“The Alsur Archipelago is currently known as the largest settlement of divine beast descendants. It boasts fertile lands, endless fruit forests, abundant wildlife, and schools of fish and shrimp swimming in its waters.

“Six tribes of divine beast descendants rule there, descended from the Sky King ‘Luan’, the Ocean King ‘Dragon’, the Earth King ‘Pimu’, the Forest King ‘Jin’, the War King ‘Three-Headed Giant’, and the Illusion King ‘Dream Demon’,” the Merfolk Queen explained eloquently.

Back when the Dao Sovereign drove the divine beast descendants from the Nine States continent, these beings settled overseas. The weaker ones, like those on Merfolk Island and Silkworm Island, stayed closer to the Nine States. The more powerful divine beasts were forced to journey far across the vast ocean to find sanctuary.

The Dao Sovereign might tolerate some small fry dwelling in nearby waters, but would never allow powerful divine beast descendants to lurk close to shore.

After countless years of reproduction, the divine beast descendants formed one settlement after another, similar to the ancient human tribal villages.

“The Alsur Archipelago, with its rich resources and pleasant climate, was perfect for habitation. In ancient times, it was hotly contested among divine beast descendants. After years of bloodshed, only these six tribes remained.

“Even after settling in the Alsur Archipelago, the six tribes never lived in peace, always scheming to devour one another. That is until the powerful being known as ‘Huang’ appeared…”

Pearl learned the name “Huang” from the supreme human expert beside her.

“It devoured the leaders of all six tribes, causing these once-powerful clans to fall into decline, unable to protect their homeland. To resist the covetous eyes of nearby enemies, the six tribes set aside their hatred and allied.

“As generations passed, bloodlines thinned and mixed-bloods increased. The Alsur Archipelago gradually evolved into a dynasty. We merfolk secretly go ashore every dozen years or so to keep track of developments in the Nine States.

“The situation in the Alsur Archipelago is similar to your human realm—they’ve established a dynasty, with the six major tribes ruling over various mixed-blood clans and other minor tribes that came from elsewhere…

“Currently, the archipelago is ruled by the leader of the ‘Dragon’ tribe. By human cultivation standards, they’re at the peak of Third Rank.”

“Third Rank peak, hm, rather weak…” Xu Qi An listened with great interest.

The situation in the Alsur Archipelago could be summarized as a civilization of divine beast descendants.

When Nine-tails mentioned their next destination would be interesting, she meant the Alsur Archipelago, because it had given birth to a civilization of divine beast descendants.

Any highly intelligent beings would inevitably create civilization.

The prosperity of a civilization was somewhat related to the individual power of its intelligent beings.

The weaker the individuals, the more they tended to live in groups, giving rise to systems and civilizations that grew increasingly prosperous.

Humans were the prime example of this.

The stronger the individuals, the more primitive and bloody their civilization remained.

Divine beasts were a representative example of this.

Divine beasts possessed the power to move mountains and fill seas. They did not need tribal groups, only slaves, and without tribal groups, civilization couldn’t evolve.

Humans were exactly the opposite—individually weak, they needed to band together, and time would grant civilization to such groups.

“Are the divine beast descendants continuously weakening?” Xu Qi An grasped the key point.

“Yes.”

Pearl nodded, confirming:

“Even when pure-blooded divine beast descendants reproduce, their bloodline power weakens generation by generation. Today, the merfolk can no longer produce queens of Second Rank unless we change our cultivation method to follow the system your humans created.”

Xu Qi An looked toward the Nine-tailed Fox, who was lounging lazily on a soft couch taking an afternoon nap.

Sensing his gaze, the fox spirit kept her eyes closed, her long, fair legs shifting slightly as she said indifferently:

“The difference isn’t too great between one or two generations, but after three or four generations, the gap widens. The longer the inheritance continues, the weaker the descendants become. They rarely surpass their ancestors.”

Xu Qi An frowned:

“Why is that?”

This didn’t conform to the laws of evolutionary biology.

The fox spirit snorted:

“Don’t ask why. It’s simply the rule of heaven and earth.”

Xu Qi An indeed stopped asking.

Divine beasts were born at the beginning of creation, each one nurtured by heaven and earth, so they possessed unique, irreplicable characteristics. But if they were truly irreplicable, there shouldn’t be any bloodline inheritance… divine beasts should logically be sterile… It was understandable that the second generation would be weaker than the first, given the diluted bloodline, but if two “same-attribute” second-generation beings produced a third generation, theoretically the bloodline wouldn’t be diluted by outside races, so they should be as powerful as the second generation.

Yet in reality, even pure-blooded divine beast descendants grew weaker with each generation, which seemed very unreasonable… If the time scale were extended several thousand or even tens of thousands of years, divine beast descendants might become just like humans, no longer born naturally powerful… Connecting this with the divine beasts’ sudden madness and mutual destruction, something seemed very fishy… Xu Qi An had a vague feeling.

The fall of the divine beasts was probably not coincidental, but inevitable.

“What are you thinking about?”

The Nine-tailed Celestial Fox opened her eyes and gazed at him from afar.

“Some theories about the fall of the divine beasts!” Xu Qi An smiled.

Hearing this, the silver-haired beauty sat up abruptly, her eyes gleaming:

“What theories?”

Xu Qi An glanced at her:

“Why should I tell you?”

When dealing with a mischievous, playful fox spirit, this was called giving her a taste of her own medicine—just for fun!

The Nine-tailed Fox glared at him, then her bright eyes turned crafty as she said with a grin:

“I’ll trade you a secret. The equivalent exchange was Silver Bell Xu’s idea, after all.”

She put on an “I have a big secret” expression and said in a low voice:

“It’s about that divine beast descendant from ancient times who got lost at sea but finally found their way back to the Nine States. They made an earth-shattering discovery—they saw the true form of this world, glimpsed the essence of heaven and earth.”

As soon as she finished speaking, Xu Qi An nodded:

“The earth is round.”

…The Nine-tailed Celestial Fox’s exquisitely beautiful face froze, stunned for several seconds. She looked around angrily:

“Where have you hidden Guardian Yuan?”

So you also have Guardian Yuan anxiety syndrome… Xu Qi An said with a smile:

“I not only know the earth is round, I also know it’s a sphere.”

However, he had already confirmed that while the Nine States world was also a planet, it was much larger than Earth in his previous life—many times larger.

The silver-haired beauty stood there dumbfounded, unable to react for a long while.

The secret she had kept in her heart for many years, never revealed to anyone—the “essence of the world”—had been casually exposed by this human who had only lived twenty-two years.

Judging by his calm and composed manner, this seemed to be just a trivial matter.

For proud and cunning fox spirits like her, they needed to be completely suppressed, stripped of any sense of superiority before they could be properly trained to be obedient… Xu Qi An was very satisfied with the Nine-tailed Fox’s reaction. He ignored her and turned to chat warmly and kindly with the Merfolk Queen.

The Merfolk Queen had two purposes for visiting the Alsur Archipelago: First, to collect the emerald coral that grew abundantly in Alsur Bay, which could treat the white-scale disease affecting merfolk.

Second, to purchase an herb called “red root” that served as an aphrodisiac.

Due to the chaos caused by the flood dragon, the merfolk had lost over two hundred people, suffering extremely heavy casualties.

It should be noted that merfolk were monogamous—after losing a mate, they would never choose another.

Losing over two hundred people meant over two hundred singles, effectively reducing the tribe by nearly five hundred members.

One could imagine how dramatically the merfolk population would drop in the next generation.

Monogamy was a racial custom that couldn’t be forced, so they could only encourage existing couples to have more children, preferably three or four.

Xu Qi An quite liked this Merfolk Queen. She was gentle and demure, speaking in soft tones that easily won men’s favor.

He hoped she wasn’t some tea master who would say “I just care about my brother.”

“If the Alsur Archipelago was transformed from the Three-Headed Giant’s body, might there be spiritual essence or blood energy hidden deep underground? Whatever the case, I need to investigate—pluck a few feathers from passing geese.

“It’s a pity that divine beast descendant king is only Third Rank peak. The blood essence of a Second Rank expert would benefit me greatly, but Third Rank is far too weak.

“Such a large settlement with only one transcendent—did ‘Huang’ really kill all the transcendents?”

He gazed at the azure sky, lost in thought.

…

After three days of sailing through wind and waves, Xu Qi An’s ground book completely lost signal, meaning he could no longer contact the Nine States.

At the same time, they entered the domain of the Alsur Archipelago.

According to the Nine-tailed Fox and Merfolk Queen, besides being the largest settlement of divine beast descendants, this was also the place with the highest “floating population.”

Tribes from surrounding waters would periodically come to the Alsur Archipelago’s markets to exchange goods and gather information.

Of course, this included news as well.

Moreover, theoretically, the transcendent expert of the Alsur Archipelago was also on Xu Qi An’s hunting list.

“We’ve entered Alsur’s domain. We might encounter Dragon tribe patrol guards who question visitors about their tribal affiliation and purpose. If you don’t want to make a scene, let me handle it,” the Merfolk Queen said gently.

Xu Qi An gave an “mm” of acknowledgment, unconcerned with such minor details.

After sailing for another half hour, they still hadn’t encountered the legendary patrol guards.

The Merfolk Queen said “Oh?” then continued:

“Seems we’re in luck. In another thirty li, we should meet the Luan tribe’s aerial patrol…”

Just as she finished speaking, they saw a corpse floating ahead.

It was a humanoid creature eight chi tall, covered in blue-black scales, with legs and feet similar to but more muscular than a human’s, sharp black claws on both fingers and toes and a tailbone that extended outside the body to form a thick tail half a meter long.

Its head was purely that of a flood dragon, with a black horn protruding from its forehead.

A more vivid description would be—a little dragonfolk!

Its body was badly mangled, scales peeled off in many places revealing the tender red flesh beneath.

It seemed to have gone through an intense battle before death.

Xu Qi An glanced at Pearl, communicating mentally:

“A sea patrol guard?”

The Merfolk Queen’s delicate brows furrowed deeply as she nodded silently.

So, was this normal, or had they encountered something unusual? Xu Qi An wondered to himself.

He wasn’t clear whether this represented the Alsur Archipelago’s normal state or an abnormal situation.

But seeing that Pearl only slightly frowned without much reaction, he knew this must be normal.

Poor public security… Xu Qi An commented internally.

After sailing for a few more minutes, another dragonfolk corpse floated by.

This wasn’t normal, right? Xu Qi An thought.

“The Alsur Archipelago seems to be under enemy attack,” the Merfolk Queen said gravely.

This meant they might get caught up in senseless conflict.

Speak of the devil.

Suddenly, there was a splash from the left side of the ship as a black shadow leaped up through the spraying waves, pouncing toward the Nine-tailed Fox at the stern.

The silver-haired beauty lay there lazily, not moving.

One of her fluffy fox tails wrapped around the black shadow, suspending it in mid-air.

The attacker turned out to be a sturdy dragonfolk, identical in appearance to the two floating corpses—clearly of the same race. The difference was that this dragonfolk’s eyes were completely crimson.

They were filled with savagery and madness.

The scales covering its body were marked with twisted, incomplete patterns that made one nauseous and dizzy just looking at them.

Exactly like the transcendent flood dragon that had attacked Merfolk Island.