In the remote part of the sturgeon region, Madden and Adrien were floating in the water while looking at a glowing formation circle.
"Do you check all the formation points thoroughly?" Madden asked with a hint of exhaustion in his eyes, like he had done something extremely tiresome.
"Yes, master. I've checked them again and again according to the diagram given to us by the palace," Adrien replied, looking even more exhausted than Madden.
Madden nodded and sighed, "I still don't understand the point of arranging this strange formation in the middle of nowhere. Just who provided these coordinates and these strange formation nexuses?"
"I'm just as curious as you, Master, but one thing is clear: there is something going on, and I don't like it for some reason." Adrien frowningly replied.
"Well, whatever, it had nothing to do with us." Madden coolly stated, but a hint of uncertainty was present in his sharp eyes, "Let me report this to the palace before we leave this place for good."
The next moment, a display appeared above Madden's wrist, and soon, it was connected, and another whale race person appeared on the projection.
"Commander, we've arranged the formation according to the instructions given by the imperial palace. Do we have permission to return?" He solemnly asked.
The commander's expression was solemn as he asked, "Do you arrange the protection measures as well?"
"Yes, there'll be no error," Madden replied without hesitation.
"Good work, you have permission to return!" The commander nodded in acknowledgment and cut off the call.
Madden sighed in relief as he said to Adrien, "Since this is done, let's go back to the Sturgeon Baron Castle for rest. We'll also see what he's been up to in this past week."
Adrien's eyes flashed with a hint of coldness, "Are we taking action?"
Madden chuckled coldly, "It depends on Gerald."
The next moment, Madden suddenly released a strange echo, and thereupon, a huge whale appeared like a lightning flash in front of them. They embarked on the whale and led it towards the baron castle in the center of the sturgeon region.
Both Madden and Adrien were looking forward to solving the mystery of the sturgeon region. However, when they reached the city, they were both horrified by what they witnessed.
The once bustling city filled with life was now completely barren, and dry mutilated corpses of orange sturgeons were floating all over the city. It was a scene of carnage as the radiant city a week ago now had turned into a ghost city!
"I'm not hallucinating, right?" Adrien palely asked with disbelief.
Madden's expression was also pale and gloomy as he nodded, "No, you're seeing right. Someone has massacred the entire city! Just who is so bold?!" Anger seethed under Madden's cold voice.
"This is no longer a small matter, master. We should report it to the higher-ups. Someone is stirring trouble in the empire, completely disregarding the Whale Race authority!" Adrien angrily stated.
Although the orange sturgeon race didn't belong to the whale race and was just one of the many subordinary races the Whale Race had subdued in the past, they were still the natives of the Mighty Whale Empire nonetheless.
If other races heard about this, the Whale Race would lose their credibility as the rulers and the Imperial Clan would never allow such a thing.
"I'm afraid I can't allow you to do it. I need a little more time." At this moment, an icy voice suddenly rang in their ears.
Both Adrien and Madden were spooked, but before they could react, their consciousness suddenly started to fade away.
At this moment, Jacob's giant figure appeared like a phantom on top of the gigantic whale as he coldly looked at Adrien and Madden, who were also towering giants. It was his first time seeing the members of the Whale Race.
"This should be the Thunder Whale, an evolved version of the water lightning whale that only the imperial city can breed. Autarch, turn it into a puppet. This will be our ride from now on," Jacob coolly ordered.
'If I hadn't needed high-ranking blood, I wouldn't have taken such a risk. But now I have to do everything to collect more blood, and I have to make sure the Whale Race won't get involved too soon.' Jacob ruefully sighed as he looked at the ghost city.
In these past six days, Jacob had almost massacred all the sturgeon region, including their central city. The corpses could pile up into a mountain, and the amount of blood he had absorbed could form a lake.
However, despite all of this, he was only able to recover slightly over 60% of his cursed blood, which frustrated and shocked Jacob. But he found that there was a reason for this: after he completed 5% of the longevity schema, he became more powerful, and so did his blood!
This means that the higher he climbed, the more blood vitality he required to go further. At this point, the blood vitality of epic rank was a mere drop in the ocean because only after absorbing around 5000 epic rank blood together could he form a single drop of cursed blood, while he required around 1000 unique ranks to form a drop of cursed blood.
This was turning out to be a huge hurdle in Jacob's path, and he knew all the bloodshed he had done in the past would be nothing compared to what he needed to do now.
That's why he didn't dare to sculpt the longevity schema anymore until he fully recovered his cursed blood. Furthermore, he noticed that as his blood was recovering, the runic lines on his boon hand were starting to glow as if they were being filled with vigorous energy, which was cursed blood!
This confirmed that those runic lines were his new nerves that would contain his blood in the future, and they were extraordinary. He also learned that his cursed blood could be amplified with his hex mana at least ten times!
Not only that, he required energy to use his cursed heart with fluid acceleration; he discovered that he could do the same thing by changing the energy with hex magic.
But Jacob didn't want to do that since replenishing the hex mana was quite expensive. He could use magic gems, meat, or herbs to replenish his energy.
After lamenting a bit, he finally focused on the two whales, and his eyes became determined again. 'Let's see how much blood vitality the Whale Race has, Blood Suction!'