Chapter 1201: Archdevil Armored Shark
Vicious and domineering — these were the two words that people found appropriate to describe this human boy. Some were truly shaken and couldn't calm down after this spectacle.
This was a blatant challenge to the Teeming Tribe. Just how overbearing was this? Not to mention a single cultivator, even a lineage wouldn't dare to do this.
But now, the human youth named Li Qiye had killed tens of thousands of soldiers of the Teeming Marquis. Moreover, he even ate the marquis' tendon in front of the crowd. This was too much to take in.
"Is he a Virtuous Paragon?" A cultivator calmed down and shuddered: "Even if he isn't a paragon, he must be a Heaven's Equal King." 1
Li Qiye's eyes went back to the needlefish from earlier. It was not bothered at all and continued to eat the insect powder on the ground as if it hadn't eaten for thousands of years.
Li Qiye didn't bother its meal and only quietly watched on. He eventually smiled when this fish swam to the trap he laid out earlier.
"Whoosh!" He immediately took action. A bunch of hooks connected to long strings emerged from the seabed.
These fish hooks shot out with tremendous speed. Not to mention these needlefish, even a powerful expert would have a difficult time evading them. However, this particular fish easily dodged them and maneuvered its way out from the trap with incomparable agility.
As the fish made its way out from the trap, these failed hooks quickly came together to form a huge net.
This was the so-called immeasurable net of justice that the needlefish was trying to escape. With a buzz, space was sealed and the net engulfed the fish. 2
It then disappeared and turned into two reins. Each of the reins hooked onto the feelers on the fish's cheeks while the end of the reins was in Li Qiye's hands.
"You won't escape that easily." He held the reins with both hands and grinned.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!" This fish crazily pulled the reins into the Bottomless Trench!
The impossible happened; this tiny fish actually dragged Li Qiye towards the trench. His body slammed and shattered a lot of coral.
This violent scene attracted the attention of many cultivators who were trying to catch the fish.
"Show yourself!" Li Qiye cried out and channeled a universal law into his reins.
"Clank!" The reins locked onto the feelers of the fish and turned into numerous runes. All of these runes began to rotate as the reins disappeared. Only two great laws were left and acted as huge chains that hooked onto the fish's cheeks.
The little fish emitted a blinding light while being suppressed by the two laws. An ancient totem emerged along with a temporal portal. Something rushed out from this portal, seemingly coming from the past to the present.
When the blinding light disappeared, the needlefish was no longer there. Instead, a gigantic shark appeared before everyone. It had an archaic appearance; its skin was gray and its entire body was equipped with pieces of armor, protecting its vital areas.
Its gaping mouth revealed teeth as sharp as blades. The glints reflected from them caused people to tremble uncontrollably.
The shark emitted a terrifying aura like an awakening primal beast. All the cultivators were frightened by its presence as their legs quivered.
Many cultivators forgot about their current task of catching needlefish and murmured in a daze: "What is that?"
"Archdevil Armored Shark…" Ye Tu and Teng Jiwen were shocked as well. If this shark was able to break the chains, it would meet god, kill god; meet devil, kill devil.
Despite being a disciple of the Void Imperfection School, Ye Tu had only heard of its name and had never seen it before. Meanwhile, the more knowledgeable Teng Jiwen felt a chill inside after seeing the legendary beast. Being able to find such a mythical creature was due to Li Qiye, just how frightening was his abilities?
The other cultivators here weren't aware of these facts. They were surprised to see the shark but didn't know its origin.
The shark grew tame after being suppressed by the universal laws. Li Qiye then controlled it and jumped on its back. He stood on the beast in a gallant manner.
"Fellow Daoist, you are quite lucky to obtain a pet like this." At this time, Gongsun Qianer and her followers came over while looking at Li Qiye.
Of course, she didn't know what it was and only assumed that it was a typical sea shark.
Li Qiye only coldly glanced at her without bothering to reply.
She was enraged once again by this arrogant attitude. She was the trusted assistant back at the Profound Sea Dynasty who could do whatever she wanted. Few juniors dared to act like this in front of her.
They had a minor conflict prior to this, but now, her murderous intent was incited. However, she restrained herself due to this giant shark.
"Fellow Daoist, how about we make a deal?" She smiled and asked him with an easy-mannered look: "I want to buy this shark, you can name a price."
"Not for sale." Li Qiye had no interest in this transaction with the girl and slowly pulled the two laws back by wrapping them around his palms.
"Fellow Daoist, don't be so quick to refuse." She assumed a sincere appearance and pressed on: "My lord is the divine queen of the Profound Sea Dynasty and has a love for rare pets. If you are willing to give up this shark, your future will be quite promising and…"
Despite her sincere speech, there was arrogance hidden among the words. She was implying that it was her master who wanted the shark.
The Profound God-Monarch's concubine, Gongsun Meiyu, liked collecting precious aquatic creatures. Thus, Gongsun Qianer had an idea after seeing this shark. If she were to offer it to her master, she would be loved and held in even higher esteem.
Of course, she didn't know the shark's origin. In her eyes, this was only a rare and precious pet at best.
"Not interested." He interrupted her and pulled on the laws to change the direction of the shark.
This lack of sensibility from Li Qiye made her eyes turn cold. She attacked without any hesitation the moment he turned around.
A purple light flashed. In this split second, she performed her sneak attack with her phoenix hairpin. The hairpin shot out with incomparable speed in an attempt to kill. It was too fast, everyone could only see a purple glint aiming for Li Qiye's nape.
"Careful!" Both Ye Tu and Teng Jiwen shouted after seeing the sudden sneak attack without any warning. It was too late even if they wanted to help.
In this split second, time seemed to stop along with the hairpin that flew towards his neck. It turned out that Li Qiye easily caught it with two fingers.
Gongsun Qianer was aghast to see her most important life-protecting weapon stopped and quickly tried to recall it. However, it was trapped by Li Qiye's fingers and wouldn't budge, so her summoning was useless.
"Die." Li Qiye's eyes flashed a glint of coldness that went straight to the heart.
"My master is the divine queen!" She knew that the situation wasn't favorable and screamed out in order to use her backing. However, she had yet to finish speaking when a piercing noise came about. The hairpin instantly shot through her skull. A bloody hole appeared as a string of blood began to flow.
Her eyes were still wide open as her body slowly fell down. Not even in her dreams did she expect someone to actually dare to kill her!
"Junior!" Her followers regained their sanity and shouted at the same time before lunging for Li Qiye.
"Rawrr!" The shark cried out. With a popping sound, it swallowed all of these followers in one gulp.
The coral forest went quiet right away. All of the cultivators here felt pressured and glanced at each other. Not long before this, Li Qiye was massacring the Teeming Sea Tribe. Now, he even killed Gongsun Qianer!
This was not only offending the Teeming Tribe but also the four branches of Gu Chun. What a domineering and arrogant showing!
Dao Attendant Lin and Yan Yanglong were astonished as well. This was doubly true for the attendant. His heart felt cold since he didn't expect this human junior to be so powerful!
Top level of Heavenly King. ↩ A widely-used idiom that is hard to duplicate here. Popularized by Justice Bao. ↩Chapter 1202: Untethered Vessel
Li Qiye ignored the others and remounted the Archdevil Armored Shark before shouting: "Go!"
With that, the shark issued a roar and rushed for the Bottomless Trench before disappearing into its dark abyss.
"What does he want to do?" A while later, many people calmed down and began to murmur to themselves.
Ye Tu's and Teng Jiwen's minds returned as well. It was already too late when they thought about following him. In fact, the two of them couldn't catch up to the shark's speed anyway.
Ye Tu looked at Teng Jiwen and asked: "What is this about?"
Teng Jiwen replied by shaking his head: "I don't know either. His actions aren't something you and me can speculate. Maybe it has something to do with the Seacrossing Shuttle. We will have to wait until he returns before finding out."
Teng Jiwen had learned about the shark from an ancient scroll from his citadel. However, he didn't truly understand the mysteries involved.
Li Qiye controlled the shark into the deepest part of the trench. Its depth was truly of an unfathomable magnitude. Some even said that there was no bottom. Who knows where its base was located?
The shark cut through the waves for a long time in the trench.
"Crash!" Eventually, it slammed into a cliff and swiftly rushed inside. At this moment, splashing sounds came about as if the shark had just leaped out of the sea and into the sky.
It entered a different space, a lonely space without stars, a sun, or a moon; only the coldness of the void was here. Time was not present either, it was a land of eternal banishment.
In this chilling space was a huge naval shuttle seemingly capable of crossing through the ocean freely.
It had an ancient bronze hue as if it was cast from plain bronze. It had been in this icy void for so long that it was covered with patina and near the point of rusting.
This gigantic shuttle had two doors to its left and right with many runes and totems on them. They were too archaic to be understood. Outside of the four doors, nothing else could be found. Alas, the ship wouldn't be too eye-catching if placed anywhere else.
However, Li Qiye was attracted by this shuttle. His gaze tightly toured through it before murmuring: "Oh, my Untethered Vessel. How can the world know your worth? Only those who don't understand your value would call you the 'Seacrossing Shuttle'!"
People in the Heaven Spirit World had spotted this vessel before, and not on just one occasion. Thus, people gave it the name, Seacrossing Shuttle.
The name meant that it could be used to go through the bottomless trench, but no one knew if this was true or not. 1
However, Li Qiye knew of its real name, the Untethered Vessel! It concealed a great secret involving an ancient race from an unknown era.
Li Qiye told the armored shark: "Go on, pull it out. I will need it to open the portal."
The shark swam before the shuttle. Its armor began to clank as universal laws emerged on them.
These universal laws came together to form two huge chains that coiled around the Untethered Vessel.
"Rumble—" The shark dragged the vessel outside. It seemed to be quite heavy due to the blaring sounds of the slow process. However, Li Qiye was not in a rush as he patiently waited. This was not the first time this had happened.
In the past, he had seen the secret of the armored shark before. Whenever the Seacrossing Shuttle appeared in the Heaven Spirit World, it was Li Qiye forcing the shark to drag it out.
This was not a simple shark but a type of sealed creature. Because of this, it was hiding among the needlefish. Of course, the emergence of the shuttle required the shark. In this sense, the shark existed to pull the vessel.
"Whoosh!" The shark finally dragged the vessel out of this icy void. With the splashing of waves, the vessel entered the Bottomless Trench once again.
At this time, it was floating in the ocean's currents. Ordinary people wouldn't feel anything while standing next to it, but Li Qiye could feel strands of power from the trench entering the vessel.
He gently patted the shark's head and took off the laws that were latched onto its cheeks and emotionally said: "Go, maybe you will be able to wait for that day and break through your seal to restore your true form. I will wait for you to pull the Untethered Vessel all the way to the nine heavens towards your desired destination!"
"Rawrr!" The shark roared towards Li Qiye as if it was very dissatisfied from being forced to carry out this task. Nevertheless, it still didn't attack Li Qiye. It flipped its great tail and swam into the deepest depths of the trench, disappearing from sight right away.
The Untethered Vessel slowly rose while continuing forward at a slow speed. Its course was along the trench as if it had been predetermined.
Li Qiye watched without interfering for he knew that actions were useless. It wouldn't be influenced by any interference regardless of how powerful the intruders might be because it had deep ties with the Bottomless Trench.
Unless the person was powerful enough to move the entire trench, there was no way of changing the vessel's trajectory. In fact, this was simply impossible. Even a star plucker or a sun-and-moon crusher wouldn't be able to move the trench.
The Bottomless Trench was not a simple marine chasm at all.
Li Qiye didn't wait for the slow vessel. He turned and rushed out of the trench in order to meet up with Ye Tu and Teng Jiwen.
The duo heaved a sigh of relief when they saw Li Qiye fine and well.
Ye Tu curiously asked after seeing Li Qiye returning by himself: "Young Noble, where is the Archdevil Armored Shark?"
Li Qiye smiled and said: "It has left to go back from whence it came."
The two of them were slightly puzzled and curious. After spending so much effort to catch the shark, he actually released it. They had no clue as to what Li Qiye wanted to do.
"You will find out later." Li Qiye told the two of them: "Okay, we'll go back to Shallow Beach for now. I have promised that Sunflower geezer to teach something to you. Ye Tu, go back and ask your old men about when I will be able to see the ancestral whale."
With that, he walked away with the duo right behind him.
"What is that?" In the next few days, many cultivators were busy catching the needlefish. There were truly too many of them; it seemed impossible to catch them all. Because of this, they became less and less precious.
On this day, a huge shadow slowly surfaced from the bottomless trench. It was a huge marine shuttle that slowly inched forward.
In a short amount of time, many people stopped as they watched on in a daze as it floated by.
"What is this thing?" The crowd was surprised to see the gigantic shuttle.
These cultivators couldn't be considered big shots at all. Most of them were ordinary disciples from large and small sects alike. Some were even vagabonds, so they didn't know what this huge shuttle was.
"Seacrossing Shuttle!" Eventually, an old cultivator who looked like an old mortal shouted: "It is the legendary Seacrossing Shuttle! It is here again!"
"What is this Seacrossing Shuttle?" Other cultivators were still lost after hearing this old man. They had never heard of this name before, let alone knowing what it was about.
"According to legend, the Seacrossing Shuttle can reach the 'Charming Fragmented Realm'!"
"Charming Fragmented Realm…" Dao Attendant Lin and Yan Yanglong from the great lineages were astounded to hear this. They finally knew what this ship ahead was.
They turned and left in order to send a message to their sects about the appearance of the shuttle.
Bottomless Trench's raw is actually Bottomless Marine Trench, but I felt that the sea part was implied already, so its left out. ↩