Ashu’s entire body was green at this point and his emotions highly unstable. He was infinitely close to a cultivation deviation, and his eyes were locked on an “island” in front of them.

Covered in verdant growth, the island was also green and appeared quite out of place in the midst of a sinister, foreboding sea. But to Ashu’s eyes, it was an enormous kun fish instead of an island.

The kun that’d attacked the fortress ship earlier had already fallen into his hands and was struggling mightily for life.

“This was the kunpeng great emperor back in the day,” he murmured as he looked at the island. “I’d thought he’d perished after being separated in two. Who would’ve thought that his fish form would live on here?”

So the enormous island a thousand kilometers across was a large kun fish!

“In other words, that person succeeded. He really did discover the secrets of creation from the kunpeng.” He took to the air as he spoke, making his way to the enormous fish.

“Don’t go!” Lu Yun’s projection finally caught up to the holy lord at this point. He grabbed Ashu while the Karmic Tree in hell shifted slightly, sending a cooling breeze into the holy lord’s body.

Ashu trembled as the green drained out of his eyes.

“What’s going on? What am I doing here?” He looked around blankly, utterly baffled and having completely forgotten what’d just happened. “Oh right, kun fish. Eh… I’m holding one of them…”

He goggled at the fish in his hand. Roughly five hundred meters long, it was swaying through the air by the tail. Close to death since it’d been out of the water for too long, its signs of life were fading away.

“There are no secrets of creation to be found here. The fish in your hand was born with defects and is at most only half alive. It’s lived till now simply because of the yin energy in the waters.” Lu Yun slapped the fish back into the water, whereupon it slowly recovered as it took in large mouthfuls of yin energy.

With an adroit flip of its tail, it then disappeared into the depths while Ashu looked on silently.

“There’s another consciousness sleeping in your body!” Lu Yun frowned at the holy lord, who continued remaining silent and refused to respond.

Boom!

The water surface beneath their feet exploded as enormous kun fish leapt out of the sea, bearing down on the two upon enormous waves. A thick miasma of yin energy wreathed around them and they seemed both dead and alive.

“Let’s go!” Ashu sighed and took to the air, rising out of their attack range. He didn’t want to hurt them any further. Taking another look at the fish form of the kunpeng great emperor, he heaved another great sigh.

“Since the two of you have come, why leave in such a hurry?” The berserk fish abruptly calmed down as a light, ethereal female voice echoed over the sea. However, its sudden appearance only served to make it appear even more disturbing.

Lu Yun took a position next to Ashu and the two looked at the island—the voice seemed to be coming from there.

“The peng as yang and kun as yin… when the great emperor separated into two, the kun fish was a female…” murmured Ashu.

“Surely you jest, fellow daoist. This little girl is Xuanyuan Xiaoyue, not the fish form of some Great Emperor Kunpeng.” A girl sixteen years of age in a pure-white chiffon dress strolled gracefully out from the island formed by the kun fish. Her eyes and brows were so delicate they seemed painted on, and her willowy form exuded a unique presence at every second. In fact, she seemed to be a goddess who’d walked out of a painting.

“Xuanyuan Xiaoyue? The Xuan Yuan surname?” Ashu responded reflexively.

“Indeed, I am a descendant of the Xuanyuan clan. The Xuan Yuan buried in the Xuan Yuan Tomb is my ancestor.” An alluring smile drew itself over Xuanyuan Xiaoyue’s face. “There have been no visitors to the Embittered Sea over the past hundreds of millions of years…”

“Because you ate them all,” Lu Yun suddenly cut in harshly.

Bewilderment blossomed over Xiaoyue’s face as she looked askance at Lu Yun.

“If my guess is right, you want to invite us to the island. But the moment we set foot on it, we’ll become your food.” A vortex of black connate yin water formed around Lu Yun’s projection of Gonggong.

“Wait!” Ashu flung out a hand. “Where did you say we were? The Embittered Sea?”

Eyes creased into two crescents, Xuanyuan Xiaoyue first looked blankly at Lu Yun, but then nodded.

“Embittered Sea? A connate treasure?” Lu Yun frowned.

“Embittered Sea… this is the Embittered Sea!” Ashu turned pale. “But how is this possible? How did the sea turn into a connate treasure?”

“Waughhhh—” Taking advantage of Ashu’s momentary lapse in attention, Xuanyuan Xiaoyue suddenly erupted into motion and her body turned pure silver. An exceedingly frosty aura emanated from her being. “I’m so cold, your blood seems very hot.”

She reached out with a slender arm and plunged it into Ashu’s chest, clawing his heart out.

“What is this?!” Completely baffled by what she came back with, she stared at the dark red heart in her hand. The blood inside was congealed—it was plainly a heart that’d been dead for a very long time!

“You’re a living dead…?” Shock paralyzing her for only half a second, she raised her hand again at Gonggong off to the side.

Whoosh!

Gonggong’s body collapsed into water droplets and then reformed again.

“Both of you aren’t alive?” The silver haze around her departed to reveal a vastly changed Xuanyuan Xiaoyue. Frost crystals glittered all around her and her eyes and lips were purplish-white. She seemed to have been frozen for countless aeons. Likewise, there was no trace of the living on her either.

“I’m so cold, really so cold…” She looked piteously at Ashu and Lu Yun, but the heart in her hand made the fragile little girl seem like a macabre psychopath instead.

Ashu reached out and retrieved his non-beating heart, shoving it back into his chest. Lu Yun twisted a bit uncomfortably at the sight.

“I know!” Glee stole across Xiaoyue’s face. “This is your replica. You’ve used a special method to collect connate yin water essence and formed this replica. Your primary body shouldn’t be far away from here!”

Another blast of frost exploded from her and she vanished on the spot.

“Living person, living person… where’s a living person? I’m really so very cold…” her ravings lingered in the air after her departure.