“You won’t bother Dusk Province for a thousand years?” Lu Yun snorted at the black iron staff. “Who was it that a divine whelp had to save there last time, I wonder?”

Scarlet Ape fell silent.

Last time, the North Sea monster spirits had invaded Dusk Province en masse, only for Lu Yun to repel them completely. Many of the province’s lives had been lost in the process, but the defenders had ultimately won a pyrrhic victory.

“That’s not a condition,” the young man shook his head. “Don’t think for a second that your ‘sacred land’ and gathering of ragtag homeless monster spirits makes you a forefather of anybody. My strength has grown, too.”

In addition to the North Sea Palace’s riches, Lu Yun had robbed the Donglin ancestral home as well—roughly eighty percent of the house’s wealth, to be exact. The monstrous amount of gains he’d reaped from the clan far outshone the royal court.

When Lu Yun had robbed the North Sea palace, he’d only taken immortal crystals and materials for the supplemental path. The rest of the treasures and precious materials had been taken by the six prodigals. In contrast, he hadn’t shared House Donglin’s spoils with anyone.

Indeed, several of the house’s heritage treasures were now his. Empress Myrtlestar had removed the bloodline brands inside, allowing the arcane dao immortals under his command to use them. Huangqing and Feinie had also produced several more war treasures in the interim.

Scarlet Ape wanted to invade Dusk Province again? Lu Yun was half a mind to launch a counterattack on the North Sea.

“And what about now?” Scarlet Ape’s voice sounded cold and murderous this time. “Right now, I can kill you with no effort at all.”

“You’re welcome to try.” Lu Yun crooked a finger at the staff.

The iron staff trembled a few times, then stopped moving.

“State your conditions! What do you want?!” The ape growled. “There has to be a reason for you luring me here!”

“Dragon veins.” Lu Yun cut to the chase. “I know the North Sea still has them, and more than one, in fact. Give me four, and I will release your dao partner from the East Sea’s restricted area.”

“What do you want dragon veins for?” Scarlet Ape was on high alert.

The world of immortals had a limited amount of dragon veins. The North Sea possessed five. One was subjugated by the blackwater snakes and buried under the monster palace. The other four were split between the Dark North Sword Sect and Ingress Island. However, obtaining them would pose little difficulty for the ape.

Ingress Island’s crippled ingress immortal might have caused it some trouble in the past, but Scarlet Ape’s recovery of his previous strength meant that was no longer true.

“Dusk Province is a barren place. I want them to nurture the land there,” Lu Yun said matter-of-factly.

The ape mulled the offer over. The young man wasn’t wrong about the province being barren.

During Scarlet Ape’s last invasion of Dusk Province, it’d seriously considered abandoning the effort several times. In the era it came from, a place like that was entirely worthless. Most islands in the North Sea were leagues better in every way.

Yes, natural qi had begun returning to Dusk Province, but it would take goodness knew how long for it to reach parity with the rest of the world. With the help of dragon veins, on the other hand, the province would assuredly become a blessed locale in a thousand years.

Giving Lu Yun four dragon veins was tantamount to funding the enemy. Yet, thoughts of its dao partner occupied the ape’s mind. Its partner’s energy was still being drained inside a seal to fuel some nefarious curse. The North Sea didn’t need dragon veins, either, so losing them would have minimal effect on the place.

Two fiery eyes manifested upon the iron staff, glaring down at Lu Yun.

The young man turned away, unwilling to look into them. The ape was very powerful; who knew what abilities it had? Lu Yun knew of at least thirty-two kinds of mind-controlling ocular arts.

“…how can I trust you?” Scarlet Ape intoned after a long while.

“When your dao partner returns, bring the four dragon veins to Dusk Province,” Lu Yun shrugged casually. “I believe the word of one of the oldest monster spirits to be trustworthy.”

“Alright.” The ape agreed readily. “For the next few days, I will protect your body in this city.”

The staff grew to the size of a mountain, then plopped down in the middle of Jadeite Manor. Everyone in the city could see it.

……

“The two people inside Jadeite Manor belong to the forefather of Levitating Island! No wonder the wolfking behaved like that!”

The monsters inside the city were abuzz with activity. Never had they dreamed that Scarlet Ape would repel the Mo origin dao immortal like that, so many came up with what they thought was a believable version of the events. If that was the case, the silverback gorilla’s accompaniment of ‘Qing Yu’s Sidekick’ made sense, too.

The ape’s appearance also calmed down the chaos in Destiny City.

It was a real sovereign, every bit as strong as the nine celestial emperors. If it went on a rampage like the other immortals, no one here would be able to stop it—the Destiny city lord would be no exception.

Everyone else breathed a sigh of relief, only for their jaws to drop shortly after. Qing Yu and Sidekick walked out of Jadeite Manor!

“What are those two bastards doing? Do they think Scarlet Ape’s presence will scare off their would-be killers?” Onlookers were filled with trepidation. If someone attacked them right now, pandemonium would surely resume, one that even Scarlet Ape wouldn’t be able to stop. There was a secret hand behind everything, after all, a fact that many had already noticed!

As expected, scarcely half an hour after Lu Yun had left the manor, a ray of sword light descended from the sky upon his head. The rickety old man behind the young man suddenly raised his head, and opened his eyes to fire two opposing rays that intercepted the sword.

Bang!

The sword light was shattered. A corpse crashed from the skies onto the ground below, shattering the tiles near its point of impact. The body belonged to a thirty-meter-long winged leopard with black scales. The lingering aura upon its corpse indicated it had been a dao immortal.

Yes, Ge Long had glared a dao immortal monster to death!

“That’s Lie Yan! The first monster spirit to join the sacred land of Levitating Island. Why would it attack people under the monster forefather’s protection?” Some were thoroughly confused.

“Lie Yan isn’t one of the top experts, but an eight-fruit aether dao immortal is still a force to be reckoned with. How did it die from a simple glare?” Many more were nothing short of incredulous. The ordinary-looking old man behind Qing Yu turned out to be an unknown expert himself!

“Heheheh, there’s a tasty little morsel here…” Ge Long sucked up a black shadow from Lie Yan’s body.