There seemed to be no end in sight to the expanse of dark crimson water. A thick, metallic tang burrowed into everyone’s noses, inducing spells of dizziness despite their iron wills.

Lu Yun had slapped a Silence Talisman over Mo Qitian’s mouth, which headed off multiple attempts to talk from the youth sovereign. They finally understood why the ghost in white had told them not to speak.

The lanterns on the ship radiated a special power that concealed the energy of a living being. If anyone spoke, the energy dispersing from their mouths and noses would attract the monsters in the crimson ocean. While the vast depths looked peaceful, within lurked terrible monsters the likes of which no one could begin to imagine.

They could glimpse the crimson humanoid lizards that’d devoured Lu Shenhou, as well as countless zombies and monsters made of bleached bones. They even encountered a skeletal dragon that spanned five thousand kilometers, will-o’-wisps burning in its head and wielding the power of a dao immortal. It twisted and flailed in the ocean as it fought another skeletal beast.

That was when Lu Yun had refined a Silence Talisman to shut Mo Qitian’s mouth. The man was so much more talkative than he seemed, making him the polar opposite of Zi Chen, who was a man of few words.

Lu Yun didn’t want him to alert the terrible beings in the ocean by running his mouth. The ghost was right; not even the Dao Flowers could save them, should the monsters notice them.

Bam!

Tall waves suddenly reared from the surface, sweeping aside the corpses and monsters in their path. However, the paper ships carrying Lu Yun and the others moved with the currents, unusually stable in face of the powerful waves.

A nine-headed skeletal dragon running three thousand kilometers long surged from the ocean, piercing howls sweeping through the air. 

A nine-headed dragon!

This was a mythical dragon that existed only in legends! Even Aoxue thought of it as a mere story. Contemporary dragons themselves didn’t know if such an ancestor had ever existed, but here was living proof that it did!

In the next moment, both Lu Yun and Qing Han shot to their feet, eyes wide with disbelief. Qing Han clapped his hands tightly around his mouth to prevent even a peep from escaping. Lu Yun went a step further and stuck a dozen Silence Talismans to his lips to keep a yelp from escaping his mouth.

The nine-headed dragon was fighting another behemoth: the bottom half of a blue-black dragon!

It was about as long as the nine-headed dragon, but its rotten, scaled body was dripping with yellowish grey corpsewater. Black bones were visible through its rotting scales and flesh, and its two claws had deteriorated to the point of non-recognition.

It was the other half of the Azure Dragon King!

Back in the ancient times, someone had bisected the dragon king and ferried its upper body to the eastern tomb realm of the Skandha Extinction Tomb, setting up a curse against its kin. Fortunately, it had encountered the dying Sal Tree of Life and Death hidden within the tomb realm. It’d fused itself to the tree and recovered with the tree’s remaining vitality.

No one had expected to see the dragon king’s bottom half in the ocean of blood!

The bottom half likewise emanated piercing vibrations and fought the nine-headed dragon, their floundering and grappling raising tall waves and pulverizing countless skeletal creatures in the boundless ocean.

Lu Yun turned sideways to Qing Han, who shook his head in response.

The Azure Dragon King peeked outside the Scroll of Shepherding Immortals with thick sorrow; its bottom half was dead. There was no use rescuing it now. It was just one of the dead in the ocean of blood, manipulated by the purpose of death. Once it left the ocean, it’d transform into a terrible monster and wreak great havoc in the world.

Lu Yun and Qing Han sat back down as the black paper ships continued on their leisurely path. The fight between the two titanic creatures didn’t affect the ships at all.

As time passed, the crimson in the sky faded, and there were increasingly fewer terrors in the depths. Warm sunlight poured down from the sky, turning the dark red water almost amber.

“Mmhmmrmm!!!” Mo Qitian’s gaze lit up with excitement as he shook and capered in place, but still couldn’t say anything due to the restraint of the Silence Talisman. He gave Lu Yun a pitiful look, but was soundly ignored; they hadn’t left the ocean yet and thus mustn’t talk.

In all this time, Zi Chen and Wu Tulong had remained cross-legged inside their boats. Dao Flowers surrounded them as they assiduously studied the void realm.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

From a distance traveled a cacophony of collision and battle. Something was fighting in the ocean. It wasn’t a clash between giant monsters, but of immortals and the monsters in the sea.

Lu Yun and the others looked up into the distance.

A dozen enormous fortress ships were passing through the sky, beams of light swept out from the ships to destroy the monsters rising from the ocean. Even more monsters had already climbed onto the ships and torn down their defensive formations to meet the immortals aboard in frenzied battle.

A few wrecked ships drifted on the surrounding ocean, slowly sinking. The earlier booms had come from the monsters tearing into the ships.

Isn’t the ocean forbidden ground after the dao immortals died? Confusion colored Lu Yun’s expression. He didn’t understand why anyone would sail into the crimson sea and pick a fight with these monsters.

The owner of one of the damaged ships glimpsed Lu Yun and the others and steered his vessel toward them.

“Help, fellow daoist!” A giant flesh mountain of a fatty stood on top of one of the ships. He wailed for help as he flung skeletal monsters away.

That’s... Li Youcai! Lu Yun could scarcely believe his eyes. What was he doing here?

He recognized the crew aboard the ship as well. They were no immortals, but cultivators!

Lu Yun’s heart sank. He quickly scanned the ships approaching them, his mood taking a further downward turn. 

There was only one explanation for this.