News of the many Sea Demon races beating a hasty retreat and the safe return of the humans from more than a dozen islands spread throughout the Cloud Sky Realm in an instant. Almost everyone had heard about it.
"No way. Those vicious Sea Demons just retreated like that? They didn't make any demands?"
"From everything we've heard, that's exactly what happened. They didn't ask for anything."
"What kind of joke is this? Are they messing around? And weren't they demanding that Xia Ping release the Mermaid Princess before, making all sorts of vicious threats and acting like they'd fight to the death? Why aren't they demanding her release now?"
"Apparently Xia Ping personally forced the Sea Demons back and made them accept a humiliating truce at the city gates. They had no choice but to submit, and in the end, they gave up on rescuing the Mermaid Princess."
"What exactly did Xia Ping do?"
"Forcing the Sea Demons back? Who doesn't know how vicious those Sea Demons are? They're not even afraid of kings. Are you telling me they're afraid of some young man like Xia Ping? None of this makes sense. There must be something going on behind the scenes."
Many humans were in an uproar when they heard the news. The Sea Demons had captured more than a dozen islands, and that had caused a huge commotion. Many had believed that the captives had almost no chance of surviving in Sea Demon hands.
But now they'd returned unharmed. It was all a bit anticlimactic. Even people who hadn't been involved could sense that something fishy was going on. Perhaps there had been some shady deal.
At that moment, the people who had been captured from Orchid Island and the other islands had returned to their homes. They'd