Chapter 1037: The Fracture of the Truce

The brief warmth of the spring thaw arrived across the Myriad Reefs Sea Domain two months after the conclusion of the grand assembly on Coral Cloud Island. Yet the melting of the northern ice floes brought no peace to the churning azure waters. As the thirty thousand cultivators dispersed from the neutral archipelago, the fragile winter truce dissolved into thin mist. Both the Myriad Ocean Palace and the Holy Nether Sea Organization mobilized their repaired armadas, steering hundreds of warships toward a treacherous, newly discovered focal point: the Dragon-Spine Trench.

Six weeks prior, a violent deep-earth tectonic shift had torn open the seabed along the trench, unsealing an ancient Fourth-Grade Spiritual Vein. Whoever claimed this surging nexus of earth-qi could anchor a permanent naval fortress capable of controlling seventy percent of the trade lanes between the outer islands and the inner sea.

While the great factions prepared for a bloody collision, Ye Fan spent those two crucial months hidden inside a secluded, water-filled coral cave forty miles west of the trench.

Inside the dark, echoing grotto, Ye Fan sat cross-legged upon a flat slab of reef stone. Resting against his chest, the Temporal Jade Bead radiated a faint, milky-white glow, bending the localized flow of time around his cushion so that each day outside granted him three days of uninterrupted refinement within its three-yard boundary.

Hovering in the air before his knees was his lifebound weapon, the heavy black broadsword, alongside the fist-sized Seven-Star Glacial-Flame Seed he had acquired from the Golden-Tide Consortium.

Ye Fan inhaled a slow breath, his chest expanding as he circulated his Core Formation Qi through his primary meridians. He extended his right index and middle fingers, pointing them toward the floating mineral. A stream of golden purifying flame surged from his fingertips, wrapping around the soot-covered stone.

The intense heat of the golden flame met the outer shell of the Seven-Star Glacial-Flame Seed. With a sharp hiss, black soot flaked away in curling ribbons, revealing a translucent crystalline core that held seven tiny, swirling vortices of deep-blue frost and crimson fire.

’The outer shell is gone,’ Ye Fan noted, keeping his breathing steady as beads of sweat rolled down his jaw. ’Now to extract the glacial marrow without fracturing the seven internal star-nodes.’

He shifted his left hand into a claw seal, drawing water-qi from the surrounding cave pool. He wove ten thin threads of cold spiritual energy, guiding them into the seven tiny vortices of the crystal. Each time a thread touched a star-node, the crystal vibrated with a sharp chime, sending a freezing jolt back up Ye Fan’s arm. Frost crept over his knuckles, stiffening his finger joints, while his right arm burned with the radiant heat of his golden flame.

Drop by drop, a thick, syrupy blue-gold liquid bled from the melting crystal. Ye Fan gritted his teeth against the cramping pain in his forearms, rotating his wrists to smear the molten mineral along the spine and fuller of his heavy black broadsword.

The black metal of the broadsword drank the liquid greedily. Runic veins of deep, icy blue spread across the dark iron, cooling the violent golden aura that normally blazed from the weapon. Once the blade was saturated, Ye Fan drew the remaining half of the glacial-flame essence into his mouth, swallowing it straight down into his Dantian.

The icy liquid struck his spinning Golden Core like a falling glacier. His internal spiritual sea boiled. For three weeks inside the temporal field, Ye Fan circulated the ancient wind and flame breathing patterns he had claimed from the ruin of the Abyssal Zephyr Lord, forcing the glacial marrow to wrap around his Golden Core like a protective shell.

When the final drop of essence merged into his core, a heavy muffled pulse echoed from his abdomen, pushing the surrounding cave water backward against the coral walls. His cultivation base surged past its previous threshold, settling firmly at the Peak of the Mid-Stage Core Formation Realm.

Ye Fan opened his eyes and exhaled a long plume of frosty blue vapor. He raised his right palm. A tongue of fire flickered to life above his skin. At its center burned his lethal, purifying golden flame, yet the outer layer was cloaked in a dense, freezing shroud of deep-blue spiritual light. Neither demonic blood-cultivators nor righteous inquisitors would recognize his true signature now.

He stood up, gripping the hilt of his heavy black broadsword, and strapped it into the five-element bone scabbard across his back. Touching the wooden mercenary token at his waist, Ye Fan stepped out of the cave to answer the mobilization summons of the Azure Wave Sword Sect vanguard.

Three thousand fathoms beneath the sunlit surface of the open ocean, where no natural light penetrated the crushing black water, three colossal Abyssal Stealth Galleons glided in silent formation along the sandy floor of a deep-sea ravine.

Constructed from dark profound-sea ironwood and plated in sound-absorbing Star-Core Iron, the vessels moved without creating a single wake. At the bow of the flagship, inside the forward array spire, Yue Lingshan stood before a floating bronze astrolabe. Dressed in modest, high-collared white robes woven from Thousand-Year Spirit-Silk, Wang Jian’s virtuous wife wove steady hand seals, channeling her dual Wood and Water Qi into the hull’s runes to harmonize the ships with the deep-ocean currents.

"The outer acoustic veil is stable, Sister Lingshan," a soft female disciple reported from the lower console. "The surface patrols of the Azure Wave Sword Sect passed two ???? fathoms above us without registering a single ripple."

"Maintain the current output," Yue Lingshan replied with a gentle, focused nod. "My husband is conducting a private strategic review with the senior sect masters in the rear chambers. We must ensure the vessel remains steady so his concentration is not disturbed."

Yue Lingshan turned her earnest gaze back to the glowing astrolabe, her heart warm with pride as she protected the ship, oblivious to the true nature of the "strategic review" occurring behind the triple-layered soundproofing barriers at the stern of the flagship.

Inside the sprawling, velvet-draped master stateroom at the rear of the dreadnought, the air was hot, humid, and thick with the intoxicating musk of prolonged carnal indulgence.

Wang Jian sat upon a wide, fur-lined divan at the center of the chamber, his broad, muscular torso bare and gleaming with sweat. Around him, six of the most powerful and revered women in the Myriad Reefs Sea Domain were arranged in states of shameless, eager submission, dressed in scandalous garments he had specifically designed to highlight their lush, mature figures.

Hua Yimei, the dignified Sect Leader of the Fragrance Melody Sect, knelt on the carpet between Wang Jian’s knees. She wore a sheer, ruby-red lace bodysuit that left her massive, gold-pierced breasts spilling out over the low cups, while thin straps dug deeply into the soft flesh of her wide, curvy hips. Right beside her knelt her daughter, Hua Ling’er, clad in a matching crimson satin halter top that barely contained her own heavy, bouncing chest, paired with a tiny pleated skirt that left her round backside exposed whenever she leaned forward.

To Wang Jian’s left, Shen Mengqi—once the cold, untouchable sword fairy of the Silver Gale Sect—lay back against the velvet pillows, her long legs spread wide. Since converting her foundation to the Nine-Turn Profound Yin Scripture, her skin possessed a porcelain sheen that radiated a seductive, frosty allure. She wore a tight, high-slitted black silk dress with the front panels unfastened, exposing her full, heavy breasts and the dark crimson slave rune pulsing softly beneath her navel.

To his right knelt Elder Bing Yun, the silver-haired High Elder of the Ice Heart Palace, alongside Liu Ruyan and Chen Ying. Bing Yun wore a translucent white gauze robe tied loosely with a silver sash, her mature, abundant curves pressing against Wang Jian’s muscular shoulder as she poured fermented dragon-blood wine into a jade goblet.

"Ling’er, your tongue is getting lazy," Wang Jian growled, his large, calloused right hand tangled in Hua Ling’er’s long black hair while his left hand roughly gripped Hua Yimei’s heavy right breast, kneading the soft flesh until red finger-marks bloomed across her pale skin. "Look at your mother. She knows how to put her throat to work for her master."

Hua Yimei let out a muffled, wet moan around the thick base of Wang Jian’s engorged shaft, her mature face flushed a deep scarlet as she bobbed her head down, taking his pulsing length deep into her warm throat before pulling back to let her daughter take over.

"Forgive me, Master!" Hua Ling’er gasped, her pretty face glistening with saliva and sweat. Not wanting to lose his favor to her own mother, the young woman pushed her heavy breasts against Wang Jian’s muscular thighs and eagerly engulfed the wet tip of his shaft, sucking hard while her mother licked and kissed along the underside. "Ling’er can take it deeper than Mother! Please watch me, Master!"

"Hmph, arrogant girl," Hua Yimei purred huskily, her eyes glazed with dark lust as she rubbed her heavy, pierced nipple against Wang Jian’s knee. "When Master took us both in the Alchemy Pavilion three years ago, you passed out after the second hour while I took his seed until dawn. Move your head aside and let me show you how to properly relax his meridians."

Wang Jian laughed darkly, enjoying theshameless competition between the mother-and-daughter duo. It had been years since he conquered the two of them on the Fragrance Melody Sect’s home island, and both women now craved his rough, uncompromising touch above all else.

He pulled Hua Yimei up by her waist, hauling her lush, curvy body onto the divan. Without a shred of gentleness, Wang Jian flipped the mature Sect Leader onto her hands and knees over the velvet armrests, positioning her wide, juicy hips right in front of him. He slapped her round, fleshy backside hard enough to make the sound echo off the cabin walls, causing Hua Yimei to cry out in breathless ecstasy.

"Position yourself beneath your mother, Ling’er," Wang Jian ordered, his voice thick with primal dominance. "Catch whatever drips down."

"Yes, Master!" Hua Ling’er whimpered, scrambling onto her back on the cushions directly underneath her mother’s chest, her hands reaching up to fondle Hua Yimei’s swaying, gold-pierced breasts.

Wang Jian gripped Hua Yimei’s lush hips with both hands, his fingers digging forcefully into her soft flesh, and drove his thick, scorching manhood straight into her soaking core in a single, violent thrust.

"Aaaah! Master!" Hua Yimei screamed, her back arching as the immense size and searing heat of his Heavenly Yang Divine Physique stretched her inner walls to their limit.

Wang Jian did not start slow. He hammered his hips forward with brutal, relentless momentum, his heavy pelvis slamming against her plump backside in a rapid, thunderous rhythm. With every savage thrust, Hua Yimei’s massive breasts swung violently below her, brushing against Hua Ling’er’s flushed face.

While pounding into the mature Sect Leader, Wang Jian turned his head toward Shen Mengqi, who was watching him with parted lips, her fingers rubbing furiously between her own wet thighs as her Nine-Turn Profound Yin Scripture reacted to the dense Yang aura filling the room.

"Did I give you permission to touch yourself, Mengqi?" Wang Jian barked, never breaking the brutal pace of his hips against Hua Yimei’s backside.

Shen Mengqi flinched, pulling her wet fingers away from her core, her cheeks burning with shame and desperate need. "No, Master... Mengqi couldn’t help it. Your Yang Qi is too hot... my Yin meridians are aching to be filled. Please, stop teasing me and use my body next!"

"Get over here and sit on my thigh while I finish with Yimei," Wang Jian commanded, pulling his right hand off Hua Yimei’s hip to slap the leather cushion beside him. "And Bing Yun, bring that wine over here. Feed it to me with your mouth."

Elder Bing Yun shivered with delight, her dignified silver hair cascading over her bare, heavy breasts as she took a large mouthful of the warm dragon-blood wine and straddled Wang Jian’s left leg. She pressed her full, soft lips against his mouth, transferring the rich, fiery liquor over his tongue while Wang Jian’s left hand roughly grabbed a fistful of her plump backside, grinding her wet silk-covered core against his hard thigh.

Shen Mengqi crawled across the divan on her hands and knees, her black silk dress bunched around her waist. She pressed her cool, porcelain-smooth breasts against Wang Jian’s right arm, tilting her chin up so he could reach down and roughly pinch her stiff pink nipples between his thumb and forefinger.

"Harder, Master!" Shen Mengqi moaned, leaning into his bruising grip, completely unrecognizable from the righteous master whom Ye Fan still worshiped in his memories. "Ruin me! Pump your essence deep into my Dantian!"

For the next two hours, the master stateroom remained a cauldron of relentless, aggressive passion. Wang Jian moved from Hua Yimei to her daughter Hua Ling’er, pinning the younger woman’s curvy legs back against her shoulders as he pounded her into the cushions, before finally throwing Shen Mengqi onto her stomach and driving his scorching Yang Qi into her freezing Yin pathways until both she and Elder Bing Yun were left trembling, soaked in sweat and his thick essence upon the furs.

Only when his raging internal Yang heat was thoroughly vented and harmonized did Wang Jian step off the divan. Chen Ying and Liu Ruyan immediately stepped forward with warm, damp silk towels, kneeling to wipe down his muscular frame before dressing him in his black, gold-trimmed commander robes.

"Rest and circulate your Qi," Wang Jian instructed, looking back at the tangled pile of voluptuous, panting beauties on the bed. "We are approaching the outer ridge of the Dragon-Spine Trench."

He stepped through the triple-layered soundproofing doors, walking down the metallic corridor toward the central command bridge.

Inside the darkened bridge, illuminated by the pale blue glow of a three-dimensional water-projection table, stood Mu Lianhua, Su Binglan, Shangguan Wan’er, and Lin Wanyue. All four women wore their formal attire, though the moment Wang Jian entered, their eyes softened with unmistakable, slavish devotion.

"Master," Shangguan Wan’er greeted him, stepping aside from the projection table so he could take the central spot. Her tight gold gown hugged her wide hips as she bowed. "Both fleets have taken the bait. Our communication relays just received final confirmation from Qiu Yun and Su Ning."

Wang Jian rested his hands on the edge of the brass rim, looking down at the glowing blue projection of a narrow, winding undersea canyon shaped like a jagged scar across the ocean floor.

"Show me the convergence timing," Wang Jian said.

Three thousand fathoms above the hidden dreadnoughts, the surface of the ocean was a churning expanse of white foam.

Forty armored sword-cruisers belonging to the Azure Wave Sword Sect—a premier righteous vanguard under the banner of the Myriad Ocean Palace—cut through the high waves in a sharp wedge formation. Flanking the massive ironwood cruisers were eighty agile transport cutters, their decks crowded with over four thousand righteous disciples wearing azure robes and carrying standard-issue spirit swords.

Inside the command pavilion of the lead flagship, The Azure Cleaver, Vanguard Commander Elder Cang Song stood before a massive map table carved from white jade. Elder Cang Song was a stern, broad-shouldered man at the Peak of the Late-Stage Core Formation Realm, with a long grey beard and three scars running across his left cheek. Around him stood six Mid-Stage Core Formation deacons, including Deaconess Qiu Yun, who wore the modest blue robes of the sect’s logistics division.

"We are thirty miles north of the Dragon-Spine Trench perimeter," Elder Cang Song rumbled, his heavy voice vibrating with righteous authority. "If we sail across the open water above the central rift, the blood-miasma wards laid by the Holy Nether Sea Organization will spot our fleet three hours before we reach the Fourth-Grade Spiritual Vein."

"Commander, you need not worry about the surface wards," Qiu Yun spoke up, stepping forward with a respectful bow. She placed a glowing sapphire jade slip onto the map table.

A detailed bathymetric projection rose into the air, displaying the deep-sea terrain beneath the waves. A bright green line snaked through a narrow, deep-earth fissure along the western flank of the trench.

"What is this route, Deaconess Qiu?" Elder Cang Song asked, leaning over the table.

"This is a confidential sea-floor survey chart purchased two weeks ago from the Golden-Tide Consortium’s senior cartographers," Qiu Yun explained smoothly, her expression a mask of earnest loyalty to the sect. "It maps the current flows through Howling Shark Gap. Ordinarily, the gap is avoided due to shifting cross-currents. However, the recent tectonic shift that exposed the Spiritual Vein also collapsed an upper ridge ten miles west, blocking the cross-current. Right now, Howling Shark Gap is a calm, current-free channel."

One of the senior deacons stroked his chin, examining the glowing green line. "If we submerge our forty sword-cruisers and eighty cutters using the Great Water-Parting Barriers, we can sail along the floor of Howling Shark Gap, bypass the demonic surface patrols, and emerge directly in front of the Spiritual Vein."

"The Consortium’s maps are always reliable," Elder Cang Song declared, slamming his fist onto the jade table. "They care only for Spirit Stones, and their surveyors know these waters better than anyone. Signal the fleet! Activate the Great Water-Parting Barriers and prepare to submerge toward Howling Shark Gap!"

"Yes, Commander!" the deacons chorused, while Qiu Yun lowered her head, concealing the cold glint in her eyes as she sent a silent pulse through a hidden talisman in her sleeve.

At that exact moment, twenty-five miles to the southeast, a fleet of twenty monstrous, bone-hulled blood-galleons sat anchored behind a towering underwater seamount, cloaked beneath a thick shroud of dark red blood-fog.

Inside the ribcage-lined war room of the flagship Crimson Scythe, Elder Xue Li—whose physical vessel was possessed by the ancient soul of the Yin Severing True Monarch—sat at the head of a bone table. Across from him stood Su Ning, the revered core genius of Blood Shark Hall, cradling her Purple Crystal Toxin Gourd in her arms, alongside two ferocious Late-Stage Core Formation elders of Blood Shark Hall, Elder Tuoba and Elder Huan.

Su Ning raised a glowing red locust-talisman that had just vibrated against her wrist. A seductive smile touched her dark-painted lips.

"The righteous sheep have altered their bearing," Su Ning announced to the room. "Our source inside the logistics division of the Azure Wave Sword Sect confirms that Elder Cang Song has ordered all forty sword-cruisers and eighty cutters to submerge. They will enter the northern mouth of Howling Shark Gap in forty-five minutes."

Elder Tuoba, a hulking man with a bald head covered in shark-tooth piercings, let out a harsh, booming laugh. "That narrow stone ditch? Once their ships are two miles inside, they won’t even have room to turn their prows around!"

"Are the canyon walls prepared, Elder Xue Li?" Su Ning asked, her eyes meeting the dark, hollow gaze of the Yin Severing True Monarch. Both of them knew whom they truly served, though in front of Elder Tuoba and Elder Huan, they acted as ambitious demonic allies.

"Three hundred corrosive Blood-Sea Mine Arrays have been bored directly into the overhanging basalt ledges along both sides of the gap," Elder Xue Li rasped, his voice cold as deep-sea ice. "And I have buried twelve hundred refined blood-corpses in the silt along the canyon floor. The moment their center column reaches the narrowest bottleneck, we will drop the mountain on their heads and turn that ditch into an abattoir."

Twenty minutes before the righteous armada reached the northern mouth of the canyon, a single dark figure cut through the murky, freezing water half a mile ahead of the submerged fleet.

Ye Fan, operating under his mercenary alias Han Feng, swam with powerful, silent strokes. Because he had signed the vanguard exploration contract on Coral Cloud Island, the Golden-Tide Consortium had sub-contracted his squad to serve as forward scouts for the Azure Wave Sword Sect expedition.

Wrapped in a thin, form-fitting bubble of water-repelling Qi, Ye Fan descended three thousand feet into the yawning, pitch-black jaws of Howling Shark Gap.

Towering walls of jagged black basalt rose on either side of him like the ribs of a dead leviathan, narrowing the passageway to barely two hundred yards across. According to the navigational chart Elder Cang Song had distributed to the scout captains, this channel was supposed to be a dead, current-free zone.

Ye Fan stopped atop a jutting ledge of black stone, his boots anchoring onto the rock. He placed his bare left palm flat against the freezing basalt wall and closed his eyes, circulating his spiritual sense alongside the subtle perception granted by the Temporal Jade Bead against his chest.

He felt the vibration of the stone first.

Rather than the stillness of a blocked channel, a deep, rhythmic thrum coursed through the lower rock strata—the unmistakable sign of high-pressure hydraulic currents being held back by an artificial barrier further down the canyon.

Next, Ye Fan opened his eyes and looked down at the silt bed forty feet below. Schools of pale, blind trench-eels—creatures that normally burrowed deep into the mud whenever a fleet approached—were writhing out of the silt in frantic droves, swimming north against the water flow to flee the canyon. As the eels disturbed the bottom mud, a faint, metallic thread of dark crimson silt drifted upward.

Ye Fan caught a wisp of the red silt in his water-barrier and brought it to his nose. Beneath the smell of salt and decaying kelp, he caught the sharp, acrid stench of refined corpse-tallow and volatile blood-sulfur.

’Blood-Sea Mine Arrays,’ Ye Fan realized, his expression hardening. ’And the silt is packed with corpse-soldiers. The Consortium map wasn’t outdated—it was bait.’

Without wasting a breath, Ye Fan kicked off the basalt ledge. He channeled his wind-attribute Qi into his legs, shooting upward through the dark water like aloosed arrow, returning to the descending wedge of forty glowing azure sword-cruisers.

He passed through the outer water-parting dome of the flagship The Azure Cleaver, landing with a wet thud upon the polished ironwood foredeck. Shaking the water from his bamboo hat, Ye Fan strode rapidly toward the raised command bridge where Elder Cang Song stood surrounded by his core disciples.

"Halt! Mercenaries are not permitted on the command bridge!" a young, haughty core disciple named Lin Feng barked, stepping into Ye Fan’s path with his hand on his gilded sword hilt.

"Out of the way! The fleet is sailing into a death trap!" Ye Fan snapped, projecting his voice with Core Formation Qi so it carried directly to Elder Cang Song.

Elder Cang Song frowned, turning away from the steering array to glare down at the leather-armored mercenary. "Master Han, I hired you to clear stray Fifth-Grade reef sharks from our path, not to scream like a frightened mortal on my deck. Report what you saw."

"Commander, you must order an immediate full-reverse on all vessels," Ye Fan said urgently, pointing down toward the dark chasm looming below the ship’s keel. "Howling Shark Gap is not calm. Someone has erected a hydraulic dam at the southern exit to build water pressure, and the silt floor is crawling with buried blood-corpses. I smelled refined blood-sulfur along the upper basalt ridges—the walls are rigged with explosive mine arrays!"

On the edge of the bridge, Deaconess Qiu Yun kept her face calm, though she stepped forward quickly before Elder Cang Song could hesitate.

"Master Han, are you questioning the formation geomancers of the Azure Wave Sword Sect?" Qiu Yun asked, her tone laced with righteous indignation. "Our flagship’s Heavenly Eye Compass has scanned the gap three times over the last half hour. There are no energy fluctuations along those ridges. What you smelled is natural sulfur venting from the newly opened Spiritual Vein three miles south!"

"A standard compass won’t detect mines wrapped in deep-sea beast bladders!" Ye Fan countered sharply, his eyes locking onto Elder Cang Song. "Look at the blind trench-eels swimming past our hull! Deep-sea Spirit Beasts are fleeing the canyon in a panic. If we take forty cruisers into a two-hundred-yard bottleneck, a single rockslide will pin the entire vanguard!"

Lin Feng let out a mocking laugh, looking at his fellow core disciples. "Listen to this wandering rogue! He sees a few blind worms wiggling in the mud and wets his armor! Mercenary Han, if you are terrified of a little volcanic sulfur, you can forfeit your Consortium pay and swim back to Coral Cloud Island!"

Elder Cang Song’s scarred face darkened. Having a lowly hired mercenary contradict his battle plan in front of his core disciples wounded his pride. Moreover, halting forty submerged warships in a steep descent would scatter their formation and delay their arrival at the leyline node by six hours—giving the Holy Nether Sea Organization time to claim the prize first.

"Enough," Elder Cang Song commanded coldly. "The Heavenly Eye Compass does not lie. A rogue cultivator from the outer reefs lacks the knowledge to distinguish a Fourth-Grade leyline vent from a blood-mine. Return to your scout cutter at the rear of the column, Master Han. If you utter another word to disrupt fleet morale, I will execute you for insubordination under martial law!"

Ye Fan stared at the arrogant old man for two seconds. Seeing the blind stubbornness in Elder Cang Song’s eyes, Ye Fan said nothing more. He turned on his heel, walked off the bridge, and leaped off the starboard rail back into the water toward his small scout cutter.

’Fools,’ Ye Fan thought coldly as he landed on the deck of his eight-man cutter at the outer edge of the formation. He rested his right hand on the hilt of his heavy black broadsword and quietly circulated the Qi in his Dantian. ’When the walls come down, I’ll carve my own way out.’

Ten minutes later, the entire vanguard of the Azure Wave Sword Sect—forty massive sword-cruisers and eighty transport cutters—was stretched in a long, cramped column inside the lightless depths of Howling Shark Gap.

The glowing blue Great Water-Parting Barriers surrounding the hulls cast eerie, shifting shadows against the towering basalt walls that pressed in on both sides. The water was deathly quiet.

High atop the jagged rim of the canyon, concealed behind black lead-lined cloaking tarps, Elder Xue Li stood on the prow of the Crimson Scythe. He looked down at the glowing blue line of righteous warships packed tightly into the stone trough below.

"They are inside the kill zone," Elder Xue Li rasped. He raised his pale, skeletal hand and clenched it into a fist. "Detonate the walls. Unleash the corpse-tide."

Beside him, Elder Tuoba slammed both palms down onto a massive blood-drum mounted on the deck.

DOOOOOOM!

A low-frequency shockwave pulsed down through the water, striking the three hundred Blood-Sea Mine Arrays embedded deep within the basalt cliffs.

For a split second, the canyon walls glowed with three hundred blinding red stars. Then, the rock faces erupted.

BOOOOOOM! BOOOOOOM! BOOOOOOM!

The underwater explosions were cataclysmic. Concentrated blasts of corrosive blood-fire shattered the structural support of the overhanging cliffs. The water inside the narrow canyon compressed into a crushing hydraulic vise, slamming the eighty smaller transport cutters into one another like wooden toys.

Before the righteous cultivators could recover their footing on the violently tilting decks, millions of tons of fractured black basalt sheared off the canyon walls and plummeted into the gap.

Colossal boulders the size of houses crashed down upon the center of the righteous fleet. The glowing blue Great Water-Parting Barriers of twelve sword-cruisers groaned, cracked like thin porcelain under the immense physical weight of the falling mountain, and shattered. Crushing deep-sea water flooded onto the decks, sweeping hundreds of screaming Foundation Establishment disciples off their feet and grinding them between splintered ironwood beams and falling rocks.

"Ambush! Raise the sword formations!" Elder Cang Song’s roar echoed through the water from the flagship near the front of the column, where a glancing boulder had sheared off the main mast.

Before the surviving ships could align their prows, the dark silt along the canyon floor boiled upward.

Twelve hundred preserved blood-corpses—their dead flesh stitched with iron wire and packed with explosive rot-qi by the Yin Severing True Monarch—clawed their way out of the mud. Moving with jerky, terrifying speed through the high-pressure water, the corpses swarmed onto the lower hulls of the trapped cruisers, driving rusted bone-picks into the array nodes and detonating their own bloated bellies against the wooden planking.

At the same time, the hydraulic dam at the southern end of the gap was shattered by the demonic vanguard. A raging wall of black water and corrosive purple poison—refined from Su Ning’s Purple Crystal Toxin Gourd—surged backward into the canyon, blinding the spiritual senses of the righteous cultivators and turning the cramped abyss into a churning crimson slaughterhouse.

From the upper rim of the canyon, twenty bone-hulled blood-galleons dropped like vultures. Thousands of demonic cultivators from Blood Shark Hall and the Azure Blood Sect dived through the bloody water, wielding jagged bone-spears and chained hooks to board the immobilized sword-cruisers.

At the forward section of the collapsing column, the flagship The Azure Cleaver was listing forty degrees to port, its rudder pinned beneath a five-hundred-ton slab of fallen basalt.

Elder Cang Song stood on the flooded quarterdeck, his grey beard stained with his own blood. He swung his Azure Wave Spirit Sword in wide, desperate arcs, deflecting a barrage of poisoned bone-javelins. Around him, four of his Mid-Stage Core Formation deacons already lay dead, their chests torn open, while Deaconess Qiu Yun fought near the rear cabin, deftly parrying weak strikes from an Azure Blood Sect disciple who had been secretly instructed to keep her unharmed.

From the roiling red water above the flagship, two massive figures crashed down onto the flooded ironwood deck, splintering the planks beneath their heavy boots.

It was Elder Tuoba and Elder Huan of Blood Shark Hall—both seasoned Late-Stage Core Formation experts. Elder Tuoba wielded a pair of massive, serrated Shark-Tooth Cleavers that dripped with black corrosive blood, while Elder Huan spun a heavy nine-section iron chain tipped with a spiked skull.

"Cang Song! Your righteous dogs swim poorly when the rocks fall!" Elder Tuoba bellowed, charging forward across the tilting deck. He brought both Shark-Tooth Cleavers down in a scissor-like cross slash aimed at Elder Cang Song’s neck.

Elder Cang Song raised his Azure Wave Spirit Sword horizontally, pouring his remaining Qi into the blade to block.

CLANG!

The physical impact of the two heavy cleavers drove Elder Cang Song to one knee, his boots punching through the rotted deck planks. Before he could push Elder Tuoba back, Elder Huan whipped his nine-section iron chain around From the left flank. The spiked skull smashed directly into Elder Cang Song’s ribs, shattering his protective spirit armor and tearing a deep gash across his side.

Elder Cang Song coughed up a mouthful of bright red blood, crashing backward against the broken helm wheel.

"Take his head and his spatial ring!" Elder Huan snarled, drawing back the iron chain for a fatal strike to crush Elder Cang Song’s skull.

Suddenly, the dark water off the port rail parted with a deafening roar.

A tall figure in salt-stained leather armor launched onto the deck, his boots landing with such explosive physical leverage that the ironwood planks cracked beneath his heels.

Ye Fan did not waste a breath on words or inner thoughts. His mind was locked in cold, lethal combat focus.

Both of his hands gripped the long hilt of his heavy black broadsword. As he pivoted on his front heel, he channeled his Peak Mid-Stage Core Formation Qi into the blade. A thick, roaring shroud of deep-blue glacial fire erupted along the broad steel, concealing the core of purifying golden flame within.

Ye Fan swung the massive broadsword upward in a diagonal cleave, intercepting the flying nine-section chain halfway to Elder Cang Song’s head.

KRA-CLANG!

When the heavy black broadsword struck the spiked skull at the end of the chain, the deep-blue glacial flame flash-froze the spirit iron, while the hidden golden core flame instantly burned away the blood-tempering runes inside the metal. Under the monstrous physical weight of Ye Fan’s swing, the spiked skull shattered into twenty jagged shards of frozen iron.

Elder Huan gasped as the recoil yanked his right arm forward, throwing his stance off-balance on the slick, tilting deck.

Ye Fan did not give him a half-second to recover. Using the momentum of his upward swing, Ye Fan stepped straight inside the arc of the broken chain, closing the ten-foot gap in a single stride. He rotated his wrists at the peak of the arc and brought the heavy black broadsword crashing straight down onto the crown of Elder Huan’s head.

Elder Huan hastily crossed his iron bracers above his forehead, flaring a thick blood-shield.

CRACK-BOOM!

The icy blue flame froze the blood-shield into brittle red glass, and the purifying golden core vaporized the demonic Qi on contact. The heavy broadsword sheared straight through Elder Huan’s crossed forearms, split his skull down the bridge of his nose, and cleaved his torso in half down to the pelvis. Both halves of the Late-Stage Core Formation elder hit the flooded deck with a wet splash, the cuts cauterized by a layer of smoking blue frost.

"Huan!" Elder Tuoba roared in shock and fury, abandonar Elder Cang Song to spin toward the leather-armored mercenary.

Realizing this unknown swordsman possessed terrifying physical strength and a strange, blood-banishing cold flame, Elder Tuoba bit the tip of his tongue and spat a mouthful of essence blood onto his twin Shark-Tooth Cleavers.

"Blood Shark Art: Rending Abyssal Maw!"

The two serrated cleavers swelled in size, projecting twin ten-foot phantom jaws of crimson energy that snapped shut toward Ye Fan’s waist from opposite sides, cutting off all room for lateral evasion on the narrow deck.

Ye Fan did not retreat. He bent his knees, sinking his weight low as his boots gripped the splintered wood, and unleashed the sword inheritance of the Abyssal Zephyr Lord.

"Heavenly Gale Calamity Sword: Nine-Layered Squall!"

Spinning his heavy torso like a compressed cyclone, Ye Fan swung the black broadsword in a continuous, blurring horizontal figure-eight. Nine overlapping crescents of compressed wind and deep-blue glacial flame erupted from the heavy edge, striking the incoming crimson shark jaws head-on.

The first four crescents shattered the phantom blood-jaws in a burst of freezing steam. The fifth and sixth crescents collided directly with Elder Tuoba’s physical cleavers, the sheer weight of the broadsword knocking the heavy blades wide and tearing the skin of Elder Tuoba’s palms open from the vibration.

Before the seventh crescent even faded, Ye Fan lunged forward through the bursting steam, driving the wide point of his broadsword straight through the center of Elder Tuoba’s chest.

"Guh—!" Elder Tuoba froze, looking down in disbelief at the four-inch-wide slab of dark, frost-rimmed steel protruding from his sternum. Within the wound, the hidden golden flame surged into his heart meridian, incinerating his Golden Core and turning his internal organs to ash before a single drop of blood could spill.

Ye Fan yanked the broadsword free with a twist of his wrist, kicking Elder Tuoba’s lifeless corpse off the deck and snatching both Late-Stage Core Formation spatial rings from the dead elders’ fingers in one fluid motion.

On the broken bridge, Elder Cang Song stared at the leather-armored mercenary in stunned silence. In less than ten breaths, this hired scout had butchered two Late-Stage Core Formation elders of Blood Shark Hall like pigs.

"Still want to execute me for disrupting morale, Commander?" Ye Fan asked coldly, resting the flat of his frost-smoking broadsword against his shoulder as he looked down at the wounded old man.

Elder Cang Song swallowed hard, clutching his bleeding ribs as he struggled to his feet. All traces of his previous arrogance had vanished, replaced by desperate respect for a peerless expert hiding in plain sight.

"Senior... no, Brother Han!" Elder Cang Song gasped, pulling a glowing bronze tiger-tally from his belt and thrusting it toward Ye Fan. "This old man was blind! My ribs are shattered and my Golden Core is unstable. Only twelve cruisers remain intact in the forward column, and the rear is blocked by the rockslide! Take my vanguard command tally—lead the surviving ships out of the southern exit toward the Spiritual Vein! It is the only open ground where we can rally!"

Ye Fan caught the bronze tiger-tally. Looking south down the dark canyon, he could already feel the surging, ancient earth-qi of the Fourth-Grade Spiritual Vein calling out through the water—alongside the unmistakable aura of ancient treasures buried near the rift gate.

"All surviving cruisers, form a tight wedge behind the flagship!" Ye Fan’s voice boomed across the canyon, amplified by his surging Core Formation Qi. "Divert all array power to forward rams! Follow my blade through the southern mouth!"

Five hundred fathoms deeper in the abyssal silt, inside the silent command bridge of the lead Abyssal Stealth Galleon, Wang Jian watched the glowing green dot—the microscopic wisp of Verdant Eternal Spring Essence fused inside Ye Fan’s broadsword—charge straight out of the southern mouth of Howling Shark Gap at the head of twelve battered righteous warships.

"He killed Tuoba and Huan in ten breaths and seized command of the Azure Wave vanguard," Shangguan Wan’er murmured, her pale blue eyes wide with admiration as she looked at Wang Jian’s profile. "Just as you calculated, Master. Both vanguards are crippled, and the boy is now acting as our battering ram to break the ancient seals on the Spiritual Vein."

Wang Jian reached out, his large hand sliding beneath the hem of Lin Wanyue’s heavy City Lord robes to casually fondle her warm, bare thigh while she bit her lip to stifle a soft moan.

"A protagonist is sharpest when pushed into a desperate corner," Wang Jian said, his dark, starlit eyes fixed on the glowing leyline gate three miles ahead on the projection table. "Let him break open the ancient rift gate and bleed the remaining guards. Signal the three galleons to advance at half speed. It is time to harvest the Dragon-Spine Trench."