Heroes Return

"However, I hope everyone can keep this a secret for now, as panic could cause serious problems," the admiral said to the crowd. "Next, I will try to contact the sea creatures' diplomats. If they don't discover the matter of the Reverse Scale, that would be ideal, and we can leave the Fantasy Sea safely. But if they intend to attack us, I hope everyone will protect the passengers' safety. Because if the worst happens, we'll have to fight our way through the Fantasy Sea."

……

In the end, the admiral persuaded everyone in the captain's cabin, since they were already on the same ship. Getting off at this point would probably be even more dangerous.

However, Lin Jie did not express any opinion throughout the conversation, because the conversation reminded him of the battle against the sea tribe seven years ago.

Finally, someone suggested wanting to see the "reverse scale," but the admiral refused.

……

"What are you thinking about?" Thirteen asked, looking at Lin Jie.

"Nothing, just thinking about some things from the past," Lin Jie said to Thirteen. "By the way, where did Fourteen go?"

“I assigned him a task,” Thirteen said. “I always felt that the admiral wasn’t telling the whole truth.”

"Alright, I'll leave the brain work to you." Lin Jie said to Thirteen, "I just need to get to the Hero Academy in District M before the start of the semester."

……

Two days passed in this way, and to everyone's surprise, there was no daytime in the Fantasy Sea, nor were there any waves.

The Future passed through many strange places during its voyage.

This place is like a world straight out of a fairy tale. During the two days of sailing, Lin Jie saw many creatures from fairy tales, including mermaids.

In fact, the incompetent master has now learned to preach to the mermaid...

Of course, it wasn't entirely without trouble; on the first day of their voyage, they encountered a gigantic sea monster. However, Lin Jie easily dealt with it using his enlarging iron rod.

On the second day, as the Future passed by a strange seascape, Lin Jie and his companions finally encountered the legendary sea siren who could sing and seduce people.

However, their singing was clearly not as impactful as when the incompetent master chanted sutras.

However, after two days of sailing, they surprisingly did not encounter any sea creature officials or soldiers.

They did encounter quite a few peaceful sea creature soldiers.

This relieved many people, but judging from the behavior of those sea creatures, they were unaware that the ship contained the Dragon God's Reverse Scale.

And so they sailed on until the morning of the third day. The Future finally encountered its first sea creature guard.

"Notify all ordinary passengers to wait in their cabins, and all sailors to prepare for an engagement," the admiral said into the communicator. "Send a signal to that sea creature guard to say that we are a cruise ship that has mistakenly entered the Fantasy Sea."

"Report, the enemy claims to be an army of sea nobility, and they request to board the ship for inspection," Future said.

"Yes, but a diplomat must accompany you during the inspection."

"The other party has agreed to your request."

Following negotiations above, a fleet of strange speedboats approached the Future.

Soon, a large number of sea creature soldiers appeared on the ship. These people all had some fish-like features. Leading them was a tall and strong sea creature general, and standing beside him was a sea creature man who looked much thinner.

"Are you the captain of this ship?" the sea general asked.

"Are you a sea creature diplomat?"

“I am, and this is our general,” the relatively thin sea creature said to the admiral. “We request an inspection of this ship. If there are no problems, we will hand you over to the World Alliance diplomatic ambassador in the capital. They will then send you back. In addition, according to the confidentiality agreement, you must keep the location and method of your entry into the Fantasy Sea a secret.”

“That would be perfect,” the admiral said to the sea creature diplomat. “We were just a passenger ship that entered this area by accident, and I hope we can be safely returned to normal waters.”

“That’s fine, but only after we’ve searched the ship,” the sea-folk diplomat said. “According to the agreement we have with humans, we have the right to do so.”

Chapter 11

Because they had promised the admiral to help guard against the sea creatures, Lin Jie and other passengers with some combat ability stood with the sailors at this time.

"You may inspect, but I demand that you do not disturb my passengers," the admiral said to the sea creature diplomat. "They are all people of considerable status among humans. If you do anything to my passengers, you can expect to face the World Government's wrath."

"You can rest assured about that; our inspection methods are different from yours."

That would be best.

As their conversation came to an end, a large number of sea creatures rushed into the ship's cabins. However, they did not conduct any thorough inspections. Instead, under the protection of a group of sea creature soldiers, a sea creature carrying a strange sphere led the way, walking around every deck of the ship.

As those people moved about, everyone's hearts were in their throats. It didn't take long before the sea creature soldiers responsible for the inspection returned. One of the sea creatures, who appeared to be a squad leader, shook his head at the sea creature general.

"Is the search over?" the admiral asked.

“Yes, the search is over,” the sea creature diplomat replied.

"Then can you take us to find our diplomats in the Fantasy Sea?" the admiral said to the sea creature diplomat. "I don't want to delay this voyage, so I hope to leave the Fantasy Sea as soon as possible."

“Okay, no problem.” The sea general stepped forward and said to the admiral. As soon as he finished speaking, the sea general thrust the spear inlaid with strange crystals in his hand toward the admiral’s chest: “I’ll send you back to your hometown right away.”

Just as the spear was about to pierce the admiral's chest, a bar of soap was thrown in another direction.

The spear's trajectory changed at that moment, but even so, it still drew a bloody gash on the admiral's chest. Then the sea monster general went to pick up the soap.

At the same time, all the sea creature soldiers attacked the crew on the deck. The sea creatures used a strange crystal energy weapon. The blue crystal in front of the spears burst out with strange energy. In addition, the sea creatures had a stronger body than humans. The admiral's crew was put on the defensive the moment they made their move.

Fortunately, other crew members with combat abilities joined the battle at that moment.

“I have no choice but to fight. Fortunately, none of these sea people should have strength above A level. The physical abilities of the ordinary soldiers are between E and D.” Thirteen said, turning to Lin Jie and Master Wuneng beside him while holding his sniper rifle. However, in the instant he turned around, Thirteen was surprised to find that Lin Jie and Master Wuneng had already run towards the cabin.

"..." Thirteen was stunned for a moment. He especially did not expect that Lin Jie, who had always been fearless, would run away this time. Did Lin Jie have some other plans?

Thinking of this, Thirteen also chased after Lin Jie and Master Wuneng.

"Where are you going?" Thirteen followed Lin Jie and Master Wuneng to the cabin, where the three of them stopped.

"Do you even need to ask? Let's go back to the cabin and hide for a bit," Lin Jie said to Thirteen.

"Hey, didn't you even defeat S-rank Ouyang Zihao back then?" Thirteen looked at Lin Jie in confusion and asked, "Those sea people clearly intended to kill people, so no matter how you look at it, shouldn't you have rushed out and killed those sea people?"

"You don't know anything. Didn't I tell you? I killed a lot of sea creatures before, and many of them weren't necessarily bad people. So I decided that I would never hurt sea creatures again." Lin Jie said with emotion, "As long as they don't 'courteously' do something stupid, I won't hurt them anymore."

"What kind of ridiculous master setting is this?!" Thirteen had just finished speaking when a squad of sea creature soldiers rushed towards the three of them, and in an instant, a large number of energy bullets flew towards them.

The three of them dodged the attacks of the sea creature soldiers as they ran towards the next level.

"Amitabha, weren't they planning to kill everyone? There are so many rooms in the cabin full of guests, why are these sea creature soldiers chasing us so relentlessly?" Master Wuneng asked as he ran.

"No need to ask, Thirteen's bad luck has finally kicked in." Lin Jie ducked, dodging an energy blast that grazed his scalp, and said, "I was originally planning to deal with whatever trouble came my way... but I didn't expect that the trouble you've brought this time is one that I can't bring myself to do."

"This is clearly your own psychological problem!" Thirteen said as he ran, "If I had known, I wouldn't have followed you. It would have been better to stay on the deck and fight with the Admiral's men than to be chased by a dozen sea creatures here!"

"Why do you think I ran away without telling you? I was afraid your bad luck would attract the sea creatures!" Lin Jie said, picking up a cleaning robot from the ship and holding it behind his head. The next second, the robot was disintegrated into parts by an energy blast.

“Benefactor Lin, you have a psychological block because of your past sins.” The incompetent master nimbly jumped over a shelf, then said to Lin Jie beside him, “Trust me, even if you defeat them all now, Buddha will forgive you.”

"Weren't you advising me to lay down my butcher's knife and become a Buddha a few days ago?" Lin Jie replied disdainfully to the master, "By the way, master, are you really blind? How come no obstacle can stop you?"

"This humble monk's greatest skill is running away," Master Wuneng said. "What I said about 'laying down the butcher's knife' was just polite talk to persuade you to buy scriptures. Please don't take it to heart!"

"Master, you've even lost all sense of shame at this point."

"Human lives are at stake, we can't worry about that now." The three men rushed into the luggage compartment as soon as Master Wuneng finished speaking. "Go, Benefactor Lin! These people have committed evil deeds for no reason; even if they die, they'll suffer in hell. Benefactor Lin, punishing evil is promoting good!"

"Then why aren't you fighting?" Lin Jie said to the incompetent master beside him. "If I remember correctly, Master, didn't you say that your kung fu was very powerful?"

“We martial artists don’t practice martial arts for the sake of fighting and violence. We practice martial arts to strengthen our bodies. This humble monk practices martial arts to better understand the true meaning of Buddhism,” Master Wuneng said.

"At this critical juncture, can't you say something human?"

"Actually, all I've practiced is how to escape; I have absolutely no skill in fighting." After Master Wuneng finished speaking, the three of them had already run to the end of the luggage compartment.

"You can decide for yourselves," Thirteen said to Lin Jie and Master Wuneng, as his body gradually merged into the shadows.

At this moment, Lin Jie grabbed Master Wuneng.

"What's the point of preaching now?" Lin Jie asked Master Wuneng.

"My Buddhist name is Wuneng," Master Wuneng said matter-of-factly.

At this moment, the three people hid behind a shipping container.

"You two stop arguing and figure out how to deal with those people outside first. Otherwise, you'll both be in trouble," Thirteen said to Master Wuneng and Lin Jie.

"Huh? What do you mean by that?"

"I know how to hide, I can just hide it in a bit."

Lin Jie pulled the vanished Thirteen out of the shadows.

"Lin Jie! What are you doing?" Thirteen looked at Lin Jie angrily.

"You're being too disloyal! I won't allow you to just disappear after attracting so many people!" Lin Jie said, grabbing Thirteen.

"Then why don't you deal with those people? You're an S-rank, you can't possibly be no match for them," Thirteen said.

"No, I feel guilty, I can't do it."

"Then let go of me! If you have a problem in your heart and don't resist, don't drag me down with you!" Thirteen said, trying to break free from Lin Jie.

"I don't care, good brothers share the good times and the bad! And you think you can just run away from the trouble that brought you bad luck? No way!" Lin Jie held onto Thirteen tightly and wouldn't let go.

"Damn it! Our friendship has capsized!" Thirteen exclaimed.

"Amitabha, could you two please deal with these fellows before you start arguing?" Master Wuneng said to Lin Jie and Thirteen, who were locked in a stalemate.

Before they knew it, a dozen sea creature soldiers had surrounded the three of them from different directions.

"Damn it! It's all your fault, and I'm suffering along with you," Thirteen said.

"How could that be? You were perfectly fine when the sea creatures fought on Paradise Island last time, weren't you?" Lin Jie said, then suddenly remembered something: "By the way, don't you have a sea creature lover? If we tell them, will they let us off the hook?"

"That's right! I almost forgot." Thirteen said, taking a step forward and shouting to the sea people, "Wait a minute! My old flame... no, I'm friends with your sea princess, Haina! I hope you can take us to see the princess!"

When Thirteen uttered Haina's name, the sea creatures stopped and began to look at each other.

"Your old flame is a princess?" Lin Jie looked at Thirteen in surprise.

"Don't speak," Thirteen interrupted Lin Jie.

The sea creature soldiers stood there and looked at each other for a few moments, then simultaneously drew their weapons.

At that moment, the expressions of all three people changed.

"Thirteen! It's no use mentioning your old flame at all!" The three of them simultaneously lifted up and flipped onto the container. The spot where they had just been standing had been blown into a large crater by several energy blasts.

"That shouldn't be! Haina is the only royal family member of the sea tribe! Why would they attack us?" Thirteen's expression was more serious than ever before.

"Is it because you abandoned that Haina after falling for her, and she hated you because of that love that led her to send you to the Fantasy Sea?" Lin Jie asked Thirteen. "If that's the case, then the sudden attack by those sea creatures without finding anything out makes sense."