The Charm of Soul Pets

NEW NOVEL: First and foremost, I'm delighted to announce that our long-time veteran translator littleshanks has finally launched his new novel, Rise!  Rise is a novel about the esports scene in Shanghai, the competitive gaming capital of China. It follows the story of Lin Feng, a boy who has just moved to the city for his last year of high school. He's a passionate gamer and dreams of being the best professional League of Legends player in the world. The twist? He almost achieved his dream, but failed at the...

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Zhuo Qing stood up and looked over everyone. He said: “Given there are 3000 of them, they won’t be very weak. I don’t want to lose too many people. The navy is watching us too closely now.” 

“Big leader, their course seems to have deviated. That’s the only reason why they arrived here. I already had a deputy general lead the way for them. You only need to give the word and I’ll immediately have the deputy general bring them onto the island. It will be like catching a turtle in a jar. They’ll be forced to obediently hand everything over to us and then we’ll feed them all to the ocean monsters. We’ll make it seem like the ocean monsters attacked them in groups and completely destroyed them. Even if New Moon Land knows we did it, I doubt they would send troops our way.” Zhuo Xiong had already thought of a solution. 

When Zhuo Qing heard Zhuo Xiong’s idea, his eyes lit up. This nephew of his was growing increasingly proficient, unexpectedly coming up with a cover beforehand. 

Zhuo Qing praisingly nodded his head and said in a resonant voice: “Ok, we’ll eat New Moon Land’s boats. Have all the brothers hide by the shore on the eastern side of the island. Zhuo Xiong, try and guide their boats as best as you can and don’t destroy their boats in the fighting. If they refuse to get off their ships, the brothers on the other two island can come over and surround them. Don’t let a single boat or ship get away!” 

“Haha, it’s rare to have such huge fish deliver themselves to us here!” the female chieftain gracelessly laughed. 

“Recently the navy has been watching us closely, so it’s been a long while since I’ve tasted blood. I hope the 3000 people from New Moon Land aren’t too soft so that I’ll actually enjoy the killing.” bloodthirstily laughed a gruff man with a huge beard. 

The pirates in the hall wantonly and excitedly laughed. The atmosphere was full of insatiable greed. 

    ……

On the ocean on New Moon Navy’s ships. 

Sang Ying was maintaining his calm as he complained about the nasty side of the sea with those acting pirates. 

These acting pirates were very experienced, and managed to seemingly inadvertently guide Sang Ying’s course towards Dark Island. 

“Leader Sang, look at the weather. It looks like there’s going to be a storm soon. There are frequently ocean waves above the third dominator rank here and wherever the mist is swept off to, they will often appear.” said the pirate deputy general with an anxious look on his face. 

“I can see that.” Sang Ying also looked like he had a headache. 

“I often traverse this part of the ocean and I know of an island nearby. I often seek shelter there.” said the pirate deputy as he continued to lay the bait. 

“There’s an island? That’s great! We’ll be heading to Crown City often in the future and two months of sea voyage is quite tormenting. If there’s an island we can use to rest, that will be great!” Sang Ying immediately showed excitement. 

Seeing Sang Ying’s reaction, the pirate deputy general was elated!

The big fish had easily taken the bait!!

“Haha, being able to make friends with you, a mighty leader, is my honor. How about this. Although we need to go somewhere else, we still have a bit of time. We’ll take you to the island so in the future, it’ll be much easier for you to make the trip.” the pirate deputy general suppressed the elation in his heart as he spoke to Sang Ying. 

“That would be perfect. You really are a good friend. Our New Moon Land’s doors will always be open to ocean adventurers like you.” Sang Ying said with a face full of gratitude. 

Sang Ying wasn’t pretending to be gratified. He really was. 

This pirate was taking the initiative to bring them onto their island! 

Indeed, Sang Ying had just been racking his brains on what excuse to use to approach their island. 

“They probably want to invite us into their boiling pot.” Hai Qie used a mental voice to speak to everyone. 

“Yes, if we’re surrounded, we may be in a bit of trouble.” said Chao Lengchuan. 

There were definitely elemental teams among the pirate crew. If they were surrounded and suffered the bombardment of an elemental team, they would sustain heavy losses. And if they were to lose a large portion of their elite New Moon Navy to pirates, this wouldn’t be worth it. 

“I have a solution. We have a team specialized in our navy at covert movement. This team can not only do it in a forest, but also don’t have a problem moving underwater. Since they’re the ones inviting us in, their focus will be on surrounding us. I’ll have the covert team leave our ship first and enter the island underwater. They’ll find a place to hide on the island and wait for the fighting to start. Then, all they will do is focus the enemy’s elemental team.” said Hero Chief Yuan Sui. 

“This is a good plan. Creating the covert team was really a wise decision.” Chu Mu earnestly nodded his head. 

“I’ll lead this covert team.” said Yuan Sui. 

“Ok, I’ll slow down our progression speed. Be careful when you guys covertly move. Don’t touch any barrier traps.” said Sang Ying. 

“Don’t worry.” Yuan Sui nodded his head. 

In the pirates’ minds, there were only a few adventurer boats leading the New Moon Navy towards the Dark Ocean Island. They didn’t realize that New Moon Navy was covering up 500 soul pet trainers that were riding on their water type soul pets slinking through underwater. 

Without the pirates knowing, this group had separated from the ships and followed the ships’ direction towards the island. 

Because the ships intentionally slowed their speed, the team of 500 was able to see the island before them from underwater. 

Yuan Sui guessed that the pirates would ambush them on the eastern entrance of the island because there was an inward caving gulf. The moment the boats entered the gulf, the route back out into the ocean would be sealed off and they would be completely surrounded. 

The dark ocean’s environment was quite horrid. While deep underwater, the force of the undercurrent was extremely strong. If one even slightly relaxed, he or she could be swept away by the undercurrent. 

They progressed on an adjacent path, planning on coming ashore on another part of the eastern side of the island. 

“Senior Hero Chief, there are many submerged reefs up ahead. That should be the ocean precipice. If there are people guarding that area, it will be a bit troublesome for us to get out of the water.” said a soul pet trainer from Windy Rain City. 

This soul pet trainer had followed Yuan Sui for many years, including during the Soul Alliance period. He hadn’t changed the way he addressed Yuan Sui. Perhaps in this young soul pet trainer’s heart, Yuan Sui would forever be the unrivalled Hero Chief. It didn’t matter that he had already entered the Palaces faction. 

“You, you, and you. Go and check first. If there are any guards, get rid of them. If you don’t have the absolute confidence in doing so, then immediately return.” Yuan Sui picked out three dominator rank experts and had them clear the path for them. 

The three experts left first. Underwater where the vision was hazy, it was still possible to see them flit through the water like a sword fish’s sword. They were moving extremely fast. 

As Yuan Sui had anticipated, most of the pirates’ attention had been placed on the eastern entrance to the island, waiting for New Moon Navy to enter. There were barely any guards on the other locations and they were easily disposed of by the three dominator ranks from New Moon Navy. 

Yuan Sui’s success in his covert operation was half due to his subordinates of the past. Among them, 20 used to be either Investigators or Scars. They were all very strong. As the overall strength of New Moon Land rose, so did their strength. Defeating the patrolling pirates was extremely easy. 

“Leader Yuan, we’ve gotten rid of them. For the purpose of safety, we intentionally left one alive, but have controlled his mind. We’re having him continue to communicate with the pirates.” said an old subordinate, Ma Li.

Yuan Sui nodded his head. He didn’t need to personally instruct them what to do with these small details 

Many guarding teams or patrolling teams would make a report to their other team members every once in a while. These pirates were rather organized and disciplined so they would probably do the same. The moment someone assassinated some of the patrolling members, if there was no report, the higher ups would know something happened. 

Thus, by intentionally leaving one alive and using him to communicate with the pirates, these pirates wouldn’t be able to detect something abnormal. 

Ten minutes later, the 500 people Yuan Sui was leading successfully managed to step foot on the island. They were hiding in a grey rainforest. 

They were rather high up on the land and could see the entire situation in the gulf.

“To the southern side of the gulf is a team hiding in the thicket. They are rather close and should be the demon beast team. There’s about 2000 of them…” Yuan Sui could see the entire ambushing arrangement of the pirates. 

“Most elemental teams will be protected behind the plant team. Therefore, on the western side, or behind the highland where they will enter the port, is probably where the elemental team is. 

From the topography and formation, Yuan Sui was able to guess where the elemental team was. Yuan Sui had already sent Ma Li to scout and find the quickest route to reach that location without being detected. 

“Leader, what is that group of squirming things on the beach on the northern side.?” said an ocean general. 

Yuan Sui immediately looked over and indeed discovered things moving on the northern beach. If he didn't look carefully, he wouldn’t have noticed them.

“A departed spirit team? These pirates have a group of departed spirit soul pet trainers?” Yuan Sui faintly creased his brows. 

Departed spirits rarely appeared on New Moon Land and most soul pet trainers didn’t like signing a soul pact with departed spirit soul pets. Therefore, Yuan Sui didn’t know much about using departed spirit creatures or how to counter them. 

As New Moon Land transformed, their preconceptions of departed spirit soul pet trainers also began to change. 

Departed spirit soul pet trainers and soul pet trainers with departed spirits were two completely different things. The most unique thing about departed spirit soul pet trainers were that practically all of their soul pets were departed spirits. They normally understood how to refine and strengthen departed spirits. Yuan Sui had also heard many departed spirits had different strengthening methods than normal soul pets… 

“There seem to be a lot of them. This group of creatures that will climb back up after being killed will pose quite a bit of a threat to our beast team.” Yuan Sui muttered to himself. 

“Leader, with King Chu, Leader Chao and Leader Ye here, we probably don’t need to be afraid of those departed spirits.” said a navy member belonging to the Palaces. 

Yuan Sui nodded his head. With the three of them here, they probably had a method of dealing with them. 

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