“So they were hiding a small city inside?”

“Yes Patriarch, our forces have gone through this Turtle beast, it’s a bizarre amalgamation of flesh and technology, the beast looked fully alive from the outside but we have found many artificial structures on the inside, one of them being this large chamber.”

“I see, good work I’ll be there soon, try not to touch anything that might look like it could be cursed.”

“Of course!”

Zhang Dong from the comfort of his secret office looked through Zhang Zhi’s eyes as he strolled through the inside of the turtle. The battle was over and after the five nascent soul masters from the sea-people were defeated, the rest followed suit quickly. Some of them perished while others even fled and were in disarray.

“Can you give me your thoughts on those sea dwellers compared to the demi-humans?”

“They seem to have a somewhat hierarchical structure just as the demi-humans did. The ones that are lowest are the sea beasts, even the strong ones that could devour a large ship seem to answer to the higher caste.”

Zhang Dong nodded on his side while looking at what was inside the turtle. It was actually possible to go into the creature that was partially hallowed out from the inside. The top part of its body where the head and brain was had remained mostly untouched. However when going lower a lot of things were missing.

First of all, it didn’t have a lower body at all. The organs were dispersed into strange sections. One for the lungs, another one for the heart, and then the digested system was somehow connected to a strange chamber. The sect members were combing through it as it was something akin to a meat grinder for garbage.

It seemed that the sea creatures threw away various types of biomatter that they didn’t need, even dead sea creatures and decomposing plant matter. All of it was minced into a fine paste and then shoved into this creature's digestive system that would keep the head alive. The loss of limbs didn’t affect the travel speed as this was covered by spiritual devices that used the Dao of water.

“The next in line are the workers, they are the humanoid creatures that faintly resemble us but are covered in scales, they show intelligence and carry out the orders of the mermen that are their masters, those seem to be the ones in charge but their similarities are, peculiar.”

“Peculiar in what way?”

“They seem to be exact replicas of each other, all the workers and the mermen look the same from the outside as well as on the inside.”

“Are they clones?”

“That’s what our researchers concluded as well, the only one that was unique was their leader, all the rest must have been cloned by some strange technique.”

“That’s certainly peculiar.”

Zhang Dong answered while trying to remember how the nascent soul mermen looked. The ones that battled with the ships and formations did look similar to the ones he collected. The worker drones on the other hand were a dead giveaway. If this was true then these people were producing battle clones to do their battles for them. Even the leader of this turtle could have just been another clone.

“The researchers have also discovered several strange chambers.”

“Strange chambers?”

“Yes, they seem to be for beast-birthing purposes, this could be the source of their large army. Many of these chambers are spread through this turtle beast and even now more underwater beasts are being produced.”

‘So is that why they have so many minions to spare? They just grow them en masse in these turtle islands? I probably should go check it out myself, watching the screen through Zhi’s eyes will only give me secondhand information’

“Good work, keep monitoring the situation, I’ll be right to see everything with my own eyes.”

“Thank you Patriarch but you don’t have to…”

Zhi was hoping that Zhang Dong would leave everything to him. The mission was successful but he still didn’t want to bother the leader with every tiny detail. This was a good chance to show his leadership skills and the knowledge of their research department. Yet before he could even finish the sentence he felt a change in space and suddenly a white-haired Patriarch appeared out of thin air.

“Patriarch!”

“No need to bow, just give me a tour of the place I won’t take long!”

“As you wish.”

Zhang Dong knew how Zhi felt but he needed to be on top of everything. This was the first big find concerning the sea creatures and could be a focal point in their war. First of all, he noticed that the place was very damp and fully filled with water. Only thanks to specialized techniques could he remain here without drowning.

However, there were spaces without water that were probably only accessible by the ones in power. The merman and the ones that were caught this time around had two forms. One was similar to the fairytales which left them as a person with a fishtail but they could also turn into something that looked like a human with fins instead of ears.

These people could breathe air and also walk on land without that much of a problem. Their spiritual energy would react negatively to places with high concentrations of fire Qi. Which was probably why they were slowly trying to increase the sea level. Perhaps creating all these sea monsters and the island turtles was part of this plan.

“That’s a lot of eggs.”

Zhang Dong made his way into one of the birthing chambers. There wee a lot of tubes in this one that was pumping out strange-looking eggs. It reminded him of one of the old movies that he once watched. Now if something similar to a crab popped out of one of these it wouldn’t even be surprising.

‘The eggs have living creatures in them, they are growing really fast…’

Instead of crabs, these eggs had monster fish that were part of the sea monster army. There were other rooms like this and each of them produced a different type of beast. They were clearly just clones of each other, probably the strongest version of their species that was possible to breed.

“So this is the secret of their numbers but is this only a matter of difference of warfare or is there a deeper meaning?”

“What do you mean Patriarch?”

“They chose to put so many resources into these replicated soldiers, there could be many reasons for it, one of them being fear of engaging in war themselves.”

The sect members around him started to wonder while he continued to tour the inside of the turtle. In another area, they even discovered a room that created the worker drones that were at core formation level at birth. Instead of eggs, they were in transparent tubes made of some kind of crystal. Everything looked like a biological science lab with the gruesome half-made clones everywhere.

‘Well, if we could produce mindless soldiers we would do it too, cloning technology on this level has not been seen within the empire, the few techniques that allow a person to make a clone of themselves are mostly just used as a precaution. When the user dies their soul gets transferred to their clone but no one really uses them at a scale like this.’

These monsters weren’t that strong but if this continued they would certainly have the number advantage. These moving turtle islands were slowly moving toward the shores on the entirety of the northern side of the empire. This was quite concerning as if they continued to multiply the entire northern sea would be quickly overrun. Then after they had a foothold they could start pushing in.

‘This depends on what their goal is and these mermen don't seem to be able to speak, this explains a lot if they are just clones.’

At first, everyone thought that the fish people were just compelled to silence by some technique. However, with this information, it was clear that it was all due to being clones. They were manufactured by someone and this someone installed blocks into their minds. Whenever anyone was pushed from the outside their brains would be turned to mush and their souls destroyed.

‘Even these fish people have souls so this cloning technology is quite robust, perhaps their creator is using that as a controlling mechanism…’

After going through the entire facility he started inspecting the developed and underdeveloped clones. It was faint but there were parts of their souls that were similar to each other. It could have originated from some kind of technique and could be used for various reasons.

‘The big question here is… who is controlling all of them? At least the leader types seem to be able to function as regular people and give out orders, they do have a pyramid structure with the human-looking mermen at the top, who is above them though?’

The leader of this turtle island was not as strong as a horned demi-human tribe leader. Zhang Zhi even with the boost from the system wouldn’t be able to defeat a demi-human tribe leader. Perhaps Huo Qiang with an added boost and some armor would be closer to achieving this feat.

This could mean that there were more powerful foes hiding somewhere in this deep ocean. Now after one of their turtles had been claimed they might actually show their faces. It wasn’t strange for them to think that they should have been able to conquer at least the sea region. However, when he and his people arrived they were pushed back which went a bit against the scenario of this world.

‘This incident could force their leader to move faster or at least send some kind of mini-boss to clear things up.’

With this revelation, he knew that more fighting would be upon them. The next enemy should be around the demi-human tribe leader's level of power as it was too soon for an emperor to move out.

“Good, bring this turtle to shore and keep it from dying, use the sea creature clones to keep it alive if you have, have the research department go through everything, and take everything that is useful.”

“Yes, Patriarch.”

‘I guess this is when the fun starts, what will they do now? Will this be enough to lure them out or do I have to grab a few more turtles before they react?’

Zhang Dong decided to go back to work, his people would take the bounty back to the shore and examine everything thoroughly. Perhaps he could use cloning technology to create his own beast unit. Not needing years of taming for the beasts to be useful in war times was a big bonus.

‘I guess it's their move now, time to prepare.’