Chapter 1351: Welcome to the Empty Sea

Thalvyr stared at them, grinding his teeth.

He gave them a chance, and they still blew it!

"Settle down!" He tapped the throne. "Go get ready and give the templates coming from afar a proper welcome—"

Thalvyr paused.

"No. Our guests!"

At his command, the new mantis shrimp climbed onto Vaelor’s shoulder. Vaelor steadied it with one hand, then turned and walked out of the palace.

On the surface, Namyanna had already retrieved her trident from the distant shore.

She returned to the group and lightly tapped each person with its tip, skipping only Seraphina.

Seraphina was simply too large. Maintaining the same effect around her would require several times as much energy.

Nysera didn’t need Namyanna’s help either, but to reduce the drain on her, she slipped directly into Ethan’s body and hid inside.

Namyanna then approached Seraphina, and the two launched into a heated argument. Their voices rose and fell as neither one was willing to back down.

In the end, they reluctantly reached an agreement.

Seraphina still looked dejected, though. Even her wings drooped listlessly at her sides.

Namyanna returned to the group with a smile, gripped her trident in both hands, and drove it hard into the ice.

Thump!

The trident’s tip pierced the frozen surface.

Small bubbles appeared around everyone’s heads, slowly circling close to their bodies. At the same time, the impact forced open the existing cracks within the ice.

The fractures spread.

After the repeated battles and Seraphina’s relentless stomping, the ice could no longer hold together.

Boom!

The entire sheet collapsed.

Everyone plunged into the sea along with the broken ice. The small bubbles around their heads kept the water away, allowing them to see their surroundings clearly.

There were no fish anywhere in sight, nor could they sense any other marine life.

Had Vaelor been telling the truth? Had every living creature in the sea been rounded up and kept in captivity?

In the palace below, Thalvyr sensed the disturbance through the water. His fingers stopped against the armrest of his throne.

"Don’t keep me waiting too long."

Elsewhere, the group’s target—

Vaelor stared at Seraphina charging straight at him and failed to react for a moment.

The fury in her eyes was impossible to miss. Even her breath carried tiny sparks. This clearly wasn’t going to be an ordinary exchange.

Only one question remained in Vaelor’s mind.

What did I ever do to you?

Confused or not, he didn’t stop moving. The blood swords surrounding him vibrated in unison, sending sword energy into the sky. Dense crimson light connected high overhead, forming a sword array that waited for its prey to enter.

Vaelor stepped onto a blood sword suspended beneath his feet and steadied himself. The remaining swords spread out around him, every blade aimed at the rapidly approaching Seraphina.

The others watched from the ice, unsure whether they should help.

They certainly could, but Seraphina was obviously furious. Anyone who got too close right now might end up taking a beating alongside Vaelor.

After carefully weighing the risk, they silently agreed to stay out of it.

The mantis shrimp and shark beneath the surface weren’t having such an easy time.

Namyanna had placed a rectangular barrier in their path. Intersecting vacuum zones filled its watery blue walls, creating layer after layer of resistance against any long-range attack that tried to pass through.

Perched on the shark’s back, the mantis shrimp aimed its weapon at the barrier for quite a while before slowly lowering it again.

Had they built this enormous vacuum wall specifically to counter them?

The small shark was baffled too. It carried the mantis shrimp around the barrier, checking the top before swimming close to the seabed to inspect the bottom, hoping to find a gap that hadn’t fully closed.

After circling the entire structure, they were still faced with an unbroken vacuum wall.

They had no choice but to return near the surface and watch Vaelor battle Seraphina through the water above. The mantis shrimp tapped the shark’s back several times and rattled off a string of noises no one else could understand. Then the shark carried it away with its tail between its legs.

Namyanna slowly descended onto the ice.

She crouched and dipped one hand into the sea, using the current against her fingertips to sense what was happening beyond the barrier. The ripples left by the shark’s tail were rapidly fading into the distance, with no sign of turning back.

"That’s all it took to make you mad?"

Namyanna withdrew her hand and looked in the direction they had fled.

"You two sure gave up fast."

She gave her hand a light wave.

The trident embedded in the seabed began vibrating violently. It tore free from the rock and shot upward through a channel in the water. As the weapon returned to Namyanna’s hand, the vacuum wall around the battlefield dissolved from the edges inward, its watery blue barrier turning back into seawater.

Vaelor remained in the air, standing atop his blood sword.

The moment he saw the vacuum wall disappear, an idea came to him. He was about to use the sword array to draw out his fight with Seraphina when a massive dragon claw broke through the blood swords and struck him head-on.

Bam!

Vaelor and the sword beneath his feet plummeted toward the ice.

His body smashed out a deep crater, sending cracks spreading in every direction. With no one controlling them, the blood swords around him scattered as they fell, dissolving into crimson mist.

Against absolute strength, schemes were pointless.

Andona had already been waiting nearby.

The instant Vaelor crashed down, golden patterns lit up around the edge of the crater. The Sanctified Judgment Array unfolded with his body at its center. Lines of holy runes closed across the ice, trapping him inside.

Andona raised her blade.

Golden light streamed along the weapon and gathered at its edge, condensing into a sharp blade of judgment. With a turn of her wrist, she hurled it at Vaelor in the crater.

The golden blade passed through the Sanctified Judgment Array and shot straight toward his chest.

A blood sword reformed beside Vaelor and moved into its path. The two weapons collided. The blood sword shattered on the spot, unable to withstand the power of judgment, but it knocked the golden blade away from Vaelor’s vitals. The attack grazed his scales and embedded itself in the ice.

Vaelor remained at the bottom of the crater.

The Sanctified Judgment Array activated. Golden pillars of light rose from its patterns, and holy energy passed through Vaelor’s body, continuously purging the blood energy clinging between his dragon scales.

Just as everyone thought the array would suppress him again, the sky abruptly darkened.

Clouds gathered from the horizon and covered the sun. Muffled thunder rolled through them, making the moisture in the air tremble.

A bolt of lightning descended from the sky.

Boom!

Lightning tore through the air and struck Vaelor head-on. The Sanctified Judgment Array flickered violently under the impact, then its golden patterns began breaking apart from the center.

Bathed in lightning, Vaelor slowly rose to his feet.

The snow-white longsword in his hand couldn’t withstand the combined force of the lightning and blood energy. Its blade began crumbling from the tip. Tiny fragments broke away and drifted through the electrical light before vanishing completely.

Then Vaelor’s body began to change.

Red and blue scales spread across him in interlocking patterns. His arms transformed into foreclaws, and a pair of dragon wings unfurled from his back. The horns on his forehead grew upward, while his tail became thicker and stronger.

A red-and-blue dragon appeared before them.

Vaelor hovered amid the lightning, calmly surveying the frozen surface below. Yet even in this form, he was still tiny compared to Seraphina’s enormous dragon body.

The lightning had completely destroyed the Sanctified Judgment Array.

Vaelor opened his jaws and expelled a stream of water. As it entered the lightning-filled area, it rapidly spread outward. Several waterspouts rose from the sea at the same time, surrounding him and the others.

Water conducted electricity.

The lightning raced through the water faster than anyone could react. Blinding arcs flashed across the water covering the ice. Everyone’s feet went numb, and their muscles briefly stopped responding.

Fortunately, the lightning didn’t last long.

The glow within the clouds gradually died, and the electrical arcs spreading around them faded with it. The gathered clouds split apart once more, allowing sunlight to shine down on the sea.