Arrogant and conceited, cold and ruthless.
Tserriednich, who had believed he could seize the throne and trample all the useless fools of the world underfoot, now lay on the ground like a discarded rag, devoid of life.
Morrow's gaze was lowered, his expression impassive as he looked at the corpse.
Nen users with such extreme personalities often had a high chance of leaving behind powerful Post-Mortem Nen.
However, several seconds passed, and Tserriednich's body showed no unusual signs.
A pity. If his Guardian Spirit Beast were still here, the probability of Post-Mortem Nen manifesting would have been quite high.
Like Nasubi Hui Guo Rou, Tserriednich was filled with negative emotions before his death, yet he too failed to leave behind Post-Mortem Nen.
The probability was, after all, too low.
Morrow retracted his gaze and activated Astral Step. His figure vanished in an instant, reappearing on the deck the next moment.
At this time, the deck was a gruesome scene, awash with blood.
The Kakin soldiers who had been severely wounded but were still capable of fighting had all stubbornly pursued him into the ship's cabins, showing no fear of death.
Others, who were barely breathing, could only lie where they had fallen, unable to move.
When Morrow appeared, the medical team in charge of the Black Whale's top deck was in the middle of providing emergency treatment to these heavily injured individuals.
Just then, a soldier who was still conscious suddenly saw Morrow reappear and began to struggle excitedly.
His reaction quickly drew the attention of others.
Soon, the medical personnel and the remaining soldiers spotted Morrow's return to the deck. For a moment, everyone was terrified, and no one dared to make a rash move. Morrow, however, paid them no mind. His body shot into the sky like an arrow.
Almost simultaneously, from within the clouds, a massive figure plummeted downward.
It was Chimera.
It dived toward the Black Whale, deftly turning in mid-air to steadily catch Morrow, allowing him to land comfortably on its broad back. "Roar!"
After catching its master, it raised its sharp, angular head and let out a joyous, resounding cry that pierced the clouds.
Then, it unfurled its sky-blotting wings, stirring up fierce gales as it flew swiftly toward the six continents.
On the top deck of the Black Whale, only dazed gazes remained, staring for a long time at the colossal shadow gradually receding into the distance.
—--
Morrow sat cross-legged between the scales on Chimera's back, his arms folded as he gazed at the wolf-shaped Guardian Spirit Beast standing silently beside him. Earlier, while he was dealing with the Post-Mortem Nen information stream from the Lotus Anchorite in the Sacrificial Altar room, this Guardian Spirit Beast had proactively blocked the gunfire from Tserriednich's Personal Guards for him.
Although the aura output he had at the time was sufficient to withstand the gunshots, the Guardian Spirit Beast's action confirmed a common trait it shared with the other Kakin princes' Guardian Spirit Beasts.
That is, regardless of whether an external attack truly threatened the host, the Guardian Spirit Beast would be the first to bear its full brunt.
In truth, this was the most powerful trait of a Guardian Spirit Beast, rather than the Nen abilities they were tailor-made to provide for their hosts.
"I still know nothing about you."
Morrow stared at the pulsating azure flames in the wolf spirit's bone eye sockets and suddenly spoke.
Unlike the Kakin Guardian Spirit Beasts, this wolf spirit was visible to Morrow, its host, from the moment of its birth, and its intelligence was clearly higher. So now, upon hearing Morrow's words, the wolf spirit abruptly drew near, lowering its head in front of him.
It could not speak, but with this gesture, it indicated for Morrow to touch the stellar cross mark on its forehead.
Morrow understood the wolf spirit's meaning and immediately reached out to lightly touch the mark.
In that instant, information about its ability surged into his mind through the point of contact.
"Oh?"
Morrow raised an eyebrow slightly, effortlessly grasping all the information related to the wolf spirit.
"As expected, the ability materials provided by the Seed Urn allowed you to be born, but..." After reading the relevant information, Morrow sighed softly, his tone a little helpless. "I have indeed been thinking about developing a 'space-type ability' and 'linking to an Unexplored Land' recently, but for you to directly manifest this possibility still feels a bit strange."
Through the transmission of information, Morrow now clearly understood the wolf spirit's ability.
Aside from the standard trait of automatically defending against attacks, the wolf spirit's ability was precisely the space-type ability he had been repeatedly contemplating.
The triangular bone mask on the wolf spirit's face could serve as a portal to a Nen space, allowing objects and even living beings to pass through.
The Nen space within could be freely restructured according to Morrow's will, and he could also establish proactive, rule-based effects for the space. The only constraint was that, due to the limitations of his innate Nen type, the rules would function best if they aligned with his own type.
But this was powerful enough.
After all, this was an ability the Guardian Spirit Beast had manifested on its own, saving Morrow a great deal of effort in conceptualization and experimentation.
Besides the overall characteristics of the Nen space, the wolf spirit's appearance also brought two results that were quite surprising to Morrow.
First, the wolf spirit could devour Post-Mortem Nen spaces like Unexplored Lands and choose to either use them to expand its own internal space or directly transfer the devoured Post-Mortem Nen space inside.
It was worth noting that this devouring meant that if Morrow wanted to transfer an Unexplored Land into the Wolf Spirit Space, he would have to give up the chance to convert it into Tree Rings energy.
But for Morrow, this required no hesitation at all.
He would inevitably choose to expand the Nen space's capacity.
The second matter was related to the Seed Urn's ability.
With the birth of the wolf spirit, the Seed Urn's ability, using Tree Rings as a bridge, was integrated into the upgraded ability of Etude of Love.
This point, in particular, was beyond Morrow's expectations.
Both Etude of Love and the Seed Urn's ability possessed distinct contractual characteristics.
The Seed Urn's ability operated on the premise of the princes' explicit consent, after which they would take a candy-like Guardian Spirit Beast egg from the urn and consume it.
This method of power transmission was, in essence, a mutually agreed-upon contract.
The infection mechanism of Etude of Love was, in fact, the same kind of contractual relationship.
The ability was transmitted through the act of a kiss, which represented trust and consent.
Now, with these two abilities merged via the Tree Rings bridge, a completely new result was born.
Infected like Kalluto and Menchi, created by Morrow, could now also indirectly receive the gift of the Seed Urn's ability, allowing them to spontaneously give birth to a Guardian Spirit Beast possessing at least one Nen ability.
This was the most surprising thing to Morrow.
But it had to be said, this was a very good thing.
"Let's test the ability."
Morrow unfastened the Travel Four-Piece Set he had taken from the Kukan'yu royal tomb one by one, then stuffed them into the triangular bone mask on the wolf spirit's face.
The surface of the mask rippled like water, and the four-piece set entered the Nen space inside the wolf spirit without any obstruction.
"The sensation of passing through the space feels pretty good."
Morrow nodded, then said, "Now let's try taking them out."
He gestured to the wolf spirit, wanting it to assume a more convenient position for him to retrieve the items.
The wolf spirit, however, shrank in size and flexibly coiled around Morrow's waist, adjusting its head to the most convenient spot by his hand. This action made Morrow chuckle.
Then, he reached into the wolf spirit's mask and pulled out the sword hilt.
"Hmm?"
The moment the hilt left the wolf spirit's space, Morrow saw a wisp of azure, blade-shaped flame wrapped around it.
But the flame quickly dissipated.
Morrow immediately looked down at the wolf spirit's eyes, which pulsed with azure flames, and asked in surprise, "You can charge it?"
The wolf spirit nodded.
Morrow was both surprised and delighted.
If the wolf spirit truly had this ability, then he would no longer need to use his Tree Rings energy whenever he wanted to use the hilt.
As long as he took the hilt out of the Wolf Spirit Space, it would directly generate a flaming battle blade.
In terms of power, of course, Tree Rings energy would still be superior.
—--
At this moment.
Inside the ship's cabins.
Benjamin led a team to the place where Tserriednich's corpse lay.
His expression was tense, his eyes grave, as he silently stared at the lifeless body on the ground.
A moment later, he handed over control of the scene to his subordinates and turned to head for the room where the Sacrificial Altar was located.
There, he saw Nasubi Hui Guo Rou's headless corpse.
Bang!
Benjamin slammed a fist into the nearby wall, which was covered in intricate carvings.
At this moment, he had no mind to consider the meaning of the fourteen coffins in the room corresponding to the fourteen princes, nor did he feel any grief for the deaths of Tserriednich and Nasubi Hui Guo Rou.
The true reason fury burned in his chest was that Kakin's honor had been so utterly trampled upon.
To make matters worse, the core forces of the entire ship had gathered, yet they couldn't harm Morrow in the slightest, instead suffering heavy casualties and deaths in a single encounter.
Didn't this mean that the Succession Contest that Kakin valued so much, and its grand vision of pioneering a new world, were utterly worthless in that man's eyes?
—--
Meanwhile.
The V5 dignitaries who had boarded the Black Whale at the last moment of its departure immediately transmitted everything that had happened on the ship back to their respective nations.
Fortunately, the Black Whale had not yet sailed out of communication range, so the news was relayed quickly.
Eve, in the palace of the Kukan'yu Kingdom's capital far away, also soon received the report from her officials.
On the other end of the communication device, the official's tense voice recounted Morrow's terrifying strength.
When he mentioned that both King Nasubi Hui Guo Rou of Kakin and the Fourth Prince Tserriednich were dead, his voice even trembled faintly.
Yet, Eve's expression remained unchanged.
"It only took less than five minutes... How impressive."
She rested her chin on one hand, her gaze passing through the high window to the sky outside, as if she could see the figure that was on his way back.
The official on the other end of the line was stunned, almost thinking he had misheard.
Her Majesty's tone... seemed to carry a hint of admiration?
He dared not ask, and could only remain silent.
Eve continued, "The Kakin throne will, barring any surprises, be seized by the First Prince. Keep a close eye on their next moves. If the Black Whale turns back because of this, that would be for the best..."
"Understood."
The official responded solemnly.
The communication was cut.
Eve casually tossed the communication device aside, her eyelids slightly lowered.
Nasubi Hui Guo Rou was dead.
In that case, Kakin's sacred treasures must have been dealt with by Morrow as well.
Given the current situation, Kakin's wisest choice would be to swallow its pride and immediately turn back.
But Eve had a faint feeling that, given the First Prince's style, he would likely still adhere to Nasubi Hui Guo Rou's philosophy after seizing the throne and command the Black Whale to continue sailing toward that unfinished sea.
However, without the aid of the three sacred treasures, this ship of the century would be lucky to even cross a tenth of the Dark Waters, let alone land on the Dark Continent.
At least this way, she no longer had to worry about Kakin's voyage plan bringing new calamities to the six continents.
While this could be considered good news, the calamities within the Kukan'yu Kingdom were still unresolved, and the death toll from them continued to climb. Eve couldn't bring herself to be happy.
Until a definitive countermeasure was found, they could only let the calamities run rampant.
The only thing they could do now was to expend enormous manpower and resources to organize the evacuation of their citizens before the calamities spread further.
Then, they would form a cordon with human flesh and blood, using living lives to track the real-time movements of the calamities.
It was a helpless situation.
A calamity was, after all, a calamity.
An overwhelming existence that humanity could hardly resist.
As of now, with several calamities raging, the death toll had already surpassed the one million mark.
Among them, those who died from "Ice Core" were the most numerous, accounting for about two-thirds of the total.
Although the International Permit Agencies had figured out the principle by which Ice Core froze humans into ice sculptures, it was difficult to implement effective preventative measures.
The reason was simple.
Unless one was a martial artist who had trained for years, how could an ordinary person truly remain completely motionless?
This was not a child's game of "Red Light, Green Light." Even if one's breathing became slightly heavier, the Ice Core would ruthlessly attack in the next second. This was the cruel reality for ordinary people facing the Ice Core.
Even knowing the countermeasure of not moving, the vast majority of people could not escape the death brought by the rampaging Ice Core.
And because the V5 and the International Permit Agencies had exhausted all means but failed to destroy the Ice Core, the death toll continued to rise.
Another calamity called "Itchy" was also extremely aggressive.
Wherever it passed, its victims would turn into a sky full of white flakes amidst extreme pain, covering every inch of the land where they once lived like snow.
Compared to the fatal threats of Ice Core and Itchy, the contained "Lens" calamity was currently restricted to a specific area and posed no immediate threat. However, the International Permit Agencies dared not let their guard down, continuously supplying a large number of mirrors to the containment zone.
They had not yet found a way to completely eliminate the Lens calamity and could only use this method to slow the movement of the calamity that could kill through mirrors.
As for the final "Bookmark" calamity, although it had the lowest aggression, it was perhaps the most chilling of all in essence.
In its presence, anything, including military attacks launched by the V5, and even explosions caused by thermal weapons, would be instantly flattened into a paper-thin, bookmark-like object. Fortunately, the Bookmark calamity's active aggression was weak, so the death toll it caused was currently the lowest.
Even so, from the standpoint of the V5, the International Permit Agencies, and indeed all of humanity, no one wanted to see such a ticking time bomb exist on the six continents for long.
This was the current situation humanity faced against the calamities.
At most, they could only contain or delay them, but could not truly resolve them.
And as time went on, the number of people dying under the calamities would only continue to climb.
However, the V5 and the International Permit Agencies, who were currently overwhelmed by this, had no idea that an even more terrifying calamity was biding its time.
—--
On the seventh day after Morrow's attack on Kakin, Morena and the Death God's preparations were also nearing their end.
Implanting the "Death Plague" into a million Meteor City residents was no simple task.
And the entire process was extremely tedious.
But the Death God reveled in it.
With the most serious attitude, he securely placed each portion of power, capable of taking countless lives, into the bodies of the Meteor City residents.
And for the subsequent blooming and fruition, he held endless anticipation.
"We can begin now, can't we, Morena?"
"Yes."
A million Death Buds were quietly waiting to bloom.
It was foreseeable that when these Death Buds bloomed simultaneously all over the world, countless people would die.
And worldwide turmoil and chaos would be triggered.
The end of the world... had truly arrived.
(Translated by yourtl.app)