Villain: Manipulating the Heroines into hating the Protagonist Chapter 1043: Awakening of the Ancient Monsters

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