Shrouded Seascape

Chapter 784: Opportunity

"Anna! Proceed with the plan now! The Foundation's sites are now helpless and isolated from each other! This is a golden opportunity for us to attack!"

Swoosh!

Sparkle instantly disappeared in front of Charles. Her figure flashed across many different places throughout the Subterranean Sea as she teleported the naval forces of the four seas to the Sea of Mist.

There were seven sites in total, and four of them had no Pedes stationed to protect them. As expected, they were the first sites to suffer the fierce bombardment of the Subterranean Sea's navies.

The sites counterattacked, but they were quickly overwhelmed and overrun. Five Pedes were dispatched to suppress the attackers, but by the time they arrived, the sites were devoid of people, and the enemies had left long ago.

The Pedes of the Foundation had a power equivalent to a demigod, so Charles knew that they were too weak to defeat them. Since they couldn't win, they decided to engage in guerilla tactics.

Sparkle's specialty was extreme mobility, and they decided to take advantage of that, avoiding any head-on confrontation against the enemy.

A massive floating island hovered over SITE 5 on the pitch-black sea surface. Gun barrels of a variety of sizes protruding from the floating island were pointed at SITE 5 directly below them.

The next moment, a torrential rain of shells struck the fortress down below.

A smile tugged at the corner of Anna's lips as she looked down at the battlefield shrouded in smoke and flames. Her gorgeous figure leaned slightly to the right, bumping into Charles' shoulder.

"Hey, Gao Zhiming, how come you don't look surprised at all? I just brought this big guy down from the surface world. Isn't that shocking?

"Tell me honestly—did you send your own people to hide among mine to monitor me? That is really annoying," Anna remarked.

Anna's coquettish behavior made a shiver run down Charles' spine, but he managed to ignore it. He looked down at SITE 5 with a solemn expression.

A semi-transparent shield had appeared on the pitch-black sea surface, protecting the submerged main island.

As expected, the Foundation's defenses were formidable—so formidable that things were no longer going as swimmingly as before. The semi-transparent shield seemed impervious to hot weapons. It remained unscathed despite the long bombardment.

Unfortunately, Charles lacked time. Those Pedes were definitely making a beeline for their location right now.

"Hurry up and reveal your cards, Anna. We don't have any time to waste here," Charles said with a hint of anxiety in his voice.

"You even know that?" A glint of surprise flashed in Anna's eyes. "Now I no longer feel like I'm mysterious..."

Upon seeing that Anna seemed like she wasn't willing to make a move, Charles raised his hand, and invisible tentacles burst out of the bottom of the giant floating island.

They intertwined with each other and forcefully pried open the island through the many fissures on its bottom. In no time, the floating island was cracked open, and black boxes of many different sizes plummeted toward SITE 5's shield.

The high fall shattered the boxes upon impact, and one of them contained a giant translucent leech.

Charles instantly recognized the leech. It was one of the projects being contained inside Laboratory Three; the island was particularly memorable to him, as it was the island where he first met Lily.

The giant leech glanced at the falling boxes before looking down at the shield down below. It twisted its pudgy figure and dove straight into SITE 5's shield, seemingly trying to drill a hole into it.

Another box cracked open. A monster resembling a giant starfish crashed onto SITE 5's shield. Charles instantly recognized the monster as well. It was the same kind of monster as Anna—monsters capable of altering memories from that certain island.

The monster morphed into Feuerbach's appearance and started shouting while standing on the shield.

Strange creatures emerged one after another from the boxes falling onto SITE's shield, and they were all bizarre monsters that Charles had encountered over his years of exploration throughout the Subterranean Sea. Ironically, these dangerous creatures had become Charles' bullets against the Foundation.

When it came to technology, the Foundation was much more advanced than them, but when it came to dealing with these bizarre creatures, the Foundation was most likely worse at it compared to the people of the Subterranean Sea.

"You're really ruthless. You even put your own kind down there," Charles said, glancing at Anna beside him.

"Well, my plan calls for the sacrifice of at least three islands to obtain enough power to handle the Foundation," Anna shrugged, saying, "Since you don't want to sacrifice humans, then I had no choice but to sacrifice my own kind, but it's fine. I'm not really close to them, anyway."

While the two were talking, SITE 5's shield down below was cracked open by something among the creatures in the boxes. The seawater instantly poured in, and the creatures writhing on the shield plummeted toward SITE 5 as soon as the shield disappeared.

In the blink of an eye, pandemonium erupted throughout SITE 5. The ships sailed over the submerged island and dropped bombs into the tumultuous waves. In no time, SITE 5 was no more.

"Dad, where should we go next?" Sparkle asked. Her head was tilted as she stared at the map of the Sea of Mist in her hands.

"We're going to SITE 6, where I was once imprisoned," Charles replied.

A hint of surprise appeared on Sparkle's delicate face. "Aren't there Pedes protecting that place? Are you sure we're going there?"

"Yeah. The weapon that they used to initialize Plan Three is there. It's a new type of weapon that the Foundation had developed using the darkness of the Subterranean Sea. We can't let the Foundation make a desperate move," Charles said, analyzing their current situation in a rational way.

The Foundation still had one card in hand, and it was a card that would allow them to turn the tables if they were allowed to play it. If Charles wanted to feel at ease, he had to tear that card apart.

"Wait, send all the ships below to the remaining sites. Tell them to pretend like they're going to attack those sites so that the Foundation will have no choice but to send reinforcements.

"The Foundation's forces have to be spread thin. And it's not like the navy is going to be helpful against the Pedes," Anna said, pointing at the rows of ships in the distance.

The massive fleet down below was composed of Julio's Invincible Fleet, the magical fleet of the Western Seas, Hope Island's Navy fleet, and the seaweed-covered shipwrecks of the Fhtagn Covenant.

In the face of the Foundation's world-ending threat, the Subterranean Sea went all out. The fleet of ships of many different sizes was so massive that they seemed to span the entire sea region.

Charles remained silent in response to Anna's words. Second Mate Nico glanced at him before turning to the phone next to him and passing down Anna's orders to the ships down below.

As the ships disappeared one by one to follow their latest orders, Charles opened his prosthetic palm, and a black spike stuck out of it. He pierced the tip of his finger and crouched down to draw a magic array with his own blood.

He was drawing the magic array needed to draw upon Edikth's power. Charles had long become accustomed to drawing the array, and he was also becoming more and more accustomed to drawing upon Edikth's power inside of him.

Only the gods could deal with the gods… He had to go all out as well.

Halfway through his drawing, Charles heard the crisp footsteps of Anna's high heels coming up behind him. A fragrant scent wafted over to his nose, and he felt Anna on his back.

Charles could feel her worry. After all, he was preparing to face the Pedes by himself. Moreover, the Pope was no more, so no one was going to self-destruct to save him.

The decisive battle was nigh.

"It's okay. I'm not going to die. Just look at me. I'm still alive and well despite what I've been through," Charles said.

Anna chuckled and said, "Since you've put it that way, I guess I should just cheer my man on. Anyway, once we've defeated the Foundation and assimilated their legacy, the entire Subterranean Sea will truly be under our control."

The two chitchatted for a while until Charles was done drawing the human-shaped magic array. Charles stood up with Anna still on his back and cast a complex gaze at the human-shaped magic array.

"You know what? I actually don't want to use this power. This power makes me feel like I'm not Charles—it makes me feel like I'm a stranger," Charles remarked.

"I'm barely keeping in control, and it's all thanks to that one time we devoured souls in another perspective. This power doesn't really belong to me, so I have no idea what harm it will bring me if I were to use it too much," Charles added.

Anna wrapped her arms around Charles' neck and looked down at the magic array on the floor. "Then, you should go ahead and learn more about it. Master it, and assimilate it. By then, it will truly belong to you."

Charles' ear felt a bit itchy when Anna's hot breath blew past his ear.

"Maybe I can do that, but not now," Charles replied. With that, he put Anna down on the floor and allowed his shadow to align perfectly with the human-shaped magic array on the floor.

Moments later, Charles' figure swelled and distorted rapidly. Deformed appendages and tentacles burst out of him, and more than a hundred eyes on Charles' figure shot open collectively to look around rapidly.

Second Mate Nico busy talking to someone on the phone collapsed to the floor at once while clutching his head in pain.

Swoosh!

There was a flash of white light as Charles disappeared into thin air.

Upon seeing that Charles was no longer around, Lily sparkling in a golden light flew over to Anna from the side. She looked eager and excited as she exclaimed, "Monster Sister! Let's go! Let's go and help Mr. Charles!"

"I'm only going to say this once—you're most likely going to end up dying out there. If you die this time, it's going to be permanent. There isn't another Light God to resurrect you," Anna said, staring calmly at Lily.

Lily's furry face revealed a trace of fear, but her expression quickly became determined once again. "It's okay~ I can definitely do it. Since the power of the Light God is inside me, then it's only right for me to help at a time like this!"

Cosyjuhye's Thoughts

That death flag :/