Chapter 262: The Birth of the Taboo

"This is also why I sent my beloved mermaid girlfriend to meet her ancestors in front of you back then," the Third Senior Brother said with a beaming smile.

Beside them, the Captain watched the scene with a subtle smile. He knew the Third Senior Brother wasn't one to speak idly; this was clearly an attempt to mend his relationship with Xu Qing.

Xu Qing glanced at the Third Senior Brother, a memory surfacing of him gently crushing the mermaid woman's head at the port back then. At that moment, he had felt that this Third Senior Brother was dangerous, and that perceived danger remained just as strong now.

"However, in a fight to the death, I should be able to survive." Xu Qing weighed the possibility in his heart, then cupped his fists and bowed.

"A welcome gift." The Third Senior Brother's smile remained as he raised a hand, took out a roll of spirit stones, and handed them to Xu Qing. Then, he spoke softly.

"That day outside Sea Lizard Island, you weren't my junior brother yet, so I just chased you for fun. Please don't mind it, junior brother. Consider this my debt to you."

Xu Qing looked at the Third Senior Brother. During his escape from Sea Lizard Island that day, he had been targeted and pursued by multiple auras. Although he never saw who those people were, he later subtly sensed that the Third Senior Brother's attitude was off, and had harbored some suspicion. Now that the other party had directly addressed it, Xu Qing felt a slight surprise. He took the spirit notes and scanned them – fifty thousand spirit stones, a sincere gesture. He nodded and accepted them.

Seeing Xu Qing put away the spirit stones, the Third Senior Brother breathed a sigh of relief. He cherished the atmosphere of the Seventh Peak. More importantly, he felt that Xu Qing was the type of junior brother who, if you didn't eliminate him in one go, would become extremely fierce, remember it for life, and relentlessly pursue vengeance. Such a person was someone he least wanted to provoke. He was about to speak again when...

Just then, a deafening roar echoed from the sky, shaking the earth and causing fish-scale-like ripples to spread across the heavens in all directions.

"Bloodfiend Son, you seek death!"

Everyone immediately looked up.

In the sky, sword energy crisscrossed as if to cleave the heavens, and sword shadows carried destructive power. Just by looking, Xu Qing felt a sharp pain in his eyes. He also noticed a familiar withered hand appearing in the sky. This hand resembled a god's hand, imbued with terrifying divinity. Its fluctuations could alter laws, causing blurred figures to appear around it, as if ancient sages were manifesting within this withered hand, empowering it. It seemed capable of plucking stars, destroying heaven and earth, its power soaring into the clouds as it grasped towards the void.

The void shattered layer by layer, and the sky directly transformed into a churning sea of blood. Accompanied by the whispers from the descending blurred figures, a suppressive force formed, a truly shocking sight. Xu Qing's pupils contracted. At the same time, the Bloodfiend Son in the sky transformed into countless blood threads, an equally astonishing sight, exuding unparalleled wickedness. Like an immortal fiend, even with sages descending and a sea of swords suppressing him, his brutal nature remained unchecked.

Amidst cackling laughter, countless blood threads, like ferocious blood serpents capable of swallowing mountains and rivers, caused sword energy to collapse and sword shadows to shatter wherever they passed. Finally, they formed a monstrous dragon-snake head that violently crashed into the withered hand. Heaven and earth trembled. As a sound like colossal thunder reverberated through the sky, the withered hand disintegrated, and Patriarch Lingyun recoiled. The head formed by countless blood threads also retreated, then reformed into the Bloodfiend Son's figure, his eyes filled with killing intent as he burst into laughter.

"Old Daoist Lingyun, you may be a thousand years my senior, but you're nothing special."

"Lesser sects will eventually be suppressed, Bloodfiend Son. I'll give you one last chance. Hand over Xu Qing, return the fate lamp, and obey the Seven Sects Alliance's decree. Your Seven Blood Eyes can remain as before, and the Seven Sects Alliance will not interfere excessively!"

Patriarch Lingyun's eyes filled with cold light. He raised his right hand, formed a seal, and pointed forward. Immediately, the blood sea in the sky roared, and vaguely, a blurred image of a blood tree began to form within it. This was a forbidden artifact of the Lingyun Sword Sect. Although it wasn't a true strike, the projected power he wielded, given Patriarch Lingyun's authority, was still astonishing.

"Not interfere excessively?" The Bloodfiend Son burst into laughter. "For thousands of years, our sect has had to submit sixty percent of its annual income to the Alliance. Every generation's talented disciples are conscripted by you; they either submit or are sent to dangerous lands to die. Our sect's cultivation methods are all inferior to yours, and they contain fatal flaws. Whenever we acquire new merits, you take them! Your authority over our sect's grand formations surpasses our own. Any peak lord who displeases you is immediately replaced, their fate unknown."

As the Bloodfiend Son spoke, the disciples of the Seven Blood Eyes' seven peaks fell silent. Their breathing became rapid, and sharp glints appeared in their eyes.

Seeing this, Patriarch Lingyun frowned. "When you drink water, don't forget the well-digger. In its early days, the Seven Blood Eyes was built with resources and disciples from all seven sects of the Alliance, which allowed for your subsequent development. What, now that your wings are hardened, you can be ungrateful?!"

Hearing this, the Bloodfiend Son laughed again, but this laughter held a hint of absurdity. "A favor? Indeed! Three thousand years ago, the Corpse Ban War; two thousand seven hundred years ago, the Soul Stream Conflict; two thousand years ago, the Cloud Clan War; one thousand seven hundred years ago, the Heart-Soul Clan War... To this day, our Seven Blood Eyes has fought for your Seven Sects Alliance in over six hundred major and minor battles! Countless casualties, bones strewn everywhere! For the burial of our fallen disciples and the medicinal pills for our injured, did your Seven Sects Alliance ever provide anything? Every time our sect was about to flourish, it would decline in war, and our war gains were pitifully meager! Over thousands of years, our sect has faced seventy-nine existential crises. Did your Seven Sects Alliance ever help us even once? Our successive patriarchs sought assistance numerous times, and even the third-generation patriarch once knelt before the Alliance, begging for aid. Did you ever heed us even once? Every single time, it was our successive patriarchs of the Seven Blood Eyes who diligently and painstakingly managed, slowly licking their wounds, slowly recovering. Yet, as soon as the sect showed slight improvement, your Alliance would wave its hand and conscript us! Are our Seven Blood Eyes disciples not living beings? Must we die for you, while you reap the benefits? Lingyun, I, Bloodfiend Son, want to ask your Seven Sects Alliance, I want to ask this very world: Is this favor repaid enough by our Seven Blood Eyes? Is this favor truly settled by our Seven Blood Eyes? Yet, relying on that initial favor, you continuously exploit us, acting as if we should simply accept this, while you remain high above. If our Seven Blood Eyes doesn't obey and fight to the death for you, we are ungrateful. If we don't obey and submit our income, we are disloyal. Do you mean this favor requires our Seven Blood Eyes to be enslaved for generations, repaying it until the coming of a grand epochal catastrophe?!"

Bloodfiend Son's voice boomed like a great bell, reverberating through heaven and earth, causing the Seven Blood Eyes' seven peaks to hum and vibrate.

Patriarch Lingyun's expression turned cold. He wasn't unaware of the Seven Blood Eyes' plight, but interests determined his stance, so he spoke indifferently. "No need to say more. The ungrateful will always have many excuses."

Hearing this, Bloodfiend Son laughed loudly. "What a 'superior sect'! What 'presuming on a favor'! What 'drinking water and forgetting the well-digger'! Since that's the case, then today... our Seven Blood Eyes shall also become a superior sect!"

Patriarch Lingyun's eyes instantly gleamed with a sharp light, and he spoke calmly. "Your sect is not worthy."

"You'll see if we're worthy!" Bloodfiend Son, suspended in mid-air, his eyes shining intensely, raised his right hand and pointed to the sky. "Sea Corpse Ancestral Land, activate the formation!"

As Bloodfiend Son's words rang out, the winds and clouds changed color, and heaven and earth rumbled. Far, far away from here, beyond multiple sub-islands of the Sea Star, Mermaid, and Sea Corpse races, lay the Sea Corpse Ancestral Land. At this moment, it began to shake violently. Half of this area had already been secured by the Seven Blood Eyes. Here, the Seven Blood Eyes still had an army that had not yet withdrawn. Here, the Seven Blood Eyes had already completed the construction of a massive teleportation array, preparing to transport two Sea Corpse Ancestor statues away.

Looking across, two statues, already transported here, stood imposing. Simultaneously, brilliant light from teleportation arrays illuminated both the sky and the ground, causing the world to change color. Clouds were swept away by an invisible giant hand, and the roaring sky was parted, rolling wildly outwards.

At this moment, as the formation's light flared, the sky array thundered with immense power, its sound echoing through the heavens. As this sound reverberated, it wasn't the two ancient-looking Corpse Ancestor statues on the ground being teleported away. Instead, external objects were being teleported *to* the sky. They were five streaks of light. The light was blinding, making it hard to see, but as it descended, it quickly clarified, causing all cultivators watching within the Sea Corpse Ancestral Land to be profoundly shaken, their faces aghast with disbelief and astonishment. For what existed within those five lights were, astonishingly... five unfamiliar Corpse Ancestor statues!

These five statues were not among the Sea Corpse Race's original nine; they were additional ones. Each statue exuded endless antiquity and desolation, marked by the passage of time. Cracks covered their surfaces, making them appear like ordinary stones, yet only upon landing on the Sea Corpse Race's territory did they erupt with brilliant light. This was the miraculous aspect of the Sea Corpse Ancestor statues: only here did they possess their vast power.

Now, as the five statues descended and landed, the ground rumbled as if an earth dragon had stirred, causing the entire Sea Corpse Race territory to shake profoundly. Commotion and cries of alarm echoed in all directions. Looking around, there were now a total of fourteen statues in the Sea Corpse Race's ancestral land. Seven of them were scattered within the Sea Corpse Race's own territory, while the other seven were positioned atop the Seven Blood Eyes' formation. The formation roared, operating furiously, as these seven statues blazed with overwhelming light. Each one erupted with earth-shaking fluctuations, acting like seven enormous power sources!

Furthermore, at the moment their aura pierced the sky, directly above the seven statues, astonishingly... seven gigantic blood-red whirlpools appeared. These were seven closed eyes. All seven of these eyes were closed, yet their appearance caused a violently raging tsunami to erupt across the entire Forbidden Sea. Almost all foreign races and sea beasts trembled at this instant, overcome with extreme terror. This was the aura of a magic treasure, and not just any ordinary one, but one infinitely close to a forbidden artifact.

Then, as this fiercely powerful aura surged forth, above the seven closed eyes, amidst gathering winds and clouds, an ancient bronze mirror, tens of thousands of feet in size, appeared! This mirror stood vertically in the sky, slowly rotating to face all directions: illuminating Yinghuang Prefecture to the north, dazzling the Seven Blood Eyes to the south, sweeping across the Corpse Emperor's forbidden zone to the east, and suppressing the boundless sea to the west. Everything around it fell within its range, its might intimidating all directions. Wherever its light shone, hearts shattered, souls trembled, and hairs stood on end.

A forbidden aura, fueled by the surge of power from the seven Corpse Ancestor statues acting as its energy source, suddenly erupted from the mirror.

The Seven Blood Eyes' forbidden artifact was complete.