The guard knew who this woman was, so he became nervous and quickly tried to reason with her, swimming toward her. "Madam Zhu! Do not overreact, these people have just arrived, and they aren't directly trying to talk to you."
However, Madam Zhu was like a bull that had seen red. She grabbed the guard by the neck with a furious expression. "Do you think I care?! Since these people dare to mock me, they must pay the price! I've never been insulted in my life, and I won't start today!"
Yasenia saw the face of the guard becoming red quickly as the woman strangled him and spoke up. "Madam Zhu, leave him alone. This is between us."
While Yasenia usually didn't care about other people, this guard had been nothing but nice to them. Seeing him die didn't sit right with Yasenia.
The four-meter-tall crustacean woman looked fiercely toward Yasenia and screamed. "Not only did you disrespect me, you now dare to give me orders!?" Her lips arched maliciously, and she said. "If I want to kill someone, I'll just do it!"
Then, she clenched her hand with the intention of breaking the guard's neck. Yasenia used her movement technique, appearing by her side in an instant, and used her index finger to poke five times on the wrist and forearm area.
Her energy sunk into Madam Zhu's body, forcing her hand to relax. Then, using her tail, she coiled it around the guard's torso and threw him toward her group. One of the maids stepped forward and caught him, feeding him a healing pill to avoid any complications.
Now face-to-face, Yasenia looked upward with a calm expression and spoke to her. "Now that he is out of the way, what's the problem?"
The dragoness naturally understood that her comment touched this woman's nerves somehow and that Madam Zhu was now acting extremely irrationally and emotionally, so she was willing to give her at least a chance to calm down before she took action.
Today, she wanted to spend a relaxing day with Kaleina and Flame without seeing blood, if possible. Of course, depending on the situation, things were bound to change.
The woman looked at her limp hand with wide eyes. The sensations in that area had disappeared, making her feel extremely uncomfortable. She pointed at Yasenia with her good hand, her face becoming redder because of anger. "You, you, you, you! Do you even know who I am!? My husband is the deputy City Lord of the Descending Ocean City! How dare you touch me!?"
Then, she turned around and screamed at the guards. "ALL OF YOU ARE USELESS! THERE IS A PERSON ATTACKING YOUR LORD, AND YOU DARE NOT COME TO SAVE ME!?"
The woman was screaming so loud that she was creating waves in the water above. Yasenia looked back and saw Kali and Cecile using their soft tails to protect Kaleina's and Flame's ears.
Suddenly, she felt danger and saw a merman clad in armor, one of the leading guards, appear by her side and punch her. His face was indifferent as he spoke before the blow. "Don't get us wrong. You just offended someone you shouldn't."
Yasenia deployed a large part of her strength, crossing her arms before the punch and tensing her body.
BANG!
The water around shook as Yasenia became a comet and flew back hundreds of meters, creating a bubble trail because of the speed she was piercing through. Finally, she smashed into the sand, creating an underwater sand explosion.
The dragoness chuckled, feeling her arms tingling. 'That hurt quite a lot.'
When she moved out of the stopped, she looked back at him with interest. 'A high-level Epoch Core. To think that even a deputy lord's wife has such a high-level guard, no wonder this city is considered one of the strongest cities of the mermaid race. There are probably more high-level Epoch Cores in this city than in my sect.'
Yasenia looked at her arms and saw a red mark appearing, telling her just how strong he was.
However, the ones surprised the most were the madam and the personal guard captain that attacked. The guard's face became serious. "Why are you hiding your strength?"
Yasenia blinked, looking back at him with a puzzled expression. "What do you mean?"
The guard sneered. "There is no need to act. You appear to be just in the fourth realm, and yet you could take one of my punches without dying? That's not possible!"
Yasenia paused, looking at him with a profound gaze. "You wanted to kill me with that attack?"
Seeing his affirmation, Yasenia looked at him and the madam pitifully. 'Oh, you poor bastard. You shouldn't have said that.'
In the next instant, fifty maids appeared around them and released their killing intent. The ocean around them seemed to darken as a suffocating pressure and the smell of blood permeated everywhere.
The faces of everyone present became deathly pale as the fear of death swallowed their souls.
Alaia's voice was chilly, sending shivers down everyone's spines. "Foolish creatures, you'll soon know what it means to offend those you shouldn't. Capture everyone!"
Before they could even react, the fifty maids attacked with perfect coordination. Their fists kicks, and blunt weapons sunk into the stomachs of each guard with muted sounds, leaving only the madam conscious.
There was only one high-level Epoch Core in the group, so it ended in an instant.
Seeing the preciously normal but now unconscious 200 people, Madam Zhu's body chilled as her heart almost stopped in fear. She quickly spoke with a stutter. "Y-You, if something happens to me, you'll have to deal with the retaliation of my husband!" Her eyes spun, and she added. "A-Also, I'm pregnant! Will you deal with a pregnant woman!?"
Well, sadly for her, these maids had been trained by Tatyana. Their empathy toward those who attacked Yasenia and those around them was nonexistent.
They've erased plenty of families in the past regardless of all their members' innocence because someone from that group tried to mess with Yasenia.
Alaia appeared before the woman's face, looking straight into her eyes with her emotionless deep blue slit eyes. After a while, she sneered. "Even if we wouldn't care, you are actually lying. Did you think that you would not be touched if you were pregnant?"
Madam Zhu's eyes shook, her face becoming a sickly white. "W-Wait, are you really going to capture me? Didn't you hear me!? I'm Madam Zhu, the wife of Zhu Xie!"
Alaia shook her head and tapped her forehead. Lightning bolts surrounded the four-meter-tall woman's body for a second, all her muscles tensing because of the powerful electricity triggering her nerves, and then she fell limp while closing her eyes.
Yasenia approached, and Alaia bowed 90 degrees. "I'm sorry, miss! I didn't realize that he was attacking to kill! Please punish us!"
Yasenia also didn't realize because his strength was somewhat lacking for a high-level Epoch Core, so her first thought was that he was holding back. Still, while it was normal for them to miss it, it was also the truth that they couldn't realize it.
Their job was to protect her, so even if a mortal attacked her with the intention to kill, it would be up to them to stop them. It might sound extremely strict, but imagine a mortal carrying a tool that activates with their life and can risk Yasenia's life.
It was a very niche situation, but on the offhand that it happened, the maids needed to be extremely attentive. With that in mind, Yasenia spoke. "You all will go into a 24-hour guard duty once we return to the sect for three months. Then, you'll complete the detection course for the next month. If any of you is unable to pass it, you'll be suspended from your maid duties for three years."
All the maids bowed and answered at once. "Yes, young miss!"
Yasenia looked at the guard and spoke to him. "Hey."
The guard straightened, and even underwater, Yasenia could see that he was sweating coldly. "W-What might you want from this little one, Lady Yasenia?"
Yasenia smiled. "I want to ask for a guide. Do you know where I can hire one? It would be interesting to have a guided visit."
The guard nodded like a pecking chicken. "Um, Lady Yasenia, what will you do with… them?"
Yasenia looked sideways and looked at two of her level eight maids. "Carry them home and tie them all with the [Immortal Binding Ropes]." Those ropes suppressed the energy and bodily strength of cultivators, so once tied with it, it was impossible to escape. They had limits depending on their quality, but with enough good materials, even creating a rope for Tatyana's main body wasn't completely out of the question.
It was a lost art that Tatyana found in a secret realm exploration very long ago. Mirrory and Valeria knew about it
When they walked down and passed over a small hill, they finally saw the underwater city. There was another steep slope that went downwards, leading to a city big enough that, because of the water's refraction, they could not see the end of it by eye.
At a glance, the city was nearly 3000 meters under the water. While it would usually be completely dark at these depths, there was no problem because of the energy that was carried by the sunbeams.
The reason why oceans could be so deep and still harbor life in cultivation worlds is that the properties of water and light are slightly different.
Even at 20,000 meters in depth, there would be no problem in seeing around you. Of course, there was a limit to how deep the light could pierce, so areas where the ocean was completely in the dark still existed. Those areas had one of the highest concentrations of Yin energy in the world, creating many powerful beings that were conditioned to those environments.
Seeing the massive city, Kaleina exclaimed and swam forward by herself, looking around with glittering eyes. "Wow! There really is a city underwater!"
Yasenia smiled and was about to tell her to not go ahead by her own when her senses sharpened as something extremely quick approached Kaleina's direction.
Her face warped like a demon when she felt the malicious intention behind the people approaching. "WHO DARES!?"
Triggered by her wrathful roar, all the maids and even the spirits shot in the direction of the attackers about two kilometers away, engaging against a group of 75 aquatic human beasts.
The battle was an absolute stomp, and it didn't last more than ten seconds.
By the time they returned, Yasenia was hugging Kaleina and Flame and surrounded by all our girls.
The maids slammed them all against the sea floor, creating a massive underwater explosion that was quickly cleared with their energy control. Yasenia looked down coldly. "Who are you, and why were you aiming at my child?"
The leading water creature, a half-seal, half-human man, gritted his teeth and answered rudely. "Who the fuck was aiming at that cub? We don't know anything! Let us go before the mermaids come and take care of you because of your violent behavior!"
The guard at the side felt his lips twitch. 'Why are there so many people bothering Lady Yasenia's group? Do they look weak or something?'
Meanwhile, Yasenia gave Kaleina to Cecile and approached one of the 75 people. Her tail, surrounded by a silvery aura, stabbed down and pierced the chest of a crab-like woman.
The chill from her Moon attribute seeped into the Low-level Epoch Core woman, making her scream. "AAH! COLD! COLD! STOP!"
The pain of feeling her insides freezing was almost unbearable.
Yasenia looked at the man as her Moon Energy slowly and painfully froze the woman held down by Alaia. "Answer, or she dies."
The man's eyes widened. "Y-You, don't you know that killing is strictly prohibited here!? If you kill her, you'll become the enemy of the mermaid race!"
Yasenia's lips arched in a sneer. "Wrong answer. [Draconic Crescent Moon]."
Her tail flashed three times, and the woman was sliced into pieces. Then, she moved toward the next person, and her tail stabbed a starfish man in the center of their body. "AHHH!"
The seal man shouted, anxious. "You, stop!"
Yasenia shook her head. "Wrong answer."
Then, her tail flashed again as she sliced another creature into chunks. Without saying anything, she approached another person.
That half-crab woman that she was approaching began trembling and begged. "Wait, wait! I'll answer, I'll answer. Please don't kill me!"
The man snarled. "YOU DARE!"
The crab-woman shouted back. "Fuck you! This time we've met a fucking lunatic! If you want to die, go alone!"
Yasenia stopped in front of her and looked down at her with extremely cold eyes. "Who asked you to attack my child?"
The crab-woman gulped down in fear as Yasenia's cold eyes hid an insanely burning wrath that felt as if it was about to come out and swallow her whole. "I-It was the [Seabed Assassin Coral Sect]! W-We are nothing but mercenaries that were hired! The order was that if we saw a dragon woman with a blue tail with golden rings, we should try to capture someone from that group before they entered the Descending Ocean City and send it to them! We know nothing more!"
Yasenia asked again. "Where is that sect? Why did you aim at my child?"
The crab woman was about to answer, but Yasenia felt an attack coming from the distance with extreme speed and accuracy aiming at the crab-woman's head. Still, it wasn't quick enough.
Even before that attack could make half the journey, Selena appeared, holding her large shield, and took the attack head-on.
BOOOM!
The water around her parted, but Selena stood still like a mountain, her snake tail not even dragging on the sand below her.
Yasenia laughed chillingly, the water around her swirling as a dense killing intent froze the water into ice that floated upward.
"It seems that our outing will have to change from city-viewing to sect-annihilation-viewing."