Villain: Manipulating the Heroines into hating the Protagonist Chapter 1055: Crossing the Void Threshold & The Blood-Coral Marsh

At sunrise on the seventh and final day of the unsealing infusion, a deep, resonant roar shook the entire three-thousand-foot stone column of Sky-Pillar Island.

High above the central marble altar, the five blinding pillars of silver light rising from the Void-Key Altars merged completely into the swirling purple-silver clouds.

KRA-BOOOOOOOOM!

Like a pair of giant invisible hands tearing open the fabric of heaven and earth, the fifty-yard spatial vortex parted down the center—revealing a stable, shimmering silver archway through which a vast, ancient sky lit by a pale violet sun and dotted with floating stone islands could be clearly seen!

A wave of dense, primordial Spiritual Energy—carrying the unmistakable fragrance of ancient herbs that had grown untouched for a thousand years—wafted down through the silver archway across the plaza.

"The spatial passage to the Ancient Void-Sea Ruin is locked and stable!" Daoist Jin Ling of the Four-Seas Merchant Alliance shouted, his white beard trembling with excitement. "The passage will remain open for exactly thirty days! Remember—upon crossing the spatial threshold, the ancient entry array will randomly scatter each group across the twelve sectors of the Outer Ring of Floating Reefs before you can advance toward the central Heaven-Mending Altar! All delegations under the Mid-Stage Nascent Soul limit—enter at once!"

"Myriad Ocean Palace vanguard—follow This Elder into the rift!" Daoist Canghai roared from the northern pavilion, rising into the air as an azure rainbow alongside twenty-four Late and Peak Core Formation righteous elders—including Qiu Yun.

"Holy Nether Sea Organization—move out!" Corpse-Crow Ancestor screeched from the southern pavilion, flapping his cloak of black feathers as he shot upward into the silver archway alongside Daoist Xue Li (the Yin Severing True Monarch), Su Ning, and twenty-four demonic elites.

"Demon Beast warriors—claim the blood-herbs for the Patriarch!" Black-Fin Demon King hissed from the eastern terrace, spreading his razor-sharp black manta mantle to soar into the spatial gate at the head of twelve humanized Grade 7 Demon Beast commanders—though just before crossing the threshold, Black-Fin Demon King’s cold yellow eyes flicked sideways toward the rising delegation of Abyssal Pearl City, his forked tongue licking his lips with predatory malice.

On the western cliff edge, Ye Fan did not fly up with the main crowd. Recalling his Grade 7 Thunder-Winged Roc into a high-grade spirit-beast pouch at his waist, the scarred Peak Late-Stage Core Formation swordsman kicked off the marble parapet alone, shooting into the far northern corner of the silver archway like a solitary black arrow.

"Let us go as well," Wang Jian said calmly, rising into the air from the western pavilion flanked openly by Lin Wanyue, Shangguan Wan’er, Shen Mengqi, Hua Yimei, Hua Ling’er, Bing Yun, and Chen Ying, with his three hooded Nascent Soul sovereigns—Hong Lin, Su Binglan, and Mu Lianhua—flying closely behind his back so that his Stellar Demonic Qi linked all eleven of them together against the random spatial scattering!

HUMMMMM—FLASH!

As three hundred elite cultivators and Demon Beasts crossed the shimmering silver threshold of the archway, a blinding tide of weightless silver spatial mist swallowed their vision.

Ten breaths later, the silver mist cleared around Ye Fan in the far northern sector of the ruin.

His heavy boots landed with a sharp crunch upon a jagged ridge of floating purple iron-stone suspended five hundred feet above a bottomless sea of swirling silver spatial clouds: Gale-Blade Canyon.

The air inside the Ancient Void-Sea Ruin was twice as dense with Spiritual Energy as the outside world, yet the sky was criss-crossed by unpredictable, invisible blades of ancient spatial wind that sliced shallow grooves into the purple rocks whenever they gusted past.

Before Ye Fan could even scan the canyon ahead of him, five streaks of azure sword-light dropped out of the purple clouds three hundred yards behind him—having used a short-range Blood-Scent Tracking Compass the instant they entered the gate to lock onto his position!

Landing in a five-point encirclement around the narrow purple rock ridge were five Peak Late-Stage Core Formation sword elders of the Myriad Ocean Palace—commanded by Daoist Canghe, the chief executioner under Grand Elder Daoist Canghai!

"Grand Elder Canghai ordered us to take your head within the first hour of entering the ruin, Ye Fan!" Daoist Cang He sneered, drawing a pair of spinning azure wheel-swords as his four fellow Peak Core Formation elders raised four golden array flags to seal the wind currents around the ridge. "There are no thirty-six truce lightning pillars inside the Void-Sea Ruin to hide behind! Hand over the spoils of the Dragon-Spine Trench and die!"

Ye Fan stood in the center of the purple stone ridge. Looking at the five Peak Late-Stage Core Formation elders who had come to collect his bounty while the image of Shen Mengqi crushing the Silver Gale Sect bell still burned like acid in his chest, Ye Fan did not utter a single word.

His right hand gripped the hilt of his heavy black broadsword over his shoulder, and simultaneously, his left hand slapped the beast pouch at his waist—releasing the sixty-foot Grade 7 Mutated Thunder-Winged Roc into the sky directly above the four flag-holding elders while Ye Fan lunged straight at Daoist Cang He’s throat!

"Heavenly Gale Calamity Sword, Seventh Layer: Silent Void Squall!"

SHING—KRA-CLANG!

Across the northern purple cliffs of Gale-Blade Canyon, a brutal, no-quarter slaughter erupted as Ye Fan unleashed twelve internal years of pent-up bloodlust upon the Myriad Ocean Palace executioners.

At that exact same quarter-hour, four hundred leagues away in the humid, blood-red southern sector of the Ancient Void-Sea Ruin, the silver entry mist cleared above a sprawling expanse of floating islands covered in petrified red coral trees and boiling pools of crimson mud: the Blood-Coral Marsh.

Because Wang Jian had linked the waists of his entire ten-woman retinue with an invisible ribbon of his Stellar Demonic Qi during the spatial transit, all eleven figures landed together upon a wide, flat island of red coral rock at the heart of the marsh!

"Every member of our court arrived on the same island without a single person separated," Shangguan Wan’er said, looking around at the towering red coral forests and checking her Celestial-Tide Abacus. "Master, according to the ancient map fragments, the central Heaven-Mending Altar lies two hundred leagues north at the center of the pocket world—and right here in the inner pools of the Blood-Coral Marsh grow three stalks of four-thousand-year Rank 4 Blood-Soul Ginseng!"

Before Mu Lianhua could step toward the inner coral pools to inspect the herbs, however, the purple sky half a league to the east darkened beneath thirteen massive, fast-moving shadows!

SWISH—BOOM!

Crashing down onto the surrounding red coral trees in a wide semicircle that blocked every path off the island were Black-Fin Demon King—the Early Grade 8 Abyssal Manta King—and all twelve of his humanized Grade 7 Demon Beast Commanders!

Having used an innate deep-sea smell-tracking art at the entrance gate to follow the rich scent of female blood and Spiritual Energy radiating from the Abyssal Pearl City delegation, Black-Fin Demon King stood atop a thirty-foot red coral pillar, his slick black skin gleaming and his wide, razor-edged black manta wings spreading ten feet to either side of his shoulders as he released the crushing, suffocating pressure of an Early Grade 8 Demon King!

"Hahaha! Heaven truly favors This King today!" Black-Fin Demon King laughed in a grating, high-pitched voice, his cold yellow fish-eyes sweeping hungrily over the uncovered faces of Shen Mengqi, Lin Wanyue, Shangguan Wan’er, and Hua Yimei. "Daoist Canghai and Corpse-Crow Ancestor landed in the northern and western sectors—leaving this fat flock of human Core Formation sheep and their mountains of Spirit Stones right in front of my jaws!"

One of the twelve Grade 7 commanders—a hulking, scar-snouted Grade 7 Saw-Tooth Shark Commander holding a heavy bone club—licked his jagged teeth as he stared at Shen Mengqi’s and Hua Ling’er’s voluptuous figures. "King Black-Fin, once you swallow their male leader’s Golden Core, leave those seven juicy human females alive for us! Fresh Late-Stage Core Formation female flesh tastes ten times sweeter than trench fish!"

Standing at the center of the red coral island, Wang Jian looked up at Black-Fin Demon King and the twelve Grade 7 commanders surrounding them.

Wang Jian swept his Nascent Soul mental awareness ten leagues outward in every direction through the dense spatial mist of the Blood-Coral Marsh. Because the spatial distortion of the ruin blocked long-range divine sense between sectors, there was not a single human cultivator from the Myriad Ocean Palace or the Holy Nether Sea Organization within a hundred miles of this marsh.

"You wanted his Early Grade 8 Demon Core and his territory, didn’t you, Hong Lin?" Wang Jian asked calmly, not even bothering to draw his saber yet as he glanced over his shoulder at the tall, hooded figure standing behind his right arm. "Take off the cloak."

"Thank you, Master," a husky, sultry, and unmistakably familiar female voice echoed across the quiet Blood-Coral Marsh.

Behind Wang Jian’s shoulder, Hong Lin reached up with one pale, scale-marked hand, peeled off the Breath-Swallowing Tortoise-Shell Talisman from her chest, and threw back her dark spirit-baffling cloak!

Her waist-length magma-red hair cascaded down over her bare, creamy shoulders and the massive, heavy globes of her breasts straining against her crimson sea-silk battle wrap—and from her tall, curvaceous body erupted the terrifying, volcanic spiritual domain of the Early Grade 8 Scarlet Flood-Serpent Matriarch, now thirty percent denser and tinged with golden flood-dragon majesty after three months of Wang Jian’s nourishment!

At the exact same heartbeat, to the left and right of Hong Lin, Su Binglan and Mu Lianhua tossed back their dark hoods—unleashing a three-hundred-yard domain of silver-white Grand Yin Ice Flame on the left and a roaring sea of deep-blue Azure Sky Heart Phoenix Flame on the right!

And at the very center of the three female Nascent Soul sovereigns, Wang Jian took a single step forward across the red coral rock, releasing the vast, star-devouring pressure of his Initial Stage Nascent Soul Realm as his right hand drew the four-foot, nine-thousand-catty black-gold saber Blood’s Thirst—its embedded Early Grade 8 Golden-Back Crab King Core blazing like a dark sun on the hilt guard!

BOOOOOOOOOM!

Four overlapping Nascent Soul and Grade 8 domains—ice, phoenix fire, scarlet flood-serpent blood, and devouring dark starlight—crashed down upon the Blood-Coral Marsh simultaneously, freezing the boiling mud pools solid and cracking every red coral pillar within five hundred yards!

Down on the lower coral rocks, all twelve Grade 7 Demon Beast Commanders had their knees buckle simultaneously under the four-fold Nascent Soul pressure, coughing up mouthfuls of beast blood as their arrogance turned into paralyzing, soul-shattering terror!

Atop the central coral pillar, Black-Fin Demon King staggered backward two steps, the blood draining from his slick black face as his yellow fish-eyes bulged out of their sockets at the sight of the crimson-haired woman standing beside Wang Jian—and the Early Grade 8 Crab King core glowing inside the hilt of Wang Jian’s saber!

"Red-Scale Matriarch?! You... you didn’t die at Crimson Reef?!" Black-Fin Demon King shrieked, his voice cracking in sheer horror as he realized the catastrophic trap he had just flown into. "And that golden core in that human’s saber hilt is Iron-Pincer Demon King! Four... four Nascent Soul experts hiding inside the Abyssal Pearl City delegation?!"

"Look at how pale your gills turned, Black-Fin," Hong Lin purred, licking her glossy red lips with her forked pink tongue as fifty-foot ribbons of golden-scarlet serpent fire coiled around her bare forearms. "When I was in the southern trench, you always bragged that your manta wings were faster than my tail. Let’s see if you can fly out of my Master’s cage today!"

"Spread out! Scatter into the spatial mist and warn Shifting-Tide Patriarch—!" Black-Fin Demon King screamed, whipping his wide black manta mantle around to tear open a spatial rift and flee backward!

"Nobody leaves this marsh alive," Wang Jian said coldly.

"Binglan, Lianhua, Mengqi, Wanyue, Yimei—slaughter the twelve Grade 7 commanders and harvest their cores. Hong Lin—seal the sky with me."

SWISH!

Before Black-Fin Demon King’s manta wings could beat once against the air, Wang Jian and Hong Lin vanished from the red coral rock via instantaneous spatial movement—appearing on opposite sides of the terrified Early Grade 8 Manta King in mid-air as the nine-thousand-catty black-gold edge of Blood’s Thirst came crashing down to claim the first Nascent Soul harvest of the Ancient Void-Sea Ruin!