NovelOnline Chapter 333 - 326: The Three-Eyed Golden Crow’s Scheme
Chapter 333 - 326: The Three-Eyed Golden Crow’s Scheme
When faced with imminent death, both humans and sea beasts erupt with an astonishing will to live. It’s a primal instinct, coded into their very genes. No creature simply sits and waits for its demise.
The Three-Eyed Golden Crow had already formulated a preliminary plan.
’Flee? Betrayal?’
Neither!
The Abyss Lord enjoyed the heat, so it needed a "high-temperature air conditioner." The only reason it had saved the Three-Eyed Golden Crow last time was because the crow was useful. Therefore, there was no way the Three-Eyed Golden Crow could escape from right under the Abyss Lord’s nose.
And it couldn’t reveal the future it had foreseen to the Abyss Lord.
For one, it would suffer a backlash from the Destiny Power.
For another, the Abyss Lord was a creature that held itself high above all others. To mention death in its presence would be an act of blasphemy in itself!
The solution the Three-Eyed Golden Crow devised was simple:
Grovel!
Defect!
When the wicked dragon arrived, it would backstab the Abyss Lord at the first opportunity and pledge allegiance to the dragon!
Today, it knelt at the Abyss Lord’s side; tomorrow, it would kneel at the wicked dragon’s. A wise bird chooses its branch. There wasn’t much of a difference between the two.
It was just about survival. Nothing shameful about that.
It was certainly one option.
The Three-Eyed Golden Crow felt it had found a sliver of a chance for survival within the endless river of destiny’s possibilities.
This would also explain the strange phenomenon in its prophecy—why it was still alive after the Abyss Lord’s death. Normally, in a battle of such a high caliber, cannon fodder like it would be the first to die. But the prophecy showed the complete opposite.
Defection required a show of "good faith."
And the Three-Eyed Golden Crow had plenty of it!
While entrenched in the Sea of Boiling, it had once used the [Great Prophecy Technique] to glimpse many secrets. One, in particular, was a treasure deep within the Earth Core. It was shaped like a greatsword, radiated a violent aura, and was terrifying beyond measure. ’Hmm... though the dragon has no arms and can’t wield a weapon, just like me, it’s still a token of my sincerity.’
It was just a shame that,
the Immortal Fusang Tree it had been guarding was destroyed by a detestable human not long ago!
Otherwise, its offering could have been even more sincere!
The Three-Eyed Golden Crow had no confidence it could win over the wicked dragon, but this was the only chance for survival it could imagine.
Regardless, it had to be seized.
...
...
...
"The Three-Eyed Golden Crow..."
While the Three-Eyed Golden Crow was scheming, Shi Ming had already returned to his ship, the *Dayun*. He sat in the captain’s room, preparing to call the names of the damned.
Yama, calling the roll.
Laid out before him was a hand-drawn map. The locations of five Holy Hall-level Sea Beasts were marked out, each circled in red. The first stop on his list was a familiar acquaintance.
The Three-Eyed Golden Crow and the Abyss Lord.
"The Three-Eyed Golden Crow..."
"A sea beast with two S-rank skill origins: the 54th-ranked [Great Sun Wheel] and the 45th-ranked [Great Prophecy]. The Great Sun Wheel is an active skill, its origin infused within its blood. The Great Prophecy is a passive skill, its origin hidden in its third eye and its heart."
Shi Ming was already well-acquainted with this information about the Three-Eyed Golden Crow.
This intelligence came from the tributaries of fate revealed by the [Wheel of Destiny] during the Descent of the Titan.
Information on the Abyss Lord, however, was scarce.
Both of his encounters with the Abyss Lord had been during moments of crisis. He had either been forcefully expelled or forced to escape using the Lamp of Wishes before he had a chance to use his Eye of Intelligence. Consequently, he had only learned about its abilities from a single severed tentacle. He knew its primary skill was [Extremely Evil Sanctuary], and its regular skills included Crystal Curtain, Ten Thousand Hooks Tentacles, and Sinful Abyss.
Its weaknesses were unknown. The method to kill it was unknown.
The threshold for absorbing its Holy Hall Origin was also unknown.
The last time he had faced the Abyss Lord, the Eye of the World had calculated his win rate at a mere 0.1%. But things were different now. Although the Abyss Lord was massive, its Spiritual Power was far inferior to his and Ah Jian’s. He could use the [Eternal Life Law] to lock it down for a full three seconds. Tens of thousands of Ah Jians meant tens of thousands of Eternal Life Laws. Combined with a tenfold-empowered [Blade of Chaos] and his other trump cards, he could beat it to the brink of death. Then, with the Arm of Judgment, he might be able to execute it on the spot.
Not to mention, Shi Ming now possessed a remnant branch of the Creation Celestial Pillar.
He could use the Star Lamp to cast Supreme Sanctuary one time.
Even a lion uses its full strength to catch a rabbit.
This time, the tables would be turned!
...
With his plan for the coming days set, Shi Ming left his office and entered the Captain’s Space, where the Jianmu Seedling was planted.
A Treasure Pearl, like a full moon, hung in mid-air, illuminating the newborn Jianmu tree. The corpse of the Great Black Heaven Dragon lay piled up like a hill to one side. Over ninety-nine percent of its flesh and blood’s power had been devoured, yet its ferocious aura remained undiminished.
Shi Ming looked at the seedling.
At the seedling’s base was a patch of permafrost Shi Ming had specially transplanted for it.
The water he used for it was pure mountain snowmelt, containing no salt or Sea Crystal Stone energy.
’It’s actually quite nice to plant some flowers and herbs in between battles.’
’Hmm?’
His Spiritual Power seemed to sense that the seedling desperately craved the flesh and blood of the Great Black Heaven Dragon.
He blinked.
A new notification came from the Eye of the World.
[Using the Captain’s Space of a King-level Wandering Ship for farming?]
[If the captains of the other King-level ships knew, they would surely decry this as a monstrous waste. But if the ’crops’ are magical trees, it becomes much more palatable.]
[The flesh and blood of the Great Black Heaven Dragon, now devoid of its origin of destruction, can indeed be converted into fertile soil. The Fruit of Eternal Youth and the Bodhi Fruit, which you have stored in this space but never used, can also be planted as seeds. Nourished by the energy-rich blood and Holy Hall-level nutrients, they might even bear even more extraordinary fruit.]
[Besides, it’s not like you have any other use for this space and all this inexhaustible flesh and blood, right?]
’That’s true.’
The entire Great Black Heaven Dragon—a thousand-meter-long body with nine serpentine heads—had all its Holy Hall Energy transferred into Shi Ming. Only a symbolic trace of energy remained, fit only for use as upgrade materials, consumables, or research subjects.
But as it was the first Holy Hall-level Sea Beast he had ever killed, Shi Ming’s inner pack rat compelled him to store the entire corpse away instead of discarding it.
It just took up too much space.
Piled up, it occupied a full third of the Captain’s Space!
And that was only because of its relatively slender build.
One Great Black Heaven Dragon was manageable. But if he killed other, more voluminous sea beasts in the future, this Captain’s Space—a mere one hundred meters to a side—really wouldn’t be able to hold them. Take the Abyss Lord, for example. Forgetting its massive tentacles, a single one of its eyes was several hundred meters long. The Captain’s Space would be nowhere near large enough!
At that point, Shi Ming would only be able to take the most valuable parts.
But if he simply discarded the remains in the Endless Ocean, who knew what would happen? Not only might some deranged scientists use the parts for uncontrolled, forbidden experiments, but other sea beasts would flock to the corpse and devour it ravenously.
This could easily lead to secondary mutations and widespread contamination.
And "contamination" just so happened to be one of the Abyss Lord’s keywords.
Proper, harmless disposal was essential.
’Now, it seemed these plants could help him with that?’
Shi Ming got to work. Far from the Jianmu Seedling, he cleared two smaller planting areas. The soil was permafrost he had taken from around the Jianmu, now thawed to room temperature. He mixed in some scraps of the Great Black Heaven Dragon’s flesh. Then, he retrieved a Bodhi Fruit and a Fruit of Eternal Youth from his storage and planted them.
These magical trees all required extremely harsh environments to grow.
The Bodhi Tree of Suffering, for instance, grew in the deep sea; the Immortal Fusang Tree grew in the heart of the nearly 1000-degree Boiling Sea; and the Jianmu tree grew in the polar regions. But that didn’t mean they *couldn’t* grow in ordinary environments; it just proved that they could *also* survive in extreme ones.
Shi Ming watered each of them with a ladleful of the Great Black Heaven Dragon’s blood.
He was likely the only one in the entire Endless Ocean who could afford to farm using the blood of a Holy Hall-level Sea Beast.