I guarded Impel Down for a hundred years in the pirate world.

Shuba repeated: "To silence them."

“I don’t know who told the dukes the location he gave them.” Beach said, “Before I met him, I told someone who would never betray me, but who would spread the news if anything happened to my family.”

"So the only one who can silence you is me, and this is his last request to spare your family?"

Beach kept his head down and didn't say anything more.

He fought for Shuba.

But as Mulunbu said, he didn't really believe that there were people who would risk their lives to save him without expecting anything in return. In the end, didn't Xiuba agree to wait here for two days and wait for his return?

So he didn't persevere to the end; his wife and children were more important to him than Xiuba.

He did not want to perish together with Mulunbu.

Regret and shame made his body tremble.

The four- or five-year-old boy reached out his hand to Beach, looking somewhat confused: "Dad?"

Shuba looked at the boy and suddenly smiled.

"It's good that the child is alright."

Beech's head drooped even lower.

Mulunbu sneered and waved his hand.

A guard suddenly lunged at Xiuba, drawing his sword to strike. Beach's wife covered her face in anguish, and Beach turned back, begging Mulunbu to cover his son's eyes.

Bang!

A heavy, muffled thud echoed.

The earth trembled three times.

Mulunbu's smile suddenly froze.

His subordinates also stared wide-eyed.

Beech turned around in astonishment.

Shuba remained in his punching stance, while the guard who had lunged at him was now lying in the pit, his face contorted in pain, barely able to breathe.

"It's good that the child is alright." Xiuba sighed and repeated.

……

A distant sea, 20,000 meters deep.

Dragon Palace.

A loud report echoed throughout the hall.

"Your Majesty, the High Priest requests your presence. She has located the thief who stole our most precious treasure!"

……

"It's time to go on the run again."

Shuba closed the eyes of Mulunbu, whose face was contorted in terror and who died with his eyes wide open, and straightened up.

A hint of melancholy crossed his slightly chubby face. He looked at the haphazardly laid corpses, then at Beech's wife, who was clutching their child in terror, and finally at Beech, who was kneeling on the ground, looking dazed.

“Be more careful in the future. You’re not alone. Don’t let your wife and son go through something like this again,” Xiuba said.

Beech's expression shifted, and his lips trembled.

"Who...who are you?"

"You...you're not going to kill me?"

“Fine, you did it all for your family after all,” Shuba said. “Never again.”

Leaving the family of three with his back turned, Xiuba strode out of the cave and down the mountain.

He hadn't gone far when he suddenly saw a tall man blocking his way.

"Just keeping watch?" Shuba raised an eyebrow, put his index finger to his lips, and said, "Shh~ Just pretend you didn't see me. I don't want to kill you anymore."

"Are you a wanted criminal? Or is someone hunting you down?" the tall man asked him.

Xiuba paused, carefully observing the other person, a slightly serious expression appearing on his chubby face: "You're not from the Mulunbu Merchant Guild? Oh, did those dukes notice that Mulunbu was hiding something?"

"Hehe, you'd better not be curious. My troubles are troubles for them too."

"Perhaps not for me. But if it's not your fault, I'll settle this for you." Figo chuckled. "The Navy, interested?"

Shuba: "...!"

Chapter 319 The Stolen Mermaid Treasure

Mullenbu was overly nervous in front of the six dukes and Figo, and all seven could see that something was amiss.

However, it was very difficult for the MindNet to read the thoughts of a king who lit three lamps. They only thought that Mulunbu was hiding the fact that he had harmed the lamp hunters in his merchant group who had discovered the level 5 lamps. They did not expect that even the location of the lamps was wrong.

Or rather, this was an oversight by Cassius's men in their initial preparations. If Figo hadn't impulsively gone to the site himself, Mulumbu might have been able to keep it a secret for two or three days—but it was impossible to keep it a secret forever.

Shuba, looking up at Figo, his slightly chubby face shifting with expression, asked, "You are... Gaston Figo, the King of the Stars?"

"It's me." Figo felt he had been saying those two words a lot lately, a source of great distress for him.

Shuba remained silent. He was clearly struggling with inner turmoil and hesitation. After a pause of about ten seconds, his figure suddenly flashed and disappeared from Figo's sight.

Figo shook his head, neither stopping nor chasing.

They didn't bother with the Beach family of three.

Beach was also a victim. Although his betrayal of Shuba was despicable, since Shuba himself didn't pursue the matter, Figo didn't interfere. If he were smart enough, Beach wouldn't have gone to the six dukes to sell the real location of the Light. Discovering the Level 5 Light not only resulted in getting nothing but also losing an arm, which was already a considerable punishment.

He descended the mountain, and at the foot of the mountain, Xiuba was waiting for Figo just as Figo had been waiting for him, which made Figo smile.

"So, you've decided to tell us after all?"

Shuba: "King of the Stars, don't you have any curiosity?"

“Yes,” Figo chuckled, “but would you rather I capture you and interrogate you, or would you rather I beg you to tell me the secret and then kindly help you solve your troubles?”

Xiuba paused, then bowed deeply in shame.

"No, I beg the King of the Stars for help!"

"Let's find a place to sit down first."

……

The forces pursuing Shuba were not too far from Figo's expectations. This man was not weak; he had easily defeated a three-lamp king, so he should be around MR4 level, and not far from lighting five lamps.

Besides the three major forces of Lantern and Fire Star, the only forces that could force him to flee were the two largest Lantern Fishing Gangs and the Fish-Man and Merfolk tribes.

Fish-men and mermaids can live on land, but it's not as comfortable as living in the water. So when Capri was founded, the Mermaid Kingdom joined Capri as an ally.

These two races of the Fire Star are not as weak as those in the Qinghai. Ten thousand years ago, the Mermaid Queen was one of the strongest among the 13 kings, and after merging with the ship spirit Poseidon, she is undoubtedly the strongest!

Moreover, since the lamps and wicks are all in the sea, the merfolk and fish-men races are able to obtain far more lamps and wicks than other races, and their accumulated power is naturally considerable.

Therefore, the Mermaid King of all time was one of only two dukes in Capri, second only to the Skeleton King.

However, in recent centuries, the connection between the Mermaid Kingdom and Capri has gradually diminished, mainly due to the conflict of interest over the wicks of the lamp.

Peace has been restored, but internal strife has increased.

"I wonder if the King of the Stars has any knowledge of the position of High Priest of the Merfolk?"

“I know.” Figo nodded: “In order to gain the ability to control sea beasts, the fish-men race selects a mermaid princess every few generations. Under the guidance of the high priest, she borrows a portion of the power from the mermaid queen from ten thousand years ago. The high priest is usually a mermaid princess from a previous generation.”

The Mermaid Queen was also the only one among the 13 kings over ten thousand years whose power of the lamp was extracted every hundred years. There was no other way; sealing Lucifer was very important, but without the help of powerful sea beasts, the human race was on the verge of extinction in those 7000 years.

“Oh, I almost forgot. The King of the Stars comes from the legendary Land of Hope. Every eight hundred years or so, the power of the Mermaid Queen is revived in your Mermaid Princess, right? That is the true inheritance.” Xiuba said, “The Mermaids borrowed it; it’s a fake.”

Figo nodded slightly, thinking of the little white star he had teased and made cry when she was a child.

"So, this matter is actually closely related to your Qinghai. Because the sea beasts are getting stronger and stronger, this borrowed power is gradually becoming unable to affect those level five sea beasts. So the merfolk launched a top-secret operation. They want to obtain the true inheritance of the Mermaid Queen!"

Do you want to obtain Shirahoshi's Poseidon power?

"They feel that your mermaid princess from Qinghai has no use for this power to control sea beasts. Rather than passing it down to you, it would be better for them, the mermaids who need this power, to obtain it."

The plan probably started about 400 years ago. They calculated the time, the 800-year cycle, and wanted to cultivate a mermaid princess to obtain the power from you first.

Because they have borrowed the Queen's power many times, the current mermaid royal family has some bloodline similar to that of the mermaid queen. They have deliberately cultivated and purified this bloodline generation after generation in various ways. 89 years ago, the mermaid princess whose bloodline was most similar to that of the mermaid queen was Loulan.

In the mermaid clan's plan, she was supposed to become the grandmother of the mermaid princess vying for the spontaneous inheritance of the Mermaid Queen's Light. Raised under strict discipline, she was supposed to begin bearing children at the age of 30, but instead… she ran away.

At this point, a hint of reminiscence and a smile appeared on Xiuba's slightly chubby face: "She knew her mission from a very young age and was always very obedient. No one could have predicted that she would run away."

This was her only act of defiance. Having always lived in the Dragon Palace, she simply wanted to escape to the shore and visit Capri, but this terrified the merfolk. Her pursuers quickly caught up with her, and coincidentally, I encountered her.

“She pretended to be an ordinary mermaid girl and said that there were bad people behind her. I…” Xiuba smiled bitterly: “I thought she was innocent and cute, so I didn’t think much of it and helped her escape from the pursuers.”

Later I realized what a huge problem I had gotten myself into.

Figo shook his head: "Lust at first sight?"

Xiuba's chubby face flushed red. "You, the King of the Stars, how could you be so direct?"

“I took her to many islands and showed her the life of humans. In the process, I…did fall in love with her.” Shuba sighed, “So I guess I deserve to be hunted down.”

"Is that all?" Figo asked.

Shuba covered his forehead: "When she decided to go back, she said, 'Anyway, when I go back I will bear children for the merfolk, through experiments, and through you...' I... I couldn't control myself, and I had a son with her."

Figo chuckled to himself.

What a third-rate romance novel script.

Xiuba felt increasingly ashamed.

"She went through a lot during that time. She did a lot to protect our two sons... I had no choice but to visit the mermaid kingdom once when the child was four years old. I was almost killed by the mermaids and fishmen."

Later, their attempt to seize the Mermaid Queen's power of light and inherit it independently failed, and Loulan's situation deteriorated. The Mermaids blamed me for their failure, calling me a thief who stole the Mermaid Kingdom's "treasure," and the warrants for my arrest grew stronger, forcing me to live in hiding within a small merchant caravan, afraid to reveal my true power.

Having explained everything thoroughly, Shuba let out a long sigh of relief and looked up at Figo.

Can you really help me, King of the Stars?

Figo remained silent for a moment, then sighed.

"How about we pretend we've never met?"