Ling Feng, of course, didn't care in the slightest about the silent storms brewing in distant halls.
From the moment Divine Spark Prince and Ghost Insect Evil Child were hauled away like broken dogs, he treated the entire prime platform as finished business, something already tossed into the trash bin of his memory.
He clapped his hands once, as if dusting them off.
"Alright," he said lazily, lips quirking, "let's fish."
And then he actually did exactly that.
The ghost ferry glided away from the platform, chains rattling as the sentiment boatman pulled them back into Nightsea's hidden currents.
Behind them, the prime platform shrank into the darkness—two crippled "invincible" geniuses being encased in healing arrays, elders with faces like storm clouds trying to pretend this humiliation had not happened while their eyes burned like coals under ash.
Ahead of them, the ocean stretched out, clear and cold and seemingly bottomless.
Lanterns from other ferries drifted in the distance like a slow river of ghostly will-o'-wisps. Nightsea's water was so transparent that even from here Ling Feng could see pillars of stone and drowned ruins far below, like an ancient city that had sunk and refused to rot. Schools of Yang Nightfish flickered through those ruins in silver arcs, each one dragging faint dao lines through the water—living currency, cultivation resource, and omen all at once.
Ling Feng leaned against the railing, one hand hooked lazily over the ghostwood beam.
Inside his Niwan Palace, the Master Emerald rotated once.
Reality in a vast radius folded like paper. Lines of fate, veins of water, ghostly leylines, buried treasures—all of it lit up as bright tracks across a dark canvas to his Chaos Sense. The hidden skeleton of Nightsea's dao was laid bare before him: cold currents that could shred True Gods, gentle eddies hiding tiny pockets of fortune, jagged whirlpools where death qi and ghost dao tangled like barbed wire.
He saw it all.
And because he saw it, he smiled.
"Wanxue," he said suddenly.
Qiurong Wanxue turned from her place near the bow. Snow-white lashes trembled faintly; the pale shadow behind her stirred like a flag catching an unseen breeze. The cold nobility of the Snow-Shadow Saintess softened slightly whenever he called her name.
"Mm?" she answered.
He raised his chin toward the right side of the ferry. "Drop a net three zhang out, five breaths down. Tilt it a bit left at the last moment."
One of the Snow-Shadow elders blinked, his transparent face tightening. "Young Noble, that position… there is nothing there. Our people have cast there already."
Ling Feng's lips curled. "Then your people need better eyes."
Qiurong Wanxue's lips curved very faintly. "Listen to him," she murmured, amusement hidden in the cool tone. She gave a quiet order; Snow-Shadow disciples stepped forward, forming seals as a net of ghostly light spread over the water and plunged down exactly where he'd pointed.
For a few heartbeats, nothing moved.
Nightsea was calm. The ruins below lay in their eternal slumber; Yang Nightfish swam like scattered stars.
Then something tugged.
Hard.
The net shuddered as if it had hooked a falling star. Ghostly light flared; disciples grunted, boots sliding along the deck as whatever lay below tried to drag the entire ferry down with it. The ghost boat groaned, chains creaking as the ancient vessel protested.
"Steady," Ling Feng called lazily, as if he were commentating a fishing show instead of an event that could overturn the boat. "Don't let it flip us. That'd be embarrassing."
Cold yin surged through Snow-Shadow arms as they circulated their merit laws. Frosty dao runes crawled along the net, anchoring it to the ferry like chains of winter. Slowly, inch by inch, the net rose, dripping crystal water that sparkled under spectral lantern light.
Lan Yunzhu's eyes widened as the catch broke the surface.
It wasn't just fish.
A Yang Nightfish the size of a human child thrashed in the net, scales gleaming with dense, concentrated yang light, each flake like a condensed miniature sun. But the fish wasn't free—thick chains wrapped around its body, binding it to a chunk of black jade coral.
Inside that coral, a faint golden glow pulsed like a sleeping heart.
The coral's surface was marked with natural dao patterns: ghostly waves and miniature suns intertwined, rune upon rune like overlapping tides. Nightsea's death qi recoiled instinctively from it.
"...That is…" one of Thousand Carp River's elders choked, voice cracking.
"Nightsea Coral Marrow," another elder whispered hoarsely. "And not a small piece… this quality…"
Lan Yunzhu's brows knit together, her river eyes narrowing. She extended her dao sense, letting Thousand Carp's water dao seep into the depths of the coral, searching for what she had somehow missed earlier.
"This..." she frowned, lips tightening, "…I still can't sense anything."
"Of course you can't," Ling Feng said. "It's hiding under your sense's skirt, peeking out and laughing at you."
She gave him a look, torn between annoyance and the laugh trying to escape her chest. "…You are calling me blind?"
He tilted his head, smile deepening, eyes warm. "I'm calling you cute. Your river eyes are good. Mine are just… a little better."
Her ears colored despite herself. That gentle Thousand Carp dignity cracked by a sliver; she looked away first.
Thousand Carp elders exchanged looks they didn't quite dare to voice. Nightsea Coral Marrow bound with an exceptionally fat Yang Nightfish—this sort of harvest, if taken alone, would already be sent back to their sect as a great achievement worthy of being recorded in the clan annals.
Qiurong Wanxue studied the coral in silence, her ghost sense brushing over it. The white shadow behind her trembled once in rare surprise.
"Ling Feng," she said quietly, "how did you see it?"
He wiggled his fingers at the ocean. "Nothing here can hide from me," he said, tone completely casual. "If it exists in this water, I see it. It's that simple."
Behind him, Xu Pei snorted outright, arms folded under her chest, her ponytail swaying. "Listen to this man," she drawled. "If arrogance could condense, it'd be dripping off the railing right now."
Chen Baojiao laughed, dark eyes bright, Tyrannical Valley Immortal Spring Physique quietly circulating as if she wanted to jump into the water herself and suplex Nightsea. "He's not wrong, though," she said. "Every time he opens that mouth, someone dies or some treasure jumps out."
Li Shangyuan's lips twitched, a faint, rare smile surfacing in her usually serene face. "If he says there is nothing he cannot see…" she murmured, "…then I am inclined to believe him."
Bing Yuxia flicked her fan, peach blossom eyes narrowing as she squinted at him. "You all really let him talk like this?" she muttered under her breath. "If people from my home heard this, they would choke on their tea."
Chi Xiaodie just crossed her arms, plain clothes fluttering in the chill. "As long as he backs it up," she said dryly, "he can call himself the ancestor of Nightsea for all I care."
Su Yonghuang stood a little apart, the golden sun of her physique quietly. She didn't say anything, but the way her eyes softened when they rested on Ling Feng said enough: understanding, amusement, and a hint of dangerous approval.
Bai Jianzhen's hand rested lightly on the hilt of her Immortal Emperor sword Life Treasure. She watched Ling Feng for a long breath, then shifted her gaze toward the depths again, as if silently acknowledging: if he said it, she would stake her sword on it.
Ling Feng stretched lazily, as if all of this had nothing to do with him.
"Yunzhu," he continued, "take the coral and fish. Have Thousand Carp's people process it later. It'll be good for your dao foundation. Give you some extra bite."
Lan Yunzhu's jade-like fingers tightened briefly around the edge of her sleeve. This man had casually pointed out something even her elders hadn't found, then tossed it to her like a snack at a street stall.
"…Fine," she said quietly, accepting the harvest with both hands. "Since you insist."
"Of course I insist," he replied. "If my girls don't walk away from here loaded, how am I supposed to brag later?"
Xu Pei exhaled a laugh she couldn't quite hold back. "Listen to him," she said to Lan Yunzhu, voice amused and warm. "He doesn't even hide it."
They sailed on.
From a distance, Ling Feng stood on the deck like a bored tourist on a cruise, posture loose, gaze wandering. But every time the ferry drifted near a strand of sunken ruins or a faint whirl of darker water that looked no different from its surroundings, he would open his mouth again.
"Baojiao," he said, pointing with his chin at a cracked stone pillar half-buried in Nightsea's floor. "See that pillar? There's a bronze ring stuck under it. Break the pillar, keep the ring. Don't break the platform, though. I don't feel like swimming."
Chen Baojiao's eyes lit up at once.
Her blood boiled, battle intent rising; the violent tide of Violent Cloud Chant stirred in her meridians, not raging out of control but condensing into a tight, rotating core. She stepped forward, feet planting firmly on the deck as if she were standing atop a mountain rather than a boat.
"Got it," she grinned.
She raised her hand.
Power bloomed.
The Tyrannical Valley Immortal Spring Physique flared to life. Invisible springs opened inside her flesh and bones; the force she gathered didn't just pile up—it flowed, cascaded, spun. When she slammed her palm down, it was like a valley's worth of roaring water turning into a single waterfall.
Her palm struck the air.
The impact didn't simply shake the surface—it punched a tunnel of force through the clear water, compressing Nightsea's liquid into a ring-shaped shockwave that crushed everything in its path. The stone pillar shuddered violently; ancient cracks deepened as dao marks that had endured for eras flickered.
With a thunderous crack, the pillar gave way.
From the collapsing stone, something shot out—a bronze ring, dark with age, inscribed with distorted bone runes. A vicious beast's aura roared from within, enough to make weaker cultivators' souls tremble.
Chaos qi inside Ling Feng stirred for a moment; the ring's suppressed ferocity was like a hungry beast pressed up against glass.
Chen Baojiao reached out and caught it with one hand, fingers closing with no fear. The beast aura slammed against her; her Immortal Spring Physique drank it, swallowed it, refined it into cultivation fuel.
Her lips curved into a wolfish grin. "Mm. This one's mine."
Ling Feng smiled. "Of course."
He turned his head, eyes narrowing slightly at a patch of water that looked utterly ordinary—no strange light, no exposed treasure, just a still stretch of Nightsea that any other genius would ignore.
"Pei," he called, "that stretch of water on the left. Yes, the one that looks normal. Smash it."
"…Smash the water?" Xu Pei arched a brow at him, lips twitching. "You're getting greedy now."
"Trust me," he said. "There's a stubborn thing sitting on the bottom, hiding under a layer of time. You'll like it."
Her gentle face sharpened. She stepped forward, taking a deep breath as the modified Heavenly Dao Academy merit law circulated. Her Fate Palaces resonated in unison, refining her dao into something clean and incisive.
Violent Cloud Chant roared into motion.
But this was not the wasteful, raging storm of its earlier days. The power did not spray everywhere; it condensed, rotated, compressed into a single, spinning hammer of force in her palm. Clouds formed behind her, swirling into a phantom vortex as thunder rolled silently in the depths.
She brought her hand down.
The blow did not simply hit Nightsea's surface—it crushed space and water together in the same instant, punching a vertical shaft of pressure deep into the abyss. The clear water caved inward, forming a brief vacuum before slamming back outward with a muffled roar.
Something tore free from the darkness—a submerged chunk of jade stone shaped like a cauldron tripod, engraved with dark, interlocking lines. Dao runes flickered across its surface, runes of refinement and sacrifice; just looking at it made every alchemist in sight feel their heart pound faster.
The cauldron shard hovered in front of her, humming with a deep, ancient resonance.
Xu Pei flexed her fingers, feeling its weight, its temper.
"…Not bad," she muttered, unable to keep the pleased note out of her voice. "This one's mine."
"Of course," Ling Feng said again, lips quirking. "You're going to cook up some nasty things with that."
He turned toward the right this time, eyes glinting.
"Yuxia," he called softly, glancing over his shoulder. "On the right, there's a spot where the light bends wrong. Use your mirror."
Bing Yuxia tilted her chin, trying—and failing—to hide the faint flush that crept up her neck whenever his gaze lingered a breath too long. She stepped forward, Immortal Emperor cold mirror in hand, the mirror's surface as calm and deadly as a frozen lake.
She raised it.
The mirror's light fanned out in a cold beam over a seemingly normal patch of water. For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the light refracted.
The world tilted slightly. The reflections in the mirror split open, like a second layer of reality being peeled back. In that hidden layer, something huge moved.
An enormous, translucent ghost carp swam just beneath the surface, scales so perfect they were invisible, body sliding between reflections instead of water. Its form was like a thought that refused to be noticed.
The mirror's cold beam pinned it.
"It was hiding between reflections," Bing Yuxia murmured, peach blossom eyes narrowing. "Using Nightsea as its mirror…"
"Mm." Ling Feng nodded. "Pick it up. Its gallbladder will be good medicine for your heart dao. Help you with that mirror of yours, too."
She gave him a sideways look that tried to be annoyed but failed at the corners. "…You make it sound very easy."
"That's because it is," he replied cheerfully. "I point, you grab. See? Division of labor."
The ghost carp thrashed once—then the mirror's cold light sliced its resistance apart. Yuxia flicked her sleeve, water dao swirling; the carp lifted out of the sea and shrank into a miniature form that fell neatly into her prepared jade bottle.
Li Shangyuan shook her head, amusement soft in her eyes. "One day," she said quietly, "people will write ballads about how shameless you are."
"I hope they make the choruses catchy," Ling Feng said. "Otherwise, what's the point?"
He meant it. If the world was going to gossip anyway, they might as well provide a good soundtrack.
Snow-Shadow disciples, Thousand Carp elders, even the ghost boatman himself—an existence that had ferried countless arrogant geniuses and ghost lords over the ages—could only stare.
Everywhere their ferry passed, fortunes appeared.
Hidden corals wrapped around pieces of ancient dao. Rusted anchors forged from ghost iron that once chained primeval beasts. Sealed bone tokens that thrummed with mysterious, dormant laws. Faintly glowing clumps of ghost algae that could refine both yin qi and death laws if processed correctly.
Ling Feng pointed. The women moved. Treasures crawled out of hiding as if answering a summons they couldn't ignore.
Each success was wrapped in banter.
There was no solemnity, no fake modesty. His voice never grew hurried or truly proud; if anything, he sounded like a man lazily calling out prize locations in some street game, throwing jokes and orders with the same ease.
At some point, Chi Xiaodie simply folded her arms and stared at him.
"Feng," she said, her voice amused. "If you can see everything anyway, why are we even pretending to 'explore'?"
He shrugged. "Because you're cute when you're serious," he said. "And because if I do everything myself, you'll get lazy. I want my girls to be able to slap emperors on their own, not just stand behind me looking pretty."
Her lips curved into a rare, feral smile, eyes flashing with battle desire. "That," she said, "I can agree with."
Qiurong Wanxue watched the whole absurd parade quietly from the bow, white lashes lowered. This boat, filled with human, ghost, moved through Nightsea like some ridiculous, brazen dragon, stealing everything in reach under the nose of ancient laws.
At the same time, the hostility watching them from other ferries only grew thicker.
Wherever their ferry passed, Ghost Immortals and human geniuses smoldered in silence. A few muttered curses under their breath. Others simply tightened their hands around their weapons, knuckles white, nails cutting into flesh.
They watched Chen Baojiao laugh with a tyrant's ease, Xu Pei's gentle smile sharpened by a cauldron at her side, Bing Yuxia's mirror glinting with captured secrets, Lan Yunzhu holding Nightsea Coral Marrow she hadn't found herself, Qiurong Wanxue's white shadow obeying Ling Feng's casual commands.
They watched Ling Feng himself stand there like he was on some vacation cruise, one hip against the railing, posture loose, eyes half-lidded, as if all of Nightsea were just a pretty aquarium he was too lazy to fully admire.
But no one moved.
Not after seeing what had happened on the platform earlier, when Divine Spark Prince and Ghost Insect Evil Child had been crushed and humiliated between Chi Xiaodie and Chen Baojiaos' fingers like soft mud.
Their fury boiled.
Their fear was deeper.
Ling Feng didn't spare them a glance.
...
Elsewhere in Nightsea, far from Ling Feng's ferry, a different kind of storm gathered.
In the shadow of a towering, jagged islet—its stone stacked like skulls leaning against one another—an ancient stone hall had been raised temporarily. Ghostly lanterns burned with corpse-blue flames; the air was thick with medicines, talismans, and suppressed fury.
Outside, waves lapped gently against Nightsea's rock, as calm as a sleeping beast.
Inside, hatred seethed.
On a bed carved from black jade lay Divine Spark Prince.
His once-blazing divine rings no longer spun in majestic arcs behind him. Instead, they hovered weakly, light dimmed, threads of divine dao frayed and tangled. Each breath he took made his chest creak; his ribs had been shattered and then forcefully held in place by divine chains to heal, golden blood dried in faint cracks along his skin.
Next to him, Ghost Insect Evil Child rested in his own array.
His body was wrapped in layers of silk-like insect threads, each strand crawling with tiny runes that pulsed eerily. His translucent skin was mottled with green-black bruises; the imprint of a palm still seemed burned into his chest, a brand forged of humiliation. His Nether Insect King's shadow lay coiled and trembling at the foot of the bed, its many legs twitching from remembered fear.
The two of them seethed in silence, rage brewing under the numbing sting of healing elixirs.
In front of them stood others.
Golden Child sat in a bone chair, golden bones gleaming beneath tight, translucent skin. Twin flames burned quietly in his eye sockets, neither flaring nor dimming. He looked like a skeleton chiseled from divine metal, every bone rune marking him as the pride of the Hundred Bones Sacred Tribe.
Beside him, Hundred Clans Child stood with hands folded behind his back. A romantic, almost storybook aura clung to him; behind his shoulders hovered countless faint divine images, each representing a different godly bloodline. Divine hymns murmured faintly whenever he breathed, the prestige of the Kingdom of Gods draping his figure like a robe no one else could ever wear.
Ghost Monk leaned against a stone pillar, kasaya dyed in ghostly colors, head bowed as if dozing. Yet a faint smile played on his lips; a ghost lotus imprint flickered beneath his bare feet with each shift of weight. As Young Lord of the Ghost Zen Tribe, he carried a dangerous ease, the kind of man who could chant sutras over corpses he'd personally created.
Finally, Titanic Crescent Saint Child stood near the center.
He wore moon-white armor patterned with crescent waves; behind him, a titan-sized crescent image hovered faintly, like a half-moon carved from ancient stone hanging over the night sky. He was the prime descendant of Titanic Crescent Sacred Ground, a lineage in the Misty Field region whose prestige shook the Sacred Nether World.
Each of these young men was used to being the summit of their generation in their own territories.
Now they all stood in the same hall.
And in the center of it, the topic was one man.
"Say that again," Golden Child's voice rasped, golden flames in his eye sockets flaring slightly. "He did what?"
Ghost Insect Evil Child's fingers clenched, insect silk creaking, his nails digging into his own palm.
"That human," he hissed, voice shaking, "called us dogshit on the road, then had two women slap us into this state in front of half of Nightsea."
Divine Spark Prince's cheeks flushed a mottled, ugly red beneath the healing light. His pride, once towering as a divine mountain, had been smashed to gravel.
"She crippled me with one palm," he ground out, each word scraping his throat raw, humiliation and hatred entwined like thorned vines. "In front of my country's disciples. In front of Ghost Immortal elites. He spat on my sister's name."
Ghost Monk let out a low whistle, eyes half-lidded, smile lazy and sharp. "This person is even more arrogant than I heard," he said, amused and intrigued. "To humiliate Divine Spark Country and Insect King Imperial Lineage together at Nightsea's edge… mm. Quite bold."
"Bold?" Divine Spark Prince spat, coughing a little blood for his trouble. "He is courting death! My sister will—"
Hundred Clans Child raised a hand.
"Prince," he said lightly, his voice like a gentle spring wind that nonetheless carried the authority of a kingdom, "for now, we are the ones here. Your sister is not." The divine silhouettes behind him shifted faintly, eyes of countless gods watching with icy indifference. "And we are not here to scream."
Divine Spark Prince's jaw clenched so tightly it creaked. He shut his mouth, but the hatred in his eyes burned hotter, as if his divine rings themselves wanted to gnaw on Ling Feng's bones.
Golden Child's golden fingers tapped once on the armrest of his bone chair. Each tap sent a faint ripple through the bones, a subtle percussion of murderous intent.
"I saw the aftermath," he said slowly. "Those women… their strength has already left the boundary of the young generation. If we fought now, even we would not be certain of victory in a frontal clash."
Ghost Monk's smile thinned, Zen and malice intertwining. "Especially not while giving them the first strike," he murmured. "Even a Buddha would avoid offering his neck to such a blade."
Titanic Crescent Saint Child's brows drew together, the crescent mark between them glowing faintly with suppressed anger.
"You all are making this sound as if we should fear one human," he said coldly. "Are you forgetting who you are? We are not nameless juniors. We are imperial descendants." His voice hardened with each title. "Saint Child of Titanic Crescent. Evil Child of Insect King. Prince of Divine Spark. Hundred Clans Child. Golden Child. Ghost Monk."
Each name was a mountain. Together, they were a range.
His voice dropped to a lower, dangerous register.
"If word spreads that a single human crippled two of us with one move each and walked away laughing, what will people say of our lineages?"
The anger in the room thickened, turning the air viscous.
Even Ghost Monk's faint amusement cooled into something sharper.
"Then what do you propose?" he asked. "Go storm his ferry and be slapped together?"
Titanic Crescent Saint Child looked down at a map spread across the stone table in front of him.
It was a rough sketch of Nightsea and the mysterious realm beneath it. Dao lines were marked with careful strokes; whirlpools were traced in dark ink. At one point, near the center, a jagged series of lines formed a wall—crooked, overlapping marks where currents clashed and twisted.
The twisting wall that even old monsters had not crossed.
"The old monsters are watching," the Saint Child said slowly. "They will not move easily. Not here. Not yet. This place falls under Necropolis' strange rules. There are lines even our ancestors will not cross."
Ghost Insect Evil Child's eyes narrowed behind his silk threads. "You mean…"
"We heard from our scouts," Hundred Clans Child interjected smoothly, the scholar's smile on his lips at odds with the darkness in his eyes, "that deeper inside, there is a place where the currents gather. A twisting wall that even peak Virtuous Paragons must fear. No one has crossed it yet. For now."
He smiled faintly, that gentle expression shadowed by something ancient and cold.
"But rules can be… adjusted."
Golden Child's bone fingers stilled.
"The elders will not let us alter Necropolis' laws," he said. "Even our lineages must yield before that ancient city and its corpse kings."
"Of course," Titanic Crescent Saint Child agreed with a nod. "But we do not need to alter the laws. Only… take advantage of them."
He turned his gaze toward Ghost Insect Evil Child, the armor on his shoulders gleaming with pale crescent light.
"The currents along that wall are deadly," he continued, "but they also respond to certain energies. Ghost dao. Insect dao. Divine dao. Sword dao. If we work together, we can make the wall even more dangerous, even more unstable—for a short time."
Ghost Insect Evil Child's lips twisted into a truly vicious smile, some color returning to his face. "A trap made from Nightsea itself," he murmured. "Use its currents to tear that human apart. Let the sea do the butchering while we watch."
Hundred Clans Child's divine halos pulsed behind him, shadows of countless god-blooded ancestors flickering silently.
"We spread rumors," he added calmly. "We make sure he hears that a deadlock has appeared. That no one can cross. That even we failed. Let word leak that the twisting wall is a challenge none can overcome."
Ghost Monk chuckled softly, ghost lotus blossoming under his foot and then fading again. "And a man like that… will definitely come to show off," he said. "He is the type who cannot bear seeing something labeled 'impossible.'"
Divine Spark Prince's fingers dug into the black jade bed, making faint cracking sounds.
"He will not turn away from a challenge," he said hoarsely. "He has to show off. Especially in front of his women. He won't allow people to whisper that there is a place he does not dare to touch."
Golden Child's golden flames flared higher in his sockets.
"So we wait in front of the currents," he said. "We pretend to try, fail, then ridicule him. We push every knife into his pride. The moment he attempts to cross, we activate our formation. If the currents don't tear him apart…"
"Then he will at least be wounded," Titanic Crescent Saint Child finished for him, crescent light sharpening in his eyes. "And then we strike together. Six of us. Plus our followers. Plus the hidden hands our elders have already placed in Nightsea."
Ghost Monk's ghost lotus flickered like a flower blooming in hell, his eyes half-lidded with a dangerous radiance.
"A human, even one as absurd as this Ling Feng, will not be able to fight Nightsea, and us at the same time," he said. "Even if he slips away alive, his women will not."
The hall fell silent for a moment, the cruel logic hanging in the air.
Outside, the clear waters of Nightsea lapped gently against the stone islet, as if nothing in the world were changing.
Inside, six young monsters smiled.
"Good," Ghost Insect Evil Child whispered, voice full of spite. "Let him come."