All the other devil crystals looted from the Demon-Jiao clan, Ye Liuyun handed straight to the demon beasts.

Sea-beast cores and meat? The monsters helped themselves.

Inside the merfolk chieftain’s Interspatial Ring he found a Soul-Anchoring Orb—something that could pin an opponent’s soul in place and leave the victim paralyzed. The chief had been blown apart by a fire-chariot before he could even use it.

“Now that’s a handy little treasure.”

Ye Liuyun tossed the orb to Little Blue-Ice; her combat strength was still on the low side, so she could use it when things got dicey. He himself refused to rely on such toys—lean on artifacts too much and you forget to sharpen your own edge.

In the merfolk treasury there was also a blue battle-armor, displayed in the most conspicuous spot—clearly another prized relic. The water-element power inside it felt almost overflowing, so Ye Liuyun gave it to Dragon Girl. She slipped it on, stepped outside into the sea, and found the suit doubled her fighting power underwater—at least a full minor-realm boost.

She didn’t bother testing its defense; it had to be better than any ordinary plate for ocean combat. Better yet, when she shifted into her true dragon form the armor morphed with her, sheathing her entire scaly body.

“It’s called the Azure-Sea Battle-Armor—perfect for me down here!” She was beaming.

Ye Liuyun nodded. “Suits you—and looks good.”

The only other real standout was a massive slab of under-sea king-steel taken from the Black-Shark clan—ideal for body-tempering.白虎 had already absorbed plenty of metal essence, so Ye Liuyun handed the slab to Black-Tiger to shore up his defenses.

Black-Tiger’s overall combat level was still a bit low; reinforcing his physique would push both his attack and defense up a notch.

Pools of poison origin went to anyone who hadn’t yet cultivated the Myriad Poison Canon; thunder-attribute sea cores all went to Thunder-Growl.

Everything else was merely plentiful—mountains of ordinary sea-beast cores, distributed among the monsters. This haul was tailor-made for demon beasts to power-level.

Ye Liuyun himself ducked into his clone’s inner world to refine the devil-qi bead. The energy inside was almost perfect for him: pure devil aura that could flip straight into Buddha-Devil force, and primordial energy ideal for condensing his玄元—no need even to cycle it through the Exchange-Yuan Cauldron.

Absorbing every last trace took him twenty-odd days, pushing his cultivation to late Second Layer of Unity One.

Seeing the other beasts still deep in meditation, he didn’t rush off. He called back Dragon Girl, Nine-Head Devil Dragon and Vespera on perimeter duty and sent Tang Xinyao’s squad out to stand watch instead.

He checked in with Leng Qingxiao and Leng Qingyao: the Star-Bandit main force hadn’t reached the treasury yet, but the expedition teams were already half wiped out.

“They’ve been slogging through the seabed arrays—should be close now,” Leng Qingxiao reckoned.

Leng Qingyao added that news of the Demon-Jiao wipe-out had spread; every cultivator in the Desolate Sea was hunting them, certain they were sitting on several clans’ hoards.

“They even know a blue whale is tagging along,” she said.

Ye Liuyun frowned. “How did human cultivators hear about our fight so fast?”

The siblings could only guess someone had witnessed the clash.

Realizing trouble was coming either way, Ye Liuyun told Dragon Girl to release the whale. The big fish refused to leave—tagging along had scored it easy food and resources, far simpler than hunting alone. Dragon Girl couldn’t budge it.

“Fine,” Ye Liuyun shrugged. “Tell it to dive deeper and shadow us in the abyss—just stay out of sight.”

He knew storms lay ahead; even disguised, the local powerhouses wouldn’t let them pass. He had to squeeze every second to grow stronger while they were still unnoticed. Tang Xinyao and the others were pulled back as well—everyone was ordered to push their realms as far as they could.They hadn’t seen much combat lately, so everyone was focused on condensing their Mystic Essence.

Devil Vine had already pushed into late seventh-stage Unity; another small step and it would break through to eighth. Ye Liuyun checked the remaining stockpile, decided it was plenty, and simply told the vine to ask Lan Xin for more if it ran short.

He himself settled beside the space-attribute boulder to sharpen his spatial power. His cultivation stage had just risen; further breakthroughs would need time spent purifying Mystic Essence. Honing spatial strength, however, was another way to grow stronger.

The boulder’s spatial intent couldn’t pour raw power straight into him, yet while he cultivated beside it the surrounding fabric of space felt transparent, almost diagrammed. The same sensation he’d had when swallowing those pills returned: layered barriers of space flickered into sight. He wandered that invisible labyrinth, tracing every membrane, every fold.

The longer he sat, the wider the map of space he could perceive.

He’d always known his spatial ability was mostly support—never a truly dominant force—and it had frustrated him. In the life-or-death clashes they’d been fighting, gambling on an unpolished trick was suicide.

So he alternated: meditate, then stand and drill; inch by inch, the power grew.

Meanwhile every human cultivator in the Desolate Sea scoured the waters for Ye Liuyun’s group. But the team was tucked inside a pocket world, and the blue whale had sunk into the abyss to digest its feast, so rumor began to whisper they had already fled.

The sea beasts, in contrast, kept their heads down. The ocean clans knew how vicious Ye Liuyun could be; none dared poke that hornet’s nest. Any creature that spotted the whale simply veered away.

Only after a long stretch of secluded training did Ye Liuyun step back into the outside world. With his clone’s accelerated time flow, what felt like months inside had been mere days out here.

Dragon Girl surfaced too, steering the whale through the trenches, keeping it hidden.

Ye Liuyun released Tang Xinyao’s nine armored guards to temper themselves in the wild. Black Tiger and Phantom Hand shifted to human form and flanked him—one wielding white light, the other black—ready to neutralize any sudden threat.