Chapter 3017: Chapter 3017
Thunder and the others didn’t dare kill the electric eels—too much blood would only lure bigger sea-beasts.
Li Qingyang and Chang Yuxing watched their restraint and quietly raised their guard. Li offered a few polite words of praise, then led the column onward.
The ordinary bandits gazed over in open admiration.
“Badass!” Liu Yan gave Ye Liuyun a big thumbs-up.
The Desolate Sea never stopped throwing danger at them.
Seven days in, they’d already lost fifty-plus men, yet Li Qingyang still hadn’t locked on to the reference point he wanted.
Nothing but endless water—no landmarks, no bearings.
The outlaws were wiped out: souls drained, cores half-emptyed. Another stretch without rest and they’d start dropping.
Just as everyone hit the wall, Li Qingyang suddenly whooped, “Found it!”
Every blood-shot eye snapped wide; hope flared like a flare.
Chang Yuxing and the other officers hurried forward, nodded confirmation.
Ye Liuyun’s golden pupils speared the depths: a submerged reef, big enough to let them catch their breath. Treasure? He couldn’t tell yet.
Li Qingyang waved the whole troop over.
“Half-day halt. Two more months and we’re on top of the hoard.”
So much for the prize—just a nav-fix. Ye Liuyun rolled his eyes.
Same disappointment rippled through the ranks; they’d thought the trip was over.
“You idiots—pinpointing a single coordinate in a waste this size this fast is gold. This isn’t dry land.”
Li let the lecture hang, then added, “Even at rest, stay sharp. The water’s still hungry.”
This time he didn’t set bandit pickets; he stationed core experts around the perimeter and floated all three flying shuttles so the rest could recharge in safety.
An hour of quiet cultivation passed—proof the reef broke the sea’s fury.
Then battle thunder rolled outside the hulls.
Everyone spilled out; Li stowed the shuttles first—no point in letting the shipwrights weld holes later.
Their guardians were already blasting back a forest of octopus arms—more than one monster, judging by the count.
Seeing the risk was low, Li ordered the outlaws in. Ye Liuyun’s squad charged first, blades hacking rubbery trunks.
Enthusiasm wasn’t valor—it was hunger. Days of watching sea-beasts swim by had left them craving fresh meat; now the buffet was open.
Li mistook their zeal for battle-lust and merely smiled.
One tentacle equaled a python. Ye Liuyun, Tang Xinyao and the rest lopped off twenty-plus, enough for a feast, then eased back to leave scraps for the others.
When the last octopus sank in a cloud of ink, they re-launched the shuttles and resumed meditating while Ye Liuyun fired up a grill on deck.
Dragon Girl inspected the meat and asked where it came from. After hearing about the gray reef she speculated:
“Color like that usually means volcanic rock—an underwater eruption.”
Ye Liuyun replayed the sensation he’d shrugged off earlier; yes, a distant pulse of fire.“When an under-sea volcano blows, it can shoot magma a long way through the water. Add the deep currents and the reef can be dragged even farther, so ending up far from the vent isn’t strange at all,” the Dragon Girl explained.
Ye Liuyun didn’t waste time guessing. He masked both her and Qiong Qi’s auras, stepped outside the flying ship with them, and took a look for himself.
In the end both agreed: the reef had been coughed up by a submarine eruption. Qiong Qi, attuned to every spark of fire, even pinpointed the vent’s direction.
Naturally the beast wanted to bolt straight off and devour the flames. Ye Liuyun, face unreadable, slipped the two back into his pocket dimension and whispered to Qiong Qi: “If they don’t head that way, I’ll send my clone with you to collect it.”
The Dragon Girl, tasting the outside air, begged to be let out at once. Ye Liuyun made her wait—her draconic scent might catch the notice of Chang Yuxing’s heavyweights. If they ordered her to scout ahead, refusing would be impossible.
He only wanted the vault’s location; leading these people around was not part of the deal.
Still, his little excursion drew Chang Yuxing and Li Qingyang’s eyes; Liu Yan was dispatched to ask what was up.
Ye Liuyun saw no reason to hide it. The “treasure” they spoke of couldn’t be a mere fire-vein; nothing that small would warrant this much fuss. He told Liu Yan straight.
After Liu Yan reported back, Li Qingyang conferred with Chang Yuxing and decided to let Ye Liuyun’s party chase the fire-vein on their own.
It was a convenient way to send them off and stop worrying about them.
They already had the coordinates; they knew the dangers ahead and could manage without a handful of extra bodies. And if Ye Liuyun drew some of the Dragon-Head raiders after him, so much the better—it would lighten the pressure on them.
So Li Qingyang summoned Ye Liuyun.
“Liu Yan told us you’ve found a fire-vein. The chief and I have approved your leaving the group to secure it. You needn’t follow us any farther—safer for you that way.
If you finish early, rendezvous on the planet in the Huoyin system where we’ll be waiting, or head straight back to our own world in the Duqiao galaxy.”
Ye Liuyun heard the unspoken message loud and clear: they were being ditched now that the destination was in sight.
“Cautious bastards—once they think they’re close, they start guarding against us.”
But he kept his face grateful, thanking Li Qingyang profusely.
“No need for thanks—we’re on the same side. We promised to keep you safe, and we will,” Li Qingyang said with false generosity.
Ye Liuyun thanked him again, withdrew, exchanged a quick word with Liu Yan, and left the flying ship with Tang Xinyao and the others.
Their early departure drew openly envious stares from Liu Yan and the rest of the raiders.
