‘At least I tried…’

Zhang Dong looked down at a large army of flying fishmen coming his way. After he took out a large portion of a hidden room and appeared here his location became known. His Dao of Darkness couldn’t help him this time around as there were no shadows to sink into. He had appeared up in the sky and right in front of the enemy base. Instantly when he came out the people living here became aware of his existence and were coming his way.

‘There are a lot of them, I need to find a way to open up this damn bubble, I can’t even teleport out back to the golden palace…’

The person that made this place really didn’t like the teleportation function. Now that it was gone Zhang Dong realized how much he was reliant on this feature. There was a possibility of getting out through similar means but he would first need to create the correct gate through which he could leave or a formation. Without it, there was no way of getting back to his people or the area he previously was in. After ripping out the secret room the entire section he was in vanished from his map. It was as if the whole place didn’t exist in the first place.

It was more of the clones coming his way. There were quite a few at the general level. With this many around, even Zhang Dong didn’t feel confident in his victory. Together with the men holding tridents also came a swarm of fish monsters. There were many nascent soul-level beings here that numbered in the thousands. They continued to pour out of the castle and it didn’t seem like there was an end to them.

‘I don’t see any way of opening this bubble from this side, the mechanism must be inside of their main base…’

To his dismay, there was no way for him to avoid this battle or get back to his people. He was in for the fight of his life and the Empress he was supposed to face off against didn’t even show herself yet. He was hoping to save his battle armor for the last battle but as it stood now he needed all the help he could get against the swarm of lackeys.

“You guys probably don’t want to talk this over, right?”

He called out to the underwater people that came to greet him. In his mind, there was no way for them to communicate after all of the events that transpired before. His armies had killed massive numbers of the cloned soldiers and they had been battling against each other for months now. However, for some reason when the large group arrived something happened. Before he could take a fighting stance and start blasting, they called out to him.

“The Empress is expecting you, please come with us.”

“She is expecting me? The Empress?”

“Yes!”

Instead of attacking him, they moved to the sides. A tunnel surrounded by various creatures was formed from up in the air and stretched all the way out to the faraway palace. Apparently, their leader knew that he was already coming their way. Perhaps she had a way of observing his movements as he was trying to come in through the back door.

‘Could it be possible for there to be peace between our two factions?’

Zhang Dong wasn’t sure what was going on but he couldn’t know if this was just a trap. He had already met one of the Empire sides that weren’t totally his enemies like Argus and his people. Perhaps it was possible for this Cerulean Empress of theirs to be the same. Perhaps some kind of treaty could be reached.

‘Maybe if I just offer them the sea they will leave us be?’

These people were beings that needed some water to survive. The cultivators above ground didn’t really need the great sea for anything much. They could survive without really fishing outside and there were also many sea-sized lakes on the main ground that could be used instead. An agreement could be reached for the hundred or so years this empire was there. They would keep away from the water and the Cerulean Empress would not push into the land.

‘That is if it's not a trap, it could be possible that she just wants to lure me into some type of trapping formation but, I might have a chance to disable the bubble if I get inside the palace.’

The whole thing looked fishy but not like he could decline. They were opening up the gates before him and he felt confident in his own abilities. Thankfully most people in this world tended to underestimate his abilities. As long as he was careful he didn’t see himself getting defeated.

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‘Just to be safe I’ll leave an escape route ready…’

While he didn’t want to depend on his teleportation feature too much, it was still working when inside this large bubble. Even if he couldn’t get outside of it to his people he could still set up a place to escape if something inside of that palace happened to him. After putting the save spot into his faction window he nodded at the person that came to pick him up.

“Fine then, I’ll meet your Empress then.”

“Please come this way, the Empress wishes to see you now and she doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

Soon he was flying through the tunnel of monsters. A thin layer of golden energy was surrounding his body and ready to explode. It wouldn’t be strange if these monsters decided to just push themselves onto his body. They were acting strange though, just standing there without even blinking. At least for the ones that had eyes, some of them were just fish with no eyelids.

‘These beings… they aren’t quite there…’

Zhang Dong realized something, there was something off about these beings. There was something affecting their movements, something was jolting their souls into acting a certain way. Previously the army of clones didn’t seem to have this attribute to them but the creatures here did. Something strong was pulling at their strings and the closer to the palace that he got, the more this feeling he received.

‘I guess it must be their Empress.’

There was nothing really known about this Cerulean Empress to him. The cloned soldiers weren’t good at describing their leader as they had never actually seen her before. There was also no mention of the huge angler fish that had swallowed them whole.

‘If it was just soul arts then I might be able to break her hold on them but there seems to be something more there…’

His expertise in souls was one of the greatest in this world. Normally if someone was controlled by some demonic art it would be possible to affect the person in some type of fashion. If the armies here were getting controlled through some corup technique then breaking it would have been his priority. Even though he could feel a connection through the soul there was something else binding this control.

‘Could it be… bloodline arts? Could these people really have all come from her?’

After arriving at the palace gates he somewhat grasped the situation. There were connections through blood that existed in this world. Ancestors of immense power could sometimes affect their descendants through their bloodline. Usually, this type of control died after the ancient being of power died out but what if such an ancestor managed to survive? In theory, the control would never be removed and the descendants would be forced to comply.

‘But this many? Or could this be why they are cloned… If they remade members from the first or second generation it’s feasible to retain the bloodline purity and keep control.’

With each generation, some of the bloodlines were always muddled. With time only a few individuals would retain those ancient abilities that made their ancestors famous and powerful. By cloning people with high amounts of purity in their blood the ancestor in question could retain absolute control through generations. The question was if this was the case here or if there was something more to it.

This was not good news for him. Perhaps he would be able to break control over these clones if they were bound to the Empress’ soul. It would be impossible for him to go around the bloodline ability which he could not affect with any Dao. The only way to counter this ability would be through an individual of the same line that was at a similar level to the ancestor.

After that, there was a third way if a person had a similar bloodline to the ancestors. It was sometimes possible to draw in people from another bloodline if they accepted the new one as their own. However, in this case, this wouldn’t be possible. He was a human cultivator and these were some types of underwater beings. There were no close relations with their bloodlines and this would be impossible.

‘So this is the place? I don’t see anything that could turn off the bubble yet but there must be something inside, the connection is there.’

While he could not see anything that was powering the defensive formation there was a way for him to sense where the power source was coming from. Large defensive shields like the one this place had needed a lot of power. Even if he couldn’t break the array or treasure that was generating it as long as he found the power source, it would be enough. Going by the spirit energy of this place, it was somewhere in here and these clone soldiers were actually guiding him to that spot.

‘There are a lot of mermaids in here… not many men though.’

One thing that he spotted was the lack of any male mermaids in this place. The soldiers that were guiding him looked more like regular human men or were like a mix between a fish and a person. All of the females of this species seemed to only consist of one type, the mermaids that were peeking out from the corners and looking at him.

‘Wang Long would have probably liked this place a lot… that is if the Empress looks anywhere as beautiful as these mermaids.’

Finally, he came up to a huge gate made out of sea coral. It started to slowly open and he was welcomed with a nice fragrance along with the music.

“So you are the one that harmed my children…”

From within a voice that belonged to a beauty was heard. His eyes quickly darted toward the location it was coming from. There he finally saw his new enemy that finally revealed himself to him, the Cerulean Empress.