The Divine Martial Stars

The substance of the Deluge of Illumination has no effect on humans. Like the very air humans breathe, it only serves the basic function of sustenance. It doesn’t provide any form of magical enhancement or growth.

Li Mu ignored Lei Cang.

Everything he did today was a series of well-calculated moves like chess. On the surface, he looked humble and submissive in surrendering the items he had found. But deep inside, he did not even know the strengths and uses of the items he had found. In fact, the Heaven and Earth Rings, for all he knew, might be handier and more valuable than all those items that he had found put together. On that note, he might as well just hand them over in exchange for some military merit.

Military merit is the single most important currency in this world.

Li Mu was not in any shortage of any instruments or tools.

He could deal with Lei Cang at some other time.

What mattered more to him was getting Feng and the rest of the Oststern scavengers home safely.

But what surprised Li Mu was when he gulped down the substance, it wasn’t as useless or futile as Lei Cang described. Like sparks exploding in him, he felt a strange sensation seeping into his sinews and bones.

The last time he felt this strange sensation was at the parade square of the abandoned army camp. When General Qin Zhong and his men perished, their remains turned into speckles of gold that joined into Li Mu’s body. But at that time, Li Mu did not feel any improvements to his physical ability yet, unlike the substance of this Deluge of Illumination that he just consumed. Whatever boon it would provide him, it was not manifesting just yet.

But his Xiantian Skill told him otherwise: ingesting the droplets of the Deluge of Illumination helps. Greatly.

Li Mu began to drink as much of the dew as he could.

Lei Cang went on hurling more ridicule and insults at him but receiving no reaction at all. He eventually fell silent.

In the meantime, the blood moon gradually merged with its silvery counterpart.

The shower of gold was only getting heavier.

All around them, the beasts and wraiths all writhed in a savage delirium.

“Nevertheless, even in their manic state, none of them ever dared to come close to this ship…” Li Mu thought as a strange sense of foreboding slowly crept into him. “Something is not right.”

“Should we retreat?”

Li Mu was nowhere near concerned about his own well-being. It was the safety of the villagers that he was more worried about.

But before he could even articulate his intent, Lunar Specter began to tremble violently.

“What’s going on?!”

“Is this ship going to sail again?!”

“What should we do?!”

The villagers were the first to panic.

Li Mu looked at Lin Jingxin at once. “Captain Lin, what do you know about this vessel? What dangers does it carry?”

“Why? Are you shitting your breeches, you craven?” Lei Cang sneered.

Li Mu ignored the jibe. Instead, he turned to the other two captains and Lieutenant Xiao. “Think about it. “If the treasures on this ship are really so easy to obtain, then why are they still here? Why were they not pilfered yet?”

“Do you even know how often this ship appears?” Lei Cang heckled, “You think it’s so easy for thieves and looters to find this ship?”

A gleam of anger and malice flashed momentarily in Li Mu’s eyes.

But Lin Jingxin took a few seconds to think. In the end, he said, “The Lunar Specter used to be the Moon Monarch’s flagship more than a thousand years ago. After that, it reportedly went missing until it was sighted to appear every sixty years whenever the blood moon phenomenon occurs. This should be the sixteenth or the seventeenth time the Lunar Specter has reappeared, by my reckoning.”

Sixteen or seventeen times. That would have given ample time and opportunity for people to sneak onboard and slip away with the treasures.

Yet why were the treasures still onboard?

Even a fool could see that something is very, very wrong here.

Ye Ying flipped down her visor, obscuring that fair but stern face of hers. “Men! Make ready to retreat!”

Xiao Jianfei sprang into action as well. “Quick! Get ready to disembark!”

But he had only just spoken

Rumble!

The Lunar Specter shook like it was going to come apart any time.

Patches of blood appeared on the deck without warning, spreading and growing as the liquid began to take the form of humanoid creatures.

A morbid ambiance of sanguine red filled the entire top deck. In just the blink of an eye, everything around the soldiers and the villagers changed. The rotten timber and floorboards were no more, with every plank and pole now looking well-burnished and properly maintained.

A gigantic shield of red spread into a huge red sphere that kept the Lunar Specter cocooned inside.

“Ten years. After ten long years, I finally smell the scent of flesh! Fresh flesh!”

A voice, as ancient and cold as glaciers, resounded from within the cabins—the very same that the Trailblazers had searched when they were scouring the ship for the treasures.

Everyone’s faces contorted.

Creak!

The hatch swiveled on its hinges.

A tall elderly person with white hair and a beard that almost reached his ankles stepped out of the aftercastle hatch, clad in robes as red as the color of blood.

Gossamer and pale, he looked as if he was a figment of the glow from the moon; as if with a gust of wind, he would vanish like dust.

The regal robes he donned, the kingly crown he wore, and the scepter with a pommel adorned with a moon and three tiny stars all were proof of his once-alive majesty as the ghostly figure rose into the air. As he ascended higher and higher, an incredible presence both ancient and terrible swept forth like a tide.

“The Moon Monarch?!”

Xiao Jianfei gasped.

Li Mu felt himself shuddering at the mention of the name he only just learned not long before.

“The Moon Monarch?! The ruler of the Children of the Moon more than a thousand years ago!?”

“Thieves and plunders! How dare you covet the sacred treasures of the Children of the Moon! For that, you deserve death!”

There was not a tinge of compassion or empathy in his voice. But his voice resonated in the air with every bit of the chillness of a knife tip tickling dangerously on everyone’s skin.

The blood-formed creatures surrounding everyone slowly took on a clearer and more detailed visage, becoming what everyone recognized instantly as the sentinels of the Children of the Moon, all of their eyes flaring with rage and rancor.