The Wave-Mist Sea.

The luxury cruiser was still there, but the passengers aboard it had been slaughtered to the last soul. The human ones had become blood sacrifices; the non-human ones had all ended up in the bellies of fish. The sheer volume of blood and corpses had drawn in several hundred razor-tooth sharks—apex predators perfectly at home even in freshwater.

Where these razor-tooth sharks had come from in White River’s waters was anyone’s guess.

Maybe someone had deliberately seeded them. Maybe they’d simply been living in the inland sea since before the floating continent’s collapse.

The strongest among them, boasting Sky-rank tier three power, were unquestionably water-bound tyrants. Once a razor-tooth shark locked onto a target, that target might as well have a death notice stamped on its back. Compared to other sharks or aquatic monstrosities, razor-tooth sharks were far more inclined toward group hunting—once mobilized, they assembled attack squads of at least ten, taking turns wearing down the enemy. Their coordinated encirclement tactics made them, without question, one of the deadliest forces in White River’s waters.

The most cunning part was that these sharks had learned to cooperate with the mutant fishfolk.

If a mutant fishman could lure in enough tasty prey, a razor-tooth shark would willingly serve as that fishman’s mount, offering its full combat strength on short notice for maximum coordination.

Like right now.

The lobster-man rode his razor-tooth shark—the one he’d named “Snaggletooth”—gleefully chasing down Sea Fatty.

Snaggletooth was an especially vicious specimen, boasting Sky-rank tier three strength. He wasn’t the shark king, but within his pod he ranked comfortably in the top ten. He’d earned his name during a joint hunt against a Sky-rank tier five Iron-Arm Golden Ape: fighting with reckless abandon, he’d enraged a far stronger enemy, and the ape had put a fist straight through his mouth, shattering nearly every tooth he had. But thanks to Snaggletooth and his packmates’ relentless harassment, the mutant fishfolk had landed their decisive blows, eventually bringing down that ape—whose hide was tougher than steel—at the cost of relatively light losses.

During that fight, the lobster-man Jiaoxu had saved Snaggletooth’s life, and in return earned the shark’s recognition, becoming his rider as he’d long wished.

The moment a mutant fishman entered water, his combat strength shot up tenfold.

Add a razor-tooth shark as a mount, and a mutant fishman could say with confidence that in the water, no one stood a chance against him—or at the very least, no opponent of equal rank could win. As for someone like Sea Fatty—a target whose visible strength didn’t even reach Sky-rank, a human as fat as a pig—Jiaoxu figured this fight would take no effort at all.

If it weren’t for the Marshal’s standing order before they’d set out, demanding the fugitives be killed as swiftly as possible, Jiaoxu honestly would have liked to toy with his prey a little longer. An opponent this pathetic didn’t come along once in ten years.

Standing on a blood-lotus leaf, was he?

Jiaoxu had already seen Fuping’s blood technique firsthand.

Without Snaggletooth as a mount, the chase might have been a bit of a hassle. But with a water mount at this speed, he could play cat-and-mouse with his target as long as he liked. Jiaoxu knew he ought to wrap this up and head back before long—he wasn’t the only one out here chasing fugitives. There was the ice block riding his stinking octopus mount, the prince-whatever riding his water hornet, the fat-mouthed one on his crocodile…

Fuping actually thought that by spending her life on that blood technique, she could let those humans escape? What a joke among jokes.

Everything was firmly within the Marshal’s grasp.

Though, to be fair, the Marshal had given Fuping chance after chance to come back. A pity she’d thrown them all away in the end.

The happiest person about all this was probably Water Spider; the most heartbroken, without question, was that perpetual second-place loser, Water Ape! But none of that was Jiaoxu’s business. He had no interest in becoming city master, no designs on the future city master’s wife—when it came to upper-level affairs, he stayed out of it entirely. That was the safest way to live. As for Water Spider and Water Ape—one letting a prisoner go on her own authority, the other chasing off on his own authority—once they got back, with the Marshal already in a foul mood over his beloved disciple’s betrayal, there was no chance in hell either of them would be forgiven…

“Hey there, fatty, you’ve been running for ages now—still at it? Aren’t you tired?” Jiaoxu watched the dead-tired fat man who’d tumbled into the water off Fuping’s blood-lotus leaf. The man was clearly past hope, his stamina long since spent, and yet some sheer survival instinct kept him paddling along at a crawl.

“Huff… huff… your sister, easy for you to talk with your back not aching. Switch places and see if you wouldn’t run too!” Sea Fatty, exhausted and furious in equal measure, rolled his eyes so hard they nearly fell out.

“You’re dying either way, so why not make it quick? When I finally get around to butchering you, I’ll make the cut fast so you don’t feel a thing—one clean slice and your head’s off. Of course, if you don’t hand over every last piece of treasure on you nice and obediently, I won’t be so accommodating. Try to resist, or hold back so much as a scrap, and I guarantee I’ll carve you into thin slices, slow as sashimi. Fatty, think it over. A man comes into this world with nothing and leaves with nothing—why struggle so hard over a little property?” Going by the intelligence Fuping had scouted earlier, Jiaoxu knew this fat corpse-to-be was the one holding the group’s wealth. That was the only reason he was bothering to be so patient and persuasive—otherwise he’d have already cut down this slow-swimming lump a long time ago.

“I’m—I’m waiting for a miracle!” Sea Fatty declared he wasn’t giving up on his last shred of hope.

“Unless your swimming form is disgusting enough to kill me on the spot, no miracle’s coming.” Jiaoxu roared with laughter. A miracle? You think fate plays favorites just because you’re carrying some extra meat? Wrong. A fatty like you was born to be life’s tragedy, fate’s discarded little plaything.

“You son of a—your whole damn family—born loving it rough, can’t go a day without—” Sea Fatty cursed at the lobster-man in a string of words that sounded almost like internet gibberish. Jiaoxu couldn’t make heads or tails of it, and had no idea this particular brand of cursing had been “invented” by none other than Yue Yang himself. Elder Nangong had once decreed that, in order to preserve the dignity of Yue Yang as the Sky Tower’s new generation Prison Emperor, this kind of gloriously unhinged cursing was to stay strictly within the group—never to leak out. Even Sea Fatty himself, let alone Ye Kong and the others, would never let it slip so casually unless he’d gotten carried away or pushed past his limit.

“Fatty, would you look at that idiot face of yours. What good’s cursing gonna do? Talk all you want, words don’t kill anybody.”

That line hadn’t come from the lobster-man—but it was exactly what Jiaoxu had been thinking.

The lobster-man froze.

How could someone show up at a moment like this, with thoughts that lined up so eerily well with his own? Surely this wasn’t some long-lost brother of his?

A thought flickered through his mind, and Jiaoxu turned to look—only to find five people standing right behind him. One cold as a block of ice, one wearing a polite smile, one scowling as he scolded the fat man, and two more standing silently but clearly poised to attack in perfect sync… weren’t these exactly the targets that stinking-octopus Panjie, water-hornet Mizhe, and fat-mouthed Tunniu had gone off to hunt down?

Why were they all here, on his side?

And where were Panjie, Mizhe, and Tunniu? Had they gotten lazy and slunk back to White River City to pay their respects to the ancestor about to be revived?

What did it mean, dumping all these people on him to clean up?

The lobster-man was about to lose his mind.

If he made it back, he was absolutely going to file a complaint against them in front of the Marshal.

Splat!

Something came flying through the air, and before Jiaoxu could even get a clear look at it, Snaggletooth beneath him had already swallowed it whole.

The lobster-man froze. Had that thing flying at him just been… a head?

Even after Snaggletooth had gulped it down, a faint whiff of blood still lingered in the water.

Splat, splat!

Two more dark shapes came hurtling from Ye Kong’s hand. Jiaoxu, thoroughly alarmed now, urged Snaggletooth to retreat a good distance—until the last dark shape, thrown from the ice block’s own hand, finally came clear enough for him to make out. That frozen, ball-shaped silhouette was a severed head, eyes wide open even in death. It was Panjie the octopus-man—steadily ranked among the top three in raw strength of the younger generation. Jiaoxu never imagined someone so powerful could be dead, his face frozen in a rictus of terror, eyes refusing to close even in death.

He looked closer at the remaining shapes and realized they were all heads.

Water-hornet Mizhe, fat-mouthed Tunniu… and counting the one Snaggletooth had just swallowed, that meant every last one of them—not a single exception—had died gruesomely right here in front of him.

Even an idiot would have realized by now that something was very wrong. And Jiaoxu was no idiot.

Run!

He spurred Snaggletooth on, fleeing with everything he had!

In the sky above, a silhouette of impossible, otherworldly beauty appeared, wings folding as she shed the Restricted Flight Law and glided down like a loosed arrow, landing directly atop Jiaoxu’s head. He didn’t even have time to react before a single slap sent his body, frozen stiffer than a dead snake, flying clean off Snaggletooth’s back.

That fat man who’d always swum slower and uglier than a pig—he suddenly shot skyward.

The sky filled with a meteor shower of fists…

“Hippo Meteor Fist!”

That was the last thing Jiaoxu the lobster-man ever heard. After that, he felt his body shattered into pieces by a storm of terror raining down like falling stars.

In White River City, Liuye had just stepped out of the Steel Guild.

She’d just closed a deal, trading ten multicolored gems for ten tons of spark-flower ore, and there was a smile tugging at the corner of her lips—business was going well. But it wasn’t only the deal putting her in such a good mood; her cultivation had been advancing too. Maybe it was something about training alone with him—even her comprehension seemed sharper for it. A realm she’d once thought would take ages to grasp had shown real progress in just a few days.

Liuye was just about to board the tram back to the Steel Cross Inn, to keep cultivating while she waited for him to return.

But she noticed someone ahead of her.

Blocking her path.

The person standing in front of Liuye wore a skintight black outfit from head to toe, eyes glinting with a mix of arrogance and cruelty—a poison maiden, Liuye assessed silently.

“I don’t believe I know you…” Despite the killing intent radiating off the other woman, Liuye kept smiling.

“The dead don’t need to know much!” the woman in black sniffed haughtily.

“Fair point.” Liuye nodded, still in good spirits as she added, “Could we step outside the city? I’d hate to hurt innocent bystanders if we fight in here.” Her words very nearly made Water Spider, standing across from her, die laughing on the spot. Worried about hurting innocents in the city? What did she think this place was? Did she think this was her territory? This was Water Spider’s territory—if anyone got to say something like that, it was going to be her!

“Hahahahaha, fine, I’ll grant you that dying wish. We’ll go outside the city.” Water Spider decided she had never, in her entire life, met such an idiot.

The strange thing was, Liuye—still wearing that same pleasant, untroubled little smile—

was thinking exactly the same thing about her.

(End of Chapter)