"I apologize for the presumptuous visit. I hope you will bear with me."
Just as Xia Yu finished speaking, a young man with a gentle smile on his face walked out from the back right.
"And what if I don't want to bear with it?" Xia Yu raised an eyebrow and said.
It was just that this tiny body... really couldn't pull off any domineering actions, and even looked a bit cute. Nian, who was standing to the side, covered her mouth and snickered.
Chongyue also spent a great deal of effort holding back his smile. Honestly, such a small one... and she didn't look like a Feranmut at all!
Before coming here, Baizao had urged him three times a day, as if Lungmen was going to be conquered by an unknown Feranmut in the very next moment.
But... looking at it now, although the girl in front of him was very extraordinary, she was on a completely different path from a Feranmut.
What? You ask why he was so sure?
That was, of course, because he was a Feranmut himself.
Shuo, a Feranmut born from Sui, this was his true name.
It could be said that if he hadn't wanted to truly avoid becoming a Feranmut, there wouldn't have been so many brothers and sisters later on. He alone could have monopolized the entirety of Sui.
Over the years, he had guarded the borders for Yan. He didn't know how many times Yumen had blocked those Feranmuts, accumulating countless military merits.
When he first heard about this, he had thought that those Feranmuts had seen no hope of breaking through Yumen, so they had chosen a new target.
As a result, this child in front of him... well, she really did give off the vibe of a little sister.
Honestly, if he didn't also know Wei Yenwu, he would have thought that this former Crown Prince was trying to cause trouble.
Regarding the relationship between the True Lung and his former Crown Prince brother, Chongyue didn't know how to describe it either.
Anyway, regarding what happened back then, Wei Yenwu had let this younger brother down, but the other party hadn't settled the score with him. Now, he still held a high position and great authority, and would even visit a major military town like Yumen every few years.
This must have been approved by Baizao.
No one knew what the current True Lung was thinking.
"So, Miss High Elder," Chongyue tried hard to put on a kind expression, "you came to Lungmen really just to deliver a letter?"
"The craftsmanship on this pancake is too rough." Hearing this, Xia Yu didn't answer. Instead, she looked at the messily broken Egg-filled Pancake in front of her. "Boss, you don't do this kind of work often, do you?"
"Well..." The Nightstmayer from the Department of Sui Affairs scratched his head, speechless for a moment.
Although many Nightstmayers would choose to blend directly into their environment when carrying out missions, he was completely drafted into this! His livelihood was running a grocery store... making pancakes... was really difficult for him.
The ignored Chongyue didn't show any embarrassment on his face. Instead, he looked at the shredded Egg-filled Pancake in Xia Yu's hand and commented, "Hmm, it is indeed a bit miserable."
Hearing the Grandmaster himself use 'miserable' to describe his work, the Nightstmayer directly buried his head into his chest.
"And the taste isn't right either..." Xia Yu took a bite and then frowned. "There's way too much salt... Are you trying to poison your customers to death? No, I can't bear to watch this anymore, move aside, move aside!"
She waved her hand to shoo the Nightstmayer away, planning to take over and fix it herself. After all, she didn't like wasting food.
But awkwardly, when she came to the front of the stall, she realized she couldn't reach the stove...
Seeing this, Xia Yu pulled a long face, dragged the Nightstmayer's small stool over from the side, and stood directly on it.
Then she began to skillfully fry an egg, spread the pancake, and handle all kinds of seasonings and side dishes with ease.
"You have quite a complete set of ingredients here," Xia Yu teased while cooking. "Is this the legendary 'a bad student has the most stationery'?"
The Nightstmayer just smiled awkwardly.
In no time, a fragrant Egg-filled Pancake was freshly out of the pan.
"Let go!" Xia Yu unceremoniously picked up the spatula and slapped Nian's restless little hand.
"Hey, can't I just buy it with money?" Nian playfully clung to her. "My good Bailu, take pity on your big sister, I haven't even had breakfast yet—"
"Now you're a big sister again?" Xia Yu raised an eyebrow at this.
"If you're willing to call me something else, I wouldn't mind either," Nian looked completely nonchalant.
Anyway, there was no escaping this nagging.
"And look at my eldest brother, coming all the way here, travel-worn and braving the wind and dew. Take pity on him too, and make him something good to eat."
"The so-called travel-worn is gathering his strength and pressing down on me?" Xia Yu looked at Chongyue upon hearing this.
The latter couldn't help but feel a bit embarrassed upon hearing this.
At first, he had indeed acted on the possibility that the other party was a Feranmut. Even before they met, his aura had already enveloped this area.
But now... it looked awkward no matter how you looked at it, just like he was bullying a child.
After all... she really wasn't a Feranmut.
So who exactly got this intelligence?
"I'm sorry," Chongyue was quite open and upright. "They kept saying that Doctor Bailu was a Feranmut, so I was more or less anxious."
"So who is so blind?" Xia Yu looked down at her own size, which required her to stand on a small stool just to make a pancake, and rolled her eyes at him. "A Feranmut?"
"It's all a misunderstanding... but there is one more thing," Chongyue smiled awkwardly, then his face turned solemn. "Two months ago, I fought with a person radiating an imposing evil aura in Yumen. After breaking off contact with a single strike, she went straight into Yan's heartland, and hasn't been found until now."
"And in the Ursus Icefield... we learned of some disturbing things."
"So what are you still standing here for?" Xia Yu tilted her head at this. "If I were you, I would be building combat readiness fortifications along the coast right now."
"So, that person is the older sister Doctor Bailu mentioned, right?" Chongyue's gaze sharpened. "To build combat readiness fortifications along the coast... the thing inside her... can it finally no longer be suppressed?"
"You can't joke about this, Little Bailu," Nian also leaned over upon hearing this. "I finally finished that infrastructure project with great difficulty! If there has to be another mechanized defense line along the coast now... your Big Sister Nian is really going to die from exhaustion!"
The Nightstmayer on the side didn't even dare to breathe too loudly.
They knew exactly how awkward the imperial court's finances were. If a massive project like the northern defense line needed to be replicated along the coast... they couldn't imagine how fierce the arguments in the royal court would become then.
And Chongyue clearly considered the Frenzied Flame to be a type of threat similar to the Collapsals in Yan's north.
Just a single fragment was enough to make Yan bleed dry to build a defense line and station troops there for so many years... Although this fragment was originally found by their ancestors as a backup plan to slay the gods. If they lost, they would just drag the whole world down with them.
In the end, it wasn't used, and instead became a threat spanning dozens of generations.
"You're talking about the Frenzied Flame?" Hearing this, Xia Yu looked up and smiled faintly. "Oh, maybe I didn't express it correctly. The Frenzied Flame's seal is being reconstructed."
"The ocean is just wonderful. There's no oppression, no slavery, and especially no unwilling echoes of the persecuted. Without these, the Frenzied Flame is water without a source, a tree without roots. It can't run rampant. Big Sister Tarnished said she has already fallen in love with the sea."
"Then why do we need to build a defense line?" Chongyue felt no joy upon hearing this, because he knew that the bad news was definitely coming next.
After all, having lived for so many years, he had at least summed up some experience.
"Because Big Sister Tarnished discovered something even worse," Xia Yu took a bite of the Egg-filled Pancake and found it a bit dry. She then took out the Supreme Gourd, took a gulp of the Loong Balm, and continued, "The usually quiet Aegirians have pulled off a massive stunt for all of Terra. Tsk, tsk, tsk. If those things come ashore, it would be a miracle if you could even last a month."
"What things?!" Hearing this, Chongyue truly couldn't maintain his composure anymore. "Is there... something in the sea?"
"Regarding this, I suggest you go to Iberia and ask," Xia Yu swatted away Nian's small hand reaching for the Supreme Gourd and said calmly, "The Profound Silence that shattered their Golden Age back then was just a tiny aftershock of the major incident they caused."
"Iberia's Profound Silence," Hearing this, the Nightstmayer Old Chen's expression turned grave. "It directly broke the spine of a powerful nation that was poised to become the hegemon of the heartland. Most of the country's grain-producing areas were submerged by seawater, even including their former royal capital."
"Even now, most of the civilians in the once-prosperous Iberia are still suffering from starvation."
"Most scholars define the Profound Silence as a Catastrophe, even if it doesn't fit the definition of a Catastrophe..."
"That's right, because it's not a Catastrophe," Xia Yu heard this and once again slapped away Nian's restless little hand. "It's a man-made disaster, at least for Iberia it is."
"As for Aegir, they refer to that Profound Silence as a glorious victory. They successfully slew a god, but little did they know that the reason they succeeded was because that god didn't put up any resistance at all."
"So are you done or not?" Speaking up to this point, she suddenly paused and turned to look at Nian, who was persistently stretching out her little hand. "Do you really like my precious gourd that much?"
"I smelled it just now!" Nian said righteously. "Even Big Sister Ling doesn't have wine this good! I just want a taste!"
"No," Xia Yu directly refused, saying with a cold face. "My Loong Balm is very precious."
"Then I'll buy it?"
"I'm not selling!"
"But—"
"Ahem, Nian," Hearing this, Chongyue really couldn't bear it anymore and spoke up, "Don't be willful, we're talking about serious business."
"Serious business..." Hearing this, Nian looked at her eldest brother.
How could she not know this was serious business... it was just... sigh.
If they really had to build a defense line along the coast, she would absolutely have to pitch in. At that time, there would be no time to go out.
It wasn't that Nian was just greedy for play, but rather... she had already made up her mind to go and seek a future for her brothers and sisters. If she was tied down by forging, who else could they count on to step forward?
Dusk, that shut-in?
Although she also knew that her pestering wouldn't change anything.
"Where was I just now? Oh, the sins committed by Aegir, right?" Xia Yu happily took a bite of her pancake. "Do you know about miniature singularities? Oh, you might not understand, but surely someone does."
"Aegir is incredibly developed. They can even turn miniature singularities into weapons. Yan's so-called fortified cities would be as fragile as a thin sheet of paper in front of those weapons."
"And the adversaries they bred are even more extraordinary. Even an Aegir as developed as that is on the verge of being exterminated by them. They are creatures that have the continuation of life engraved into their very being, capable of evolving adaptability in response to constant environmental changes."
Xia Yu smiled at this point, "Right now, they've already evolved carapaces capable of resisting miniature singularities, although they can only tank a few shots."
"But if you switch to land, exhausting all the shells of a warship and draining the bodies of all the Casters on board, trying to pierce through that carapace would still be mere wishful thinking."
Otherwise, in the alternate timeline, how did the Seaborn destroy the world? Victoria's fleets were directly submerged by an endless sea of Seaborn. The weapons of war they were so proud of couldn't even last a single week.
Casimir's Silverlance Pegasi disappeared into the Seaborn swarm in a single charge, and Leithanien's Golden Chorus didn't fare much better.
In the end, it relied on the collective self-destruction of Ursus's Emperor's Blades to allow Terrans to survive by the skin of their teeth for another month. The Collapsal's pollution temporarily blocked the Seaborn.
But that was only temporary. Soon, the Seaborn adapted to this environment, and the last Humans in the world went extinct.
They could even forcefully adapt to the Collapsal's pollution... Truly worthy of being creations of the Prehistory, creatures existing purely for survival.
These were all super bosses raised by the scavengers of Aegir! If you want to scavenge First Civilization trash, go ahead, but why couldn't you keep your hands to yourselves and open the laboratory in the mantle layer? Didn't they stop to think about why the laboratory was built there in the first place?
Creatures that can face-tank miniature singularities... Damn it, how are the people of Terra supposed to fight them?!
In her hands, only Acheron and Firefly could confront the Seaborn head-on. The Elden Lord was already starting to fall out of the meta, only serving as a support to do odd jobs.
What? You're asking about Fufu and Bailu?
It's enough for the mascots to just act cute. Why overthink it?
"If things are truly as you say, then no matter how sturdy the defense line is built, it will be to no avail," Chongyue's gaze was solemn.
"Oh, if there is a defense line, you guys might have a little more time to write your wills or something, probably," Xia Yu shrugged.
"Oh, is that so," Hearing this, Nian was no longer anxious.
She should have said so earlier.
"I apologize, but this matter is of grave importance," Chongyue, on the other hand, was about to die of worry. "Yan needs time to verify this."
"Suit yourself," Xia Yu said uncaringly. "I won't be the one dying when the time comes anyway."
"There's one more thing I'm curious about. Why is Doctor Bailu willing to tell us all this?" Chongyue continued to ask.
"Because I'm annoyed," Xia Yu glanced at the people from the Department of Sui Affairs. "What time is it now, and you're still messing around with this nonsense? From Originium to the Seaborn, and then to the Collapsals and the things behind them, there are way too many disasters we have to deal with."
"As a result, I was just being kind-hearted and saving a few people, and you guys still try to pull these stunts on me. Heh, since you're making me unhappy, don't think you'll have an easy time either!"
"So, can you still laugh now? If you can, then I'll tell you one more thing. I remember that Baizao is built right on top of a main Originium vein, right?"
"Then I'm very happy to tell you that if no one intervenes, those veins will explode in less than a few decades. When that happens, your capital will be blown sky-high. Are you surprised? Is it unexpected?"
"Can you still laugh now?"
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T/N: I'm about to catch up to the author, so expect the updates to become more sporadic.