198: Sea Lion King

Those were not lanterns.

They were two incomparably huge eyes, burning with eerie blue phosphorescent fire.

In the dark seawater, a hideous head, covered in sharp barbs and resembling the legendary Qilin but with fish gills, slowly emerged from the abyss.

Its entire body was covered in thick, deep blue scales that shimmered with light.

Early Stage, Body Integration Stage.

The pressure emitted by this deep-sea behemoth was amplified several times over in this high-pressure environment of the deep sea.

"Huh?"

After Su Hongling saw the true face of the monster, her originally tense body instantly relaxed, and her face revealed undisguised disdain and disappointment.

She hoisted the great sword 【no edge】 onto her shoulder and, through the ice layer, flipped the behemoth the middle finger.

"Tch, you gave me a scare."

"I thought it was some formidable ancient Vicious Beast, but it turns out to be just an ugly-looking giant seahorse?"

She turned her head and said to Su Lin with a relaxed face:

"Old Man, is this the obstacle in our way?

Only Early Stage, Body Integration Stage? I could smash ten of these things with one punch!

Just right, I wasn't full earlier. This thing looks like it has a lot of meat, how about we catch it and roast it?"

As she spoke, she was about to step out of the ice shield to give this "giant seahorse" a taste of Body Cultivator shock.

"Stop."

Su Lin's voice suddenly rang out, calm yet tinged with an imperceptible gravity.

He pressed down on Su Hongling's shoulder.

"Don't move."

"Old Man, what are you afraid of? This kind of trash..."

"Look closely."

Su Lin interrupted her, his eyes narrowed slightly, his gaze piercing through the deep seawater to look directly behind the behemoth.

"This is a 【Sea Qilin King】."

"Sea Qilin King? So what if it's a King? Even if it's an Emperor, I..."

"A single Sea Qilin King is indeed not scary. With your strength, you could kill it with one sword strike."

Su Lin's voice sank, as if carrying the chill of the deep sea.

"But the most terrifying thing about this creature is..."

"They don't exist as individuals."

"They... they are fucking packed in droves."

The moment his words fell.

The Sea Qilin King that was staring at them suddenly opened its mouth full of fangs and emitted a sound wave that was inaudible to the naked ear but could cause the Divine Soul to shake violently.

Then, a scene that made one's scalp tingle appeared.

Behind this Sea Qilin King, in that endless dark abyss.

"Swish!"

Two lanterns lit up.

"Swish! Swish! Swish!"

Four, eight, one hundred, one thousand...

In the blink of an eye.

The originally pitch-black seabed suddenly became as bright as day!

That was not sunlight; those were thousands upon thousands of eyes burning with eerie blue phosphorescent fire!

Dense and overwhelming, covering the sky and earth.

Up, down, left, right, front, back, all eight directions.

Countless Sea Qilin Kings swam out from the darkness. They varied in size, but every single one of them exuded a terrifying aura of at least Peak, Void Refining Stage, or even Body Integration Stage.

They were like an endless wall, tightly surrounding the small ice shuttle of Su Lin and his party.

At a glance, there were at least ten thousand of them!

"Gulp."

Su Hongling swallowed hard, her previous arrogance instantly extinguished by half, and her palms holding the great sword began to sweat.

"Is... is this what you meant by 'in droves'?"

"This is the whole damn species, right?!"

"It's not just strolling."

Luo Ximei's face was ugly; she could feel that the surrounding space had been completely locked down by the auras of these monsters, and even her Devilish Qi could not circulate smoothly.

"This is a hunt."

"We are the prey."

"Roar!"

Accompanied by the roar of the first Sea Qilin King, one hundred thousand Sea Qilin Kings launched a charge simultaneously.

The deep sea instantly boiled.

The terrifying water pressure, mixed with countless water arrows, sound waves, and massive physical collisions, slammed into the fragile ice shuttle like a world-destroying deep-sea storm.

"Defend!!!"

Mu Qingxue let out a sharp shout.

Her spiritual power burned crazily, her hands pressed tightly against the ice wall, attempting to reinforce the defense.

"Crack!"

Just the first wave of impact.

The surface of the ten-thousand-year Mystic Ice shuttle, which was enough to withstand a blow from the Mahayana Stage, was covered in shocking cracks.

"Damn it! There are too many!"

Su Hongling could no longer bother with showing off; she let out a loud roar, no longer defending passively, but choosing to take the initiative.

"Get lost!!!"

She stepped out of the ice shuttle, placing herself under the crushing weight of hundreds of millions of tons of seawater.

She swung the great sword 【no edge】 in a full arc, carrying the Law of Force, carving out a huge vacuum fault in the water.

"Boom!!!"

The dozen or so Sea Qilin Kings at the very front were instantly smashed into pulp by this sword strike, their blue blood exploding into the seawater.

But for this massive herd of beasts, it was merely a drop in the ocean.

One batch died, and more immediately swarmed up from behind.

They did not fear death at all; their eyes held only greed for flesh and blood.

"So it's endless, is it!"

Su Hongling's eyes turned red with the killing; she charged left and right through the herd, each sword strike taking several lives, but wounds also began to appear on her body.

Those Sea Qilin Kings' sharp claws were extremely keen, capable of even tearing through her Mahayana Stage Physical Body.

"Use poison! Use poison to poison them to death!"

Chu Weiwei stood at the gap in the ice shuttle, clutching handfuls of purple powder, crazily scattering it into the seawater.

The poisonous powder merged into the seawater, rapidly spreading.

Large swathes of Sea Qilin Kings began to convulse, rot, and turn into pus.

But the seawater itself was flowing, so the poison was quickly diluted. Moreover, these deep-sea monsters had ridiculously strong resistance to poison; unless the poison entered their bone marrow directly, it was hard to be fatal.

"It's no use! We can't kill them all!"

Luo Ximei's demonic eyes shot out rays of destruction, evaporating an area of the sea, but more monsters immediately filled the void.

"Their recovery ability is too strong! And at this depth, our consumption is ten times theirs!"

The ice shuttle was swaying and shattering.

The four of them were like a lone boat in a raging storm, liable to be swallowed at any moment.

"Revered Master!"

A trace of blood spilled from the corner of Mu Qingxue's mouth; her ice-type Domain had been compressed to the extreme, which was the last line of defense protecting Su Lin.

"You leave first! We'll cover the rear!"

"Shut up."

Su Lin, who had been standing in the center of the ice shuttle and seemingly motionless, suddenly opened his eyes.

In his eyes, starlight shone brilliantly.

"Since they are a Sea Clan."

Su Lin's voice pierced through the roar of the deep sea, clearly entering everyone's ears.

"Then we shall handle this by the rules of the sea."

He slowly raised his right hand.

In his palm, the 【Myriad Heavens Star Chart】 slowly unfolded.

"Hong Ling, come back!"

Although Su Hongling was having fun killing, upon hearing Revered Master's order, she didn't hesitate to kick a Sea Qilin King in the face, using the force to launch herself back to the side of the ice shuttle.

"Revered Master, how do we handle this? Are we going to boil this sea?"

"Boil the sea? What? Do you want to eat hot pot??"

Su Lin glared at Su Hongling with annoyance; the originally grave atmosphere was shattered into pieces by this girl's words.

"Hot pot?"

Su Hongling's eyes lit up; she didn't even care about the thousands of sea beasts about to smash the ice shuttle, instead swallowing a mouthful of saliva,

"That's a good idea! Seafood hot pot! Such a big pot, enough for us to eat for several years!"

"Eat, eat, eat, all you know is eating!"

Su Lin backhanded her on the forehead with a flick, then his expression turned serious.

"Everyone stand firm."

Although he couldn't truly boil the sea, he could still use the star gravity to trigger tides, create a temporary vacuum fault, and repel these annoying seafood.

"Star Suppression... Hmm?"

The hand seal Su Lin was forming was only halfway done when his movements suddenly froze in mid-air.

Even Luo Ximei and Chu Weiwei, who were preparing to risk their lives against the sea beasts, and even Su Hongling, whose mind was filled only with hot pot, were like they had been pressed on a pause button, and the hairs on their bodies stood on end in an instant.

A chill.

Not the physical extreme cold that Mu Qingxue used to freeze all things.

But a kind of absolute suppression originating from the top of the biological instinct chain, exerted upon those below.

That feeling was like a pack of wild dogs playing around, suddenly smelling the scent of the King of the Jungle.

"Gulp..."

The army of one hundred thousand Sea Qilin Kings, which had been boiling, roaring, and fearless of death, suddenly stalled.

In those eyes flickering with eerie blue ghost fire, the greed and brutality instantly vanished, replaced by an extreme terror originating from the depths of their Souls.

"Roar...?"

The leading few Body Integration Stage Sea Qilin Kings let out uneasy low moans; they began to retreat, their massive bodies shivering in the seawater.

"What's going on?"

Su Hongling looked around blankly, "Why did these ugly monsters chicken out? I haven't even made a move yet!"

"It's not because of us."

Luo Ximei's face was pale; her heterochromatic eye stared fixedly at the deepest part of the abyss, which was the direction of the Sea Eye Return to Ruins.

"Something... has come out."

"And... it's ten thousand times more terrifying than these seafood."

"Thump."

A muffled heartbeat, passing through hundreds of millions of tons of seawater, clearly reached everyone's eardrums.

The deep sea, originally as black as ink, suddenly changed color.

Not light, but an ink-green color even deeper than black.

That was a color full of vitality, yet representing extreme predation and devouring.

"What is that?!"

Chu Weiwei pointed downwards in terror.

Seeing that in the endless abyss, countless thick, dragon-like, ink-green vines covered in barbs, like tentacles reaching out from Hell, silently pierced through the seawater.

Tens of thousands of Sea Qilin Kings were pierced one by one by even more vines.

In less than three seconds, all the Sea Qilin Kings were dead.

Those vines did not stop because of the slaughter.

They were like greedy giant pythons with independent consciousness. After piercing the bodies of the Sea Qilin Kings, countless tiny rootlets instantly grew on their surfaces, crazily sucking the flesh and blood essence of these Body Integration Stage Yao Beasts.

Those tens of thousands of deep-sea overlords became shriveled empty shells, slowly sinking with the water current, and finally turning into dust in the abyss.

The entire sea area was dyed an eerie ink-green.

In that dead-silent and ink-green deep sea, those thick vines did not disperse, but instead began to crazily intertwine and coil.

With astonishing speed, they wove into a huge throne of thorns in the center of the abyss, still dripping with blood and the essence of sea beasts.

The throne slowly rose, pushing aside hundreds of millions of tons of seawater, carrying a Supreme aura that made the entire Endless Sea tremble, and descended before the shattered ice shuttle.

On that throne sat, sideways, a woman wearing ink-green clothes.

She was barefoot, and her waterfall-like long hair spread out in the water, shimmering with an eerie, ghostly light.

In her hand, she was carelessly toying with a still-beating Body Integration Stage Sea Qilin King Yao Beast core, as if she were holding a grape.

"Pfft."

Her fingers applied a little force.

That incomparably hard Yao Beast core instantly shattered, turning into pure energy, which was absorbed into her body along her fingertips.

"Too weak."

Her voice was a bit hoarse, carrying a kind of laziness like someone who had just woken up, yet it pierced through the roar of the deep sea and clearly landed in everyone's heart.

"Does this kind of trash deserve to be called a Sea Clan overlord?"

She raised her eyelids, her gaze crossing over the kneeling corpses of the sea beasts, and landed directly on Su Lin in the center of the ice shuttle.

In that instant.

The laziness and killing intent in her eyes instantly vanished, replaced by a possessiveness that was intense to the extreme, even making people feel suffocated.

"Revered Master."

"Youer... has come to assist you."

As her voice fell, a terrifying aura belonging to the Mahayana Stage, and far exceeding that of an ordinary Mahayana Stage, exploded!

Under this aura, Su Hongling's Physical Body trembled slightly, and Luo Ximei felt the suppression.

Even Mu Qingxue's Absolute Zero Domain, which had been maintained all along, let out a cracking sound of being unable to bear the burden at this moment.

Su Hongling's eyes widened, looking in disbelief at the figure sitting on the throne of thorns.

"She, how did she become so strong?! This aura... is even tougher than me?!"

"Mahayana Stage..."

Luo Ximei's face was extremely ugly; she stared fixedly at the ink-green aura swirling around Ye You.

"And it's not an ordinary Mahayana Stage. The Bloodline in her body... has completely awakened."

"That is the Origin power of the legendary ancient Vicious Beast 【Abyssal Devouring】!"

"She actually... mastered seven layers?!"

The power of Abyssal Devouring, each layer is a new realm.

It is rumored that as long as one Revered Masters three layers, one can be invincible at the same level; mastering five layers allows one to kill across levels.

And now, Ye You has already mastered seven layers!

This means that in this world, she is already the undisputed ceiling of combat power!

"Crack!"

The ice shield that Mu Qingxue had been struggling to support finally shattered completely under the erosion of that overbearing ink-green aura.

Seawater poured in.

But it did not drown everyone.

Because the moment that seawater approached, it was instantly sucked dry of its moisture by countless tiny vines, turning into white salt grains that drifted away.

Ye You stood up from the throne.

She took a step out, and lotus-like vines grew from the Void Realm beneath her feet to support her.

"Move aside."

She coldly spat out two words at the three Junior Sisters standing in front of Su Lin.

"You... are too much of an eyesore."

"Who are you calling an eyesore?!"

Su Hongling's temper flared up; even though the opponent's aura was terrifying, she would never back down.

"Fourth! Don't think that just because you've grown taller, I won't dare to beat you up! Do you understand the rules of first come, first served?!"

She swung the great sword 【no edge】 and was about to smash it over.

"Wait!!" Su Lin blocked between the two.

"Fighting as soon as we meet??"

"Otherwise? They have occupied Revered Master for so long! It's my turn!" Ye You was not to be outdone.

"Senior Sister, I remember you had already spent a long time alone with Revered Master before, right?" Mu Qingxue said.

"Oh? I didn't expect you to have made a Breakthrough too, Junior Sister?"