Huo Teng's voice echoed across the sea, filled with lofty superiority, as though asking Qiong Xiao to leave Lin Feng was an immense favor bestowed upon her.
The lackeys behind him eagerly chimed in, looking at Lin Feng as though he were a pile of unsightly trash.
Yet no matter how they praised themselves or belittled others, the two people before them remained as lifeless as ever.
Qiong Xiao wore a cold expression and could not even be bothered to spare them an extra glance.
Lin Feng, standing beside her, remained silent from beginning to end, as though this lavish immortal vessel and these noisy cultivators were nothing more than air.
Such complete disregard was even more maddening than any heated rebuttal.
The confident smile on Huo Teng's face gradually vanished, replaced by a dark fury.
Who was he?
The young master of the Fire Spirit Immortal Sect and a guest elder of the East Sea Dragon Palace!
In these waters, who would not respectfully address him as Young Master Huo?
He had taken the initiative to strike up a conversation, already giving this woman tremendous face, yet she dared to be so unappreciative?
And that mortal ant beside her dared to play deaf as well?
He was simply courting death!
The fury of being offended blazed within Huo Teng's chest, burning away every last trace of his feigned grace.
Since they refused a toast, they could only be made to drink a penalty!
A flash of undisguised lechery and brutality crossed Huo Teng's eyes as he signaled the two Golden Immortal guards beside him.
The meaning was obvious.
Cripple the man. Bring the woman up!
"Hehe, just watch, Young Master!"
One of the Golden Immortal guards, a burly man with a face full of flesh, immediately understood.
With a savage grin, he stepped forward. The pressure of a Golden Immortal erupted from him and bore down upon Lin Feng and Qiong Xiao.
"Fairy, our young master taking a liking to you is a blessing you cultivated for eight lifetimes! Don't refuse a favor when it's offered!"
"Since the fairy refuses to come up on her own, us brothers will have to invite you aboard!"
The other guard, with his pointed mouth and monkey-like cheeks, let out a strange laugh as well. One on the left and one on the right, they transformed into two streaks of light and lunged at Qiong Xiao like starving tigers pouncing on prey.
To them, this was an exceptionally simple errand.
That female cultivator looked fairly formidable, but there was no way she could be a match for two Golden Immortals working together.
As for the man?
He was merely a mortal. The pressure of a Golden Immortal alone would be enough to shatter his soul and kill him on the spot.
Two sinful hands gleaming with immortal light reached for Qiong Xiao's jade-white wrists from either side, filled with mockery and greed.
Their lecherous manner made it clear that while capturing her, they intended to take advantage of her as well.
On the immortal vessel, a cruel and arrogant sneer returned to Huo Teng's lips.
He could practically see that peerlessly beautiful fairy falling into his hands the next moment, while that annoying mortal became a cold corpse sinking into the East Sea to feed the fish.
Qiong Xiao's lovely face instantly turned icy.
Two mere Golden Immortals dared act so presumptuously before her?
If not for her master being here, she would have already unleashed her magic treasures and annihilated the souls of these fools who did not know their place.
But at that moment, she merely instinctively nestled closer into Lin Feng's arms.
Because she knew that with her master present, there was no need for her to act at all.
Just as those two hands were about to touch Qiong Xiao's sleeve.
Just as triumphant savage grins appeared on the faces of the two Golden Immortal guards.
Lin Feng, who had remained silent as though he did not exist in this world, finally spoke.
His voice was calm and quiet, devoid of any emotional fluctuation.
It was as though he were stating an exceedingly simple fact.
"Dare touch my maid?"
"You're courting death!"
The instant his words fell, Lin Feng still held Qiong Xiao around the waist, without moving in the slightest.
Yet an invisible, intangible pressure so terrifying that words could not describe it instantly spread from him, enveloping heaven and earth!
There was no earth-shaking aura, no phenomenon of laws manifesting.
It was as though this world and this stretch of spacetime had been paused at that very moment.
The waves froze.
The sea breeze stopped.
Even the clouds in the sky became motionless, as though they had turned into a still Scroll Painting.
The savage grins on the faces of the two Golden Immortal guards rushing toward Qiong Xiao abruptly froze.
Their bodies seemed to have slammed into an invisible wall forged from divine metal, instantly freezing in midair.
Their lunging postures, outstretched arms, even the lewd expressions on their faces remained completely unchanged.
They could not move.
Time itself seemed to have completely lost all meaning for them.
"Hm?"
The sneer on Huo Teng's face froze as well aboard the immortal vessel.
He stared at the bizarre scene in confusion, his brow tightly furrowed.
What was going on?
Why had Old Zhang and Old Li stopped?
"What the hell are you doing? Hurry up and bring her aboard!"
Huo Teng barked impatiently.
Yet the two Golden Immortal guards remained suspended in the air like statues, utterly unresponsive to his command.
No, it was not that they did not respond.
It was that... they simply could not respond!
A bone-deep terror, like an icy wind blowing from the Nine Nether Hells, instantly swept through their entire souls.
To their horror, they discovered that the immortal power within their bodies—the Golden Immortal power that surged like mighty rivers—had become even more still than a stagnant pool at that moment!
Their primordial spirits had been completely shackled by a terrifying force that could not be resisted, understood, or imagined. They could not even turn a single thought!
The comprehension of the laws of heaven and earth that they had been so proud of was brutally erased by that power, as though they had never possessed it at all!
At that moment, they were no longer lofty Golden Immortals.
They had become two utterly ordinary mortals! No, they were worse than mortals!
They had become two conscious stones, stripped of everything except the ability to think!
What kind of power was this?
What kind of divine ability was this?
Their consciousness screamed madly amid endless terror.
With immense difficulty, their gazes slowly turned inch by inch toward the man who had remained indifferent from the start.
Before this, in their eyes, he had been an ant they could crush at will.
But now, when their gazes met Lin Feng once more, they no longer saw a man.
They saw an abyss.
An eternally silent abyss of chaos that devoured all light, all laws, and all life!
That was a natural predator!
An absolute superior being, crushing them on the level of life itself!
Like ants gazing up at the heavens, like mortals glimpsing a god!
Other than the most primal and pure terror born from their instincts, they could no longer muster even the slightest other emotion.
"What is going on..."
On the immortal vessel, Huo Teng and the other lackeys finally realized something was wrong.
The faces of the two Golden Immortal guards turned deathly pale at a visible rate. Their eyes were wide, bloodshot, as though they had witnessed the most terrifying sight in existence.
Thin streams of black blood began to seep slowly from their seven orifices.
And the man before them—the man they had always regarded as a mortal ant—had merely spoken a single sentence.
He had not even moved a finger.
An indescribable chill raced up Huo Teng's spine, shooting straight to the crown of his head.
He was not an idiot.
Any being capable of turning two Golden Immortal experts into Reviving the Dead in an instant possessed strength far beyond the limits of his understanding!
A Grand Unity Golden Immortal?
No! Absolutely impossible!
Even a peak Grand Unity Golden Immortal could never do this so effortlessly!
Could he be... Grand Unity?
A Grand Unity Golden Immortal?
The instant that thought arose, Huo Teng's scalp went numb, and all the blood in his body seemed about to freeze.
He... he had just threatened and tempted a Grand Unity Golden Immortal's maid, and had even mocked this Great Being as a mortal ant?
It was over.
Those two words struck Huo Teng's heart like two enormous hammers weighing hundreds of millions of pounds.
His legs began to tremble uncontrollably, while his teeth chattered with loud clicks.
And at that moment, the man he had regarded as an ant finally slowly shifted his indifferent gaze from the two "statues" to the immortal vessel.
To Huo Teng's face.
Before you continue