet Flame Flowing Fire. The Archaic Dragon Talisman on his chest beat in rapid succession, like an ancient primordial dragon roaring to devour all external heretical fiends!
“No need to hide anymore.”
Lin Feng turned his head to look at the four teammates behind him, his gaze as sharp as a newly unsheathed sword:
“Prepare for battle. Slaughter every last one of them!”
“Understood!!”
The four replied in unison, the magical energy within their bodies simultaneously erupting to its absolute limit!
BOOM ——!!
Lin Feng unleashed a straight punch directly at the weakest joint of the steel door’s latch!
The heaven-shaking, earth-shattering kinetic force of Violent Dragon Whale combined with exploding thunder and fire instantly detonated. The half-meter-thick cast-steel door was caved in by a massive fist-shaped dent, then collapsed with a deafening crash, scattering glowing red metal fragments deep into the subterranean hall!
Smoke, dust, and churning heat blew away the damp mist.
Five figures stepped over the shattered steel door, boldly charging straight into the grand hall!
Yet...
The moment Lin Feng and his teammates’ gazes swept across the entire interior of the underground grand hall, the breath of all five caught in their throats.
The scene before them far exceeded the most ruthless imagination of the mortal realm!
It was a gigantic domed underground space hollowing out the entire mountain rock of Heavenly Port Island, as vast and magnificent as a miniaturized ancient Roman Colosseum! The soaring, vertical stone walls were lit by hundreds of magical torches burning with flickering ghostly green flames.
Yet, what reigned at the absolute center of this underground colosseum... was a gigantic pool with a diameter exceeding fifty meters!
The water in the pool was not crystal-clear seawater.
It was a Pool of Blood, crimson, thick, and utterly foul!
The dark red blood within the pool was bubbling furiously under the influence of a dark array carved deep at the bottom of the pool. Bursting crimson blood bubbles popped on the water’s surface, releasing plumes of blood-colored smoke that drifted in the air, condensing into ghastly, distorted, screaming skull shapes. Beneath the boiling blood, the white skeletons of countless creatures and humans could be faintly seen floating and sinking.
And most terrifying of all was the space surrounding the blood pool!
On towering granite pillars and thick iron chains crisscrossing the colosseum’s vaulted ceiling, over three hundred people were bound tightly, suspended mid-air!
They were innocent citizens living in the coastal slums of Whale Sea, sailors from merchant fleets that had mysteriously vanished over the past few months, and even gaunt, emaciated women and children reduced to skin and bones! All were in a dying state, their lips cracked and parched, their eyes glazed over from exhaustion and utter terror.
Pierced into the wrists and ankles of every single hostage was a black metallic magical conduit tube. Thick, crimson fresh blood slowly flowed from their bodies through the conduit tubes, dripping drop by drop into the boiling blood pool below to nourish the evil array!
Some had completely run out of blood, their withered bodies hanging like mummies dangling in the wind. The survivors could only emit weak, broken moans, like wretched souls awaiting the moment of being completely devoured by demons.
Hundreds of black-robed cultists of the Netherworld Church knelt around the edge of the blood pool, their mouths muttering bizarre sacrificial chants.
And right atop the dark marble dais opposite the entrance, a figure draped in a deep blue long cloak embroidered with ghostly serpent patterns slowly turned around.
Beneath the hooded cowl, a pair of blood-red eyes like those of a poisonous snake stared intently at the five individuals who had just broken through the door. The corners of his mouth curled into a cruel smile, his hoarse voice rasping like metal scraping against stone:
“Little rats of Shenzhou Academy... you’re too late.”
“This ten-thousand-spirit blood cauldron... only lacks the blood of an Intermediate-level peak genius like you to complete the ritual welcoming the Demon God!”
The air in the entire underground hall suddenly froze!
Monstrous killing intent surging from the boiling blood pool immediately surged forward, locking onto the five members of the raid team!