Unfortunately, it was also Samuel L. Jackson who also said, "We're not gonna fight anymore! We're going to pull together and find a way to get out of here…" before he promptly got eaten by a surgically altered mako shark.
I sincerely hoped I wouldn't suffer the same fate. Samuel L. Jackson was such a badass, it was no wonder they drew his likeness as Nick Fury in the Ultimates universe and then cast him as the same character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe…ahem, never mind. I was getting carried away.
Anyway, I didn't have time to be distracted. I was streaking toward the Deep Sea King that was ascending through the depths of the ocean. To my surprise, he had stopped in midwater and was currently engaging another sea behemoth in combat.
"That's…"
It was so enormous that I couldn't make sense of its shape at first. A mountain? An island? I wasn't sure what I was seeing, even from a distance. But as I drew closer, I saw the gleaming sapphire skin, with thick blubber underneath, as well as the signature baleen jaw. It was a whale, but not just any whale – not even the massive blue whales that were the biggest creatures on Earth before the advent of spirit beasts.
This one was almost a kilometer long, and probably a living island in its own right. A Heaven ranked spirit beast just like the Deep Sea King, disturbed out of its slumber when it detected a challenger to its sole sovereignty over the ocean. I had heard rumors of its existence, but I never imagined I would actually see it in the flesh.
The Whale Lord.
No, I'm not kidding. That really was its name – the Whale Lord. It was a Heaven ranked spirit beast and among the largest that ever dwelled on our planet. Thankfully, it was a docile spirit beast that mostly kept to itself, ignoring fishermen and cultivators unless they were foolish enough to provoke it. It had never been seen out from the abyssal depths in which it had claimed its home, though passengers on cruise ships had reported seeing its vast bulk surfacing and forming a temporary island out on sea on occasion.
And the navy had been issued strict orders from the cultivators not to engage it in combat. Well, I believed the Whale Lord was a guy, so I should be referring to him as a "he" but for obvious reasons, we had yet to confirm his gender.
Now that I was seeing him in person, though, I knew he was a guy because of the aura he emanated. It was subtle, but the yang qi of males and yin qi of females made it somewhat easy for us to identify conventional gender.
I had never seen a Heaven ranked spirit beast before, let alone two, and their clash was like a duel between gods. The waters churned like never before, bubbles as huge as boulders streaming everywhere. When they tackled each other, shockwaves surged for kilometers. It was all I could do to prevent myself from being carried away, but the tremendous tidal waves continued to buffet me, impeding my passage.
"Damn it…how do I get there? Getting between them would be suicide."
I gritted my teeth and contemplated. This was going to be difficult. Just being in their proximity would kill me. I was like a bug between two brawling titans.
Still, I had to thank the Whale Lord for stopping the Deep Sea King for me. If it weren't for the lord of the ocean, the Deep Sea King would have long been gone and terrorizing humanity to regain his strength. Furthermore, given his docile nature, I was tempted to think of the Whale Lord as an ally rather than an enemy.
Of course, I couldn't take his neutrality toward humanity for granted, but…you know what they say, right? An enemy of an enemy is my friend.
"Hey, system. I just need to…touch the Deep Sea King to prompt the Divine level spirit contract, right?"
-That is correct. –
"Okay." I glanced up at the turmoil, wondering if the system had also predicted that the Whale Lord would dive in to stop the Deep Sea King. The two Heaven ranked spirit beasts were at a stalemate, and I watched them in awe. Normally, a regular cultivator would probably never encounter a single Heaven ranked spirit beasts throughout most of their lives, but here I was, meeting two. This couldn't be a simple coincidence, could it?
The system was silent, even though I was sure it could hear my thoughts. Whatever I thought was irrelevant to the crisis at hand. I had to act, and I knew that my interference would break the deadlock between the two sea sovereigns.
"Why can't I be lucky like Shun Tian and have a ghostly master teach me overpowered cultivation techniques and her friend giving me elixirs and cheat-level treasures? Then I can tie up the Deep Sea King with a golden ring that self-replicates and force him into a spirit contract."
-The user has been reading too many manhuas. Not only are you not a cultivator in a world filled with superheroes and superpowers, reality isn't going to conveniently bend over for you to cruise through easily. –
Of all the things to retort to, the system had to respond to my whining. Whatever. I shook my head and jetted forward again once the tides ebbed. The second there was a lull in the clash between titans, I seized an opening and rushed toward the Deep Sea King.
Then the Deep Sea King whipped his tail about to swat the Whale Lord aside, only for the latter to tackle the former's length with his immense bulk. Bubbles foamed around them, each as large as a ship. I almost couldn't see where I was going, and I had to swerve in midwater to avoid being pulverized by a stray tail strike from the Deep Sea King. If I had continued on my trajectory, I would have been reduced to a bloody paste when I collided with that mass of diamond hard black scales.
Flipping my body in midwater, I propelled myself forward again. This time, I approached the writhing coils of the Deep Sea King from an angle, so that even if I made physical contact, I wouldn't kill myself from the impact. I didn't want to touch the body when it was hurtling in my direction – even if the Deep Sea King didn't notice me, the amount of force exerted by a single flick of the sheer mass of its body was enough to squash me.
Mass equals energy, and there was a lot of mass in the several hundred-meter-long body of the draconic deity.
Whirling around to avoid the webbed spines that grew out of its back, each a building-sized lance that would pulverize instead of impale me, I then dove between then. Weaving through obstacles, I cartwheeled and spun around the dizzying labyrinth of fur and spines to reach his scaly back. Once I found myself a safe position to anchor myself, I reached out and grabbed hold of a scale.
-Would you like to use a Divine level spirit contract on the Deep Sea King? –
"Yeah!"
Then my world disappeared in a blinding flash of light. For a second, I stumbled and tumbled across a void, unsure of what had just happened. Did I fail?
As I orientated myself and looked around, blinking to clear the brightness from my eyes, I saw that I was no longer underwater. The bubbles were gone, the shoals of fishes scattering away from the clash of titans, the distant pods of whales, swarms of sharks…everything. Even the vast bulk of the Whale Lord was gone, and the island sized Deep Sea King was nowhere to be seen.
Just utter darkness.
"Where am I?"
Gravity didn't exist here, nor was there any sense of up or down. Unlike in the sea, where my body's natural buoyancy allowed me to know which direction the surface was, or the existence of a seabed to indicate a bottom, there was nothing in this void to give me any real sense of direction.
While I panned around, fighting down panic, I saw two gigantic eyes flicker to life. I immediately recognized the yellow sclera and dark, slit pupils as those belonging to the Deep Sea King.
He had finally noticed my presence.
The Deep Sea King's draconic figure gradually became visible amidst the darkness even though there was no source of light. He glared at me, his claws reaching out as if to slash me, but never quite making the distance. It was as if space itself bent and folded around him, denying him his target.
"Who are you? And where is this place?"
"I would like to know the answer to that too." I bit my lip and looked around, hoping for any clues. Where the hell was the system? What was I supposed to do?
-This is the user's chance to subjugate the Deep Sea King. –
"Huh? How?"
-Didn't the system mention earlier that it is a matter of willpower? This is a mindscape where you both will pit your resolve against each other. –
Easy to say, but we were talking about the mind of a primordial being, a Heaven ranked spirit beast close to an existence of a deity that had lived for over thousands of years.
How was I supposed to beat an opponent like that?
Fortunately, the Deep Sea King appeared to be suffering from the same problem. He was slashing at emptiness, trying to get to me but failing. He glowered at me, hatred in his eyes.
"Who are you, and what's going on?!"
"To be honest, I have no idea what's happening…but I'm a human cultivator." I scratched my head and drew my bow. Even in this esoteric space, I still had my weapon from the physical world. Too bad I didn't have my sword, which was broken in the battle earlier. I doubted my attacks would reach the Deep Sea King when his claws couldn't, but there was no harm trying. I certainly had no intention of floating around in this void aimlessly forever.
Conjuring an azure arrow, I took aim and fired. To my utmost surprise, it struck the Deep Sea King. Even more amazingly, he was rocked back by the blow.
"You…!"
"Uh, sorry?" I didn't know why I was apologizing, but it certainly seemed unfair if I could hit him but he couldn't strike back. Not that I cared about fairness when my opponent was a Heaven ranked spirit beast. I wasn't going to complain about any advantage I could get. Notching another arrow, I sent a volley at him, pummeling him with meteor-like projectiles that detonated violently against the length of his body. He howled in fury, writhing in agony, but it was clear that my arrows achieved little more than stinging him.
A qi blasted out of his coiled, serpentine form, only to fade away into the space. It did knock away the remaining arrows that I shot at him, though. Snarling, the Deep Sea King glared at me for a moment and pulled back.
Wow. I actually forced a Heaven ranked spirit beast to retreat from my attacks. Even though I knew this wasn't physical reality, I couldn't help but feel amazed.
The Deep Sea King didn't seem impressed, though. He studied the pulse of his qi that he emitted to knock away my arrows, and then his draconic jaws curled into a leer.
"Oh…I understand the rules of this space now."
A chill ran down my spine. I didn't like the sound of that, but I still had to ask. "What rules?"
The Deep Sea King's entire body glowed, flaring brightly in the void for a few seconds before shrinking rapidly. All of his power was compressed, his figure imploding and squashed down into a core that slowly solidified into a familiar shape.
A humanoid shape that was the regular size of an adult person.
The light faded away, and a handsome human man with long black hair stood, dressed in ancient styled, flowing black robes. He could pass off for an ordinary human, except that his ears were more like an east Asian dragon's antlers, and his new form was exuding a potent, menacing aura. Dark qi curled around his transformed figure, manifesting in ominous wisps. He condensed some of them in his hand, a cold, black orb that hovered above his palm.
"…that's better." He flexed his shoulders and cocked his head from side to side, his long hair spilling down his back like a curtain, before he smiled in satisfaction. He turned his dark gaze toward me and grinned, revealing perfect white teeth. Bloody dragon…right now, he was the very epitome of a bishounen character from a shoujo manhua. You know, the sort of romance manhua with toxic male characters abusing the female leads, who still fell in love with them anyway because they were wealthy, powerful and handsome. He tilted his head, suddenly remembering my question, and responded in a mocking sporting sort of way. "For this battle, we are to fight as equals."
Then he hurled the pitch-black orb at me.