Before enormous sea monsters, humans were small.

Even Huan Zong, who could stop evil cultivators’ children from crying at night, had to be careful everywhere in front of three sea monsters to ensure he wasn’t injured. Hearing Kong Hou call him back, he severed an oncoming giant foot with one sword strike, turned back, and jumped onto Lin Hu’s flying sword.

“The sea monsters have a strange spiritual power aura on their bodies. Although they cannot transform into human form, they already possess spiritual intelligence.” His entire body was extremely neat and tidy—truly difficult for people to see that he’d just engaged in a fierce battle with giant monsters.

“These sea monsters are so huge. Immortal Elder, your cultivation is profound and you moved among them with ease. Why not kill them on the spot?” The salted fish uncle wrapped his worn-out robe tightly around himself, his complexion pale as if he’d received an enormous fright.

“They were born in the ocean and grew up in the ocean. They’ve never gone to the coast to harm humans. Being able to open spiritual intelligence is even more rare. Just because we’re passing through, should we kill them? To them, how unjust would that be?” Huan Zong put away the Longyin Sword. Seeing the two-headed monster about to open its mouth and shriek again, already having experience, he hastily used spiritual power to form a barrier, blocking the huge sound attack outside the barrier.

Hearing these words, the most surprised person wasn’t the salted fish uncle—it was Lin Hu. The former young master wouldn’t care about such things, much less say such words. Long ago when sea monsters provoked him, he would have mercilessly struck down with his sword without a second thought.

“The Immortal Elder isn’t someone who abstains from meat. What’s the difference between killing one animal and killing ten?” The salted fish uncle wiped the fishy, salty seawater from his face and muttered softly, “It’s just nice words.”

“When we humans make choices, naturally we place human interests first. Using other animals as food is the instinct for us to live. Trying our best not to kill living beings who have already opened spiritual intelligence and haven’t committed evil is the unique compassion of us humans.” Kong Hou smiled. “All creatures on this land depend on the land. All living beings are seizing things that belong to heaven and earth. Living on is instinct. When beasts devour humans, they never distinguish whether this person is good or bad, old or young. They forever follow their inner craving for food.”

“We humans are different.” Kong Hou touched her face. “Although saying this is somewhat shameless, I still believe we humans are special.”

The salted fish uncle looked at her deeply: “You’re somewhat different from when we last met.”

“Of course.” Kong Hou nodded and said with a smile: “I’ve sublimated.” She lowered her head to look at the sea monsters attempting to attack them outside the barrier. “Senior Lin, let’s go!”

Like a gust of wind, or perhaps like a bolt of lightning—when Kong Hou first turned her head to look back, the sea monsters were still far behind. When she turned her head again, where was there still any trace of sea monsters on the vast ocean?

The sky gradually darkened. Thin fog rose from the sea surface. The sea wind howled, and the seawater was black as ink, like a giant beast with its mouth open, ready to devour them at any moment.

“Senior Lin, something seems wrong here.” Kong Hou frowned. The spiritual energy was chaotic. Deep at the sea bottom, there seemed to be a strange force wanting to suck them in. She raised her head to look at the sky. She didn’t know when thick fog had covered the sky and blocked out the sun, making it impossible for her to use the stars’ positions in the sky to determine where they were.

“There are many strange legends on the sea. It’s said that when travelers get lost on the sea and are surrounded by thick fog, misfortune will descend.” The salted fish uncle looked at Kong Hou meaningfully. “No matter how powerful the cultivator, they can’t escape the ocean’s curse.”

The atmosphere became eerily quiet. This quiet atmosphere gave the uncle interest in telling legends. He sighed deeply: “It’s said that…”

“Is this useful?” What Kong Hou pulled out from her storage ring made the salted fish uncle close his mouth. Because what Kong Hou held in her hand was a directional compass, and moreover one personally crafted by Elder Qiushuang, one of the three great artifact refiners in the cultivation world.

This was something Elder Qiushuang, upon learning that Kong Hou and Huan Zong were going to sea, had that very day paid an enormous price to have a flying sword messenger rush and urgently deliver to Kong Hou’s hands.

By the time the compass reached Kong Hou’s hands, she and Huan Zong were almost at the seaside.

The salted fish uncle lost interest in telling legends. He turned to look at the thick fog around them: “The compass does indeed have the function of indicating direction on the sea, but there are many inexplicable things on the ocean. Sometimes even the compass cannot be used normally.”

His words had just fallen when the magnetic spoon on the compass plate began spinning frantically, completely out of control.

Kong Hou: “…”

“Uncle, you can catch so many fish at sea—do you rely on this mouth? Whatever you say comes true…” Kong Hou, seeing that the compass had suddenly lost its effectiveness, had no choice but to put it away. She turned to ask Huan Zong: “Huan Zong, how about letting me control the flying sword to try?”

Salted fish uncle: “…”

Young people were really something. In such an eerie and dangerous situation, they still dared to propose trying?

“Alright.” Huan Zong said to Lin Hu: “Lin Hu, let Kong Hou try.”

The salted fish uncle finally understood—when a man was infatuated with beauty, he truly was useless in every way.

On the pitch-black ocean, the thick fog seemed free of charge, condensed as solid as curtains. Kong Hou tried to fly higher to avoid this thick fog. But as soon as she exceeded a certain height, that inexplicable force from the sea bottom squeezed the flying sword until it swayed unsteadily, forcing her to maintain the original height and wander around blindly.

The sky grew darker and darker. Seeing that they couldn’t fly out for the time being, Kong Hou simply made the flying sword larger. The four sat cross-legged and began eating their evening meal.

Living in this world, only fine food, beautiful clothes, and one’s own beauty could not be let down.

“I suddenly thought of something.” After finishing the dried meat in her hand, Kong Hou drank a few mouthfuls of spiritual liquid. “Do you think that Kuiying Scattered Immortal who suddenly disappeared might have come to the sea to relax because of low spirits, then accidentally got lost at sea?”

Cultivators always thought that having cultivated the great dao, they could contend with heaven and earth, calling themselves able to move mountains and drain seas. However, truly arriving at the vast ocean, only then did they know that the “sea” in “move mountains and drain seas” might be a lake named sea. The true ocean was enough to make all cultivators in the world feel reverence.

“Scattered Cultivator Kuiying is the cultivator with the highest cultivation in all of Lingyou Realm. If even he got lost at sea, then we might have to wander the ocean for over a hundred years.” Lin Hu threw out the image in his mind of the scattered immortal frantically looking for a way. “Zhenren Kuiying hasn’t appeared for so many years—perhaps he perished long ago.”

Kong Hou clapped her hands and stood up: “Senior Lin, don’t be afraid. I’ll definitely lead you all out.”

Lin Hu said expressionlessly: “Many thanks, Miss Kong Hou. I’m not afraid. You take your time searching.”

No one knew how long Kong Hou searched on the sea surface. Huan Zong and Lin Hu’s expressions grew increasingly grave. Such a long time had passed—by reason the sky should have brightened long ago, yet at this moment their surroundings were still pitch black. They probably weren’t lost, but rather had fallen into some kind of environment.

“Look below.” Kong Hou pointed at the fish floating on the water surface below with their white bellies turned up. “Are these fish dead?”

She searched in her storage ring, found several pieces of dried salted fish, and threw them down. The fish that had originally had their white bellies turned up suddenly cried out, opened their mouths to swallow the dried fish, flicked their tails, and began circling in the water.

“This is… a lazy woman fish?” Lin Hu looked at the fish in the sea that, no matter how you looked at it, seemed to be smiling. His originally tightly furrowed brow slightly relaxed.

Finally seeing other living things on the sea surface, the eerie atmosphere was also broken.

“We’ll follow it. With good luck, we might be able to rush out of the maze.” Kong Hou happily followed behind the lazy woman fish. This lazy woman fish didn’t swim very fast and from time to time would even spit out a few mouthfuls of water to attract Kong Hou’s attention. To encourage the lazy woman fish to continue swimming forward, Kong Hou threw down quite a lot of delicious things.

“Miss, this is a fish, not a land dog. Do you want it to lead the way, or are you bored and want to play with a fish? Relying on the lazy woman fish, how could we possibly get out of this…”

The salted fish uncle’s tone paused. He looked at the small island revealed outside the mist. This island was very small—so small that walking through the entire island on foot wouldn’t take two quarters of an hour. He looked at the desolate, uninhabited small island, then looked at the maze behind them. For a long while he couldn’t speak.

The lazy woman fish that had begged for food all along the way had already disappeared without a trace. The salted fish uncle silently jumped onto the island and silently watched Kong Hou discover a cave entrance.

“There’s actually such a large cave entrance on the small island, and moreover there’s no seawater flooding inside.” Kong Hou threw an artifact inside to probe. When the artifact flew back, there wasn’t half a drop of moisture on it. “According to story book rules, inside there might be some great power’s remains, or artifacts that cause everyone to fight over them, or cultivation secret techniques.”

The corners of Lin Hu’s lips moved. Under Kong Hou’s excited gaze and the young master’s indifferent gaze, he chose not to speak.

“Let’s go in and take a look.” Huan Zong said matter-of-factly. “Perhaps we really can discover something interesting.”

Lin Hu: “…”

For the sake of making the woman they liked happy, men truly could do any boring thing. This was truly too frightening.

The four entered the cave. Inside the cave there were no embedded gemstones, no hidden weapons or formations—only some incomplete fish bones. Not even a single insect could be found inside. The cave extended downward gradually in a slope style. After walking for nearly an hour, Kong Hou actually saw light above her head.

She looked up—above the cave was azure seawater. In the seawater, colorful fish swam back and forth. She didn’t know what formation was providing support, but the seawater actually hadn’t flooded into this cave.

They had already walked to the bottom. Inside there was no treasure, no secret manuals, much less the remains of an expert—only a dilapidated stone boat, a stone table covered in dust, and the stone table was empty with nothing on it.

“It seems we can’t completely trust story books either.” Kong Hou squinted at the area above her head. There, sunlight penetrated through the seawater and shone in. Borrowing this faint ray of light, she finally found the most valuable thing in this cave dwelling—a pile of shells that had been placed there for who knows how long.

“This is fog-hidden shell?” Lin Hu somewhat couldn’t believe it. Even his volume rose. “The priceless fog-hidden shell?!”

Fog-hidden shells were extremely rare things. Not only could they refract beautiful light in sunlight, moreover wearing this object had the effect of dispersing thick fog. Even some barriers and formations were ineffective against people wearing fog-hidden shells.

Although this object was miraculous, it was extremely rare to obtain, so it only existed in legends.

Now the miraculous object from legends was piled in a corner like rotten mud. Lin Hu suddenly felt that miraculous animals also didn’t seem miraculous enough.

“This rare?” Kong Hou looked at the stone bed that didn’t have much dust: “Could this be some sea monster’s or fish spirit’s cave dwelling?”

“The ocean smell here is very strong, with no other demon auras.” Lin Hu looked around. “There isn’t even a single barrier outside the cave dwelling. Perhaps this is an ownerless place?”

“Forget it. Let’s leave.” Kong Hou imagined a little fish spirit returning home to discover there were other humans’ auras in the cave dwelling, and that the beautiful shells it had accumulated had also disappeared. It would definitely lie on the ground crying nonstop.

Although the fog-hidden shells illuminated by sunlight were precious and beautiful, Kong Hou’s conscience didn’t allow her to take without asking.

“Let’s go.” Huan Zong, seeing Kong Hou walk outside, held her hand.

“Mm.” Kong Hou smiled and nodded. “The treasure cave exploration activity is over. Many thanks to Senior Lin and salted fish uncle for your vigorous assistance.”

“Ouch!” The salted fish uncle following behind fell down, crashed into the stone table in the room, and a jade bottle green as spring trees rolled out from inside.

“Dragon energy.” Kong Hou stopped in her tracks. She glanced at the salted fish uncle lying on the ground and bent down to pick up the jade bottle that had rolled to her feet.