Twelve Arms looked at the army brimming with murderous intent. The rippling sea water looked like it was faintly glowing blood red.
Another big war was about to start. Although it knew that it was necessary, its heart still grew heavy.
As an honest octopus, it had walked to this day step by step after realizing its destiny to build an honest ocean world and live in harmony.
If possible, it hoped that everyone would live the same way as before, in a jar, honestly.
Unfortunately, that was just a pipe dream. Similar to humans, the octopuses who had self-awareness would also gradually separate from their original wild state.
In the natural world, most octopuses were solitary animals, just like how tigers were on land.
The Octopus Granny that Twelve Arms met that wanted to eat it was a solitary type. It hid in a cave on the seabed and waited for unlucky creatures to pass by.
However, there were also rare social types. The octopus group Twelve Arms was born in was one such social type.
After obtaining self-awareness, the social type octopus demons showed their true advantage. They had the thought of actively expanding their living space.
The seven-limbed octopus that Twelve Arms met that time, as well as the one-eyed octopus that was fighting over a small island, were the best examples of that.
In order to strengthen their power, they, like the primitive tribes in the early years, began to absorb those retail investors.
Solitary octopus demons were either absorbed into various octopus tribes or driven to remote ocean deserts…
The formation of tribes and the emergence of the division of labor led to the differentiation of status among octopuses.
The strong served as leaders, while the weak could only serve as ministers.
Harem, delicacies, luxury houses, and enjoyment… those had become the common pursuit of octopus leaders. This was the instinct of biological reproduction. Once one had self-awareness, one would actively pursue those.
These were all sources of conflicts and wars.
Twelve Arms could not stop the nature of these leaders. As Tom the Cat said, only by unifying the octopus clan could they be restrained from fighting with each other, just like how the first emperor of China ended the wars in six major states.
At this time, it finished overseeing the drills. It put aside its overflowing thoughts, raised an arm, and shouted, “Everyone here, listen to my words. Today, there are evil creatures who do wanton acts, cannibalizing their own kind, poisoning the sea, and violating the NASBOU. Today, I want to lead you to eradicate those evildoers, clean up our world, and rebuild our universe…”
All of the octopus below are fired up. They were all very intelligent and literate. In this regard, these rising demons had much more advantages than human.
“Clean up our world, rebuild our universe!” The seven-limbed octopus sensibly started to shout.
“Clean up our world, rebuild our universe!” The octopus troops followed up immediately, their morale soaring.
“Depart.” Seeing that the morale was indeed high, Twelve Arms stopped exciting them and took the lead, swimming towards the southeast.
There was a group of octopuses there that enjoyed devouring their own kind.
The lone octopus, the octopus who went out to find a mate, and the octopus vendors who walked the streets were all targets of their sneak attack.
In the natural world, octopuses were a kind of species that killed each other seriously. It could be said that they were each other’s prey. In this regard, humans had to concede defeat.
However, in the past, they did not have awareness. If they were hungry and they met with another of their own kind, they would hunt it for food.
For example, when a male octopus went out looking for a mate of the opposite sex, if he was not careful in matching, he would become the dinner for a stronger female octopus.
Unlike humans, in the natural world, many of the female animals were strong and robust, while the males were just the opposite, each petite and weak. Octopuses were one of them.
However, now, this group of octopus demons had self-awareness and started to commit crimes frequently, unlike in the past. Before, they hunted and killed their own kind just to fill their stomachs.
Now, there were more cases of them hunting for enjoyment…
To Twelve Arms, who had completely accepted the culture of China, this was something that could not be tolerated. It was a reprehensible sin. To humans, the vilest deed is to eat another human.
In Twelve Arms’ opinion, these octopus demons who fed on their own kind were also criminals!
It would not give them any excuses to say that they were still in a barbaric state and that it was understandable for them to cannibalize.
Indeed, unlike other ambitious people, Twelve Arms was honest in nature. Paired with the fact that it had received the influence of a certain Chinese teacher, after it reunified the octopus clan, although it used iron and blood methods, it still walked the path of a ruler.
It fought against the evil and bloodthirsty octopuses that wreaked havoc in the seas, and accepted the honest little octopus tribes that sought asylum, slowly growing and strengthening itself. However, it never unreasonably and directly annexed other tribes.
It could be said that it was a conqueror with moral purity, like a player that insists on having a reasonable and just excuse to conquer foreign countries when playing war games.
It was like the Iron Chancellor, Bismark 1 . He was not a war maniac, but the complete opposite. Every strategic decision he made contained diplomatic and political wisdom. He never went overboard and act according to reason. The German Empire never blindly invaded others.
That was how a unified German empire had been established.
In the future, his successors who abandoned that essence and only knew how to use blood and iron methods failed time after time, and pushed a great power into the abyss of division.
Twelve claws led the way while recalling the human history it had read.
Before long, it saw a golden book descend from the sky.
It stopped swimming now, a look of ecstasy on its face.
“Teacher Heavenly Book is back. Everyone, Heaven’s will stands with us, to victory!”
It raised an arm and cheered.
“Victory!”
“Victory!”
The legend of the Heavenly Book had been widely spread among the octopus clan.
Twelve Arms had been artificially covered with the color of destiny by the legend of the Heavenly Book. This made it easier for it to absorb new octopus tribes and strengthen the power of its own tribe.
For the two small tribes of the seven-limbed octopus and the one-eyed octopus, which started off with just a few thousand octopuses, it had grown more than ten times to a thousand medium tribes now. The legend of the Heavenly Book had played a large role in this.
The precious game book hovered in the sky, seemingly confused. When did it become so popular?
However, it did not bother about that. It had to listen to its Master’s orders and farm experience points.
Thus, it slipped down into the black school bag that Twelve Arms was carrying, and stopped moving.
Seeing this, Twelve Arms grew even more excited and quickened its speed. It wanted to defeat the enemy and show off a good side of itself in front of the Heavenly Book…
…
In a submerged reef in the seabed where blue blood flowed freely, it was full of unmoving octopus corpses.
A group of octopuses watched the scene intently, their hearts shaking.
In the past, they would definitely not waste all this food, but now, they would not eat.
These were the bodies of the octopuses that ate their own kind. If they also ate these fresh, soft meat, then they would be no different from them.
The battle had ended too quickly. As soon as the two sides met, the Heavenly Book had promptly cleaned up all the cannibalizing octopuses… After killing most of them, it seemed to grow tired and finally stopped to go back into the black school bag.
At this time, the small number of remaining octopuses that were on death’s door still cursed, “Damn you, Twelve Arms. We were just eating our own octopuses and didn’t bother any of you. Why did you have to cause trouble for us?”
A deep sense of disgust welled up in Twelve Arms’ heart after it heard those words. As it thought, just like before, these octopuses did not make sense.
They did not consider the interest of their own kind at all. Just like some humans, they took pleasure in deliberately robbing and killing their kind. However, now that it was someone else’s turn to kill them, they were crying injustice?
That was completely shameless and ignorant.
Twelve Arms did not refute and merely waved an arm behind it, lightly saying, “Kill them all…”
In its words, where was the shadow of the honest octopus from the past?
People change, and so could octopuses…