Bricks and gravel flew in all directions as the Wolf King punched through the wall of the main building. The moment the Twin Flowers started accumulating energy, the Wolf King began to palpitate. This was an extremely familiar sensation, one that had brought him close to death just a few days ago.
The Wolf King immediately knew that Qianye was here and that he was about to attack.
The two luminous feathers and their terrifying power were etched deeply into the divine champion’s heart. Who else in this castle could survive such a blow?
The Wolf King didn’t even have time to exit through the window. He simply blasted the wall apart and charged out.
He arrived just in time to see Qianye’s sneer. The Twin Flowers rumbled, and the Shot of Inception struck the great shaman almost immediately after leaving the chamber.
The shaman stood up abruptly, turned back, and was frozen therein. Bewilderment and doubt lingered in his turbid eyes while his vitality dissipated rapidly.
“No!!!” The Wolf King’s roar suppressed the sharp sound of the wind and waves. He transformed into his werewolf form in a flash and pounced toward Qianye.
This charge sealed off Qianye’s paths of retreat, preventing him from escaping into the castle.
However, Qianye made no attempt at escaping outside. Instead, he charged toward the precipice and leapt right off the cliff.
He turned around mid-air and sneered at the Wolf King before falling into the great sea.
The Wolf King charged over to the edge of the cliff and looked down. Even with his visual acuity, all he could see were the murky waves. Apparently, Qianye had fallen into the water and vanished.
Absolutely furious, the Wolf King was about to jump into the ocean, but he felt a chill run down his spine as half his body crossed over the cliff. A deep iciness emerged in the depths of his heart and shook him back to his senses.
The depths of the Eastern Sea was the forbidden zone of all experts. Even Zhang Buzhou wouldn’t dare try exploring there. Reportedly, no expert had come back alive after diving into the ocean.
The Wolf King was filled with terror at the thought of jumping into the sea, almost as though there was a peerlessly terrifying existence hiding in the deep waters and waiting quietly for his arrival.
The divine champion swung his hand backward, and his origin power turned into a giant claw with which to grab the precipice. This prevented him from going fully over the edge.
The terrifying existence in the sea seemed fairly disappointed. It stirred up several giant waves to express its dissatisfaction before swimming back into the sea.
The Wolf King was drenched in cold sweat after returning to land. His proximity to demise just now was no less than when he was struck by the Shot of Inception.
The guard captain ran over at this time. “Your Majesty, the great shaman, he…”
The Wolf King showed no signs of movement. Only after a long while did he say, “No need to check, he is already at our ancestors’ side.”
The guard captain opened his mouth but couldn’t say anything.
The Wolf King turned about with a wave of his sleeves and returned to the castle. He didn’t want to see the shaman’s corpse at all.
As for Qianye, he was sure to die after jumping into the water. The Wolf King felt a modicum of relief after recalling the many terrifying legends about the Eastern Sea. It wasn’t too bad to trade the shaman for Qianye.
Meanwhile, Qianye was sinking slowly into the sea. The surface was filled with raging waves, but the underwater world was abnormally peaceful, almost as though it was a different world.
He had already lost control over his body as a tremendous and indefensible will engulfed him, robbing him of his authority.
Yet Qianye felt not suppression, coldness, or suffocation from this will. On the contrary, he felt a bit of warmth.
An ocean current arrived in the darkness and pushed Qianye toward the depths of the sea.
He seemed to have lost track of time amidst the deep darkness. After drifting for an unknown length of time, a lustrous glow suddenly appeared before his eyes—it was a school of fish. Their blinking abdomens made them look like fireflies of the ocean.
Following the first bit of light, more luminous glows lit up around him like myriad starlight gradually illuminating the underwater world.
The scene before him almost looked like a fantasy world.
The clusters of coral were like blooming flowers carpeting the seabed, and the dense schools of fish were like colored ribbons shuttling through the shrubbery. It would seem all kinds of creatures thrived peacefully in this beautiful world. A brightly colored octopus glared curiously at Qianye as he passed by.
At this moment, there was somewhat of a commotion in the sea as a giant shadow slowly glided by.
The current flipped Qianye around just in time for him to see a giant sea colossus, several hundred meters long, slowly swimming over him. Qianye had never before seen such a creature, nor had he ever heard of one. Just from its build, however, one could tell just how terrifying it was.
The beast didn’t seem hungry. It merely swam away without sparing the fishes a second glance. The shoals of fish didn’t seem to fear the colossus, either, and merely swam past as they normally would.
The current surged once more and left Qianye hovering over the underwater garden. At this moment, a familiar voice echoed in Qianye’s senses, “You’re here.”
This was the mysterious will Qianye had been sparring with back then, the same one that had left him a method to summon it in times of need.
“You were looking for me?”
“I was waiting for you to summon me. Now that you’re in the sea, I thought it’d be nice to bring you here and check up on your growth. I’m quite satisfied with your progress. Why did you not summon me?”
Qianye laughed wryly. “Do you think I can win three consecutive rounds against you now?”
The mysterious entity said after a moment of silence, “Of course not.”
“Then why would I summon you?”
Qianye’s strength had indeed made progress, but what he needed against the mysterious existence was combat arts and not brute force. Qianye still wasn’t confident of victory in this regard.
The mysterious entity’s concern about Qianye’s growth was a bit out of the ordinary. Qianye tried to sound him out, “Did you have something you need me to do?”
“No, at least not at the moment. Perhaps I might need you to help with some things in the future, but you’re far from sufficient at the moment.”
“What would that be?”
“You'll find out when the day comes. Okay, now tell me where you want to go.”
As Qianye thought about Southern Blue, a current emerged at the bottom of the ocean and whisked him away.
The starry glow of the seabed gradually faded away, and the fantastical underground garden was once again swallowed up by darkness. The sable world didn’t last long, however, as a beach soon appeared before Qianye’s eyes.
Qianye regained control over his senses after the seawater receded. He moved his limbs about and clambered up to observe his surroundings.
This beach was silent and beautiful, but it filled Qianye’s heart with astonishment.
There were very few such beaches on the Eastern Sea, and this one was the closest to Southern Blue. Back in the empire, such beautiful scenery would be known far and wide. Unfortunately, these were the neutral lands, and the Eastern Sea was notorious for devouring countless experts. Up to this day, no one knew precisely just how many terrifying beasts there were in the ocean or what kind of terrifying existence was devouring all those experts.
Under normal circumstances, any expert would be quite cautious around the ocean and especially the beaches. Who would be in the mood for leisure and relaxation?
The mysterious existence from the sea seemed to have no enmity toward Qianye. On the contrary, it seemed to be protecting and training Qianye. It was just that no one knew the reason behind it.
What shocked Qianye the most was that it had only been about an hour since he had fallen into the sea. Yet, this beach near Southern Blue was almost a thousand kilometers away.
To be able to send Qianye here meant that the mysterious entity’s attainments in spatial control were well beyond any ordinary divine champion.
Qianye exercised his body briefly and, only after he had fully recovered, left the beach for Southern Blue. The mysterious entity’s request was a matter for the future. He still had to settle old debts right now.
Southern Blue was even more austere at the moment. The streets under the night sky were empty and devoid of people. The taverns, though, were filled with drunk city guards.
Too many rumors had been flying around these days, most of them related to the shocking outcome of the Wolf King’s attempt to capture Qianye. There was also talk about Qianye’s subsequent attack on the city lord’s manor where he gravely injured the Wolf King and destroyed a part of the mansion.
Most of the people here weren’t powerful enough to figure out what had happened that night, but the less clear they were, the more outrageous the rumors became.
Those paying attention realized that many of the young mercenaries had disappeared. These people might not be strong, but being able to survive on the razor’s edge until this age proved that they possessed keen intuition for danger. They had vanished like animals and birds in the forest before an impending disaster.
This was quite worrisome. Meanwhile, Ji Rui locked himself in the city lord’s manor and never left, going so far as to ignore the damaged mansion. The city lord ought to have come out to reassure the masses at such a time, yet he was totally absent and that only added to the general panic.
The silence of the night was torn asunder by engine sounds as five trucks drove through the streets of the city square. The roar of their engines attracted some attention and made people frown. That was because these fully-loaded vehicles were actually driving out of the city. It would seem that a certain trader had decided to move his wares out of Southern Blue to ensure their safety.
The caravan drove out of Southern Blue and headed toward Tidehark City.
There was quite a bit of distance between Southern Blue and Tidehark. The journey wasn’t very peaceful, either, so three out of the five trucks were filled with well-equipped mercenaries. The merchant owner was willing to move the goods out of Southern Blue at the risk of getting robbed. This went to show just how bad the situation there was.
Not long after the motorcade had left the city, the first truck came to a screeching stop, kicking up clouds of rolling smoke and dust from the friction before finally stopping.