The voice came from the cave entrance, cold and arrogant, carrying an air of condescension.
Akes turned around and shielded Monica behind him, his gaze calm as he looked toward the cave entrance.
Three figures slowly descended from the darkness above the cave.
The leader was a sinister-looking middle-aged man clad in dark green scale armor. His skin was grayish-blue, with distinct gill slits behind his ears that opened and closed slightly with each breath. Thin webs stretched between his fingers, and his fingertips glowed with a faint blue light—he was one of the Sea Folk, natives of the depths of the East Sea.
The Sea Folk were a race rarely seen on the continent. They lived ten thousand meters beneath the sea and possessed their own independent civilization and heritage.
Humans knew very little about the Sea Folk.
Behind the middle-aged man stood two subordinates wearing similar scale armor. Their auras were somewhat weaker, but they were both at the Saint-level Intermediate Stage. A faint mist of water curled around all three of them.
All three stared fixedly at the spatial ring on Akes's hand, their eyes filled with undisguised greed.
The middle-aged man slowly descended from the top of the cave, his feet landing on the water's surface. He took two steps forward while his subordinates spread out to either side, forming a triangle that surrounded Akes and Monica in a loose blockade.
"Human," the middle-aged man said. "That spear in your hand is an ancestral relic of our Jade Wave Palace. Hand it over, and I can spare your lives."
Akes completely blocked Monica behind him and looked calmly at the other party. "Jade Wave Palace? Never heard of it. I found this spear in a ruin, a relic from the War of Gods and Demons ten