“That guy’s really treating us like hired thugs—dragging us into another brutal fight. By the time we finish clearing the field for him, he’ll have practically zero natural enemies left!”

Ye Liuyun gave a helpless chuckle and had his clone tell everyone inside the spatial world to recover ASAP. He already knew this would be a hard battle, yet the staggering payoff still made it impossible to refuse.

According to Dragon Girl, the merfolk’s song didn’t signal an all-out assault; the scouts slipping into Black-Shark territory were only probing—numbers should be small.

So Ye Liuyun ordered his clone to release the women who’d fought earlier, the demon beasts, and Tang Xinyao’s squad to meet the merfolk.

They’d all drunk life-spring water: wounds healed, true essence topped off, reserve stones charged—handling a stray pod shouldn’t be an issue.

Minutes later Ye Liuyun’s golden pupils caught merfolk darting across the surface. He couldn’t lock the count; they bobbed up and down, and whatever lurked underwater stayed hidden. Still, the visible handful looked manageable.

Both sides closed the gap. His eyes now tallied roughly fifty; the strongest merely Sixth-Order Unity, the rest even weaker—perfect sparring partners.

The merfolk spotted them, ringed in—then noticed Dragon Girl beneath the waves. Feeling her pressure, they froze short, reluctant to strike.

From the waist down they were fish; torsos and arms humanoid yet scaled head to toe—far rougher than any merfolk Ye Liuyun had seen.

The leader shrieked at them, meaning unknown; rows of needle teeth glittered, far fiercer than their earlier cousins.

“Why do these look different—and can’t talk?” Ye Liuyun asked Dragon Girl silently.

“These sea-folk hail from the Primordial World—under-evolved, unlike the East-Sea breeds. Scarce contact with humans, so no speech.

That shriek demanded we confess to wiping out the Black Sharks and hand over their resources.”

“All that in one screech?” Ye Liuyun was intrigued.

“It was basically: ‘Spill everything—or else.’”

“Then quit wasting breath. We fight sooner or later—KILL!”

He whipped his blade and slashed at the leader.

“Threaten me, will you!”

Dragon Girl charged beside him; his two clones pounced on a pair of Fourth-Order merfolk while everyone else picked equal-rank targets.

Though bulky, the merfolk were dwarfed by earlier sea beasts and felt less oppressive—yet far nimbler, diving to ambush or dodge, trickier than the lumbering giants.

The leader’s answering shriek ordered the counter-attack; some merfolk drew weapons, fighting almost human-style.

Dragon Girl unveiled the sea-king’s war-trident, curious about its bite. The moment the bronze prongs flashed, every merfolk soul quivered.

In that heartbeat of stupor Ye Liuyun split the leader clean in two; comrades and beasts seized the same instant, blades and claws reaping lives.

Seasoned veterans all, they pressed the advantage; by the time the survivors regained focus, defeat was certain.

A handful tried to flee—only for Blue Whale’s tail to slam them from above, surface or underwater, every last fish stunned senseless. Dragon Girl cruised in, planting her trident through each skull.

The rest were encircled and finished. Cores were dug out—identical to other sea beasts, merely smaller yet packed with equal energy.

As for the corpses—neither fish nor human—they were stowed to feed captive beasts.

Ye Liuyun and Dragon Girl turned to study the Sea-God’s trident.“Looks like the Sea-God Trident actually scares sea beasts. Keep it handy whenever we face them—it might surprise us.”

“Mm, it boosts my strength in the ocean!” The dragon girl nodded in agreement.

Even the blue whale seemed wary of the trident and wouldn’t come close until the dragon girl called it.

They moved on a bit farther, and the whale began lowing urgent warnings again.

With his golden pupils Ye Liuyun spotted merfolk on the distant surface, but he couldn’t decode the whale’s repeated alarms. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

The dragon girl translated: “The whale says there’s a whole merman army ahead—huge numbers.”

The whale’s cultivation was higher than hers, so its range was greater. All it conveyed was “many,” no exact count.

“I only saw a few merfolk!” Ye Liuyun wasn’t sure the whale was right.

“Every previous warning from it has been spot-on. This won’t be some small pod,” the dragon girl insisted.

“Fine, we’ll trust it once more. Maybe the rest are hidden underwater.”

Still cautious, Ye Liuyun released his ancient demon guards, demonic beasts, and veteran experts. Everyone readied for battle; the fire-carts primed their arrays.

According to the whale, mermen far outnumbered the black sharks, and he refused to sacrifice his people needlessly.

When they advanced another stretch, his golden pupils finally picked out the submerged masses—school upon school of merfolk, spread so wide he still couldn’t gauge their numbers, but it was definitely an army.

Now the dragon girl sensed them too, yet even she couldn’t see the tail of the formation. The whale halted, refusing to go farther.

Ye Liuyun stopped and briefed the group.

“What I’ve seen already tops ten thousand.”

Everyone sucked in a cold breath. Against those odds they wouldn’t last a minute.

“Deploy the fire-carts or summon the ancient-demon legion,” Xiao Yunfang advised.