Three Plans

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—

More than a dozen streaks of azure light sped in from the distance, skimming the tips of the waves and dragging long and short trails of watery ripples beneath the gloomy sky. The three in the lead rode the water through the air, their bodies wreathed in the vigorous aura of the Martial Venerable Realm. The one in the center was none other than Elder Fang, who had previously had his ribs shattered by Lu Changsheng's punch on the Raging Waves Sea and escaped by water evasion.

The injury to his chest had yet to heal. Bandages were faintly visible at his collar, and that withered old face looked a few degrees more haggard than it had a few days ago. On his left was a short, plump, beardless old man with a pale face. His small eyes gleamed sharply, and a blue compass-shaped tracking artifact hung at his waist. He was Elder Wu, unrivaled in the God Water Sect's tracking arts.

On his right was a burly, bald man with a face dark as iron. Water vapor and fragments of water-element laws churned around him, mingling together. He was Elder Mo, famed among the God Water Sect's external affairs elders for close-quarters killing. Behind the three followed more than ten elite disciples of the God Water Sect, each wearing a curved blade at the waist; even the weakest among them had a middle-grade Martial King cultivation.

Elder Fang held a palm-sized blue tracking compass. The dark-blue needle at the center of the compass trembled faintly, pointing toward the jagged, boulder-strewn area at the center of the island. Elder Wu leaned in and glanced at it, confirming that the God Water Seal brand sensed by the compass was not far ahead. Elder Fang tucked the compass into