‘I can’t just leave them to die…’

Zhang Dong looked at the giant creature rising out from the depths. The people on the ship were clearly from a demonic clan or sect. They called the creature a leviathan and it was at about the power level of a middle stage nascent soul master.

Even though they were supposedly ‘evil’ cultivators, he also spotted a few people that weren’t that tainted. The people that lived in these lands were just a product of their environment, the strength they gained was mostly for survival. Some of the robed figures were also quite young, it was as if the elders had taken their disciples out for some training.

Then there was also another reason to help them which was to gain information. People from the mainland didn’t really know anything about the demonic island and the rules there. He wouldn’t be surprised if the demonic deeds of the people that lived there were over-exaggerated.

‘Not like the sects I’ve run into are really any better…’

He recalled people from the Dark Palm Sect that didn’t really act differently than a demonic cult. They used the lower clans as cannon fodder and milked them for resources. Perhaps there was a way to clear things out with these people that were forced to rely on demonic rituals and blood crystals.

Finally, he decided to take care of the leviathan, with the help of his gravitational Dao he was able to get rid of its immense weight. Hoisting it up into the air with the help of his spiritual energy was quite easy after that. Once it was out of the water he also noticed a rapid drop in the monster’s fighting capability. From the middle stage, it dropped to the lowest of the early stage.

‘Make sense that these things would be weaker when not underwater, didn’t expect such a rapid decline though.’

With how much stronger he was than the beast it was easy to just crush it with pure Qi. The sigh wasn’t pretty but he wanted to make his entrance as imposing as he could. The people on the boat were truly shocked but in reality, he wasn’t trying to impress that group, he was going for the strange beings that were hiding in the sea.

Even while he was crushing the leviathan in an imposing manner he was still paying attention to them. If his theory was correct then these mare people belonged to the northernmost invaders. One of the beings there was at around the strength levels of this leviathan but not really above it.

From what he could tell these sea creatures were uncommon around these parts. Someone from the ship had commented on them usually not appearing here. There was also one thing bothering him, why were the huge sea creatures not attacking them. There were two more monsters of around the same size next to the leader, perhaps it was this leader that ordered them to eat the ship with the demonic cultivators inside.

“Hm… so you have chosen … death!”

Zhang Dong disguised as an oppressive demonic cultivator called out toward the submerged people. The ones on the ship were quite confused and horrified as they could only see themselves as the recipients of those words. All of them almost instantly dropped to their knees as they tried to appease the scary demonic cultivator.

Yet suddenly two similar-looking sea creatures burst out from the murky waters below. Considering their body size being vastly over their intended target they produced giant waves that sent the damaged ship to the side.

Their target didn’t budge though, even though he found himself in the mouth of one of the monsters, it couldn’t fully bite down. He had surrounded himself with an energy shield that only caused the teeth of the monster to shater.

“Ew… have you ever tried using mouthwash, what is that putrid smell?”

The smell was horrifying and also filled with poison. Luckily it wasn’t that hard to cancel it out with the help of his shield. He released a burst of energy that made the large monster’s head explode. Normally the other one should have noticed the disparity in power and ran to protect its life. It took a lot of time to grow to this level, even beasts had a strong survival instinct.

“So, your masters want me dead, is that it? It won’t go the way you want it to…”

After the first monster was falling down into the water the other one attempted some kind of ranged attack. From its mouth, a torrent of green water flew his way. Instead of dodging it though, he pulled out a pitch-black longsword that he used to cleave it in half. Behind the ship with various people was in the line of fire, he still needed to ask them about the situation in the demonic lands so he couldn’t have them be melted by this corrosive concoction.

His sword energy traveled further and connected with the beast. It almost split the whole beast in half but it managed to dive back under the water which caused the attack to weaken. It was an interesting sight to behold as this monster’s wounds started to almost instantly heal themselves. Small black tentacles came from the sides to grasp the flesh that was falling off to pull it back together.

His true enemies didn’t budge from their underwater hiding place, perhaps they were convinced that if they remained there then he could not reach them. Regretfully for them, Zhang Dong originally came from a water-element inclined clan. Even though his Dao of water was not perfect it was still above the norm.

By combining some of the water arts and the new gravity dao he started pushing the water to the side. A massive hole started to appear in the middle of the sea. He had some luck as the water wasn’t all that deep and some kind of strange ruins were right beneath. The huge monster dropped down onto the regular ground with no water helping it move and behind it were several fish people shouting out commands.

“The gill-less has spotted us! What should we do oh great Nahmah?”

The person with the title was of course the leader. There was a group of about twenty people here, everyone besides the leader were around the core formation level. This looked to be something like a scouting party that was using the sea creatures as disposable weapons.

These ‘people’ had some distinctive looks. The weaker ones looked more like creatures from the deep with bodies covered in fish scales. Their faces faintly resembled human beings with gills sticking out from the side. They had hands with webbings between fingers but lacked legs that were replaced with a large tail. The leader, on the other hand, looked like a mermaid with the upper body of a man and the lower body of a fish.

‘Hm, do they evolve to resemble humans the stronger they get?’

He couldn’t really tell if the person called Nahmah was from a different species or if he was different due to his higher level of power. His appearance made Zhang Dong recall some of the old cartoons that he watched when he was young. The fish person was holding a shiny golden trident in his right hand and had a long white beard.

‘Don’t see any mermaids around though, all of those guys seem to be males.’

To his disappointment he could not spot any beautiful lady mermaids, instead, he was received by ugly fish people and one cranky-looking grandpa. Even though he had managed to push the waters apart he could feel that the old man was fighting him for control. After raising that golden trident there was a slight pull from the sea, he even had to use quite a bit of his Qi to counter this effect.

It seemed that he was still lacking when the water Dao was involved but while watching this man perform the strange techniques with his trident, he was already learning. There was an aura of this Dao around that weapon but it was of a lesser Dao, and it only involved the sea. Probably only the leader had the knowledge to use the higher techniques and could drop some kind of item that he could absorb later.

“Yoink.”

The power disparity was just too big, without a need to use any grand techniques he managed to pull the trident away from the stranded fishman. The old man even flew for quite some time before he decided to let his weapon go. Now he and his men were in a rather panicked state.

“Hm… interesting… so this is how they control the sea creatures.”

For someone of Zhang Dong’s level, it wasn’t hard to inspect this weapon after pushing his spiritual energy within. He was much stronger than the previous user so it wasn’t difficult to overwrite the weapon. Now he was the master of this lower heavenly ranked item and it was the catalyst to control the huge sea monster.

“Grab him!”

After pointing out with the trident toward the remaining Leviathan it wasn’t difficult to make it obey. The monster was out of the water though so even when it tried going towards the merman it wasn’t able to catch him. It seemed that this person could actually fly like any other nascent soul master. He had surrounded himself by a water bubble and was now making his escape towards the dark sea.

Regretfully for him, before he could reach it a massive downward gravity push crushed him into the hard ground underneath. Zhang Dong would not let this person escape, they were part of the enemy invasion and he needed more information. There was no reason to kill them yet, they might turn out to be more friendly just like Argus.

‘In you go.’

After successfully containing their leader called Nahmah, he dumped him into his replica medallion. There he would contain and interrogate him later. The weaker lackeys were all dropped off into the prison cells as well. With some luck, he would be able to use them as bargaining chips later. They did attack the people on the ship first and then him directly, so he could always use the self-defense argument when asked by their leaders.

‘That’s about it… The fish people aren’t that important now, I need to get to Wang Long.’

Within a few moments, the danger was gone and the waters were closing up. Zhang Dong didn’t sense anything worthwhile in that ruin. It seemed to have been occupied by someone at the nascent soul level. Any techniques and resources there wouldn’t be worth the hassle of exploring. Perhaps later he could forward the information to his sect and someone from the juniors could examine it further if they found it worthwhile.

‘Now, what do I do about these people… I think that I scared them a bit too much…’

When looking back at the people on the ship he could see that they were spooked. All of them were down on their knees and not daring to look up. At least it would probably be easy to get the information he required from them. Thus he started to slowly float towards the group of scared people while thinking of pulling off a proper demonic cultivator persona.