Your High and Mighty Attitude Is Truly Disgusting

Thousands upon thousands of Demon Abyss Kingdom soldiers surged forward, heedless of death. Under the woman knight's command, they darted nimbly between the tentacles reaching down from the Burrowing Demon Worm's belly. Even so, thirty or forty died on the spot in that single exchange.

That single exchange taught the woman knight the true power of the Burrowing Demon Worm.

Her expression changed, her pupils contracting sharply.

This was no hulking, witless brute. It moved and struck with astonishing agility, wielding its power just as deftly.

"Scatter!"

"Break into loose formations. Find an opening!"

The woman knight sent her orders across the entire battlefield through wisdom ability, and every soldier moved as an extension of her will.

To Weishi Hosen, none of it was worth notice.

Countless clashes and wars throughout Yinsai's history had proven the same truth time and again. The power of a great beast could not be defeated.

Such creatures stood at the summit of life and power, beyond the reach of skill or flashy tricks.

Wherever they descended, ruin and calamity followed.

"Burrowing Demon Worm, shake them all to death." Weishi Hosen swept a hand through the water.

Woooo! The Burrowing Demon Worm spread its savage mouthparts wide and unleashed a cry.

Concentric rings of invisible sound waves shuddered outward, wrenching violent ripples from the seabed.

BOOM!

In an instant, the surrounding thousands upon thousands of the People of the Abyss were flung apart like leaves in a flood.

The shock destroyed every organ in the bodies of the several hundred Demon Abyss Kingdom soldiers nearest the beast. Death was instantaneous.

The power had little effect on either great beasts or priests. That was why it had proved useless in the earlier battle between Weishi Hosen and Star Luo Queen's Sky Beast.

Against ordinary people, however, it was an instrument of slaughter.

The woman knight watched the slaughter, her eyes instantly turning red.

"Damn!"

"Yinsai man, I shall make you pay for this!"

The shock killed the bizarre shrimp beneath her outright, yet she shoved the dead mount away and drove herself straight into the oncoming sound waves.

Her features twisted savagely as power erupted from her entire body.

More than a dozen black bone spindles burst from her hands. Reduced to streaks and afterimages, they spun toward the crown of the great beast's head from every direction and closed on Weishi Hosen.

Caught completely unprepared, he was in genuine danger.

"Mental power!"

The prince was genuinely shocked, though not by the strength of her power. The Demon Abyss Kingdom had somehow discovered the path to the rank of senior priest.

"Divine Technique, Mental Shield."

An invisible field of mental power knocked the dozen and more black bone spindles aside. In the same moment, the hope in the woman knight's eyes dimmed into despair.

At once, Weishi Hosen understood. "The Sun Cup!"

"You found a Sun Cup, one of those swept out of the great poet's burial place. You drank the Divine Cup's power, and it woke a second-rank ability in you."

The prince's shock gave way to delight. At last, he had found the Divine Boat's trail. "So the Divine Boat truly did come this way."

Every kingdom revered the Sun Cup as its most exalted divine relic. The flower, a gift from God, was cultivated only in the forbidden grounds of the royal capitals.

The People of the Abyss could not possibly have obtained one.

Yet the woman knight had plainly awakened a second-rank ability, transforming wisdom into mental power and giving it form.

Weishi Hosen immediately thought of the Sun Cup beds at the great poet's burial place. When the Divine Boat burst into the ocean, it had swept a small number of the flowers away with it.

The discovery made Weishi Hosen ease his attack. Instead of killing the woman knight, he would take her alive and question her about where the Sun Cups had come from.

She might even know the location of the Divine Boat.

Wave after wave of the People of the Abyss attacked without fear of death. All they gained were terrible losses, with no hope of victory.

The Burrowing Demon Worm's terrifying body stretched a hundred meters long. It healed at tremendous speed, reshaped its tentacles into points as keen as blades, and slaughtered them effortlessly with invisible sound. Against such power, the People of the Abyss fell into despair.

Hatred burned within the woman knight, but she was helpless.

Her helplessness before the Ruhe Beast awakened the fear buried deep in her bloodline.

"Retreat!"

"All of you, retreat to the deep sea!"

From his lofty perch, Weishi Hosen watched the People of the Abyss flee with mocking amusement. The Burrowing Demon Worm sliced through the water after the woman knight, driving her forces into a dead end.

"Go!"

"Bring that monster lord of the Demon Abyss Kingdom to me."

With that order, Weishi Hosen sent his subordinates and followers to seize the woman knight.

He feared the great beast might crush these feeble ants with a single touch.

"Yes, Your Highness!"

Two priests at his side, along with more than a dozen powerful trilobite man guards, plunged from the Ruhe Beast.

Watching the whole ocean lie open for him to range across, watching thousands upon thousands of the People of the Abyss flee in terror before him, watching everything his eyes could reach bend to his command.

At that moment, a feeling rose within him.

He felt as though he himself were a divine being!

This was the feeling known to the kings of the four Royal Bloodline houses, the power to look down on all living things and disregard every defiant will, every dissenting voice.

Some found themselves and their path through power. Others lost themselves in it and fell.

At that very moment, his brother Henir raised his head behind him and looked his way.

While Weishi Hosen remained lost in his reverie, a Ruhe sword pierced his chest from behind.

"You!" Weishi Hosen went rigid and twisted around to stare at Henir.

Without a moment's pause, Henir cruelly drove his fingers into the seams of the carapace covering Weishi Hosen's face.

With brute force, he tore apart the face plate and gouged out the bone at the center of Weishi Hosen's brow.

The bone bore the Ruhe brand that commanded the mythical monster.

Blood gushed from the wound as agony engulfed Weishi Hosen.

Ahhh!

The quiet smile Henir had always worn slowly twisted out of shape. His mouth stretched wide in an unrestrained grin, as if something suppressed to the breaking point had finally burst free.

The seven or eight remaining guards stared at Henir in shock, then rushed him to rescue their prince.

Henir raised one hand and sent them tumbling away.

At the same time, bone spikes punched through their bodies one after another.

Howling in agony, Weishi Hosen staggered backward and fell.

He opened his mouth, releasing a stream of bubbles. Blinded by pain, he tried to speak aloud and forgot to use wisdom ability.

No one could make out his voice underwater, but Henir knew exactly what he was asking.

He was asking, "Why?"

Weishi Hosen had treated Henir as a brother. He had even promised to make him Prime Minister once he took the throne.

He did not understand.

He had treated Henir that way, so why had Henir betrayed him?

Hatred slowly bled into Henir's once-peaceful eyes. He no longer hid it, nor could he hold it back.

"Why? Because I hate every last one of you!"

"Henir. Black mud. Look at the name your king gave me."

"In your eyes I am a clot of black mud, a smear of black mud stuck to the feet of the Hosen family."

"So I am going to tell you, and tell your king, and tell every last person of the Hosen family."

"Even if I am a clot of black mud, I will be the black mire that swallows the whole Hosen family."

Henir leaned close to Weishi Hosen's ear. "Do you know?"

"The way you look down on everyone from up there makes me sick."

At that instant, another figure flashed through Weishi Hosen's mind, the one who had opened the gate to the domain of the divine.

Uncontrollable rage seized him, and he roared with every scrap of strength left in his body.

"You traitors!"

Before he could finish, Henir wrenched the Ruhe sword from his body and kicked him into the depths of the sea.

"Die!"

"Prince Weishi... of the Hosen family."

Henir's sudden betrayal stunned not only the trilobite men present, but every one of the People of the Abyss throughout the Sal Domain.

Henir studied the bone in his hand and the intricate, mysterious Ruhe brand upon it.

"So much for Royal Bloodline families. So much for King Redlichia's descendants."

"Only the one who commands the power of a great beast is the true king."

With that, he swallowed the bloodstained bone whole.

Now that Henir had seized the Burrowing Demon Worm, he did not spare the People of the Abyss a single glance. He turned the beast on every trilobite man present and killed them all, then rode it out of those waters.

From the beginning, he had never intended to search for the Divine Boat, much less help Weishi Hosen onto the throne.

Henir had his own plan.

He also had an ambition.