The mont Ye Liuyun and his crew left the rfolk's lair, he packed everyone else into his spatial world to cultivate.
Only Blue Whale and Dragon Girl stayed outside, still heading for the Devil-Jiao clan's territory.
Ye Liuyun had shared a big slice of the spoils with Blue Whale, so the whale was towing them along with almost slap-happy enthusiasm.
But the entire Desolate Sea was already in uproar.
The patch of ocean where the rfolk had lived stayed crimson for days; no sea-beast dared swim in to investigate. Powerful human cultivators who passed overhead saw the blood-red water and assud so cataclysm had taken place.
Word raced through the rogue cultivators who haunted the Desolate Sea year-round. Even Leng Qingxiao and Leng Qingyao got the news and relayed it to Ye Liuyun.
"That fast? We only just left their waters!" Ye Liuyun was startled—he hadn't expected the empty-looking sea to have such a lightning gossip network.
"Master… was that really you? You wiped out the rfolk?" Leng Qingyao couldn't hold back.
"Yes. They insisted on being enemies." Ye Liuyun admitted it, then warned the siblings to keep the story to themselves.
"Has the First-Star Pirate Fleet reached the treasure site yet?" he asked.
Leng Qingxiao answered, "No sign they're anywhere close."
"Keep watching. Their 'two-month' claim might be a blind. I think the window's almost here," Ye Liuyun reminded them.
"Understood." The pair returned to their surveillance, still secretly stunned that Ye Liuyun had obliterated an entire sea-race.
Yet the rumors kept ballooning; more and more cultivators poured into the Desolate Sea, hoping to fish extra treasures from the chaos.
Dragon Girl finally spoke up. "Can we spare the Devil-Jiao?"
She had been born a black Jiao herself and felt kinship; she knew that if Ye Liuyun marched in, the slaughter would repeat. She didn't want an entire race erased.
Ye Liuyun considered it. He had already deleted one great sea-clan; wiping out a second would throw the sea's balance into even worse turmoil. He had no wish to create another uproar, so he agreed. Dragon Girl told Blue Whale to hunt other resources and skip the Jiao territory.
Blue Whale obeyed at once and changed course.
The Devil-Jiao, however, had already caught the rumors. They didn't know how Ye Liuyun had massacred the rfolk, but they suspected his strength and had no wish to provoke him—until they heard a true dragon was with him.
For every Jiao, the ultimate dream is to beco a dragon. With a real dragon here, they might learn the secret. If they could seize her blood, core, or body, perhaps their strongest could make the leap.
Even a sliver of hope was worth staking the entire clan. They were sick of the Desolate Sea anyway; several of their number had reached Unity Ninth-Step, only to be blasted to ash by heavenly lightning during their dragon transformation. Hope had almost died—until Dragon Girl appeared.
Their current peak was Unity Eighth-Step, but a breakthrough to Ninth could co any day. A walking, talking dragon was a gift they wouldn't waste. Spies had been shadowing Ye Liuyun's party from the start.
They'd actually rejoiced when the group seed to be heading their way, never imagining the humans intended genocide; they trusted their own power. So when the whale turned aside, they assud Ye Liuyun was afraid and trying to detour around them. At once they dispatched a pursuit squad.
Fifty Jiao: the weakest at Unity Fourth-Step, more than ten at Unity Seventh-Step. Orders—capture the dragon alive; if impossible, bring the corpse.
The Devil-Jiao were few—barely five thousand in total—but each far stronger than the average rfolk. Fifty moving together was a rare sight, a force that could normally rampage through the sea unchallenged.Ye Liuyun had no idea that sparing the Demon Jiao clan out of kindness would only make them mark him as their next target.
So when he traveled, he barely bothered with defenses; the blue whale, the dragon girl, and his own golden pupils were more than enough to spot danger early. Everyone else stayed inside his spatial world, cultivating, recovering, preparing for the next fight.
Just before the Demon Jiao reached them, the blue whale let out a long, urgent moan to warn Ye Liuyun and the dragon girl. At that mont, the dragon girl still hadn't sensed anything. The Demon Jiao were cruising through the deep sea, too deep for Ye Liuyun's golden eyes to pick out.
But the blue whale's repeated, frantic alarm left neither of them careless. Ye Liuyun ringed himself with his strongest human experts, ancient demon guards, and magical beasts, then sent both clones to scout the surrounding waters.
The dragon girl dove straight down, releasing every ounce of her bloodline pressure to cow nearby sea creatures and listen for trouble. The deep sea was quiet; any disturbance would stand out.
The blue whale, sensing a major battle coming, had already fled to a safe distance.
Its warning, though, had carried no details. Ye Liuyun could only tell—from the frantic tone—that whatever was coming was powerful.
At last the dragon girl caught the ripples racing up from the abyss.
"A pod of sea beasts, moving fast!"
The Demon Jiao were simply too quick, already committed to their ambush. All she could feel at first was the turbulence of their passage; she couldn't yet tell what they were.
"Coming from the deep?" Ye Liuyun frowned. Neither the human cultivators, the ancient demons, nor the magical beasts at his side were any good in an underwater fight.
"Get back up here—don't stay under! We'll bait them to the surface."
"One second—I need to see what they are. They're behind us." She had just caught a faint impression: serpentine shapes, maybe Jiao, but the aura felt wrong.
Ye Liuyun wasn't too worried; he assud she'd give herself plenty of ti to surface.
He sent his golden gaze stabbing backward beneath the waves. If the beasts stayed too deep, even those eyes were useless; all he could do was watch for a sudden breach.
So the whole group climbed higher into the sky, putting distance between them and any surprise attack from below.
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