In the End

The Captains of the Pirate Armada had brought their Capital battleships with proximity of each other.

Captain Fan spoke first, "We have to find the right location for our ambush. It's well known that those damned sea monsters have Void Refinement stage beast posted close to the island and we don't want to draw them to the surface."

Captain Mo added, "I heard that the merfolk had a change in leadership recently, but the princess was able to slip away. If our luck holds up, we can find her, capture her, and hold her ransom."

Captain Sao, Yi, and Zuyi gave Mo a suspicious look before Sao asked, "Whe'e you hear dat from?"

Mo smiled, "When me and o' Fan here were scoutin' the Nanying coastline, we found the beach there had changed recently. A huge chunk of land had disappear'd and fill'd with water and we caught one of them fishies."

"You always get the fun missions old Fan", Yi spoke while sitting provocatively.

"Did you keep him, old Fan? We would like to offer a trade for something your interested in", Zuyi added as she teased Yi in front of everyone.

Mo turned his head and coughed, "Well, no, after we were done asking questions, he threw him back in. He floated on top of the sea until he waterlogged and sunk into the depths."

Sao leaned back in his seat, "E'nuff of dis, if we find 'er, the one who does gets th' ransom. Let's hide 'ere about tree hundred kilometers. We be far e'nuff away to avoid dem monstas."

"Agreed", Fan said, "Get your ships into position, and if they don't leave in a couple days, we will run in to take everything they left behind."

"Your Majesty!", King Zeng turned as he heard the lead scout call out to him.

"Proceed", he replied.

"Sire, my scouts have located a pirate fleet north of us. They most likely belong the Admiral Chen's Black Wolf pirate alliance", the scout responded.

"How do you know that?", Zeng questioned him.

"My King, when the ocean near the Nanying continent had a sudden change a few years ago, I sent scouts to explore the reason", the scout explained, "Of course we found that a gap in the land sea had appeared, so I kept the scouts there to hopefully see who was responsible. One of the scouts had been captured and tortured for information before being left for dead. He still had some luck though as he lived and was found by the other scouts and informed us of the pirates."

"These humans dare capture and torture one of our own? General!", King Zeng bellowed.

A large, strong merfolk swam over, "Yes, my king."

"Send word to our guards at the island to watch for anyone coming or going from there and prevent both. Prepare the soldiers, some arrogant pirates attacked our people, and think they will get away with it", Zeng commanded.

"It will be done", the general swam away, barking orders.

The Pirate armada had found its spot and landed on the sea to prevent being detected. Each ship had lookouts in the crow's nest, but as nothing was happening, He Zan, was bored. Humming the only song he knew over and over again while he looked over the endless sea, he wanted something to happen. He stood up to stretch his legs, three almost simultaneous impacts hit the ship before the feeling of getting pulled under came over him. Scared out of his mind he grabbed two talismans from his storage ring. He activated the first one and a large fireball shot into the sky and exploded ten seconds later. He activated the second and yelled as loud as he could, "WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!"

Captain Fan had been in his room when he heard the warning talisman and the following shout.

"First mate, get us in the air and tell everyone else the same, Now!", he ordered his crew.

The first mate turned around, "Get us in the air now, wake up the crews, and man the protection artifacts, fire on any enemy seen."

Chaos engulfed each ship as they activated the flying arrays and prepared to fire their cannons. One ship tried to fly but it slowly rose from the water exposing three humongous segmented worms with giant jaws locked on to the bottom of the ship. The surrounding ships started aiming at the giant worms, when out of the sea an even larger flood dragon jumped out of the water and landed on the stuck ship. It had activated its protective array formations but the flood dragons size was too much and the shield popped like a bubble before the ship broke in half. Hundreds of cannons fired at the flood dragon causing blood to pour from the wounds. The flood dragon disappeared under the water before hundred of giant worms and ten other flood dragons rose out of the surface. On the head of of the largest flood dragon, King Zeng stood tall, "How dare you humans injure a denizen of the sea!"

Even though he didn't shout, everyone heard his voice.

The five captains displayed their Void Refinement cultivations, causing the battlefield to come to a standstill.

"May I ask how we have offended you, fellow Daoist?", Captain Fan asked politely.

"Fellow Daoist? I will be addressed as King Zeng Wuhan, and I'm here to make you answer for attacking one of my citizens, torturing him, and almost killing him", Zeng demanded.

None of the captains reacted, but they knew that it was Old Mo's fault, but didn't say anything.

"Your Majesty, I don't believe that you wish to be in conflict with the Black Wolf pirate alliance. Let's make big things small and small things disappear by paying us compensation for the damaged ship", Fan said as he sent secret messages to the others.

"You demand this king compensates you!", King Zeng gritted his teeth as his face turned red.

He looked at his generals and then looked back at the pirates just all the ships took off flying away to the north.

"After them, kill them all", Zeng ordered his army.

The flying ships didn't head straight for the island because of the sea monster watching the formation. They took a longer route around to the north side of the island that resulted in a few of the slower ships getting picked off and sunk.

Greymane, Thunderclaw, and their escorts had been traveling for a few days to limit the stress on their leader's body. Today would be the day that they would reach Sun & Moon Island and see if the poison in their leaders body could be neutralized. As they flew closer to the island, Greymane pulled out the the talisman given to him by Huoran. He activated it with his Qi and watched as the talisman light flared and then dimmed. Just when he thought that he had been tricked, a voice said, "Welcome to Sun & Moon island Daoist Greymane. Warning, a conflict on the southern side of the island is in progress the related parties are moving in this direction. Please increase your travel speed to avoid entanglement with their conflict. Please be informed, protection drones are being deployed to prevent harm to your party."

Despite the uncomfortable feeling, he prodded the eagles to accelerate and a few minutes later, he sensed that multiple objects were flying along side him. He couldn't see, sense, or hear them, but he could smell them.

"Everyone, ignore the smells that just appeared, they are artifacts from an ally", Greymane announced to the group.

The restless wolves calmed down a bit, but stayed alert to their surroundings.

"Shaman Thunderclaw, we have no choice but to speed up. If you have a way to protect the leader, use it even if it means using up your Qi faster. We must make it to the island." Greymane commanded.

"I'll try to protect the area around him with air to dampen any shocks, but I stopped practicing wind Qi techniques when I learned about my lightning Qi", Thunderclaw said.

"It will have to do", Greymane nodded.

Captain Fan was evaluating the situation, even though a few more ships had been lost, it was still within reason.

His first mate's voice brought him back to reality, "Captain, there is a small group of Eagles with Beastkins riding them up ahead of us. Should we divert around them?"

"We don't have the time to do so, just fire on them to clear the path", Fan ordered.

The cannons of the ship started aiming towards Greymane's group.

King Zeng was following behind the pirate's fleet when a voice rang out, "Guests of Sun & Moon island are under attack. Warning, hostile force, decease your attack or face the consequences of your actions."

The five captains and the king chasing them all had confused looks on their faces hearing such an announcement.

"Hostile force has not complied, executing offensive actions", the voice reappeared.

As King Zeng was about to sneer, thinking this was a bluff, the formation around the island shimmered. Explosions shook multiple ships as unseen attacks struck them. Each ship suffered damage to its control and flight arrays and began falling to the sea.

"F***!, ALL SHIPS SPILT UP AND RETURN TO PORT HOWEVER YOU CAN, INFORM ADMIRAL CHEN OF THIS", Captain Fan shouted.

All the ships diverted in different directions away from the island as more ships took fatal damage and crashed into the sea.

King Zeng also bellowed, "DIVE! RETURN TO THE CAPITAL IMMEDIATELY!"

All the sea beastkins, magical beasts, and creatures dove under the water and swam away in haste.

"All hostile forces have either been shot or are now out of range", Quanliyuan reported.

"How is the status of the vein?", Huoran asked.

"Attacks only drained surplus Qi, spiritual vein is collecting and expelling Qi at the normal rate", Quanliyuan said.

"The vein is pretty resilient", Huoran said, "I think there is more to it than jousting being a spiritual vein."

Quanliyuan agreed, "I have a theory, but now is not the time."

Huoran nodded and took out his Qphone and activated the video conference for the Ministry chat group. Once all the ministers answered the call and arrived virtually, Huoran said, "Prepare for guests, the beastkin have return, and I believe they brought there poisoned leader. I'm on my way to the hospital to prepare to receive the patient. Get ready to meet their group and arrange places for them. Let's get started."