Chapter 1052: The Voyage of the Ten Beauties & The Sunken-Tooth Blockade

Four hundred leagues of turbulent, war-scarred ocean stretched between the western sanctuary of Abyssal Pearl City and the central waters of Sky-Pillar Island. Even for a four-hundred-foot flagship dreadnought plated in forty-nine-folded Nine-Folded Profound Iron and powered by eight high-capacity propulsion arrays burning High-Grade Spirit Stones, traversing that vast expanse against the late-autumn cross-currents required four full weeks of continuous sailing.

For the first time in four years, Wang Jian did not need to divide his attention between the public courtyards of Abyssal Pearl City and his hidden chambers below the earth. With Yue Lingshan remaining behind atop the southern harbor watchtower to guard the home fortress alongside Liu Ruyan and the four Grade 7 Peak Heavy Armored Dao Soldiers, the colossal ironwood dreadnought and its six escort cruisers belonged to Wang Jian alone.

Throughout the first three weeks of the eastward voyage, while the six escort cruisers maintained a wide, ten-mile scouting ring around the flagship, the sprawling three-tiered master pavilion at the stern of the dreadnought remained sealed behind four overlapping layers of sound-isolating and aura-baffling formations.

Inside the warm, cedar-scented grand stateroom on the nineteenth afternoon of the voyage, the tall leaded-glass stern windows stood uncovered, offering a panoramic view of the white foam wake churning behind the ship’s keel and the endless blue sky outside.

Across the fifty-foot floor of the stateroom, carpeted in thick white snow-bear pelts and warmed by braided floor channels of molten earth-fire crystal, Wang Jian lounged upon a wide, circular throne-bed carved from dark-red coral wood. His muscular, bronze-toned frame was bare, every line of his broad shoulders, deep chest, and flat abdomen gleaming with the diamond-hard luster of refined Ten-Thousand-Year Golden Dragon Marrow.

Surrounding Wang Jian upon the coral-wood bed and across the surrounding fur carpets were all nine women accompanying him to Sky-Pillar Island: his three Nascent Soul sovereigns—Hong Lin, Su Binglan, and Mu Lianhua—alongside Shen Mengqi, Lin Wanyue, Shangguan Wan’er, Bing Yun, Chen Ying, and the inseparable mother-and-daughter pair, Hua Yimei and Hua Ling’er.

Because they had four uninterrupted weeks at sea with no outsiders aboard the flagship, Wang Jian had forbidden every woman from wearing a single stitch of conventional cultivation attire inside the stateroom. Instead, each beauty wore decadent, custom-woven silk and jewel arrangements crafted specifically to showcase their massive breasts, narrow waists, and wide, curvy hips during the long ocean passage.

Right in the center of the coral-wood bed, Hong Lin—the six-foot-tall Early Grade 8 Scarlet Flood-Serpent Matriarch—was coiled around Wang Jian’s torso in a posture no human woman could physically imitate.

From her wide, fertile hips down to the tips of her toes, Hong Lin maintained her long, shapely human legs, clad only in sheer scarlet lace thigh-stockings and golden ankle-bells; yet her spine possessed the supple, boneless flexibility of a three-hundred-year flood-serpent. She wore a halter harness of braided ruby chains that framed her colossal, pink-gold breasts without covering an inch of the soft flesh, her stiff crimson buds pierced with tiny golden dragon-rings. Lying across Wang Jian’s lap on her stomach, Hong Lin had arched her back upward at an impossible ninety-degree angle so that her massive, swaying breasts pressed directly against Wang Jian’s chest for his hands to maul, while her round, scale-marked buttocks were raised high against his abdomen—her scorching, tight passage impaled all the way to the hilt upon Wang Jian’s thick, pulsing manhood!

At the same time, kneeling on the left and right sides of Wang Jian’s hips were Hua Yimei and Hua Ling’er.

The mother-and-daughter duo wore matching Twin-Phoenix Dance Harnesses made of sheer rose-pink silk ribbons and dangling gold coins. Two narrow ribbons crossed beneath their chests, lifting their four massive, oil-rubbed breasts upward so the heavy white globes overflowed the pink silk like rising dough, while their wide, juicy hips were bare save for thin gold chains that slid straight between their plump buttocks.

As Wang Jian held Hong Lin’s supple waist and drove his hips upward into the Serpent Matriarch’s clamping inner ridges with slow, grinding force, Hua Yimei and Hua Ling’er pressed their soft cheeks against opposite sides of the junction where Wang Jian’s thick shaft stretched Hong Lin’s glistening crimson petals—their hot tongues darting out in turns to lick the sweet, boiling moisture leaking out around the base of his rod!

"Hnnngh—! Master, tell Yimei and Ling’er to stop tickling my outer petals with their tongues while my inner ridges are squeezing you!" Hong Lin gasped in her husky, resonant voice, her waist-length magma-red hair spilling over Wang Jian’s knees as her vertical golden-red slit pupils rolled back in raw pleasure. "Every time I try to lock my serpent rings around the crown of your rod to milk your Yang essence, Ling’er licks right across my sensitive pearl and makes my whole waist spasm!"

Hua Ling’er pulled her glossy lips back for half a breath, her pretty face glistening with fragrant moisture as she looked up at Wang Jian with playful, worshipful eyes while rubbing her own heavy, gold-pierced breasts against her mother Hua Yimei’s shoulder.

"Master told Mother and me to make sure not a single drop of his essence goes to waste on the bedsheets, Sister Hong Lin!" Hua Ling’er giggled shamelessly, reaching one hand up to fondle Hong Lin’s massive left breast right alongside Wang Jian’s rough fingers. "Besides, you’ve been hogging Master’s lap for two whole hours since noon! Look at Mother—her inner passage is dripping so much onto the snow-bear fur that she’s soaked my ankles!"

"This silly girl blames her own mother when she’s the one rubbing her thighs together like a greedy cat," Hua Yimei purred huskily, leaning forward so her massive, gold-ringed breasts squished flat against Wang Jian’s muscular left thigh while her tongue traced a long, wet line across Wang Jian’s heavy sac. "Master, Hong Lin’s Grade 8 serpent body is strong, but she still doesn’t know how to coordinate with a partner the way a mother and daughter do. Pull out of her greedy snake belly and take Ling’er and me stacked together against the stern window—let the ocean sun shine right on our chests while you pound us!"

Before Wang Jian could answer, Shen Mengqi and Su Binglan—who were kneeling on the wide velvet platform behind the headboard—leaned their upper bodies forward over Wang Jian’s shoulders.

Shen Mengqi wore a sleeveless, open-front vest of midnight-black satin edged with silver frost-embroidery that stopped right beneath her ribs, leaving her full, porcelain-white breasts jutting out in the warm cabin air, paired with a tiny black pleated skirt that barely covered the top inch of her round buttocks. Beside her, the Early-Stage Nascent Soul Ice Palace Mistress Su Binglan wore a matching white frost-satin vest and white thigh-high stockings, her colossal, snow-white breasts pressed flush against the left side of Wang Jian’s neck.

"If Master moves to the stern window," Shen Mengqi whispered breathlessly against Wang Jian’s right ear, taking his right hand off Hong Lin’s waist and pressing his rough palm squarely over her own bare, cool left breast so he could pinch her stiff pink bud, "then I want to be right beside Yimei and Ling’er! Master, we are only ten days away from Sky-Pillar Island now... Every league closer we sail toward that idiot Ye Fan, the hotter my Nine-Turn Profound Yin Scripture burns in my lower reservoir! Look how hard my buds are—please bruise them with your fingers and fill me before we reach the island!"

"And Lianhua, Wanyue, Wan’er, and Bing Yun have already warmed the spirit-wine by the window couch," Mu Lianhua added from the wide cushioned bay-window ledge across the room, where the Chief Grand Alchemist, City Lord Lin Wanyue, Commercial Queen Shangguan Wan’er, High Elder Bing Yun, and Chen Ying were lounging in sheer, open-crotch silk robes, stroking one another’s heavy breasts as they watched the bed.

Wang Jian let out a deep, rumbling laugh. Gripping Hong Lin’s wide, scale-accented hips with both hands, he stood straight up from the coral-wood throne-bed—lifting the six-foot-tall Early Grade 8 Serpent Matriarch effortlessly into the air while his thick manhood remained buried to the hilt inside her soaking passage!

"AAAAAH! MASTER!" Hong Lin cried out in shock and delight, wrapping her long, scarlet-stockinged legs tightly around Wang Jian’s waist and her arms around his broad neck as he carried her across the snow-bear carpet toward the sunlit stern windows, bouncing her heavy, curvy body up and down on his rock-hard shaft with every powerful stride!

SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!

Reaching the wide, velvet-cushioned bay-window ledge overlooking the churning white wake of the dreadnought, Wang Jian drove ten brutal, rapid-fire upward thrusts into Hong Lin while pressing her bare back flat against the thick leaded-glass windowpane—making the ferocious Grade 8 Demon Beast sovereign scream and squirt hot, fragrant moisture down his thighs as her massive breasts flattened and slid against his chest!

Setting the trembling, thoroughly satisfied Serpent Matriarch down onto the side cushions where Mu Lianhua and Su Binglan immediately kissed her flushed lips and licked the sweat from her neck, Wang Jian turned toward Hua Yimei, Hua Ling’er, and Shen Mengqi, who had hurried over to the sunlit window ledge behind him.

"Hands on the glass, all three of you," Wang Jian commanded, his voice thick with primal dominance as he slapped Shen Mengqi’s bare, porcelain backside hard enough to leave a bright red palm print across her skin. "Press your breasts flat against the stern window and raise your hips toward me."

"Yes, Master!"

Side by side along the wide, sunlit stern window, the mature Sect Leader Hua Yimei, her luscious daughter Hua Ling’er, and the former righteous Sword Fairy Shen Mengqi climbed onto the velvet ledge on their knees.

All three women leaned forward and pressed their palms and their six massive, bare breasts flat against the sun-warmed glass overlooking the empty ocean behind the ship—arching their narrow waists downward so their three pairs of wide, curvy, round buttocks rose side by side in a breathtaking row right in front of Wang Jian’s hips!

Seen against the bright afternoon sunlight streaming through the stern glass, the soft white curves of their heavy breasts squished against the windowpane and the glistening pink petals between their spread thighs looked like an immortal painting of pure debauchery.

Wang Jian stepped up behind the center of the row—where Hua Ling’er was sandwiched between her mother Hua Yimei on the left and Shen Mengqi on the right.

Gripping Hua Yimei’s wide hip with his left hand and Shen Mengqi’s waist with his right, Wang Jian lined his glistening, scorching shaft up with Hua Ling’er’s dripping entrance in the middle and slammed his waist forward to the hilt in a single, savage thrust!

"EEEYAAAH! MASTER!" Hua Ling’er’s high, sweet scream rang through the stateroom as her heavy breasts squished harder against the glass windowpane, the gold rings in her stiff buds clicking against the crystal!

Wang Jian did not show a shred of gentleness. Bracing his boots on the carpet, he hammered into the young concubine’s tight, velvety depths for twenty thunderous strokes—SLAP! SLAP! SLAP! SLAP!—while his left hand shoved two thick fingers deep into her mother Hua Yimei’s soaking core on the left, and his right hand mauled Shen Mengqi’s swinging right breast on the right!

"Look at your daughter’s face in the glass reflection, Yimei," Wang Jian growled, pulling his throbbing rod out of Hua Ling’er’s spasming passage with a wet sound and immediately slamming straight to the base inside Hua Yimei’s mature, scorching depths right beside her! "Now show her how the Sect Leader takes it!"

"Hnnngh—! Aaaah! Watch Mother closely, Ling’er!" Hua Yimei moaned shamelessly, turning her flushed cheek against the glass to kiss her daughter’s parted lips while Wang Jian pounded her wide, juicy hips against the window ledge with bone-shaking force. "Clamp your inner walls around Master’s fingers while he breeds Mother’s womb—and Mengqi, get your tongue over here and lick the sweat off my breasts!"

On the right, Shen Mengqi needed no second prompting. With her own lower body aching fiercely as she waited her turn, the former Sword Fairy leaned sideways against the glass to suckle on Hua Ling’er’s and Hua Yimei’s squished breasts while pushing her own porcelain backside rightward against Wang Jian’s hip—until Wang Jian wrenched out of Hua Yimei after thirty savage strokes and plunged straight to the hilt inside Shen Mengqi’s freezing, tight passage, driving all three women into a chorus of screaming, synchronized climaxes against the sunlit glass!

On the twenty-third morning of the voyage—when the dreadnought was sixty leagues west of Sky-Pillar Island—the calm blue expanse of the open sea abruptly gave way to a treacherous, fog-shrouded channel lined with jagged black rock spires: the Sunken-Tooth Narrows.

Because two massive whirlpools flanked the northern and southern shoals of this sector, all ships sailing from the western sea domain toward Sky-Pillar Island had to pass through the four-league corridor of the Sunken-Tooth Narrows.

Inside the master stateroom, Wang Jian had just finished washing in the warm mineral pool and was dressing in his black, gold-trimmed military advisor robes while the women put on their formal, dignified sect attire—when the bronze communication bell linked to the lead escort cruiser chimed three times.

Chen Ying, now dressed from neck to ankle in her black leather enforcer armor with her twin upgraded Shadow-Piercing Void Daggers strapped to her thighs, stepped into the antechamber and bowed.

"Master, our forward scout cruiser three miles ahead has encountered a blockade across the mouth of the Sunken-Tooth Narrows," Chen Ying reported crisply. "Twelve armored bone-cruisers flying the black-skull banner of the Corpse-Devouring Hall—a militant branch of the Holy Nether Sea Organization—have chained their hulls across the channel."

Shangguan Wan’er, fastening the high gold collar of her formal Consortium executive gown over her massive chest, frowned coldly. "The Corpse-Devouring Hall is commanded by Daoist Hei Sha, a notorious Peak Late-Stage Core Formation butcher who answers to Blood-Bone True Monarch. Why are they blockading a major shipping lane during the convocation truce?"

"Because the blood-oath truce only applies within a ten-league radius of Sky-Pillar Island itself," Lin Wanyue said, adjusting her deep-blue City Lord crown in front of the bronze mirror. "And since Blood-Bone True Monarch lost fourteen ships and cracked his Life-Bound Magic Treasure at Crimson Reef last year, his subordinate halls are desperate to plunder Spirit Stones and hull-repair metals from smaller western delegations before they reach the truce zone."

"Should Hong Lin, Lianhua, or I step out and sink all twelve of their cruisers?" Su Binglan asked softly from behind the silk partition separating the inner Nascent Soul quarters from the main deck.

Wang Jian fastened the belt holding his Grade 8 saber Blood’s Thirst around his waist and shook his head calmly.

"Trailing twenty miles behind our wake are three neutral merchant fleets and two scout cutters belonging to the Myriad Ocean Palace," Wang Jian said, his dark, starlit eyes gleaming with cold calculation. "If any of the four of us unleashes a Nascent Soul domain here in the Sunken-Tooth Narrows, Heavenly Tide True Monarch and Blood-Bone True Monarch will know we have four Nascent Soul Grandmasters aboard before we enter the Ancient Void-Sea Ruin—and they will join hands to bar our delegation from the spatial gate."

Wang Jian turned his gaze toward Shen Mengqi, Lin Wanyue, Hua Yimei, and Chen Ying.

"The world believes Abyssal Pearl City is defended by a group of newly advanced Late and Peak Core Formation women," Wang Jian said smoothly. "And eight months ago in the volcanic forge, I upgraded your Magic Treasures with Grade 7 Demon Beast cores and tempered your Spirit Bones with Grade 8 marrow oil. Go up to the foredeck with me. Show Daoist Hei Sha and the watching spies behind us what our ’Core Formation’ blades can do."

"With pleasure, Master," Shen Mengqi said, her face instantly transforming from the flushed, wanton woman who had been pressed against the stern window an hour ago into the cold, untouchable Ice-Wind Sword Fairy as her hand gripped the hilt of her reforged Gale-Severing Frostblade.

Ten minutes later, the four-hundred-foot flagship dreadnought glided through the gray fog to within three hundred yards of the Sunken-Tooth Narrows entrance.

Stretched across the narrow gap between two towering black rock spires floated twelve jagged bone-cruisers of the Corpse-Devouring Hall, their hulls linked by thick chains of rusted blood-iron. Hovering fifty feet in the air ahead of the central cruiser stood Daoist Hei Sha—a seven-foot-tall, muscular man with skin the color of dried purple leather, wearing a necklace of nine shrunken human skulls and wielding a massive, two-handed Eight-Ringed Corpse-Cleaving Greatsword.

Flanking Daoist Hei Sha in the air were four Mid-Stage and Late-Stage Core Formation elders of the Corpse-Devouring Hall, along with three hundred blood-robed disciples manning the bone-ballistae on the decks below.

"Halt your prows, Golden-Tide Consortium dogs!" Daoist Hei Sha’s voice boomed across the water like tearing iron, backed by the thick, foul pressure of the Peak Late-Stage Core Formation Realm. "By order of the Corpse-Devouring Hall, these waters are under military requisition! Every ship passing through the Sunken-Tooth Narrows toward Sky-Pillar Island must pay a toll of fifty thousand Mid-Grade Spirit Stones, two hundred plates of Nine-Folded Profound Iron, and leave four of those pretty female Core Formation cultivators on your deck behind to warm our brothers’ cabins!"

Down on the bone-cruisers, the three hundred demonic disciples broke into loud, lecherous laughter, their eyes fixed greedily on the high ironwood foredeck of the dreadnought—where City Lord Lin Wanyue, Executive Shangguan Wan’er, Sect Leader Hua Yimei, and Sword Fairy Shen Mengqi stood in front of the silent, black-robed military advisor Wang Jian.

Five miles behind the dreadnought, aboard a fast scout cutter of the Myriad Ocean Palace hiding in the fog bank, two righteous deacons watched through a far-seeing bronze spyglass.

"Daoist Hei Sha reached the Peak of Core Formation forty years ago and has slain six righteous elders of the same realm with his Eight-Ringed Corpse-Cleaving Greatsword," the senior scout whispered. "Let’s see if City Lord Lin Wanyue and Shangguan Wan’er cave in and pay the toll, or if their fleet gets boarded!"

Aboard the dreadnought’s foredeck, Wang Jian did not even lift a finger. He simply stood with his arms crossed over his chest and gave a slight nod of his chin.

"A pack of corpse-eating stray dogs dares ask for a toll from Abyssal Pearl City," Shen Mengqi spoke, her voice as cold as ten-thousand-year glacier ice as she took a single step off the foredeck rail into the empty air.

Behind her, Hua Yimei summoned her reforged Crimson Phoenix Zither, the seven crimson-gold strings braided from Grade 7 Three-Horned Flood Wyrm Heart-Tendons humming with a deep, threatening vibration above the deck, while Lin Wanyue and Chen Ying rose to the left and right flanks!

"You want four women to warm your cabins, Hei Sha?" Hua Yimei’s mature, resonant voice echoed across the foggy narrows as she laid all ten fingers across the dragon-bone bridges of her zither. "Let’s see if your skulls can withstand a single song!"

"Arrogant bitches! Since you refuse to pay in Spirit Stones, pay with your flesh! Kill them and seize the dreadnought!" Daoist Hei Sha roared, lunging forward through the air at the head of his four Core Formation elders!

In the heat of combat, Shen Mengqi, Hua Yimei, Lin Wanyue, and Chen Ying moved with ruthless, battle-hardened precision.

As the four Mid-Stage and Late-Stage Core Formation demonic elders charged across the three-hundred-yard water gap on their bone-shields, Hua Yimei struck the first three strings of the Crimson Phoenix Zither with both hands!

"Crimson Phoenix Sound-Killing Art: Seven-String Heart Rupture!"

TWANG—BOOOOOOM!

Powered by the Grade 7 Flood-Wyrm Beast Core inlaid inside the bleeding-heart spirit-wood soundboard, the acoustic blast was no longer a simple wave of sound. Seven visible, thirty-foot crescents of compressed crimson sonic-fire tore through the fog faster than the eye could track, smashing the air into a vacuum corridor!

The two Mid-Stage Core Formation elders on the left flank hastily raised their bone-shields and cast blood barriers.

KRA-SHATTER!

Under the Grade 7 acoustic impact, both blood barriers and the bone-shields behind them shattered into powder in the same instant! The sonic vibration penetrated straight through their chest armor into their chests, rupturing their heart meridians from the inside and causing both Mid-Stage Core Formation elders to explode into clouds of crimson mist in mid-air before they even crossed halfway across the water!

"What kind of zither treasure is that?!" the third elder—a Late-Stage Core Formation corpse-controller—gasped in terror, halting his flight to summon his iron corpse-puppet.

He never finished the hand seal.

Three inches behind the back of his neck, the gray fog rippled without a sound. Chen Ying stepped half-way out of a localized spatial fold opened by the Abyssal Star-Iron runes on her twin upgraded Shadow-Piercing Void Daggers!

SHING—SHLUCK!

Moving with the lethal efficiency of a shadow executioner whose body had been tempered with Grade 8 marrow oil, Chen Ying’s left dagger bypassed the elder’s outer protective Qi ring through the dimensional fold, driving the eighteen-inch Grade 7 Black-Scale Sea Scorpion stinger-blade straight through the base of his skull, while her right dagger sliced his throat from ear to ear!

Injected with concentrated Grade 7 scorpion venom, the Late-Stage Core Formation elder’s body turned pitch-black and froze rigid in less than half a breath, plummeting like a stone into the sea as Chen Ying snatched his Storage Ring and melted back into the fog!

Meanwhile, on the right flank, Lin Wanyue clashed with the fourth Late-Stage Core Formation elder, overwhelming his bone-spear in three exchanges with a roaring wave of her Crimson Sun-Marrow Flame that burned him to ash on the deck of his own cruiser.

At the center of the channel, Daoist Hei Sha barely had time to register that all four of his subordinate elders had been slaughtered in five breaths before a blinding streak of icy silver light filled his vision!

Shen Mengqi arrived ten feet in front of him in mid-air.

Seeing a lone woman charging him head-on, Daoist Hei Sha’s ferocious eyes bulged with desperate savagery. He bit his tongue, spraying essence blood across the heavy blade of his Eight-Ringed Corpse-Cleaving Greatsword, and swung the eight-hundred-catty weapon downward with both hands to smash the slender woman and her narrow sword into the sea!

"Corpse-Devouring Nine Strikes: Mountain-Crushing Guillotine!"

The eight iron rings along the spine of his greatsword clanged loudly, projecting a fifty-foot black skull-blade that stank of rotting graves.

Shen Mengqi did not dodge. Her expression was as cold as eternal winter. Inside her Spirit Bones, the fused Imperial Star Devouring Steel and the absorbed Grade 8 Scarlet Beast-Marrow Body Oil gave her slender, porcelain arms the physical leverage of an ancient flood-dragon—and in her right hand, the reforged Gale-Severing Frostblade hummed as its embedded Grade 7 Frost-Wind Sea Scorpion Core and the permanent wisp of Su Binglan’s Grand Yin Ice Flame ignited at once!

"Silver Gale Frost-Severing Art: Meteor Fall!"

Shen Mengqi swung the narrow, three-foot-eight-inch silver longsword upward in a single, clean vertical arc to meet the descending greatsword edge-to-edge!

KRA-CLANG—CRAAAACK!

Expecting his heavy greatsword to knock the woman’s thin blade out of her hand, Daoist Hei Sha felt as though he had swung his sword into a falling three-thousand-catty star-iron meteor!

The terrible physical weight of the Imperial Star Devouring Steel crushed the fifty-foot black skull-projection instantly. At the point where the two blades met, the wisp of Nascent Soul Grand Yin Ice Flame inside the Gale-Severing Frostblade flashed across the iron rings of Daoist Hei Sha’s greatsword—flash-freezing the blood-tempered steel into brittle blue glass—before Shen Mengqi’s upward twist sheared the High-Grade Magic Treasure greatsword cleanly in half!

"My Life-Bound Greatsword—!" Daoist Hei Sha spat a mouthful of blood as the bone-cracking recoil shattered both of his wrist bones.

Shen Mengqi’s boots tapped the empty air. Pivoting her curvy waist with lethal grace, she stepped past the falling broken half of the greatsword and drew the razor-sharp edge of the Gale-Severing Frostblade horizontally across Daoist Hei Sha’s neck!

SHING!

A thin line of silver frost appeared around Daoist Hei Sha’s throat. His seven-foot body froze in mid-air into a solid statue of white ice, and as Shen Mengqi sheathed her sword with a crisp clink, his frozen head slid off his shoulders and shattered against the iron chains linking the bone-cruisers below!

With a final sweeping chord from Hua Yimei’s Crimson Phoenix Zither and a barrage of artillery fire from the six escort cruisers, the iron chains blocking the Sunken-Tooth Narrows snapped, and eight of the twelve demonic bone-cruisers were blown apart and sunk in less than a quarter of an hour, sending the four surviving ships fleeing in blind terror!

Five miles back in the fog bank, the two Myriad Ocean Palace scouts lowered their bronze spyglass with trembling hands.

"Five... five breaths to slaughter four Core Formation elders, and less than ten exchanges for Shen Mengqi to bisect Daoist Hei Sha and his Life-Bound Magic Treasure!" the junior scout stammered, his face pale. "Even without a Nascent Soul ancestor, the Core Formation women of Abyssal Pearl City fight like monsters!"

Aboard the foredeck of the dreadnought, Shen Mengqi, Hua Yimei, Lin Wanyue, and Chen Ying floated back down to the polished ironwood planks, bowing respectfully to Wang Jian in full view of the distant ships while their eyes sent him secret, heated glances of pride—already looking forward to the reward awaiting them inside the locked stateroom that night.