Lei Ming didn’t care—she had no problem slaughtering every sea-beast in sight.

But inside the spatial world, after Ye Liuyun barked at Dragon Girl, she knew he was furious with her. All the women were gathered; they noticed something was off the moment they saw Dragon Girl’s face. One question led to another, and the whole story spilled out.

None of them dared ask Ye Liuyun directly, so they cornered Lei Ming instead, wanting to know if he was really that angry.

Lei Ming was still fighting beside Ye Liuyun. Distracted, she let a demon-scaled flood-drake slip through. Its claws were a finger-length from her face when the clone froze time; another heartbeat and her skull would have exploded like a melon.

“What the hell are you doing? This is combat!” Ye Liuyun roared the instant he saw her lose focus.

Carelessness here meant death. They were already out-gunned; losing concentration turned “risky” into “suicide.” He wouldn’t watch another woman end up broken like Dragon Girl.

Lei Ming flinched. “Little Brother, I—” She started to explain, then swallowed the words; she couldn’t sell the other women out. Silence swallowed her instead.

“Go back.”

Seeing her dazed expression, Ye Liuyun knew keeping her outside would only distract her more. Without another word he hurled her into the spatial world—and instantly severed every soul-link to it so no one else could disturb him.

The women swarmed Lei Ming the moment she landed, eyes already glassy with tears. When they heard what had happened, they realized they’d dragged her down with them.

Now they understood how deadly the battle outside had become. No one dared bother Ye Liuyun or the demon beasts again. Dragon Girl and Lei Ming sat apart, heads lowered, stomachs knotted, wondering how to earn his forgiveness.

Ye Liuyun’s temper, already blazing over Dragon Girl’s injuries, flared hotter after Lei Ming’s lapse. He took it out on the sea race with escalating savagery, eyes literally red, slaughtering anything that moved. Anything that swam within reach died.

They were surrounded. Demon flood-drakes streaked in at blinding speed, mixing with the common sea beasts, snapping and tearing.

Nine-Head Demon Dragon had already tossed away the flood-drake heads he’d collected. Now he guarded Ye Liuyun and the clone, the three of them blasting white light every time a flood-drake charged.

Soon the three Black Tortoises’ black-light eyes were exhausted; another use would cripple their souls. Ye Liuyun sent them back to recover, pitching in lower-level sea beasts he’d just enslaved so they could devour their soul power.

The moment the tortoises appeared, the women crowded them.

“How bad is it?”

“Surrounded. Countless beasts. Those flood-drakes are lightning fast.” The tortoises answered tersely, then began gulping down soul energy.

Before long Nine-Head Demon Dragon and Black Tiger were thrown back as well.

“Why are you two here?” the women cried. “It’s dangerous out there!”

“Boss is seeing red; says we’re in his way,” Nine-Head muttered, then went straight to cultivating in case they were summoned again.

Panic rippled through the women. Ye Liuyun wasn’t just angry—he was berserk. A few tried to rush out and help, only to find every soul connection severed. They could only pace the pocket world, frantic and useless. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Outside, Ye Liuyun and the clone no longer needed to guard anyone. Every ounce of focus went into the fight.

Their cultivation was still low, but the three chariots were roaring at full power, weaving a net of fire that shredded any powerhouse stupid enough to close. Against the survivors they flickered time, scouring with white light or soul attacks. Equal-realm beasts they crushed with bloodline pressure first, then blade intent and Golden-Crow holy fire. Weaker ones they killed with pure world-energy or a casual slash, conserving yuan power.

Back to back, the two men and the clone stood in the center of the chariot triangle, grinding straight toward the flood-drake nest. Corpses carpeted the sea; shattered limbs bobbed everywhere. Most kills belonged to the chariots; there was no time to loot except for intact flood-drakes and a few pristine corpses.

Gradually every other species fled—only the flood-drakes still dared streak through the bullet-hell, trusting their speed to stab at the trio.

The flood-drake clan was shaken. That white light Ye Liuyun kept firing had them terrified. They chalked it up to some freak pupil technique stacked on an unknown soul art—whatever it was, it reaped them like wheat.What baffled them even more was that every ambush had failed—dozens of demon flood-dragons died without any of them seeing how. Each time they thought the kill was certain, the target simply vanished.

At first they assumed Ye Liuyun was bending space, yet they never detected the slightest spatial ripple.

Now, though, Ye Liuyun’s group had already slaughtered too many of their kin and were still inching toward the nest. It was too late to pull back; they could only fight to the end.

The entire flood-dragon clan numbered a little over five thousand. Fewer than two thousand were below the Overlord realm—sending them out would be suicide. Of the remaining three thousand at the Unity realm, Ye Liuyun and his two avatars had personally cut down more than two hundred, and the fire-wagons had obliterated another thirteen hundred. Barely half their battle-worthy adults were left.

They charged in massed waves, hoping to exhaust the humans’ true essence, but the wagons’ salvoes kept turning those charges into ash, and the three humans showed no sign of running dry. Individual experts sent to slip through were quietly erased by Ye Liuyun before they even understood what happened. Lower-level stragglers that did breach the fire-wagon line were incinerated by Golden-Crow holy flame or sliced apart by saber intent without costing him a noticeable drop of energy.

Ye Liuyun and his two avatars took turns wielding temporal power—use a sliver, recover a sliver—so their net expenditure was almost nil. Their profound yuan had fallen past the halfway mark, but the Cycle Cauldron kept siphoning spent yuan into storage stones even as they fought. Meanwhile their soul force drank in the spoils of battle, their bloodlines and Golden-Crow flame tempering with every kill. His flame had already grown strong enough to face a cultivator of the same realm on its own.