Above him, purple and blue light clashed, mixing into one massive flare. The water surged out from the point of impact, and the shockwave pushed Liu Xing back slightly. If the clash had happened in the open air, it would have created a deafening explosion. With his heart thumping, his momentum slowed, his eyes fixed upward, hoping his attack was strong enough to create a hole in the falling curtain of qi.

When the light vanished, he saw that the spot he had attacked was still undamaged. He gripped his stone blade tighter, then relaxed his hand. He suspected that he could crack the barrier with multiple, more powerful attacks. Instead, however, Liu Xing rotated his body upside down, summoned his shield, and kicked it, propelling himself toward the seabed. Destroying the dome was an option, but he had an easier one. This dome was still forming. From inside, it resembled a giant curtain attempting to cover the area around the Alchemy Hall, which spanned several hundred meters. Though the dome was falling fast, he was faster and could escape the barrier before it fully shut.

Liu Xing summoned and kicked his shield repeatedly. The world around him blurred, but the dome lit up in his perception, formed from a truly gigantic amount of qi. In a single moment, Liu Xing successfully caught up to the edge of the falling curtain. As he moved faster and faster, shouting with effort, a race began between him and the descending barrier. In the end, when the falling curtain was tens of meters from the seabed, Liu Xing was right above the ocean floor. His body fell horizontally, his feet coiled, and he had already summoned his shield, ready to kick it and launch himself out of the barrier through the small gap. Coincidentally, his face was turned toward the shipwreck where the three elders of the Jin clan still resided. He gripped his stone blade, thinking that perhaps the heavens themselves wanted him to deliver retribution upon them.

With a shout, Liu Xing kicked the shield and accelerated forward. The curtain was falling fast, as if panicked and desperate to trap him inside. But he was confident in his speed; he would win.

He shot like an underwater missile toward the gap between the seabed and the falling curtain. The space was large enough for him to escape. But just as his head was about to cross the threshold, with the curtain of qi falling from above like a guillotine, a wall of water materialized in front of him. Wicked spikes jutted from its surface, large enough to impale his skull. His eyes widened as his heart screamed in panic. This wall had to be a trap to ensure he couldn't get out of the barrier. In that instant, as the curtain fell fast enough to chop off his head and the spiked wall of water eagerly waited for him to crash into it, he instinctively twisted his body and tried to kill his momentum. That instinct was a mistake. While his speed was reduced, the curtain's was not. Its edge was now mere centimeters from his neck. He should have crashed into the spikes. Instead, he twisted his body further and pulled his head back. The curtain slammed into the seabed, creating a huge swirl of sand that obstructed his vision, while he himself was trapped inside like a bird in a cage.

Soon, his movement ceased. He stood on the sand, facing the barrier that, with a faint light, reflected his image like a reflection in muddy water. But even though the reflection was not perfect, he could see his own sharp, cold eyes. He looked eerily calm, but inside, he felt frustrated by what had just happened.

How many times do I need to tangle with a barrier? The first time was in the Twelve Sun Empire, the second was at the Qing clan, and now this.

Liu Xing clenched his hands as he peered through the barrier toward the shipwreck, where the three people finally emerged, floating above it. They looked at him with various expressions. The patriarch stared at him with steel in his eyes, the elder with the short beard smiled hollowly, while the elder with the long beard was grinning, his eyes filled with a mixture of disdain and amusement. Liu Xing looked at them with sharp eyes, and his heart beat furiously. His people were in danger. Tide Walker could probably handle a dozen of those demonic cultivators, but his shark was alone. If they worked together, it was only a matter of time before his shark would lose.

The grinning old man pointed his index finger at him and a tendril of qi shot out, hitting the barrier in front of him. Several words made of water that looked like jelly appeared on the other side of the barrier in an instant.

"You thought you were a big shot, huh? Just because you came from a great sect doesn't mean you can disrespect us. We're older and wiser than you. Your arrogance brought you this!" Liu Xing looked toward the grinning old man, and then the words changed. "Look behind you and tell me, can you survive this?"

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He turned around. The gigantic electric eel had finally succeeded in destroying the Alchemy Hall. However, instead of feeling satisfied, the eel looked around with discontent at the nine spirit beasts that surrounded it. The three that had descended from above—the humanoid one with a sword jutting from its face, the horse-dolphin, and the massive swordfish—hovered near the eel. Their eyes burned with rage and fury. The crab with feet of fire began to scuttle toward the eel. The plate-like creature hovered slowly toward the remains of the Alchemy Hall. The blue snake flicked its forked tongue, ready to coil its body. The anglerfish angled its face upward, its empty eyes and lure glowing with a bright white light. A giant hand walked on its fingers, and the slumbering beast, the one buried deep underground, began to emerge. It revealed itself to be a single, colossal eye as large as a castle, its color a mix of red and black, as if it were forged from steel and blood. All of them were sizing one another up, a monstrous standoff that now included the visible Liu Xing.

The barrier that surrounded him and these ten spirit beasts was vast. However, filled with ten gigantic creatures, as well as him, it felt cramped. He knew without a doubt that once a spirit beast made a move, all hell would break loose. He looked behind him, where the words made of water turned into bubbles and rose high toward the surface. The grinning old man, the patriarch, and the man with the short beard turned their bodies and began to swim away, leaving him inside this dome with ten spirit beasts.

Liu Xing's heart was thumping as he looked up toward the point where his crescent of purple qi had clashed with the barrier. There was no scratch or mark, and the symbol of the red lotus was swirling lazily, pristine as ever, as if this barrier could not be disturbed by anything.

"Can I survive this?" Liu Xing said, for no one but himself to hear. "Of course I will survive this. No, I will thrive. There's no other choice."

His voice was calm and steady, but his heart was thumping frantically, as if what he said was false, which was wrong. It was true that deep down, he was nervous. While he was a cultivator, he was not immune to fear. There was a chance he would die in this place. There was a greater chance that he would survive, kill all the spirit beasts, and escape the dome, only to find his shark dead and his people consumed or kidnapped by a demonic sect. But there was also a chance that he could escape this dome and arrive just in time to protect them.

Right then and there, with cold eyes and qi cycling around his body like a raging river, he decided to realize the best possible outcome. He will kill all of these spirit beasts, escape the dome, kill all the Nether Lotus Sect members, and save his people.

"Yeah," he nodded. "I'll make sure to do that."

His heart was still thumping, but this time it also felt eager and excited, spreading adrenaline throughout his body.

He decided that there were not ten monsters trapped in this dome with him; there were eleven, and he would be the one to emerge victorious.

Liu Xing sent qi into his gun, then reabsorbed it, storing it inside his Ethereal Pearl. As he did this, the spirit beasts cramming the dome drew closer and closer to one another. It was clear that while their main target was the eel, they would not work together and instead rip each other apart. After Liu Xing stored more than a thousand bullets' worth of qi inside his Ethereal Pearl—which was now filled to the brim—he channeled some of it into his stone blade, making it heavier and causing it to shine with purple light. He activated his Exploding Lightning Missile technique, letting his gun absorb it, and also added more potent qi to his Lightning Cloak.

In response to his actions, the anglerfish, snake, crab, and giant eyeball turned toward him and as the eel began to roar, creating a deep rumble in the water, Liu Xing jumped toward the anglerfish as hard as he could. A trail of water formed behind him, and the world became blurry yet clear. When he arrived directly above the anglerfish, he rotated his body and slashed his stone blade downward. "Die!"

His stone blade met the lure that shone with bright white light. Then, a gigantic crescent of qi, large enough to split the anglerfish in two, bit down on the smaller yet more advanced spirit beast. The attack was not enough to kill the anglerfish in a single strike, but its force was so great that the creature was pressed downward. The sand and the ground beneath it caved in and cracked as Liu Xing roared and began shooting the anglerfish with his new type of bullets. From this close, their ability to home in on a target was useless, but as they landed on the spirit beast's skin, they exploded and bloomed with a bright blue light that swallowed the anglerfish like fireworks.

His attack was the starting gun for the savage race inside the dome. The eel condensed power in its mouth and unleashed a condensed bolt of electricity, hitting the crab, the plate, and the gigantic humanoid with the sword on its face. The giant eye that looked as if it were made from steel and blood began to shine with an eerie red light. The swordfish descended toward the giant, hand-shaped spirit beast like a sword falling from the heavens. The blue snake rushed toward the eel and opened its jaw wide, its yellow eyes gleaming with madness. And the black horse with the head of a dolphin began to extend its tentacles toward the eel, as if trying to ensnare the main perpetrator of this fight.

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