After Jacob was done 'harvesting,' he secluded himself and completed his other foot with the longevity schema, which took a few hours. Once he felt the surge in his power, he mulled over his new destination.
Although he thought the Mighty Whale Empire would steer him toward the Battle Shark Empire, that didn't happen, and they surprisingly wanted him to wreak havoc in the Siren Hymn Temple's territory.
'Even though it's strange, it wasn't like I didn't have information about the siren race thanks to good old dead Masha. The siren race has weak physical bodies because they are spirit-type races; the only variable is the faith power they use.
'Masha even knew a secret passage to bypass the protection of the large regions. I never thought this knowledge would come in handy. So, I guess I'm going to the Siren Hymn Temple. Let's see what kind of bloodline they have!'
After deciding, he didn't hesitate to embark on the thunder whale and headed toward the east of the Mighty Whale Empire. He could've hunted more whales, but this might expose his immunity to the oath contract, so he didn't think it was worth it.
Moreover, not long ago, he also noticed that the blood of the whales or any species he hunted before was becoming less potent. So, he was already planning to leave for a new hunting ground. But because of the empire's insecurity against him, they gave him a free parting gift.
The Siren Hymn Temple was hundreds of miles away from the Mighty Whale Empire, but with the thunder whale, in a few hours, Jacob was already approaching the outskirts of the temple territory.
Jacob slowed down his speed and decided to leave the Thunder Whale there because it was simply too large. If he went any further, it would be announcing his own arrival. So, he decided to go himself. Now that his power had increased, the deep ocean pressure had very minimal effect on him. Obviously, some part of it was thanks to the Art of Nature.
The territory of the Siren Hymn Temple was filled with exotic buildings, and the beautiful sirens could be seen swimming everywhere. Furthermore, Jacob noticed that, unlike the Mighty Whale Empire's territory, the sirens didn't have other races among them.
Most of them were beautiful women, and the male sirens had a very small population. The Siren Race was a matriarchy race; there were always more women than men, and their birth rates were similar.
Furthermore, male sirens couldn't use faith power and were considered weak among their race. They were only considered good for breeding, and the more powerful the male, the higher his value.
Some sirens even bought males from other races just to get pregnant and then killed them once they served their purpose.
There was even a custom of killing the weak and old siren males if they had no value in society, and this 'killing act' was called a sacrifice for the Mermaid Goddess. That's why this race was both gentle and ruthless and had its own dark side.
Jacob didn't bluntly enter the small region since he would stick out like a sore thumb here, and despite having information from Masha, he didn't know the terrain of the entire territory.
There were many small regions under the eighteen large regions, and if someone caused any trouble in the small regions, the large regions would send investigation teams filled with battle priests who could use faith power.
Even if he wasn't afraid of the large regions, killing those sirens in the small regions wasn't worth drawing the temple's attention yet because they were mostly extraordinary and epic-rank sirens here.
So, Jacob had Autarch scout and learn about the Siren Hymn Temple terrains and where how many high-ranking sirens were in the large regions, and for Autarch, this wasn't difficult at all.
After all, Autarch could turn a thousand unique-rank beings into its magic puppet, and this number only grows ten times if the target ranks lower than the unique rank. For example, the magic puppets' limit would increase to 10,000 epic rank, 100,000 extraordinary rank, and so on.
So, very soon, a small portion of this small region was under Autarch's control, and Jacob could now easily enter it without alerting anyone.
But his target was not this small region, so using Autarch's abilities, he paved his way towards the large region with a secret passage known to Masha. This large region was called the Holy Polaris Region, which had over three hundred small regions like this under its government.
Masha came from the Holy Polaris Region and even belonged to the High Priest Lord family there, so she knew about many secrets of this region. After Autarch led the way, it took him a few hours to reach the territory of the Holy Polaris Region.
Autarch then used Masha's memories to find this secret passage quickly. After all, even if Jacob knew about the location, the terrains of the deep ocean were almost the same, so only someone familiar with them could truly travel here.
Soon, Jacob found himself in front of a building that appeared just like the others in this row. But it was empty and locked with a magic rune. Only someone with the corresponding rune allocated by the region hall could unlock its door, or the region hall would be instantly alert if someone tried to break in, and Jacob just happened to have one.
It was a small black bead with a single rune engraved on it. When Jacob placed this bead into a small grove over the building, the door instantly unlocked, and he entered inside.
"There should be an underground tunnel in the basement hidden by a concealment array. If sir uses the runic key in Masha's belongings, the concealment array will be removed, and the secret door will be opened. Without that runic key, the entire passage would be destroyed.
"There should also be a hidden lab in this passage where she used to conduct her experiment when she was hiding from the temple authorities," Autarch revealed emotionlessly.
"Heh, what a crazy bitch. Even after she was exposed, she still didn't escape until she was content with her research." Jacob scoffed as he no longer thought about Masha, for she had long been digested by Autarch and headed towards the secret passage.
---
While Jacob was making his way towards the Holy Polaris Region, somewhere in this region, a man in a black cloak wearing an oxygen mask was talking with someone on star watch.
After he was done, a runic plate appeared in his hand, shimmering with dark runes, and he scoffed murderously before pouring his mana into the runic plate, "So long, you damn fishes, I had enough of you all!"