Villain: Manipulating the Heroines into hating the Protagonist

The sky above Black-Scale Strait hung low and bruised, choked with drifting banks of crimson mist and freezing salt spray. Eight hundred miles east of Coral Cloud Island, the narrow oceanic passage had once served as the richest spiritual crossroads in the eastern sea sector, fed by three secondary branches of the Fourth-Grade Spiritual Vein originating from the Dragon-Spine Trench.

Now, seven months after Wang Jian’s six Abyssal Star-Iron Siphon Stakes had begun diverting seventy percent of the trench’s root essence westward toward Abyssal Pearl City, the waters of Black-Scale Strait had grown barren and thin.

Beneath the churning gray waves, the once-luminous coral forests had bleached into brittle white bone. The ambient Spiritual Energy hovering above the strait had thinned by nearly half, starving the protective mountain arrays of the surrounding island outposts and reaching all the way down into the deep-earth longevity tombs where the supreme ancestors of both human superpowers slumbered.

At high noon on the fourteenth day of the first month, the surface of Black-Scale Strait split apart from east to west.

From the eastern horizon sailed fifty-six armored warships of the Myriad Ocean Palace, arranged in three crescent formations around a colossal, nine-masted imperial flagship forged from silver spirit-wood. Hovering three hundred feet above the flagship’s mainmast was a gleaming bronze war-carriage drawn by nine Grade 6 Flood-Serpents: the Nine-Serpent Tidal Chariot.

Standing atop the bronze chariot was an ancient man with waist-length white hair and eyebrows that drooped past his cheekbones. He wore loose robes of pale blue dragon-silk, yet his frame looked withered like dry driftwood, his skin spotted with the dark marks of a cultivator who had lived through eleven hundred winters and stood within a century of his twelve-hundred-year lifespan limit.

He was Heavenly Tide True Monarch, a Mid-Stage Nascent Soul Supreme Elder of the Myriad Ocean Palace who had spent the last four hundred years sealed inside a Ten-Thousand-Year Spirit-Ice coffin to slow the decay of his aging blood.

Two leagues across the turbulent water to the west, the sky darkened into a curtain of rotting bone-ash.

Forty-eight monstrous bone-dreadnoughts of the Holy Nether Sea Organization advanced in a jagged phalanx. At their center floated a three-hundred-foot fortress carved from the bleached spine and ribcage of a prehistoric Grade 8 sea leviathan. Seated upon a throne of fused human skulls atop the bone fortress was a hunched, skeletal figure draped in a tattered scarlet cloak. Two green ghost-fires burned inside his sunken eye sockets, and a three-foot tall pagoda made of seven polished golden skulls—his Life-Bound Magic Treasure, the Seven-Skulls Blood Pagoda—revolved slowly above his crown.

He was Blood-Bone True Monarch, a Mid-Stage Nascent Soul ancestor of the Holy Nether Sea Organization who had been forced to claw his way out of his deep-earth blood-jade coffin when the eastern spiritual veins dried up.

”Blood-Bone, you rotting old corpse!” Heavenly Tide True Monarch’s voice rolled across the two-league gap, each word carrying the crushing environmental weight of the Mid-Stage Nascent Soul Realm, flattening the thirty-foot ocean waves into a sheet of glass. ”For four centuries, our two factions respected the unspoken treaty over the eastern earth veins so our longevity tombs could draw clean essence! Now seventy percent of the Dragon-Spine Trench vein has vanished into thin air, and the ambient Spiritual Energy in my ice vault has dropped below the threshold needed to suppress my five-decay meridian rot! Hand over the stolen Dragon-Vein Spirit Pearl and lift your siphon arrays before This Seat grinds your remaining Spirit Bones into ballast!”

Across the flattened water, the green ghost-fires in Blood-Bone True Monarch’s eye sockets flared two feet outward, releasing a piercing shriek that made hundreds of Qi Condensation and Foundation Establishment deckhands aboard the righteous ships clutch their bleeding ears.

”Save your hypocritical theater for your ignorant disciples, Heavenly Tide!” Blood-Bone True Monarch rasped, his voice sounding like rusted iron blades scraping across a tombstone. ”When my blood-jade coffin ran dry last month, two of my marrow-preserving lamps went out, costing This Old Man thirty years of hard-saved vitality! Your Azure Wave Sword Sect vanguard was the last force standing in front of the Primal Dragon Grotto! You had that hired butcher ’Han Feng’ break the bronze dragon-lock, slipped the Dragon-Vein Spirit Pearl into your palace vaults while framing the rogue with a hundred-thousand-stone bounty, and now you dare bark at my gates?!”

”Foolishness!” Heavenly Tide True Monarch’s white eyebrows bristled with genuine, volcanic rage. ”A Mid-Stage Core Formation stray dog could never sever the root flow of a Fourth-Grade Spiritual Vein without triggering a tectonic collapse! Only the parasitic blood-siphon arts of your Holy Nether Sea Organization could drain a major vein across three hundred miles of seabed! Since you refuse to spit out what you swallowed, This Seat will pry open your skull and search your Nascent Soul myself!”

Neither ancient monster had any reason to doubt his own deduction. In the entire Myriad Reefs Sea Region, only the Myriad Ocean Palace and the Holy Nether Sea Organization possessed the formation masters and Nascent Soul heritage required to divert a Fourth-Grade Spiritual Vein. The notion that a third, unknown human faction possessed multiple Nascent Soul Grandmasters and six Abyssal Star-Iron Siphon Stakes never even crossed their minds.

”All ships, raise the Great Azure Tidal Barrier! Crush their vanguard!” Heavenly Tide True Monarch roared, raising his withered right hand.

”Unleash the Ten-Thousand Corpse Blood Sea! Leave not a single righteous plank floating!” Blood-Bone True Monarch screeched in reply.

BOOOOOOM!

Before the hundred warships below could even fire their deck cannons, the two Mid-Stage Nascent Soul ancestors moved via instantaneous spatial shifting, appearing three hundred yards apart in the center of the sky above Black-Scale Strait!

Heavenly Tide True Monarch flicked his wide blue sleeve. A square bronze seal the size of a millstone—the Ancient Treasure Vast-Sea Crushing Seal—shot into the air, drinking in a massive torrent of Liquid True Essence and Nascent Soul power until it expanded into a hundred-foot-wide bronze mountain stamped with ancient water glyphs.

With a downward push of Heavenly Tide True Monarch’s palm, the hundred-foot bronze mountain plummeted toward Blood-Bone True Monarch’s head, dragging down such terrifying atmospheric weight that the ocean water directly beneath them depressed into a fifty-foot-deep bowl!

Blood-Bone True Monarch did not retreat an inch. He bit his withered black tongue and spat a mouthful of dark golden corpse-blood onto his floating Seven-Skulls Blood Pagoda.

”Seven-Skulls Devouring Heaven: Bone-Demon Manifestation!”

The seven golden skulls of the pagoda spun rapidly, spitting out seven rivers of thick, tar-like black fire that twisted together above Blood-Bone True Monarch’s head to form a hundred-and-twenty-foot-tall four-armed skeleton giant. Bracing its four bony feet in mid-air, the skeleton giant thrust all four clawed hands upward to catch the falling bottom of the Vast-Sea Crushing Seal!

KRA-CLANG-BOOOOOOM!

The collision of the Ancient Treasure and the Mid-Stage Nascent Soul Life-Bound Magic Treasure tore a visible black crack across the sky for half a breath.

A ring-shaped shockwave of compressed air and chaotic water-fire energy blasted outward in all directions at terrifying speed. Three leagues away, on the deck of a third-tier Azure Wave Sword Sect cruiser, Qiu Yun dropped behind the ironwood bulwark and poured every drop of her Core Formation essence into her defensive jade pendant as the shockwave washed over the fleet, snapping the foremast of the cruiser beside her like a dry twig.

Across the strait, aboard the flagship of Blood Shark Hall, Su Ning stood beside the silent Daoist Xue Li (the Yin Severing True Monarch), her purple silk sleeves whipping wildly as she quietly recorded the exact spiritual frequencies of Blood-Bone True Monarch’s Seven-Skulls Blood Pagoda into a concealed crystal bead hidden inside her palm.

Up in the sky, the two ancient monsters did not pause after the first clash.

Seeing two of his skeleton giant’s arms crack under the crushing physical weight of the Vast-Sea Crushing Seal, Blood-Bone True Monarch flashed three hundred feet to the left through a spatial fold. He swung his skeletal right arm in a horizontal slash, firing twelve crescent blades of marrow-corroding gray light straight toward Heavenly Tide True Monarch’s exposed ribs.

Heavenly Tide True Monarch tapped his foot against the air. Nine water-dragons detached from his bronze chariot behind him, coiling around his frail body in a spiraling water wall.

SHING! SHING! SHING!

Seven of the twelve gray bone-blades shattered against the spinning water-dragons, turning the water into foul black steam, while the remaining five blades sheared through the inner scales and sliced three shallow cuts across Heavenly Tide True Monarch’s blue silk sleeve.

With his aging eyes blazing, Heavenly Tide True Monarch formed a one-handed sword seal. The hundred-foot Vast-Sea Crushing Seal tilted sideways in mid-air, using its massive physical momentum to slam laterally into the chest of the four-armed skeleton giant, smashing the construct backward into Blood-Bone True Monarch’s own chest and sending the demonic ancestor tumbling five hundred yards through the clouds with a spray of dark blood!

Below the warring ancestors, the fifty-six righteous warships and forty-eight demonic bone-dreadnoughts crashed together across a ten-mile front.

For the next eight weeks, Black-Scale Strait turned into a boiling, inescapable meat-grinder. Every day from dawn until midnight, flying swords, bone-spears, and formation artillery rained across the water. Eighteen righteous sword-cruisers and sixteen demonic bone-dreadnoughts had their hulls stove in and sank to the bottom of the strait; eight Core Formation elders had their Golden Cores shattered in mid-air; and even the two Mid-Stage Nascent Soul ancestors suffered deep internal injuries, neither side able to break the stalemate as their weapon stockpiles, healing pills, and hull-armor plates burned away at a ruinous pace.

While the eastern waters boiled with blood and shattered timber, the sun-drenched streets and sheltered harbors of Abyssal Pearl City two thousand miles to the west bustled with unprecedented prosperity.

Protected by the Grade-4 municipal barrier and backed by the reputation of its hidden Nascent Soul guardians, Abyssal Pearl City had become the sole manufacturing and commercial heart of the sea domain. Day and night, heavy transport barges loaded with raw ores docked at the outer wharves, while lines of black smoke rose from the forty municipal smelting foundries operating at the base of Azure Peak.

In the second week of the second month, two fast courier vessels bearing diplomatic truce pennants arrived at Abyssal Pearl City on the very same morning—one docking at the northern pier under the blue crest of the Myriad Ocean Palace, and the other docking at the southern pier under the crimson banner of the Holy Nether Sea Organization.

Inside the towering, seven-story Golden-Scale Auction House in the center of the city, Shangguan Wan’er and Lin Wanyue arranged a reception that showcased their ruthless commercial synergy.

Rather than seating the two envoys in the same hall where they would draw blades, Shangguan Wan’er placed Daoist Cang Lan—a Late-Stage Core Formation quartermaster sent by Heavenly Tide True Monarch—inside the third-floor Jade Cloud Suite, while placing Daoist Xue Gu—a Late-Stage Core Formation logistics elder sent by Blood-Bone True Monarch—inside the fourth-floor Crimson Coral Suite directly above him.

Inside the third-floor Jade Cloud Suite, Daoist Cang Lan paced impatiently across the blue carpet, his silk robes stained with dried salt and soot from the front lines at Black-Scale Strait.

The carved ironwood doors opened, and Shangguan Wan’er glided into the chamber alongside City Lord Lin Wanyue.

Because they were conducting public business before a foreign male envoy, both women wore formal, dignified attire that projected untouchable authority while hinting at their breathtaking mature beauty. Shangguan Wan’er wore a high-collared, floor-length gown of heavy dark-gold brocade embroidered with golden phoenixes, the stiff fabric struggling to contain the lush, heavy swell of her breasts and the wide, swaying curve of her hips. Beside her, Lin Wanyue wore her official deep-blue City Lord robes and a crown of sapphire hairpins, her expression as cool and regal as an empress.

”Executive Shangguan, City Lord Lin!” Daoist Cang Lan stopped pacing and cupped his fists in a hurried salute. ”I have no time for pleasantries. Heavenly Tide True Monarch’s fleet at Black-Scale Strait requires an immediate shipment of six hundred plates of Nine-Folded Profound Iron hull armor, forty thousand Rank 2 Water-Ward Talismans, and two hundred bottles of High-Grade Rank 3 Blood-Replenishing Pills. Here is a bank draft for four hundred thousand Mid-Grade Spirit Stones—the standard pre-war rate!”

Shangguan Wan’er sat down gracefully behind the polished blackwood table, not even glancing at the bank draft Daoist Cang Lan slid toward her. Instead, she lifted a porcelain teacup to her glossy red lips, blew gently on the floating leaves, and took a slow sip.

”Daoist Cang Lan,” Shangguan Wan’er said, her voice smooth and pleasant as she set the cup down. ”Your bank draft is written in Mid-Grade Spirit Stones, and your pricing is eight months out of date. As of the first day of this month, the Golden-Tide Consortium and the Abyssal Pearl municipal foundries have raised the unit price of naval armor plates and Rank 3 war pills by two hundred percent.”

Daoist Cang Lan’s face darkened, his hand slapping the surface of the blackwood table. ”Triple the pre-war price?! Executive Shangguan, the Myriad Ocean Palace is fighting to purge demonic heretics from the eastern sea! Are you trying to extort Heavenly Tide True Monarch during a time of war?!”

”Extortion is an ugly word, Daoist Cang Lan,” Lin Wanyue spoke up from the side chair, her cool sapphire eyes locking onto the envoy while she released a fraction of her Peak Late-Stage Core Formation pressure—thickened by the Rank 4 Yin-Marrow Tempering Pill she had digested two months prior.

Feeling that Lin Wanyue’s cultivation base was half a step deeper than his own, Daoist Cang Lan stiffened in surprise, swallowing his bluster.

”The war at Black-Scale Strait has severed four major mining routes,” Shangguan Wan’er continued calmly, resting her chin lightly on her interlaced fingers as her heavy breasts pressed against the edge of the table. ”Furthermore, directly above your head in our fourth-floor suite sits Daoist Xue Gu, the personal quartermaster of Blood-Bone True Monarch. Ten minutes ago, he offered to purchase our entire two-month output of Nine-Folded Profound Iron hull plates and Rank 3 healing elixirs at triple the standard price.”

Daoist Cang Lan’s breath caught in his throat, his eyes darting up toward the ceiling rafters. ”Xue Gu is here?! You dare sell military armor to the Holy Nether Sea Organization?!”

”Abyssal Pearl City is a recognized neutral port under the thirty-year imperial decree signed by your own Palace Inspector Mo Xuan,” Lin Wanyue reminded him smoothly. ”We sell to whoever pays our listed price.”

”And as of this morning,” Shangguan Wan’er added, sliding a fresh parchment scroll across the table, ”we no longer accept Mid-Grade Spirit Stones for bulk military contracts. If the Myriad Ocean Palace wishes to secure half of our foundry output before Daoist Xue Gu buys the entire warehouse, the price is fifteen flawless Top-Grade Spirit Stones, five intact Grade 7 Demon Beast hides from your palace treasury, and a verified copy of the Myriad Ocean Palace’s secret Nine-Furnace Ancient Forging Scroll.”

”Fifteen Top-Grade Spirit Stones and the Nine-Furnace Ancient Forging Scroll?!” Daoist Cang Lan stared at her as if she had lost her mind. ”Top-Grade Spirit Stones are strategic sect reserves used to power teleportation gates! I cannot hand those over!”

”Then I wish Heavenly Tide True Monarch the best of luck blocking bone-cannons with bare wooden hulls next month,” Shangguan Wan’er said, rising from her chair as if to walk upstairs to the fourth floor. ”I shall inform Daoist Xue Gu that the entire six hundred plates of Nine-Folded Profound Iron are his.”

”Wait!” Daoist Cang Lan lunged forward a step, cold sweat breaking out across his forehead. If he returned to Black-Scale Strait empty-handed while Blood-Bone True Monarch’s fleet came back plated in fresh Nine-Folded Profound Iron, Heavenly Tide True Monarch would flay him alive and use his soul to light a deck lantern.

Clenching his jaw until his teeth ground together, Daoist Cang Lan reached inside his inner robe and pulled out a heavy lead-lined jade box alongside a bronze scroll tube.

”You drive a blade harder than a blood-cultivator, Executive Shangguan,” Daoist Cang Lan hissed, slamming the box and scroll tube onto the table. ”Fifteen Top-Grade Spirit Stones, five Grade 7 Iron-Back Sea Turtle hides, and the Nine-Furnace Ancient Forging Scroll! Have the three hundred hull plates and one hundred bottles of Rank 3 pills loaded onto my barges before sundown!”

”A pleasure doing business with the Myriad Ocean Palace,” Shangguan Wan’er replied with a radiant, commercial smile.

The moment she and Lin Wanyue stepped out of the third-floor suite with the jade box in hand, the two women exchanged an amused, knowing glance in the quiet hallway before ascending the stairs to the fourth-floor Crimson Coral Suite—where they used the exact same tactic in reverse on Daoist Xue Gu, forcing the terrified demonic quartermaster to hand over another fifteen Top-Grade Spirit Stones, a pair of six-thousand-year Blood-Marrow Corals, and three chests of tribute treasures looted from sunken imperial galleons to claim the remaining half of the inventory!

By the middle of the third month, the forty deep-water foundries situated along the western dry docks of Abyssal Pearl City were roaring day and night like forty iron dragons.

Inside the largest central foundry hall—a cavernous stone structure built over an artificial channel of boiling magma drawn up from the island’s crust—two hundred bare-chested Foundation Establishment blacksmiths worked in synchronized shifts, wielding heavy spirit-hammers to shape eight-foot-long plates of Nine-Folded Profound Iron and Red Sea Gold alloy for the repeat orders flooding in from Black-Scale Strait.

Standing upon the elevated stone catwalk overlooking the smelting floor were Wang Jian and his virtuous wife, Yue Lingshan.

Yue Lingshan wore her immaculate white Thousand-Year Spirit-Silk robes, holding an array-measuring jade ruler in her hand as she inspected a finished hull plate lifted up to the catwalk by a magnetic crane array.

”The heat-dissipation runes along the outer edge are sixty percent denser than standard palace designs, Husband,” Yue Lingshan remarked, her dark eyes shining with professional admiration as she traced the glowing silver grooves carved into the black metal. ”Using the dual-quench method from the Nine-Furnace Ancient Forging Scroll that Sister Wan’er acquired last month has increased the alloy’s toughness by a full tier. Any cruiser plated with these shields can withstand a direct barrage from a Late-Stage Core Formation artillery battery.”

Wang Jian stood beside her in his dark azure advisor robes, resting his warm hand affectionately on the small of her back.

”Look closer at the seventh elemental node near the lower left mounting bracket, Lingshan,” Wang Jian said softly, lowering his voice inside a private two-person sound barrier so none of the blacksmiths below could hear.

Yue Lingshan leaned over the black metal plate, channeling a thread of her Mid-Stage Core Formation mental awareness into the seventh runic intersection. After three breaths, she blinked in surprise.

”Wait... the seventh node has a minute spiral inversion buried three inches inside the iron grain,” Yue Lingshan whispered, looking up at Wang Jian with wide eyes. ”It doesn’t weaken the plate against normal elemental spells or physical impacts at all—in fact, it helps conduct water-qi faster. Have the smiths made a carving error?”

”It is not an error,” Wang Jian explained calmly, looking out over the hundreds of stacked hull plates waiting to be shipped to both the Myriad Ocean Palace and the Holy Nether Sea Organization. ”I altered the master stencil in the Nine-Furnace Ancient Forging Scroll before handing it to the chief blacksmiths. Against ordinary attacks, these plates are superior to anything in the sea domain. However, if that seventh spiral node is struck by the specific gravitational vibration of my Stellar Demonic Qi or your Nine-Palaces Subjugation array frequency, the internal stress will reverse instantly and shatter the entire hull plate like dry clay.”

Yue Lingshan’s rosy lips parted in amazement as she grasped the far-reaching ruthlessness of her husband’s design.

”Over the past six weeks, both Heavenly Tide True Monarch and Blood-Bone True Monarch have replaced nearly half the damaged armor on their main warships with our foundry plates,” Yue Lingshan breathed, her heart swelling with awe for the brilliant man standing beside her. ”That means the more armor they buy from us to fight each other, the more of their fleets are wearing collars whose keys sit in your hand!”

”A merchant sells weapons for gold; a sovereign sells weapons to choose when his buyers die,” Wang Jian said, turning to brush a stray lock of hair from her warm cheek. ”How are the preparations for your southern reef survey?”

”The formation cutter is stocked and waiting at the outer pier,” Yue Lingshan said, leaning her cheek tenderly into his palm. ”Because the spiritual drought in the east is causing deep-sea currents to shift along our southern border, I need to take twenty array disciples down the forty-mile outer reef chain to recalibrate our early-warning water beacons. It will take roughly four weeks to check all seventy-two beacons and return.”

Wang Jian pulled her into a warm, lingering embrace on the quiet catwalk, kissing her soft lips gently. ”Take four of the Profound Iron Dao Soldiers in the hold of your cutter, and contact me immediately through the Zenith-Lotus talisman if you spot any stray Demon Beast packs.”

”I will, Husband. I’ll be back before the end of the fourth month,” Yue Lingshan promised happily.

She gave him one last bright, loving smile before descending the stone stairs to board her formation cutter, sailing out toward the sunlit outer reef chain with a heart full of devotion—utterly unaware that the moment her white sails vanished beyond the harbor breakwaters, the secret doors of the underground pleasure vault beneath the Golden-Scale Pavilion were already swinging open.

One hundred feet beneath the foundation of the Golden-Scale Auction House lay the newly constructed Golden-Lotus Treasure Vault.

Carved out of warm, rose-tinted deep-earth quartz and sealed behind three doors of solid Star-Core Iron, the vault served a dual purpose: it was the highest-security depository for the astronomical war profits flowing in from Black-Scale Strait, and it was Wang Jian’s most opulent secret playground inside the main city.

Along the curved quartz walls stood open chests overflowing with thousands of glowing High-Grade Spirit Stones, stacks of deep-sea gold ingots, and racks of captured Magic Treasures.

At the absolute center of the vault, however, Shangguan Wan’er had constructed a twenty-foot-wide circular bed framed in warm yellow Sun-Marrow Jade. Instead of ordinary wooden slats, the base of the bed was inlaid with three hundred smooth, flat High-Grade Spirit Stones and thirty flawless Top-Grade Spirit Stones arranged in a spirit-gathering lotus formation, topped with a thick, cloud-soft mattress of white swan-down and pink Thousand-Year Charm-Silk.

When Wang Jian walked through the inner Star-Core Iron doorway that evening, the warm quartz vault was bathed in a soft, golden-pink glow—and waiting for him atop and around the spirit-stone bed were six of his most intoxicating, voluptuous beauties: Shangguan Wan’er, Lin Wanyue, Shen Mengqi, Elder Bing Yun, and the inseparable mother-and-daughter pair, Hua Yimei and Hua Ling’er.

”Welcome to the Golden-Lotus Vault, Master,” Shangguan Wan’er purred, rising onto her knees at the edge of the wide bed.

In the third-floor suite with Daoist Xue Gu earlier that week, one of the three chests of imperial tribute looted from a sunken Myriad Ocean Palace pleasure barge had contained a collection of priceless, forbidden court garments woven from Moonlight Chiffon and Siren-Scale Silk—fabrics that grew more transparent the warmer the wearer’s skin became. Wang Jian had ordered all six women to wear those exact tribute garments tonight.

Shangguan Wan’er, the ruthless Commercial Queen who had just extorted two Mid-Stage Nascent Soul factions without blinking, wore a golden Siren-Scale Silk halter dress with the entire midsection cut away and the front slit open to her navel. Her massive, creamy breasts strained against two narrow bands of golden scales that left the outer swells and the upper halves of her dark-rose areolas exposed, while around her neck hung a heavy necklace of ten glowing pearls that rested deep inside the sweaty valley of her cleavage. Beneath her wide, curvy hips, she wore no undergarments at all—only high-heeled gold ankle-straps and a delicate gold chain linking a jade bead nestled directly against her glistening clitoris to her waist.

Right beside her knelt City Lord Lin Wanyue. Stripped of her stern municipal robes, the mature widow wore a royal-blue Moonlight Chiffon harem outfit consisting of sheer, side-slit harem trousers that left her round, fleshy buttocks completely bare in the back, and a tight, under-bust blue satin corset that lifted her colossal, heavy breasts completely out in the open, her stiff pink nipples brushed with sweet honey-dew oil so they gleamed like polished rubies.

On the left side of the bed lounged Shen Mengqi and Elder Bing Yun.

Shen Mengqi wore a scandalously cut white-and-black Yin-Yang Court Gown—one half covering her left leg in tight black silk, the other half completely missing so her long, porcelain-white right thigh and curvy hip were bare all the way up to her waist, while the top was a sheer white lace wrap that clung wetly to her full, frost-scented breasts. Beside her, the silver-haired High Elder Bing Yun wore an icy-violet sheer body-stocking with three wide circular cutouts over her two massive breasts and her weeping lower mound, her mature face flushed with a mixture of lingering elder dignity and shameless carnal hunger.

And at the foot of the jade bed knelt Hua Yimei and Hua Ling’er. The mother and daughter wore matching crimson Siren-Scale Silk wrap-skirts slung low on their wide, juicy hips and sheer red lace brassieres with the center cups cut out—so their four heavy, bouncing breasts and glinting gold nipple rings jutted straight through the lace frames like ripe peaches offered on a platter.

”Wan’er and Wanyue collected thirty Top-Grade Spirit Stones from those two old monsters at Black-Scale Strait this month,” Wang Jian said, unfastening his dark azure advisor robes and letting them slide off his broad, muscular shoulders onto the quartz floor. His thick, scorching manhood—backed by the vast vitality of his Initial Stage Nascent Soul Realm—sprang forward against his stomach, already rock-hard and radiating waves of aggressive Yang heat. ”Show me how you arranged the bed.”

”Every single Top-Grade Spirit Stone from Heavenly Tide True Monarch and Blood-Bone True Monarch is inlaid directly beneath this silk mattress, Master,” Shangguan Wan’er breathed, crawling forward on her hands and knees so her massive, pearl-draped breasts swung heavily beneath her chest. Reaching the edge of the bed, she pressed her soft lips against the swollen purple head of Wang Jian’s shaft, kissing it worshipfully before looking up at him with glazed pale-blue eyes. ”While those two ancient ancestors bleed in the cold sea over a dried-up trench, Master gets to use their precious strategic sect reserves as a mattress to breed us on!”

”Look how wet Wan’er gets just talking about Spirit Stones and schemes,” City Lord Lin Wanyue laughed huskily, crawling up beside the Commercial Queen and pressing her huge, honey-oiled breasts flat against the sides of Wang Jian’s muscular thighs. ”Master, in front of those two envoys last week, I had to sit on that cold chair for three hours pretending to be a pure, untouchable widow while my core was aching for your rod! Please, taste the honey on my breasts and ruin this City Lord first!”

”Wait a moment, Sister Wanyue!” Hua Ling’er protested playfully from the foot of the bed, pushing her curvy hips against her mother Hua Yimei’s side as both women crawled forward to wrap their warm arms around Wang Jian’s legs. ”Mother and I spent the whole week practicing a new dual-throat technique while you and Sister Wan’er were counting rocks! Mother, tell Master!”

Hua Yimei smiled seductively, her mature eyes heavy with lust as she leaned down and ran her hot, wet tongue along the thick underside of Wang Jian’s shaft from base to tip, right while her daughter Hua Ling’er sucked eagerly on the pulsing crown.

”It’s true, Master,” Hua Yimei purred against his feverish skin, her gold nipple rings clinking softly against her daughter’s shoulder as their four massive breasts squished together around his hips. ”Ling’er and I can take your entire Nascent Soul rod down our throats in turns without letting a single drop of Yang qi escape. Let the mother and daughter warm your blade before you split open the City Lord and the Guild Executive!”

Wang Jian let out a low, rumbling laugh of pure satisfaction. Reaching down with both large, calloused hands, he grabbed a fistful of Hua Yimei’s hair in his left hand and Shangguan Wan’er’s hair in his right, while stepping up onto the first step of the Sun-Marrow Jade bed.

”Why take turns when there are six mouths and twelve breasts right in front of me?” Wang Jian growled, his dark eyes blazing with dominance. ”Wanyue, Wan’er—get on your backs in the center of the Top-Grade Spirit Stone formation, hips pressed together. Yimei, Ling’er—stay right below them and keep your tongues working whenever I pull out. Mengqi, Bing Yun—bring your chests up to my mouth!”

”Yes, Master!” all six women cried out in breathless, eager unison.

Wang Jian climbed onto the wide, glowing mattress—where the thirty Top-Grade Spirit Stones inlaid beneath the silk radiated a warm, dense cloud of pure Spiritual Energy that made every nerve ending on their bare skin tingle with heightened sensitivity.

City Lord Lin Wanyue and Commercial Queen Shangguan Wan’er lay back side by side at the center of the mattress, hooking their hands behind their knees to spread their thick, luscious thighs wide open. Side by side, their two soaking wet cores glistened pink and swollen in the golden light—the dignified public ruler of Abyssal Pearl City and its supreme financial sovereign offering their bodies like competitive courtesans.

Wang Jian knelt between their spread legs. He reached out with both hands, roughly seizing Lin Wanyue’s honey-slicked right breast and Shangguan Wan’er’s pearl-draped left breast, kneading and squeezing the massive, yielding globes with bruising force before lining his thick, scorching shaft up with Lin Wanyue’s dripping entrance and slamming his hips straight forward to the hilt!

”AAAAAH! MASTER!” Lin Wanyue arched her spine off the silk mattress, her sapphire hairpins scattering across the pillows as Wang Jian’s massive length stretched her velvety inner walls wide open, hitting her deepest spot on the very first stroke.

Wang Jian did not give her a single breath to adjust. Grabbing Lin Wanyue’s wide, juicy hip with one hand and Shangguan Wan’er’s curvy thigh with the other, he hammered into the City Lord with twenty brutal, rapid-fire thrusts that made her huge breasts bounce wildly and sent loud, wet slap-slap-slap echoes ringing off the chests of gold and Spirit Stones around the vault!

Then, right as Lin Wanyue screamed and her inner walls began to spasm in her first climax, Wang Jian wrenched his glistening shaft out of her soaking passage—where Hua Yimei and Hua Ling’er immediately ducked their heads in from the side to lick Lin Wanyue’s juices off his pulsing rod for three seconds—before Wang Jian shifted his knees six inches to the right and plunged straight to the hilt inside Shangguan Wan’er’s tight, scorching core!

”HNNNGH—! YES! RIGHT THERE!” Shangguan Wan’er threw her head back, her golden Siren-Scale Silk dress tearing at the waist strap as Wang Jian pounded her down into the Top-Grade Spirit Stone bed with savage, relentless momentum. Every heavy impact of his pelvis drove the golden pearl necklace between her breasts jumping against her chin, turning the calculating merchant queen into a sobbing, trembling mess who wrapped her long legs tightly around his waist to keep him from switching back to Lin Wanyue.

”Look at Sister Wan’er trying to lock her legs around Master’s waist so I don’t get another turn!” Lin Wanyue gasped shamelessly, rolling onto her side to press her heavy, honey-coated breasts against Shangguan Wan’er’s ribcage while her fingers reached down to rub Shangguan Wan’er’s jingling clitoral bead in time with Wang Jian’s brutal thrusts. ”Master, punish her greed! Pound her until she begs you to switch back to me!”

While his lower body acted as a tireless pile-driver alternating between the City Lord and the Commercial Queen, Wang Jian pulled Shen Mengqi and Elder Bing Yun close against his upper chest on either side.

Shen Mengqi—her Nine-Turn Profound Yin Scripture reacting fiercely to the dense Yang heat filling the vault—straddled Lin Wanyue’s upper shoulder so she could press her cool, porcelain-white breasts directly into Wang Jian’s mouth. Wang Jian bit down roughly on Shen Mengqi’s stiff pink nipple, sucking hard on the soft flesh while his right hand reached behind Elder Bing Yun’s silver head, forcing the dignified Ice Heart Palace High Elder into a deep, tongue-tangling kiss before sliding his other hand down through the circular cutout of Bing Yun’s violet body-stocking to aggressively finger her soaking wet core.

”Mmmph—! Master!” Elder Bing Yun moaned into his mouth, her mature, abundant body shivering uncontrollably as two of Wang Jian’s calloused fingers hooked inside her tight passage while he simultaneously pounded Shangguan Wan’er beneath him. ”This old servant can’t hold back anymore... my Yin essence is bursting! Please, let Mengqi and me ride your rod next!”

”You’ll all get filled until your stomachs bulge,” Wang Jian growled against Shen Mengqi’s heaving breast.

Pulling out of Shangguan Wan’er’s spasming core after pushing the merchant queen over the edge of a screaming climax, Wang Jian grabbed Hua Yimei and Hua Ling’er by their low-slung crimson wrap-skirts, hauling both mother and daughter onto the center of the mattress on their hands and knees right beside Shen Mengqi and Elder Bing Yun!

Line up four pairs of wide, curvy, upturned hips in a single row across the glowing Top-Grade Spirit Stone bed—Hua Yimei, her daughter Hua Ling’er, his enemy’s beloved Teacher Shen Mengqi, and the silver-haired High Elder Bing Yun—Wang Jian moved behind the row like an unstoppable demon sovereign.

For the next three weeks of the fourth month, while Yue Lingshan sailed along the distant southern reefs calibrating water beacons, Wang Jian spent every night inside the Golden-Lotus Treasure Vault.

He moved relentlessly down the line of upturned, juicy backsides—pounding Hua Yimei while slapping her daughter Hua Ling’er’s plump buttocks beside her, then plunging straight into Hua Ling’er’s tight core while the mother kissed her daughter’s flushed cheek and moaned encouragement, before moving on to ruthlessly breed Shen Mengqi and Elder Bing Yun until all six Peak and Late Core Formation beauties lay collapsed in a glistening, sweat-drenched tangle of heavy breasts and twitching thighs atop the fortune extorted from the warring superpowers.

On the twenty-sixth day of the fourth month, five days before Yue Lingshan’s formation cutter was scheduled to return from the southern reef chain, Wang Jian ascended from the subterranean vaults to the high war pavilion atop Azure Peak.

Dressed in fresh, black gold-trimmed robes with his hair neatly bound in a dark jade crown, Wang Jian stood before the basalt map table alongside his two Early-Stage Nascent Soul Grandmasters, Mu Lianhua and Su Binglan, while Chen Ying stood at the base of the steps holding two urgent, blood-sealed transmission cylinders that had just arrived through the deep-sea relay array.

”Both cylinders arrived within an hour of each other, Master,” Chen Ying reported, her demeanor crisp and lethal now that they were on duty. ”The first is from Qiu Yun and Su Ning at Black-Scale Strait. The second was triggered by our deepest abyssal pressure-buoy eighty miles south of the Dragon-Spine Trench.”

Wang Jian picked up the first cylinder and broke the wax seal, scanning the condensed spiritual script inside.

”Four full months of continuous slaughter at Black-Scale Strait,” Wang Jian read aloud, setting the slip on the basalt table for Mu Lianhua and Su Binglan to see. ”Over the past sixteen weeks, thirty-four armored warships have been sunk, twelve Core Formation elders have fallen, and more than six thousand low-to-mid-tier disciples from the Myriad Ocean Palace and the Holy Nether Sea Organization have had their bodies shredded and dumped into the strait. Heavenly Tide True Monarch and Blood-Bone True Monarch have both suffered heavy marrow injuries and have pulled their fleets back five leagues to apply the hull plates and Rank 3 pills they bought from Wan’er.”

”Six thousand cultivator corpses and thirty-four shipwrecks sinking into a single strait,” Mu Lianhua frowned, her alchemical instincts immediately recognizing the danger. ”The blood-miasma from Blood-Bone True Monarch’s spells doesn’t dissolve in seawater—it sinks straight to the bottom trenches and ferments into corpse-rot poison.”

”Which brings us to the second cylinder,” Wang Jian said, breaking the seal on the second bronze tube.

The moment Wang Jian infused a wisp of spiritual sense into the second jade slip, a low, terrifying acoustic recording echoed across the stone pavilion—the sound of a deep-sea tectonic roar occurring ten thousand feet beneath the ocean surface, accompanied by the frantic, high-pitched shrieks of hundreds of thousands of low-grade sea beasts fleeing northward in blind panic!

Su Binglan’s porcelain face turned solemn as she recognized the distinct, oppressive spiritual pulsation vibrating inside the recording.

”That is the ancestral horn of the Deep-Sea Kraken Court,” Su Binglan said softly, her ice-blue eyes locking onto the southern edge of the map. ”During my years as Palace Mistress of the Ice Heart Palace, our ancient records warned against disturbing the ten-thousand-foot abyssal spawning grounds south of Black-Scale Strait. Two sovereign Grade 8 Demon Beasts rule those lightless depths: Patriarch Shifting-Tide, a Peak Grade 8 Eight-Armed Abyssal Kraken whose strength matches a peak Mid-Stage Nascent Soul ancestor, and Matriarch Red-Scale, an Early Grade 8 Scarlet Flood-Serpent who has shed her beastly husk to take human form.”

”First we drained seventy percent of the Fourth-Grade Spiritual Vein feeding the eastern seabed, and then Heavenly Tide True Monarch and Blood-Bone True Monarch spent four months dumping thousands of tons of toxic blood-miasma and rotting flesh straight down into the Demon Beast spawning trenches,” Wang Jian said, a cold, calculating light gleaming in his dark eyes as he looked out over the steel-gray ocean horizon.

”The Deep-Sea Demon Beast Tribes will never tolerate having their ancestral veins starved and their spawning waters poisoned by human blood-spells,” Mu Lianhua realized. ”They are going to launch a Grand Beast Tide against the entire human sea domain!”

”Not just against the eastern strait,” Wang Jian said, tapping his finger on the glowing green dot of his Verdant Eternal Spring Essence beacon on the southern edge of the map—where Ye Fan was currently hiding inside the Sunken Bone Archipelago—before sliding his finger westward toward Abyssal Pearl City. ”When millions of deep-sea beasts rise from the ten-thousand-foot trenches, their noses are sharper than any human compass. While the main beast tide crushes the outer islands of the Myriad Ocean Palace and the Holy Nether Sea Organization, at least one Grade 8 Demon King is going to smell the dual Fourth-Grade Spiritual Veins pulsing beneath our islands.”

Wang Jian turned to Su Binglan, Mu Lianhua, and Chen Ying, his voice steady and absolute.

”Send word to Wan’er and Wanyue to close the outer commercial dry docks within three days, and recall Lingshan’s cutter from the southern reef chain immediately. The four-month harvest of gold is finished—now we prepare the deep-sea slaughter formations to welcome our Grade 8 Demon Beast guests.”