As soon as Ye Liuyun stepped off the flying shuttle, he followed the direction Qiong Qi had locked on to.

He now knew the pirate fleet had experts among them—someone even on Wuying’s level could be spotted—so he didn’t rush to release his clone or summon Wuying and the other top fighters.

He still had his Golden Pupils; from far out in the starry void he could watch every move they made.

They had only just left when, before he could even bring out his clone, his Golden Pupils picked up a shuttle breaking away from the Dragon-Head pirates’ main flotilla and streaking after them.

Behind that shuttle, another powerhouse slipped out of a different faction’s craft and tailed them as well.

Clearly both groups assumed this small party was up to something and had come to find out what.

Ye Liuyun pretended to notice nothing. He simply released Qiong Qi and Dragon Girl and told them to lead the way.

Dragon Girl tested her bloodline pressure. Wherever it reached, sea beasts scattered—even those higher in cultivation than she was.

Her draconic blood worked on sea creatures too, suppressing anything in the Unity realm by four or five whole stages. With that cushion, even late-Unity sea-beasts no longer worried them.

So Ye Liuyun also let Lei Ming and Nine-Headed Demonic Dragon out, letting all three flood the area with bloodline pressure while keeping human form; there were still eyes on them. Maybe more than just Dragon-Head and that unknown power—perhaps First-Star pirates were lurking as well. Every step had to be cautious.

Their squad was tiny to begin with; it couldn’t draw big herds. Lone beasts buckled under the trio’s pressure, so they advanced fast, putting the First-Star pirates farther and farther behind.

Half a day later the observer First-Star had sent turned back. Only the Dragon-Head shuttle still hung far behind, and even the unknown powerhouse lost interest and withdrew.

After another full day of careful travel Ye Liuyun finally released Wuying and Zhankong to sweep the surroundings.

Once the two had combed the area they confirmed that, apart from the lone shuttle, no one was watching anymore.

“Good. Dragon Girl, Lei Ming, Nine-Head—into the water. Find a big sea beast and sick it on that shuttle.”

He ordered them to draft some local leviathan for the job.

Many sea creatures dislike leaving the water to strike at things high above, but that doesn’t mean they can’t. A Unity Fifth-or-Sixth-Stage beast could easily reach the shuttle’s altitude.

The three dived, shifting to true form only after they’d gone deep.

Underwater, Dragon Girl was in her element, moving without resistance. Lei Ming and Nine-Head, far less graceful, could only prop her up with their own bloodline force.

Yet the threefold pressure was already enough.

Dragon Girl led them down until they located a Unity Fifth-Stage blue whale. Under their combined bloodline crush it never thought of resisting; faced with true dragon aura it simply surrendered.

Dragon Girl sent her order: attack the shuttle. The whale obeyed at once, rolling upward toward the surface.

When its back burst from the sea the Dragon-Head pirates spotted it—too late. A column of water smashed their shield and the shockwave cracked the hull itself.

Ten pirates abandoned the broken craft, but the whale leapt, jaws gaping wide.

They scattered to dodge the maw, only to be swatted by the tail. The fan-shaped fluke blotted out the sky; six pirates exploded on impact, two more were knocked senseless and dumped into the sea.

The whale crashed back down. The whirlpool it created sucked the two unconscious men in; a single gulp swallowed them along with everything else nearby.

Surfacing again, it spat another jet at the last pair—who, terrified, had already fled far and high. This time the water fell short.“What a waste—if only it had shot straight up and swallowed the whole skiff!”

Ye Liuyun thought the whale’s attack clumsy; a single gulp could have wiped out every last pirate. He sent a silent order to Dragon Girl: tell the whale to stop attacking and simply cruise beneath them from now on, guarding against ambush by other sea-beasts.

The two surviving pirates he dispatched to Void-Slasher and Shadowless. Moments later both killers returned, mission complete.

“Finally, some quiet.”

Ye Liuyun released his demon beasts and avatars. One avatar kept watch on the starry sky, tracking the direction of the First-Star Pirate flotilla; he himself had Qiong Qi lead the way toward the under-sea volcano.

With the colossal whale below them, ordinary sea-beasts kept their distance even without Dragon Girl’s bloodline pressure.

Thunderclap and Nine-Headed Demon Dragon returned to his side; he sent another avatar down with Dragon Girl to scout the local sea life.

In the ocean Dragon Girl’s mind-range stretched farther—she could read the ripples and echoes like words on a page.

Soon she warned him: a school of bulky sharks was closing, species still unknown.

Ye Liuyun’s golden eyes picked out the first blood-red triangular fin slicing the surface. The whale felt it too, moaning a deep alarm.

“Blood-sharks—they’ve caught the whale’s scent and come to hunt. It hasn’t dived deep; right now it’s easy prey.”

Dragon Girl swam forward with the avatar, sending a piercing dragon-cry through the water: back off.

The sharks hesitated, hung motionless for a heartbeat, but the prospect of a whale big enough to feed them for a month was too tempting. They closed in again.