Chapter 464 — The Black Trap

To be honest, Gao Yang had nearly jumped out of his skin when Tyr suddenly burst up out of the water—a siren was, apparently, essentially an elemental being at bottom, and while this sea-slug monster was lurking under the surface it gave off not the faintest trace of presence. When the creature came splashing up all at once, Gao Yang would have already swung a brick at it, had he been holding one...

Once he had steadied himself, Gao Yang looked at Tyr as she swam back and forth in the water: "What are you doing soaking in the river this late?"

"Where else would I be, on the bank?" Tyr answered with perfect righteousness. "I'm a siren. A water elemental."

"...That's a fair point..." Gao Yang stroked his chin, then suddenly felt something was off. "Wait—if I remember right, you're supposed to be over at the shipyard right now, instructing the workers?"

Tyr had by now become the territory's shipbuilding technical advisor. True, she still grabbed every possible moment to catch up on sleep, but according to the reports his subordinates sent back, this sea-slug monster really did put in honest work when she was at the shipyard.

Like most of the workshops in the territory, the shipyard ran on a three-shift rotation. The artisans worked overtime repairing the vessels seized from the Southern nobles, to meet the ever-growing pressure on river transport during the great postwar reconstruction of the South, while under Tyr's guidance they studied the sirens' vessel technology and how to build the new-style ships. And at this hour, if Gao Yang remembered correctly, Tyr ought to have been at the shipyard...

"Aha... well, today's scheduled work is all done, and right now they were testing the strength of a few materials—nothing that needs me watching over it, and your land-dweller materials aren't anything I'm familiar with anyway," Tyr said as she swam toward the bank, starlight spilling over her wet hair and lending it a strange sheen. "So I came out a little early..."

Gao Yang was a little speechless: "So it's still sneaking out, isn't it..."

"Nobody noticed," Tyr said carelessly, wagging her head. "I slipped out quietly along the drainage pipe..."

Gao Yang: "..."

Did this sea-slug monster honestly not realize she was standing in front of the biggest boss there was? She'd just described the whole process of her sneaking out to his face without a shred of psychological pressure...

Gao Yang could not help but feel a keen curiosity about the social structure and customs of the sirens. He crouched down and looked at Tyr as she lolled contentedly in the water: "Are all you sirens as happy-go-lucky as you? Do you... have anything you worry about?"

"Happy-go-lucky? I don't think so... but I suppose that's how it looks to you," Tyr said, slapping her tail hard in the water. She leaped clear in a splash and landed flat on the ground beside Gao Yang like a salted fish, then lay there slapping her tail with a smack-smack-smack as she spoke. "Our race... well, we live a long time, and we've been through a great deal. We've simply seen too much, so we come across as a bit different from you. Next to us sirens, even your so-called long-lived elves are a rather young race... Oh, Mom, finally rolled over."

Gao Yang glanced at this salted fish who needed half a day of flopping to turn herself over on dry land, and simply could not see in such a goofball any of the depth or bearing of a so-called "ancient race of the deep sea." But he knew Tyr was telling the truth: as an ancient race that had personally witnessed season after season of civilization rise and fall and flicker out on land, these deep-sea salted fish were amply qualified to regard any species on land as "children."

On that point, perhaps only his own true form—the satellite spirit—could compete with the deep-sea salted fish.

But he had no intention of taking up the topic of ancient pedigree with Tyr. Instead he turned his gaze to the banks of the Whitewater River, lit by the glow of magic-crystal lamps, and after a moment's silence he asked: "You've lived here more than a year now—what do you make of this place?"

"It's developing fast, the order's decent, and there are plenty of strange and curious things. Not exactly advanced, but your technological path still has things to teach me," Tyr said judiciously, propping herself up on her fish tail. "Only there are no small number of hidden dangers, and they mostly come from developing too fast."

Gao Yang regarded Tyr with interest: "Specifically?"

"If you don't mind it stinging your ears, I'll tell you," Tyr said indifferently, patting her tail. "You've run too far ahead, so that only a handful of people have truly kept pace with you. More than half the governing apparatus you've built knows only what to do, not why to do it. Your population and territory are swelling too fast; order in the outlying regions is bound to grow chaotic, and until you've trained enough administrators, that chaos has no solution. Your army is strong but lacks real tempering—they haven't seen enough blood, they need more trials by fire. Your territory is developing at extraordinary speed, but there will come a day when it slows; and the moment it slows, the industries that live off the dividends of rapid growth will run into trouble—that's just what I've seen, and it's already this much."

Gao Yang looked at Tyr with some surprise: "I didn't expect you to have observed so much in your ordinary days..."

"I'm lazy, not blind. Besides, I read the newspapers too—though always getting them wet is a bit of a nuisance," Tyr said, then glanced at Gao Yang. "But come to think of it... you already know about these hidden dangers yourself, don't you."

"How could I not know," Gao Yang said with a helpless smile, frankly conceding Tyr's point. "But dangers or no, one must develop. Stagnation isn't a matter of facing hidden dangers—it means the nation falls and the family dies."

"Anyway, you've already taken Bedrock Keep, so you have the foundation to make up for these weaknesses. As long as you develop steadily and digest it all, those shortcomings will gradually be made good."

Gao Yang had not expected this deep-sea salted fish to analyze a matter so earnestly, or to discuss it with him so earnestly. But he also knew this was Tyr's way of showing "sincerity"—for some time now, this deep-sea salted fish had been running to several research departments almost every day, and to that end she had cut her sleeping hours down considerably. Clearly, the arcane energy control technology behind the "Rainbow Cannon" truly mattered to the sirens, who were caught in a technological bottleneck; when it came to the interests of her race, even Tyr, who was lazy to the point of nearly dying on the spot, could become dependable.

"If only there were time to digest it all," Gao Yang could not help murmuring softly, then asked, a little curious, "Actually, there's something I've always wondered—in all the long ages you sirens have watched the civilizations on land, season after season of them living and dying and flickering out, was there really never a single civilization that withstood the arcane tide?"

This question truly mattered. Gao Yang very much wanted to confirm one thing: was the arcane tide truly unsolvable for mortals?

From the time the sirens began watching the land until now, more than a dozen seasons of civilizations had risen and fallen; countless races, clever or brave, had been active on this land—had they all been destroyed by the arcane tide?

Faced with Gao Yang's question, Tyr showed a rare trace of hesitation and inner conflict.

Gao Yang caught the subtle shift in her expression: "Is something being kept back?"