Chapter 47

Chapter 47: Seabed

Wang Jie stared out at the sea. The octopus didn’t even try to advance. It hovered on the surface and attacked from a distance, whipping up rocks and smashing them toward the base.

At ten seals, a creature could already devastate an entire region.

This one had only just reached that level. It still hadn’t adapted to its own strength. Give it another two days and its methods would change—and get worse.

“I’ll handle it,” Wang Jie said.

His hands were itching. Ever since disaster materials stopped boosting his strength, he’d been obsessed with one thing: how to close the gap with Shu Mu Ye. He hadn’t fought in days.

He leapt from the wall. A flying insect swept in and carried him toward the tide.

Above the ocean swarm, massive ink bombs arced up like cannonballs. Jets of water shot skyward like arrows.

Wang Jie tapped a finger to the insect’s back. Spiral Qi Force struck down, shattering the incoming attacks, then pressed into the tide below and crushed a wide swath of creatures.

But the swarm was endless.

Most of Blue Star was ocean. Ocean life outnumbered land life by far. The tide below stretched farther than the insect sea itself, black and moving like a living continent.

Wang Jie kept striking, trying to use as little imprint power as possible for the greatest effect—because that was what Shu Mu Ye could do.

He’d studied Chen Art after their battle. Only then did he understand how absurd Shu Mu Ye truly was.

A normal cultivator used one unit of imprint power to produce one unit of damage. Chen Art demanded one unit produce a hundred.

Even a star-breaking realm expert couldn’t do that.

But Shu Mu Ye did it at eighth seal.

Which meant that at the same eighth seal, Shu Mu Ye could unleash a hundred times the destruction, a hundred times the usable starforce, compared to an ordinary eighth seal cultivator.

The difference was monstrous.

All Wang Jie could do was carve that difference down, one brutal step at a time.

On the wall, Qi Xue Yin’s combat power detector kept flashing numbers.

“He’s improved,” she said.

Qi Wu frowned. “His realm rose?”

“No.” Qi Xue Yin shook her head. “He’s smart.

“Shu Mu Ye is eighth seal. He has to challenge at eighth seal, too. If he breaks through, the gap only widens.

“As long as he doesn’t break through, Shu Mu Ye won’t break through.”

Qi Wu exhaled slowly. “Someone actually dared to challenge Shu Mu Ye—and Shu Mu Ye accepted.”

“He has the qualifications,” Qi Xue Yin said, then added, almost dispassionately, “Too bad he cultivates lockforce.”

It wasn’t praise or insult. It was a verdict.

Wang Jie slammed into the ocean tide like a falling star. The insect under him was probably the one most terrified—it could be swallowed whole at any moment.

He pushed toward the octopus.

A tidal wave rose and crashed toward him.

Wang Jie pointed. Spiral Qi Force pierced the wall of water. He burst through, rose into the air, twisted, and drove a punch down.

The punch hammered the sea flat, forcing a crater into the surface, and smashed into the octopus hard enough to drive it under.

Wang Jie landed on the sea surface.

The flying insect fled instantly.

Countless ocean creatures surged in to tear him apart.

Wang Jie grabbed a massive crab claw and swung it like a blade. Imprint power surged through his muscles. Shockwaves ripped outward. Anything below ninth seal died instantly; even ninth seal creatures lasted only two blows.

The drone feed returned to Nan Guo Base.

The people watching were stunned.

This was beyond anything they understood.

Since the apocalypse, humans had survived by huddling together, using numbers and walls to resist the beasts outside.

Three Gods and Five Extremes were the symbols humans had built to keep themselves sane—but everyone knew, deep down, that the strongest things on Blue Star lived beyond the walls.

Humans couldn’t fight many same-level mutated beasts. Sometimes they couldn’t even fight one without a siege.

But Wang Jie charged alone into an endless tide and carved through it as if he were harvesting weeds.

And he was only eighth seal.

How?

The trialists didn’t react much. If he could fight Shu Mu Ye like that, this level of strength wasn’t surprising.

And he was still holding back. If he let loose, one strike could erase every mutated beast along the coastline.

This man had the power to destroy a region.

Wang Jie’s fight shattered Blue Star’s horizon. People finally understood that a human being could reach that kind of power.

If Three Gods and Five Extremes were idols built by desperate humans for themselves…

then Wang Jie looked like something closer to a god.

Tentacles burst from below. The octopus refused to surface again.

Wang Jie sank after it.

Back at Nan Guo Base, Lian Qin’s face went bloodless. “No—this is bad. The seabed isn’t like land. The deeper you go, the greater the pressure. After the apocalypse, imprint power only intensified that pressure.”

She swallowed hard. “He’s too reckless.”

Qing Zheng tensed. “How bad does it get?”

“In the old world, without equipment, even trained divers rarely went past a hundred meters,” Lian Qin said. “Now? Fifty at most.

“A few days ago, when one of our eighth seal cultivators went to scout the ocean tide, he tested it. Four hundred meters—that was his limit.”

She stared at the sea like it was a mouth. “If Wang Jie chases that octopus, he’ll go far deeper than four hundred.”

Everyone fell silent, watching the dark water.

Old Boss… had probably never been underwater.

And in truth, Wang Jie hadn’t.

He’d grown up around Jin Ling. He was an orphan. He could swim, but he’d never had money for the sea. After the apocalypse, the idea of a beach was laughable.

Now, sinking through the depths, his vision remained clear—cultivators didn’t go blind in darkness the way ordinary humans did. But he quickly felt the pressure.

The deeper he went, the heavier the world became.

The octopus vanished below him. Wang Jie started to rise—

—and felt his foot catch.

Seaweed coiled around his ankle.

From the surface there’d been no sign of it, but beneath the shoreline, endless seaweed spread like a forest.

Ten seals seaweed.

Another ten seals creature.

Wang Jie hacked at it with the crab claw, but more and more strands wrapped around him, dragging him deeper. Underwater, it was harder to bring his full strength to bear. The pressure increased, crushing him, and he couldn’t breathe.

He slammed into the seabed.

Instinctively, he drove one hand into the ground. With a solid anchor, he could finally exert force.

With the other hand, he seized the seaweed and yanked.

His strength tore up a huge mass of it. The strands snapped, shredded, and drifted apart like torn flesh.

But more came.

Seaweed surged in from all directions. Strange deep-sea creatures closed in. And the octopus’s tentacles slid into range again.

Wang Jie snapped his fingers.

Heaven-and-Earth Luo Xuan Finger.

Above the sea, a gigantic finger formed and fell. Everyone at Nan Guo Base saw it.

Below the sea, another gigantic finger rose.

One above. One below.

They crushed everything between them.

The seabed cracked. The earth shifted and sank. A massive tsunami rose at the surface.

Wang Jie kicked off the seabed and surged upward, bursting out of the water, twisting in midair, and landing hard on the shore.

The drone feed caught it. The base finally breathed again.

Wang Jie bent forward, panting, eyes fixed on the ocean.

Fear lingered there.

He’d been so focused on Shu Mu Ye. The trialists around him were weaker. He’d started to believe he was untouchable.

He’d underestimated nature itself.

The seabed wasn’t a place you could brute-force your way through.

But…

Wang Jie stared at the waves, and something else stirred in him.

That pressure. That danger. On land, he almost never felt it anymore.

He believed one rule: the more hardship you swallowed, the greater the reward later.

If land couldn’t pressure him, then the ocean would.

In the distance, a swarm of flying insects arrived. Wang Jie mounted one and returned.

He hadn’t killed the octopus, but it didn’t dare surface again.

Nan Guo Base’s crisis eased—for now.

They wanted to throw a feast for him. Wang Jie refused. Instead, he asked about the ocean.

“Little brother,” Lian Qin said, drawing him aside to the balcony, “do you have some idea?”

The breeze carried her fragrance. Whether by accident or design, her arm brushed his hand. Her skin was smooth, almost slick. In the glow of the wine, she looked even paler, even more enticing.

Her qipao clung to her in a way that made it hard not to look.

Wang Jie’s pulse jumped. He took a quick sip of wine, trying to cool the heat rising in his chest.

Lian Qin smiled, leaning in closer. The scent thickened. “What’s wrong, little brother? Hot?”

She lifted a hand as if to wipe sweat from his face.

Wang Jie stepped back. “I just want to know more about the seabed.”

Lian Qin laughed softly. “What’s there to know? Ocean beasts are plentiful, sure, but most can’t come ashore. As long as we don’t go down, we’ll be fine.

“Of course, no more seafood,” she added with a teasing smile.

Wang Jie’s throat went dry. It was summer, but it wasn’t the weather making him hot. Why was she leaning over the railing like that?

Wen Zhao appeared at the balcony entrance and glanced once at Lian Qin before turning to Wang Jie. “Qi Xue Yin wants you.”

Wang Jie left as if fleeing.

Lian Qin watched him go, smiling faintly. Dealing with boys like this was easy.

Qi Xue Yin hadn’t asked for Wang Jie at all. Wang Jie knew immediately that Wen Zhao had pulled him out on purpose.

“Thanks,” he said.

Wen Zhao’s tone remained cool. “Whatever you’re thinking about her, wait until after the month ends.

“For now, focus on Shu Mu Ye. Don’t waste yourself.”

“I wasn’t—” Wang Jie stopped, then said honestly, “I was asking about the seabed. I want to cultivate down there.”

Wen Zhao blinked. “The seabed?”

Wang Jie nodded.

Wen Zhao thought for a moment, gaze turning toward the ocean. “It’s a way. Be careful.”

A sliver of sunlight spilled across the sea to the east, beautiful and cold.

Wang Jie stepped into the water with breathing equipment on his back and began to sink.

Cultivation was a fight for life against heaven and earth, against the natural world itself.

There was no safe path. Only risk—and reward.

As he descended, he saw the seaweed again.

This time it didn’t attack.

Wang Jie didn’t care. He didn’t intend to let a ten seals creature remain beneath the base.

He’d prepared. A blade flashed.

The water churned. Seaweed lashed toward him from every direction, and he cut it into ragged strips. Ocean beasts rushed in and died in crimson bursts.

Soon the sea turned red.

He didn’t know how long he fought before the water finally quieted.

Only after he was sure nothing nearby could ambush him did he continue sinking.

The octopus was nowhere to be seen.

Four hundred meters.

The pressure was heavy, but not enough—not even close.

That was the limit for an ordinary eighth seal cultivator.

Wang Jie kept descending.

Five hundred.

Eight hundred.

One thousand.