“I got you now!” Tianyi leaped high into the air, his hand ready to spike the volleyball down at his opponents. Midair, Tianyi paused and looked at the ball.
Why was it glowing a pale golden color?
Tianyi’s face lost all traces of color as he realized that the golden pill had somehow become volleyball-sized and was smashing towards him. He tried to dodge, but he discovered his body had somehow been trapped in place by an unknown power. Watching with growing horror as the golden pill smashed closer, Tianyi closed his eyes and prepared for the worse.
He waited.
And waited.
And waited
However, after all this time passed and he had not felt the impending beating from the golden pill, Tianyi peaked and saw a scene that stunned him. He was no longer in the air and was standing on the beach alone with no one else near him. Even the volleyball net and all of the furnishing he brought out were gone.
“Daoyi? Xi Ri?” Tianyi called out. He wasn’t even shouting, but his voice seemed to echo endlessly through the beach. It was anything but natural.
Before Tianyi could come to question the strange phenomenon, the ground started to shake, and Tianyi almost fell over due to it until he remembered he could fly. Looking from his new vantage point, Tianyi could see the source of the quakes. Or rather, the sources.
Deep in the waters, numerous giants were rising out of the water. Their movements were sending waves crashing to the shore and causing the ground to tremble with each step. Tianyi didn’t know why he hadn’t noticed them before because they were pretty freakin ‘large. He’d had to be blind not to notice them any sooner.
Spreading out his spiritual sense, Tianyi detected over one hundred Nascent Soul Realm level sea monsters of all shapes and sizes. Strangely, Tianyi felt calm without a hint of apprehension.
Did my fear get cured? Tianyi wondered to himself.
Raising his hand, Tianyi summoned lightning to attack the sea monsters. Although electricity wasn’t exactly a sea monsters’ weakness, Tianyi couldn’t help but associate that electricity was water or a water creature’s weakness. He blamed a certain game that told him to catch them all.
However, the raining bolts of lightning did nothing more than coat the monsters in a shiny coating of electricity. The sea monsters acted as if they hadn’t even felt the lightning at all, causing Tianyi to frown. Even if they weren’t weak against lightning, his attack shouldn’t have been so easily shrugged off.
Tianyi briefly considered retreating as he felt the sea monsters were extremely strange, but he immediately shot the idea down. Daoyi and XI Ri were missing, and Tianyi felt his life wasn’t threatened yet, so he should search for them before retreating. Plus, lightning moves weren’t his strongest technique.
Having made his choice, Tianyi engaged the sea monsters. However, no matter what moves he used, the sea monsters remained unharmed and slowly moved to encircle him. Seeing this, Tianyi attempted to form the Chaos Refining Formation, but he discovered that he was cut off from his inner cosmos, depriving him of his true qi of chaos!
Furthermore, Tianyi discovered that he was already surrounded before he knew it. Tianyi tried to flee, but he lost all power from his cultivation realm and fell into the water. When Tianyi surfaced again, all he saw were the gargantuan shadows of the sea monsters overlooking him.
A sense of familiar fear that Tianyi couldn’t quite place emerged from his heart. Tianyi attempted to swim away despite how hopeless and futile it seemed. No matter what, Tianyi didn’t want to die.
Tianyi found himself powerless as he swam, his arms becoming heavier by the second, and before he knew it, he started to sink. Tianyi tried to resist, but his limbs were just too heavy as if they were made of lead. He continued to sink deeper and deeper until he landed on the bottom. He looked up to see himself surrounded by countless sea monsters, and just as he feared that he would be devoured, he began to rise towards the surface once more.
Or, to be more precise, the ground below him started to rise.
When Tianyi rose above the water, a sinking feeling of despair assaulted him. The ground below him wasn’t ground at all, it was a human’s hand. And the owner of the gigantic hand was looking down contemptuously at Tianyi.
“I told you I would have my revenge.”
Facing the visage of the Dragon Emperor, Tianyi felt like he was Sun Wukong trapped in the Buddha’s hand, unable to resist at all. And like out of Tianyi’s worse nightmare, the giant sea monsters that had been encircling him all morphed into the Dragon Emperor.
Tianyi stood there, petrified with fear. He only broke out of it when he heard a shriek, but he soon realized that the scream was coming from him. Soon his perspective changed, and he was directly looking at himself, screaming for help as if he was having an out-of-body experience.
“Help!”
“HELP!!!”
“SAVE..!”
Tianyi watched dispassionately at himself; all of his emotions disappeared, and an abnormal calmness took over. Tianyi’s perspective changed again. This time he was looking down at his palm, but he wasn’t looking at himself, but Daoyi. A feeling of dread rose up in Tianyi as he saw this.
“Save… him!!!”
“Tianyi, hurry… save Xi Ri!”
“Wake up!”
Tianyi’s eyes snapped open as he sat up and breathed in heavily. Taking a second to organize his memory, he sighed in relief when he realized he had been dreaming. After losing consecutively at volleyball, he decided to call it quits and laid down on one of the chairs. Due to the cozy weather and the soul-soothing effects of the immortal artifact, Tianyi had drifted off to sleep for the first time in months.
He looked towards Daoyi, who was shouting at him and pointing at the waters. Looking where Daoyi was pointing, Tianyi looked towards the waters to see Xi Ri being constricted by tentacles. Tianyi was instantly stunned.
Tianyi’s first thought wasn’t that Xi Ri was in danger but something more degenerate in nature. I’ve seen enough stuff to know where this is going.
He turned towards Daoyi with a strange look next. Doesn’t this usually happen to girls?
Tianyi’s third thought was, Oh shit, that’s a nascent soul level sea monster, Xi Ri is in danger. After finally clearing all traces of sleepiness, sand was blasted into the air as Tianyi charged towards Xi Ri.
Upon nearing, black qi covered Tianyi’s hand like a blade. Slashing out, Tianyi sliced the tentacles and grabbed Xi Ri with his other hand. After saving Xi Ri, Tianyi observed the owner of the tentacles.
The sea resembled the Kraken of myths with a body over a hundred meters long, with an uncountable number of tentacles and a circular mouth that was the stuff of nightmares. The only abnormality was the giant cone covering most of its body.
After being attacked by Tianyi, the sliced tentacles immediately began to regrow and resumed assaulting Xi Ri. Seeing the bestial instinct in the monster’s eyes, Tianyi could tell that it wasn’t sentient. Most likely, the monster had little to no intelligence and acted only according to its instincts. He had heard of monsters born with powerful realms but little more than beasts. The strongest and most dangerous were the Void Primordials that lived in the Vast Void.
Tianyi waved his hand, and numerous spears formed of true qi of chaos formed and pierced the sea monster, even its shell. The sea monster didn’t even have a chance to run or scream in pain before an orb flew out of its body and into Tianyi’s hand. The gaseous qi surrounding the qi dispersed to reveal the monster core of the sea monster.
Without its core, the sea monster quickly weakened as its blood leaked out of its wounds, tainting the water in the blood’s color. Tianyi quickly stored the sea monster’s corpse inside his spatial ring, seeing that more and more sea monsters arrived after being attracted to the scent of blood.
The sea monsters were like ravenous piranha’s, devouring the blood and stray chunks of flesh from the higher realm sea monster Tianyi had slain. Some even began to devour each other when fighting over the remnant flesh and blood of the Kraken-like sea monster.
“Well, beach day is over, I guess,” Tianyi said as he brought Xi Ri back to the shore.
It turned out that Xi Ri decided to take a swim into deeper waters but had the unfortunate luck of having attracted that Kraken-like sea monster after killing Foundation Establishment and Core Formation Realm level sea monsters. Xi Ri hadn’t been completely out of options, but he decided that having Tianyi save him was better than wasting his treasures to defeat the Kraken-like sea monster.
Xi Ri just never expected Tianyi to take so long to save him.
Tianyi could only cough in reply before changing the topic. “So since the view has been ruined by…” Tianyi gestured the scene of sea monsters devouring each other. “, the blood bath, let’s just resume our journey. According to our intel, most of the Leviathan Clan should be in this lake here.”
Although it was called a lake, it was only because the waters were landlocked. In terms of size, it was even larger than all the oceans of Earth.
“The information we received didn’t have much information on the exact details of the lake, but I think there should be a lot of treasures in there. I doubt most cultivators would fight water demons in their habitat. We should be able to get a lot this time.” Tianyi said.
“Yes, but I don’t think we would be able to fight as well in water either. Well, you might.” Xi Ri added after thinking about the last portion.
Tianyi shook his head. “No, but you shouldn’t be affected much. We don’t need to breathe as long as we absorb qi. Other core formation masters may be hindered, but you trained in spatial techniques, so water shouldn’t matter as it is also part of space. I don’t know about your fire techniques, though.”
Xi Ri stopped and pondered a moment before realizing Tianyi was right. “You’re right. As for my fire techniques, since I got the Spring Autumn Scripture, I spent most of my time trying to comprehend those and spatial techniques. I haven’t trained in fire-related abilities ever since then.”
Tianyi then towards Daoyi.” As for Daoyi, even less needs to be said. Daoyi’s sound techniques should be even more powerful underwater since vibrations travel faster in water, and soul techniques aren’t hindered by water at all.”
“I don’t use air or water to transmit my sound techniques, but qi, you know,” Daoyi said, causing Tianyi to blink. “Aside from that, you’re right. But it won’t affect my battle capabilities much unless the water pressure is really too much. It seems that all three of us are quite suited in fighting underwater.”
“Wait, you aren’t going to question how I’m going to fight?” Tianyi asked, surprised.
Daoyi, along with Xi Ri, rolled their eyes. “Tianyi, I’d be worried for you if you suggested going here if you couldn’t fight at all. You’re the strongest one out of the three of us. We’re going to be relying on you for protection if we meet any enemies we can’t face against.”
“Right, stupid question,” Tianyi admitted.
The three of them changed back into their usual robes and entered the immortal boat. Under Tianyi’s control, the boat flew over the water until it was far away from the bloodbath and submerged under the waters. A barrier had surrounded the immortal boat, preventing the water from spilling in and allowing the trio to marvel at the scenery.
Typically, it would be too dark for the naked eye to see anything at the bottom of the ocean-deep lake, but the three of them were cultivators; even in near-complete darkness, their eyes would be able to see the tiniest hint of light. Not to mention all three of them had opened their spiritual sense, so they were able to map out their immediate surroundings even in complete darkness.
The trio had encountered several sea monsters, but Tianyi didn’t personally take action and allowed Daoyi and Xi Ri to fight and temper themselves.
Xi Ri’s strengths and weaknesses were apparent. Xi Ri’s excelled in one-on-one battles, where he could display the advantages of his spatial technique. Against multiple opponents, the more he had to divide his attention, the weaker he became.
This was because Xi Ri hadn’t mastered the Void Veil, a spatial technique that covered the weapon or user with folded space, allowing them to increase their power and defenses. If he mastered it, he would be able to cover himself completely, but it didn’t surprise Tianyi that Xi Ri couldn’t master it. Even nascent soul grandmasters were not able to master. At most, they would only be able to reach the same mastery at Xi Ri. You had to be a unity venerable with talent in space to master it.
Xi Ri’s other weakness was against foes of great size. He simply did not have the sheer power or reach to damage giants. His attacks were scratches to them, and he couldn’t use Void Veil to hinder his opponent’s healing abilities. Daoyi’s strengths and weaknesses were less obvious.
Daoyi’s techniques were insidious in Tianyi’s opinion. All of her attacks were nearly impossible to block or evade. All of their effects were sinister to the extreme, such as liquifying internal organs or controlling her foes’ bodies. Imagine being awake but unable to do anything as you watch your body move against your wishes. None of the sea monsters were able to come near her.
Even if they did, Daoyi had a barrier created from her spiritual beast, Shuijing’s web, that blocked them. Even unity venerables would fight it difficult to cut through them. Pushing through them was another matter.
“Daoyi, what are you doing to do if your opponent reaches you?” Tianyi asked. He had never seen Daoyi fight in close combat, so he worried for her if such a situation occurred. In his eyes, between close combat or ranged combat, close combat was the higher priority.
Daoyi didn’t say anything and instead reached below her guqin and pulled out a jade flute. Twisting the flute’s mouthpiece and pulling afterward, Daoyi separated the head from the rest of the flute’s body to reveal a sword.
“Oh,” Tianyi said, surprised. “When did you learn sword arts?”
“Master said I should learn something to protect myself in case my opponents neared me, so she taught me sword arts since I have no particular talents in any weapons,” Daoyi said.
Tianyi held his chin in deep thought before suggesting, “Why don’t you choose something with more impact like a war hammer or polearm?”
Daoyi showed an exasperated expression. “Tianyi, since years ago, you’ve been trying to convince me to use large and brutish weapons. I still have some of the weapons you gave me. So let me ask you. Why are you so fixated on this?”
“Haha,” Tianyi only laughed in response. Can he say he wanted to see her opponent’s reaction to her pulling a weapon that went against her image?
Tianyi, Daoyi, and Xi Ri continued exploring the lake floor, looking for signs of the Leviathan Clan. So far, they have only encountered sea monsters, some of which were Unity Realm equivalents. Tianyi used the immortal boat’s stealth features to hide. He didn’t want to spend time fighting them nor expose their presence to the demons.
For nascent soul grandmaster equivalent demons, Tianyi fought and killed them. Since they were not sentient, they couldn’t take advantage of their greatest advantage, allowing Tianyi to kill them without alerting anyone. And Daoyi even managed to slay a Nascent Soul Realm level sea monster. Xi Ri, however, had more trouble and could only kill certain peak Core Formation Realm monsters.
That is not to say that Xi Ri was weak. For an early core formation master to slay peak Core Formation Realm level monsters was a huge accomplishment.
Simultaneously, they made significant gains. The lake floor was littered with bones of sea monsters and other creatures. The higher the realm the creature was, the greater their bones were as materials. Tianyi, Daoyi, and Xi Ri were able to harvest large amounts without any hindrance as most of the sea creatures and demons had no interest in the bones.
After a month of searching the lake floor, Tianyi and co finally found members of the Leviathan Clan.