Chapter 83: Entering

"General Yaksha, aren't you patrolling the northern seas? What brings you here to inspect the Five-Colored Coral? There are already two squads of Bream Centurions on patrol within the coral. Why do you need to come in person?"

The silver-scaled shad demon, upon seeing the approaching Yaksha of the Sea Patrol, greeted him with a decorum reminiscent of human etiquette and posed the question.

"The Second Prince is worried that the Little Princess might be up to something again, so he sent me specifically to oversee this area and prevent any fugitives from slipping through."

The Yaksha of the Sea Patrol, noticing the shad demon’s lack of respect, glared fiercely with eyes round as lanterns and leveled the blade of his axe directly at the demon as he spoke.

"You serve the Second Prince, I serve the Little Princess. Our loyalties are clear. Though the Little Princess is currently enduring punishment by Twin-Flame Torment, don't forget she is most favored by the Dragon King and Eldest Prince. I advise you to instruct those two squads of Bream Centurions to remove the restrictions on the Five-Colored Coral and let us inside."

The shad demon, whose head was rather small, showed no fear of the Yaksha. He rested his silver hammer on his shoulder, his tone turning markedly blunt as he spoke.

"You, a mere shad demon who’s cultivated for just a few decades, dare speak to me like this? Do you believe I won’t eat you right here and now?"

The Yaksha split his mouth wide, revealing his fangs as he threatened.

"I was dispatched by the Little Princess herself. Not like those blue shrimp soldiers you ate before—if the Princess doesn't see me, do you think the Second Prince will protect you?"

The shad demon even went so far as to shove his fishy head toward the Yaksha’s open jaws, his voice cold and unyielding.

The Yaksha hesitated to close his mouth, and instead took a step back. His lantern eyes fixed on the silver hammer in the demon’s grip, he turned toward the Five-Colored Coral behind him.

"Open the Five-Colored Coral!"

The Yaksha barked the order.

"Yes, sir!"

A voice responded from within, and at once the clustered, jagged corals parted to reveal a broad passage, through which the grand vermillion doors studded with golden nails of the Dragon Palace could be seen at a glance.

"As for that blue shrimp soldier you spoke of, I didn't eat him—I handed him over to the Bream Marshal. By now, I imagine he's so frightened in the Second Prince's hall that he's probably wet himself."

The Yaksha cast a cold smirk at the shad demon, then, almost offhandedly, swung his axe and cleaved a green-shelled crab soldier in two, swallowing the struggling crab whole.

"Shrimp soldiers are nothing—there are as many as one could ever need in the sea."

The shad demon chuckled lightly.

"Heh, but a shrimp soldier who can face me without fear, respond so boldly, and not even bow his head before the Bream Marshal—such a one must be rare indeed."

The Yaksha licked the corner of his mouth with a long tongue, then paid the shad demon no more heed and swam off to the other side of the Five-Colored Coral.

"Is that shrimp soldier really as remarkable as he claims?"

The shad demon muttered under his breath.

The shrimp soldier he’d dispatched with the Princess’s message had been nothing but an ordinary foot soldier. The shad demon simply hadn’t expected the Second Prince to be so cautious.

"This silver-scaled shad demon must have learned from humans; he certainly knows how to bluff and brandish his authority. If the Yaksha hadn’t been cowed by his words and had simply closed his jaws, that shad would have died right here. The value of a Sea Patrol Yaksha far exceeds that of a mere shad demon."

Xie Miu'an, watching the shad demon enter the Five-Colored Coral, allowed a rare note of admiration to flicker in his clouded eyes.

"Don’t you find it odd, the way they’re talking about that shrimp soldier?" Xi Chunxue asked, frowning.

"Are you thinking that shrimp soldier is really that wicked flood dragon in disguise? But the Dragon Palace may not have any demon-revealing mirrors, yet wouldn’t their wards see through any crude transformation spell?"

Xie Miu'an caught her implication, but voiced his doubts.

The Dragon Palace might lack a demon-revealing mirror, but it possessed genuine red dragons, and even the ambient dragon aura would be enough to expose a disguised form. Moreover, Xie Miu'an had read the flood dragon’s background in detail among the archives of the Prison Office; he was nothing but a wild demon from Dongxu Mountain, with no mentor from whom he might have learned any profound transformation arts.

"But what if it is? Look at those green-shelled crab soldiers: even after one of their own was eaten by the Yaksha, they only cower closer together, desperate not to be the next to die. They don’t even have the courage to wave their pincers in protest, let alone the shrimp soldiers, who are hardly braver."

Xi Chunxue glanced sideways at the crabs clustered together behind a bubble, their eyes retracted—as if, by not seeing the Yaksha, they would themselves go unseen.

"Duan Lingqi’s transformation technique isn’t crude at all. Until he revealed those dragon claws, I had no inkling he was actually a demon."

Su Yuanbai spoke calmly.

He’d been reminded of his own recent visit to Duan Lingqi’s cell. Had the dragon not carelessly let his claws slip from his sleeves, Su Yuanbai would never have guessed the truth.

"Then why would that flood dragon sneak into the Dragon Palace disguised as a shrimp soldier? If he’d seen the fish demon approaching with shrimp and crab soldiers, why not come warn us?"

As Su Yuanbai spoke, Xie Miu'an immediately accepted that the shrimp soldier must have been Duan Lingqi, yet his confusion remained.

If Duan Lingqi could transform into a shrimp soldier, he must have spotted the fish demon early on. So why hadn’t he returned to the cave to warn them? Why infiltrate the palace alone?

"We’ll have to ask him ourselves," Xi Chunxue replied, shaking her head, still baffled by Duan Lingqi’s intentions.

Su Yuanbai glanced at the crabs, their eyes now protruding again, who pushed the group forward to the grand doors of the Dragon Palace. When their task was done, the crabs hastily scuttled backward, leaving mere ripples in the water before vanishing from sight.

"Are these the human cultivators who stole the Sea-Calming Pearl?" asked the black-eyed bream demon standing to the left of the palace doors, barring the way with his spear as he peered into the bubble at Su Yuanbai and the others.

"Yes. They’re to be handed over to the Second Prince for interrogation," the shad demon replied with a nod.

The black-eyed bream demon exchanged a glance with the white-eyed mackerel demon on the right. Seeing no objection, he withdrew his spear and allowed the shad demon to proceed.

The shad demon swam behind the bubble and began to push it through the palace doors.

"The water’s gone," Su Yuanbai remarked, glancing up at the sky above the Dragon Palace just as the bubble crossed the threshold.

"It really is," Xi Chunxue echoed, pressing to the bubble’s edge and looking around at the palace. There was not a trace of rippling seawater to be seen.

"Get ready," Su Yuanbai warned her suddenly.

"What?" Xi Chunxue asked, startled.

Su Yuanbai simply reached out, tapping the bubble with a finger. A crisp pop sounded as the bubble, which had shown no sign of breaking until now, burst like a dream.

The shad demon, caught off guard, found his hands grasping not the cold edge of a bubble, but the warm body of a human. He looked up, his fish eyes blank, to see the humans standing, no less dazed than he, upon the white jade floor of the Dragon Palace.