Chapter 541.2. Oceanic Soul Beasts

Huo Yuhao slowed down and said, “We seem to be going deeper into the Ice Sea instead of returning to land.”

“Huh?” Tang Wutong asked. “That can’t be the case! From the position of the sun, we should be flying in the right direction, right?”

The more Huo Yuhao thought about this, the more he felt that something was wrong. He decided to stop and close his eyes as he tried to sense his surroundings. After a short while, he opened his eyes as a worried expression formed on his face. “Damn it. I think we’ve been tricked.”

After hearing his words, Tang Wutong tensed up as her Golden Dragon Spear appeared in her hand.

Huo Yuhao was very worried about what had just happened. Despite his superior spiritual power, he had actually flown for close to an hour before realizing something was wrong. One could only imagine what would happen next.

“What did you discover?” Tang Wutong asked softly.

Huo Yuhao forced a smile and said, “I only noticed the problem now because I didn’t discover anything strange. The temperature change was the only clue that alerted me.”

“With the speed that we were flying at, if we were heading for land, the temperature should have increased by now. But if you pay attention to our ambient temperature, you can tell that it has decreased. It was especially significant when we just flew over that region.”

After hearing his words, Tang Wutong immediately understood what he meant. “Are you saying that we’ve been caught in an illusion?” This was the only possible explanation, especially when the position of the sun told them that they were heading in the right direction. At their cultivation, it was nearly impossible for them to misjudge things like direction. The only possible answer was that they had fallen into a trap.

“So what do we do now?” Tang Wutong asked calmly.

Huo Yuhao’s eyes brightened as he replied, “We must first destroy this illusion. If not, regardless of which direction we fly in, we would only continue in the direction our opponent wants. The power of this illusion is very strong indeed.”

As he spoke, a line formed of rose gold light extended from the top to the bottom of his forehead. His Eye of Destiny was slowly opening.

The rose golden sunray patterns expanded on his forehead with the Eye of Destiny at their center.

Huo Yuhao closed his eyes, and used his Eye of Destiny to observe the world around him. This time, he was finally able to see something.

Even though his surroundings seemed to be fairly calm and still, there were actually some gentle energy ripples around him. These energy ripples were of the spiritual type. As he gazed at the sky with his Eye of Destiny, Huo Yuhao was finally able to see the true position of the sun. This discovery also allowed him to finally understand the mechanism behind this illusion.

The illusion was using spiritual power to distort their determination of the sun’s position. The most incredible thing about this illusion was how it did not require a lot of spiritual power to maintain it. The changes it invoked were also very gradual and minimal. Hence, it was terribly hard to notice this illusion. Even Huo Yuhao was tricked by it.

Huo Yuhao grabbed Tang Wutong’s hand as they activated the Class 9 flying soul tools behind their backs. In the next instant, they activated the Haodong Power within their bodies as they powered their soul tools to send them speeding in the right direction at the fastest speed possible.

However, at that instant, a cold voice rang in their ears. “Since the two of you are already here, why leave so hastily?”

Suddenly, dark blue light surged from the Ice Sea. It was not a wave, but pure energy ripples. The moment the dark blue light surged out, Huo Yuhao and Tang Wutong felt as if they had collided with an extremely viscous fluid. Their flying speed dropped drastically.

Following which, the dark blue light became increasingly dense. Even though their bodies did not seem to be receiving any blows, Huo Yuhao and Tang Wutong felt as though the world had spun around, and the sky and ocean had swapped positions in the next instant.

This was a power which could rival the authority of the heavens. Even with their incredibly high cultivations, they were unable to resist this transformation.

All Huo Yuhao could do was keep Tang Wutong in his embrace as he tried to protect her with his body. At the same time, he activated his Invincible Barrier, as well as his Ice Empress’ Armor. He was exhausting everything he had to protect them.

The sensation lasted for a few moments. When the energy ripples finally stopped, Tang Wutong and Huo Yuhao felt a cold sensation on their bodies. To their surprise, they had already appeared in a deep blue world.

This deep blue world was no special domain. It was the sea!

Yes! In this short amount of time, their surroundings had undergone a mysterious transformation. Both of them had ended up in the sea, even though they were in the air just moments ago. Right now, both of them had an extremely worried expression on their faces.

The ocean was the home of the aquatic soul beasts. Their flying advantage was no longer present under these circumstances. When they looked up, all they could see was the same dark blue color. Not a single bit of light could penetrate the thick dark blue water. Even with Huo Yuhao’s Spirit Eyes, he could not see beyond a hundred meters.

Their bodies were being pounded by the immense water pressure and the icy currents in the sea. In this place, they were unable to breathe, and had to suffer the impact of the water pressure. The sea had become their natural enemy as it continuously tried to pressurize and contain them.

Tang Wutong was startled by what had happened. When she tried to budge, Huo Yuhao hugged her tighter as he kept her in his embrace.

It was fine for cultivators at their level to not breathe for short periods of time. As he hugged Tang Wutong, Huo Yuhao intensified the power of his Eye of Destiny.

The rose gold glow illuminated the surrounding seawater, allowing Huo Yuhao to notice the hundreds of different aquatic soul beasts that were only a couple of hundred meters away from them.

Among them were a couple of beautiful mermaids and mermen, which were in front of the other soul beasts. They were wielding long spears and unknown pieces of coral as they glared at Huo Yuhao and Tang Wutong with much hatred.

Huo Yuhao released his spiritual power into his surroundings as he attempted to use spiritual detection, amplified by his Eye of Destiny, to scan the furthest he could.

He needed to find a way out before he could decide what to do next. If not, they would be trapped here with nothing to look forward to but their own deaths. With their current cultivation, they were able to replace their normal breathing with internal breathing. However, they could only maintain that for about an hour, and at the cost of a copious amount of soul power. This meant that if they were not able to escape from this place in an hour, they would drown here.

“Humans, stop your meaningless struggle. This is our world—the great sea. The power of the ocean will not allow you to achieve anything meaningful with your spiritual power. Regardless of how strong your spiritual power is, it will still be suppressed by the ocean. This is the power of the Sea God!”

A very cold spiritual intent was transmitted into Huo Yuhao’s head. Huo Yuhao naturally traced where the intent was coming from as he looked in that direction.

He saw a beautiful mermaid. The mermaid was about three meters long. Her upper body was modeled after the female human anatomy. Two white shells were used to cover the private areas in front of her chest. That was all the torso apparel she had.

She had a head of long blue hair which did not seem to float about in the water. Instead, it seemed to be frozen in place. She was wielding a long silver spear in her hand. Her lower body consisted of a gigantic fish tail. There were many deep blue scales on the fishtail, which reflected the rose gold light from Huo Yuhao’s Eye of Destiny beautifully.

There was a silver crown above the mermaid’s forehead. In the center of the crown was a blue gem, which symbolized her status.

Other than her, there were over a hundred merfolk present. Every single one of them was radiating powerful spiritual fluctuations. In addition, Huo Yuhao realized that all of their spiritual fluctuations were linked, like a net. When he attempted to use his spiritual detection to project his spiritual power, the net would repel it, resulting in him being unable to detect what lay in the distance.

Martial soul combination skill! They were using an actual martial soul combination skill!

A martial soul combination skill was different from a martial soul fusion skill. A martial soul fusion skill was the fusion of either different or similar martial souls to increase their power exponentially and produce an entirely different kind of power. Meanwhile, a martial soul combination skill was mainly just the sum of each other.

Martial soul combination skills existed amongst human soul masters. But Huo Yuhao had not heard of hundreds of aquatic soul beasts executing a martial soul combination skill together.

No wonder they were able to set a trap without me knowing… No wonder they can use such an incredible power to bring Wutong and I into the ocean… They were using the power of a martial soul combination skill!

Huo Yuhao could sense that amongst the mermaids and mermen in front of him, the most powerful aquatic soul beast was the mermaid that had transmitted her spiritual intent to him. However, she was but a soul beast which had cultivated for about a hundred thousand years, and was still a fair bit away from reaching two hundred thousand years. Other than her, there were no other soul beasts that had cultivated for more than a hundred thousand years.

Huo Yuhao was certain that no single soul beast in front of them would be able to defeat either him or Tang Wutong if they were to fight one-on-one.

However, the situation would be entirely different if the throng of mermaids and mermen were to collectively release a martial soul combination skill. Even though the skill would not be enhanced like a martial soul fusion skill, the power would still grow to insane proportions when all their powers were stacked together.

When the spiritual power of over a hundred mermaids and mermen was added together, it could definitely be on par with a Transcendent Douluo. Huo Yuhao instantly became very worried about the sight before him.

“My beautiful mermaids and mermen, we come in peace. We have come here to look for the Princess of the Sea to discuss some things.” Huo Yuhao projected his spiritual intent outwards as Tang Wutong closed her eyes and circulated her soul power. She was trying to activate their Haodong Power to slow down their body processes and maintain their internal breathing. This would hopefully extend the duration which they could stay underwater as long as possible.