Chapter 656 — The Trap

"We do sing upon the sea, but we do not lure human ships into any traps," Til said, rather amused. "Back then, humans would occasionally lose their way into dangerous waters, and we would secretly lend aid... The sea sirens do not wish the sea to swallow any life that does not belong to the ocean. It would spoil the water quality."

Having gained some useless foreign knowledge, Hom—who loved pursuing new things—departed well satisfied. He meant to pack a few personal belongings and evacuate with the security forces. Til remained on the high ground by the riverbank, and when the timing was just right, she climbed a magic-energy crystal tower upon the height.

Her serpent's tail wound coiling around the crystal of the magical device. Magic and magic established a hidden connection. The runes upon Til's body flickered with faint light. She spread both hands and began to hum an ancient deep-sea song that humans could not comprehend.

Though her conduct was somewhat questionable and she hardly seemed reliable, Til actually belonged to a relatively conservative faction among the sea sirens. She was devoted to the most ancient and orthodox songs of the sea sirens, and skilled at weaving magic into these old melodies—unlike the newer generation of sea sirens, who always delved into strange and peculiar magic songs.

The magic field surged, leaping and passing between crystal towers and sentinel towers. Formless magic rode the ripples of the deep layers of time and space, sending song imbued with information into the realm of the elements. Til sang softly, feeling the ordered rhythm of magic and elements, and sighed in her heart with contentment and ease:

Those death-metal tide-callers... always heretics.

...

On the Holy Spirit Plains, the "Brave Ones" assault team. Hunter sat within the war machine that belonged to him, gazing through the periscope at the indescribable monster in the distance. The faint blue light of the mental protection system shone upon this gunner's cheeks, quiet and serene.

He was a commoner of old Cecil, one of the eight hundred-odd refugees from the earliest days of Cecil Territory's reconstruction.

Before he put on a military uniform, he had been a hunter.

He still remembered the forest beside old Cecil that had once let him feed a family, and he remembered the great fire that had blazed through the town and the cries of his neighbors when the aberrants broke into the territory. He remembered how the soldiers covering his retreat had fallen, and he remembered the cheers of the survivors when the new camp was established and he went into the mountains with the hunting party and brought back the first batch of meat.

As a commoner born in the countryside, he felt he had already lived through many things in this life that most people would never experience. If written down, these things might even fill a book.

A teacher at the night school had once said something—most commoners of this era could not fill a single blank page with the experiences of a lifetime, but the commoners of Cecil were fortunate; what they could write down was far more than commoners elsewhere.

Hunter did not know whether having so many experiences counted as fortune, but he still remembered how, after the new camp first repelled an attack by the aberrants, when Duke Gao Yang?? of Cecil awarded him a medal of honor, he had felt a joy unlike any in his life.

That joy spurred him on, made him sign up when the Legion expanded for the third time, made him learn new skills, and brought him to this scorched plain, to become one of the "Brave Ones."

The faint shimmer of the mental protection system calmed the hunter's heart, and in a strange, relaxed atmosphere he once again pressed his eye to the periscope, watching the distant target.

In truth, life had not changed at all; what he had to do was the same as before.

The hunter was on this side, the prey on that, and between them lay a gulf of patient and cautious waiting.

The prey might be somewhat large, but what the hunter held was no longer a bow and arrow.

Hunt's hand rested on the railgun's firing mechanism; he had to fire with the utmost caution, and he must be accurate, for this vehicle carried only a single shell.

The other vehicles nearby likewise carried only one shell each.

In fact, they carried not only a single shell apiece but had cut their crews down to just two—one gunner and observer, one driver and commander—the bare minimum needed to keep a "Warhammer Type I" tank running, all in order to reduce weight as much as possible, to raise the vehicle's speed and handling, and thereby improve the odds of survival after firing.

After all, against that monster, an ordinary tank gun did little beyond provoking it.

Just then the vehicle's communication console flashed conspicuously; the order from above had come down.

"Begin the operation!"

…

Deep in the distant Endless Sea, on the land the sirens called "the Continent of Eos," the colossal elemental leap tower had been activated. Surging energy drove that advanced and intricate machine, making its tiered, shell-like structure glow faintly and sending dreamlike ripples across the spherical device at its summit, while above the tower astonishing energy had already gathered into a blurry vortex that churned the clouds and spun without cease.

In the plaza below the tower, tens of thousands of sirens had gathered, orderly and solemn, ready.

Even the lively-natured sirens have their moments of gravity.

On the platform beside the plaza, the Siren Queen Pythia stood at the fore, trident scepter in hand, when a deep-sea handmaiden came to her side and bowed her head respectfully: "Your Majesty, Tyre has sent the coordinates. Recognition phrase: rising tide, grand feast."

The Siren Queen gave a slight nod: "Open the rift generator."

Under the deepwater technicians' control, the leap tower gave out a wondrous sound like ocean waves; the phantom vortex above the tower instantly expanded and solidified, and amid terrifying surges of energy that vortex unfurled into an inverted funnel, while the whole plaza was in an instant shrouded in a veil of light, completely cut off from the outside world.

Among the sirens in the plaza, General Vanessa raised her trident high and gave the order:

"All forces, attention—vaporize!!"

Miaoshuwu