Vessel of Worlds

"Hmph!" The brocade-robed youth snarled. "What proof do you have that I was conspiring with you? You're the one lusting after Fairy Liu, trying to assault her! Don't believe a word of his nonsense—I simply happened to be passing through!"

Andy, who had remained silent until now, let out several sharp laughs. "Just happened to be passing through? You used a high-tier Qi Condensation Wood Escape Talisman to conceal yourself inside a tree trunk. A tenth-layer cultivator naturally wouldn't detect you—but a Foundation Establishment cultivator can sense it easily with spiritual sense. I spotted you lying in ambush long before our friend in black made his move. If the two of you weren't working together, why would he dare attack me and Fairy Liu knowing full well that a Foundation Establishment cultivator was present?"

"The gentleman is absolutely right! I knew Situ Xin was hiding nearby the entire time—I was just putting on an act!" the man in black shouted.

"Situ Xin, may you die a wretched death!" Liu Yingying wiped the tears from her eyes, her cheeks burning red, and spoke to the brocade-robed youth one deliberate word at a time, her voice thick with hatred. She swept her sleeve and sent a crimson spear streaking toward him.

Situ Xin knew that no amount of denial would save him now. He let out a quiet sigh, then his expression twisted with fury. He glared at Andy and spat: "Today should have gone perfectly! I spent years planning this, and you—you—ruined everything! This isn't over. Mark my words!"

Even as he spoke, he recalled the wooden sword to his side, easily deflected Liu Yingying's crimson spear, and turned to flee.

"Think you can run?" Andy snorted. He raised both arms, and seven or eight red points of light shot from his sleeves in rapid succession, streaking toward the brocade-robed youth at tremendous speed. In the blink of an eye, the red streaks were already seven or eight zhang behind him.

"Flying needle artifacts!" the brocade-robed youth cried out in alarm, hastily producing a bronze-plaque artifact and positioning it alongside his green wooden sword as a shield.

A series of sharp metallic clangs, dull thuds, and wet punctures followed—then a scream. The brocade-robed youth pitched forward and crashed to the ground, two fist-sized holes punched clean through his chest. He was dead before he hit the earth.

The man in black, watching this, felt his legs turn to jelly. He wanted to run but couldn't make them obey.

"You had a hand in killing my husband too!" Liu Yingying's delicate brows drew together as she addressed the man in black. She turned the crimson spear and drove it toward him.

The man in black activated a defensive barrier and raised a dark-light shield before him, but Andy's silver sword cleaved the shield in two and shattered the barrier effortlessly. Defenseless, the man in black could only watch as the crimson spear drove into his chest.

Andy collected the storage pouches from both corpses, flicked out a few fireballs, and reduced the bodies to ash.

Liu Yingying stood in a daze for a long while before finally letting out a deep sigh. She led Andy back to her cave dwelling on Wangqing Mountain.

The two talked late into the night. Liu Yingying, emotionally drained from the day's violent upheavals, eventually retired to her bedroom to rest.

When she woke the next morning, Andy was gone. All that remained in the sitting room was a storage pouch on the stone table and a slip of paper: "My heart knows only the vastness of the Dao. Take care, Fairy Liu, and find yourself a good match."

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...

Andy was riding the Wind-Treader Dragon, flying over open water in the direction Liu Yingying had described.

He had long heard that the ocean teemed with countless beasts, including no shortage of high-level ones. Although waters close to the continent were generally free of such creatures, he didn't dare fly too near the surface. The skies above a thousand zhang, on the other hand, were frequented by flying beasts. For safety, he kept to an altitude of two to three hundred zhang.

The Wind-Treader Dragon was extraordinarily fast. Even without pushing it to full speed, he covered four or five thousand kilometers in just two days. Now he could see a modestly sized island ahead. Based on its position, it had to be Azure Sea Island—his destination. He fed a surge of spiritual power through his feet, and the Wind-Treader Dragon accelerated toward it.

A mortal standing even ten kilometers from the island would have seen nothing but an endless expanse of blue water, without the faintest trace of land. This was because the entire island was shrouded by the Azure Tide Formation—a large-scale water-attribute defensive formation of considerable renown. Beyond its incidental illusion that disguised everything within as ordinary ocean, its defensive power was formidable. With Andy's early-stage Foundation Establishment cultivation, he could see through the masking illusion effortlessly, but forcing his way in was out of the question. Only a Core Formation cultivator could hope to breach it.

With this protection, even a few high-level beasts couldn't pose a real threat—to say nothing of the fact that the island housed the bulk of the Azure Sea Sect's cultivators, including two or three Core Formation elders.

As he drew close, Andy spotted a gate-like entrance outside the formation, where four or five cultivators in uniform blue robes stood guard.

He slowed and landed near the entrance.

Of the five blue-robed cultivators, three were Qi Condensation disciples and two were Foundation Establishment. One of the latter was at mid-stage—clearly the person in charge of this post.

The moment Andy touched down, the guards registered his early-stage Foundation Establishment cultivation. The mid-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator among them—a middle-aged man with thick brows and large eyes—stepped forward with a slight bow and a friendly smile. "Welcome, fellow cultivator. Are you here to visit our Azure Sea Island market?"

"I am. I'd like to use your sect's teleportation formation to reach the deep-sea region," Andy replied with a return bow.

"We're happy to oblige—for the appropriate fee, of course. However, all non-Azure Sea Sect cultivators entering the island must pay an entry fee of thirty spirit stones. Our island market may be small, but we carry rare beast materials and beast cores you won't find anywhere else." The middle-aged cultivator maintained his cheerful smile.

Thirty spirit stones just to set foot on the island! Andy was mildly taken aback. The Azure Sea Sect certainly knew how to make money. The sect's strength was nothing extraordinary—its most powerful members were reportedly just two late-stage Core Formation cultivators, far below a millennia-old institution like the Great Void Sect. But they had a keen eye for profit. The Azure Sea Sect monopolized every island and spirit vein within thousands of kilometers of coastline and controlled the Kingdom of Tianwu's only teleportation formation capable of reaching the deep-sea region. This meant that anything related to ocean beasts or island minerals fell under their purview, making them the dominant cultivation power in the area by default.

Andy wasn't about to make trouble with the Azure Sea Sect over a mere thirty spirit stones. He produced a pile of spirit stones without fuss and handed them to the middle-aged cultivator, who accepted them and gave Andy a mutton-jade token engraved with a few numbers before waving him through.

"Hmph. Early-stage Foundation Establishment, and he thinks he can hunt beasts in the deep sea? More like walking straight into their jaws," the mid-stage Foundation Establishment elder muttered contemptuously after Andy passed through the formation, drawing an awkward look from the middle-aged cultivator who shared Andy's cultivation level.

The formation's interference with spiritual sense meant Andy didn't hear the remark. Even if he had, he would have let it go with a smile. For someone carrying treasures beyond imagination who made it his business to stay inconspicuous, being underestimated was always preferable to being watched.

A street roughly a dozen zhang wide, lined with a sparse seven or eight shops of two or three stories each—barely a soul walking about. Was this really what the Azure Sea Sect called a market? Thirty spirit stones to enter this place? Andy took in the scene before him and was momentarily lost for words.