Mu Ye Arrives, Situation Resolved

The Evil Orca King was excessively leisurely, the rhythm of its tail-flicking neither hurried nor slow, much like a cat playing with a half-dead mouse.

Two other ten-thousand-year Evil Orcas flanked from the sides, seizing the gap while the fire-type Soul Master was locked in a clash with their king, and spat out two dark-red water bombs. They slammed directly into the left side of the fire-type Soul Master's Battle Armor, blasting him flying sideways; he slid over ten meters before barely managing to stabilize his stance.

A ten-thousand-year Evil Orca set its sights on Lin Qingzhou.

It slammed its tail fin against the ice, its entire body leaping into the air. It flipped an arc in mid-air and crashed heavily less than three meters in front of him, pressing a shallow crater into the ice and spraying shards of ice all over his face.

It opened its mouth, not to spit a water bomb, but to bite down directly. Two rows of interlocking, cone-shaped teeth shimmered with a chilling white light in the night, each one as long as Lin Qingzhou's palm.

He sidestepped the first bite; the teeth grazed his shoulder, tearing a gash in his coat.

The Orca did not retract its strength after missing; it swung its entire body, its tail fin sweeping across horizontally.

The force of this sweep was even greater than the biting force of its teeth. Lin Qingzhou had no time to dodge and could only hold his warhammer horizontally in front of him to take the blow head-on.

With a muffled "bang," he was swatted away, rolling over ten meters across the ice before barely managing to brake. The web of his hand went numb, and the muscles in his arms spasmed uncontrollably.

As he rolled over and climbed to his feet, he felt something stirring deep within his body. It was not anger, but something deeper, something more ancient.

The power deep within his dantian, which had been dormant ever since he absorbed Na'er's bloodline, was now trembling slightly, ready to break free.

The sensation was familiar. He remembered it—it was the same feeling he had in the Ruins of the Divine War, every time he was crushed by the aftermath of the destruction and forced to reform his body.

The Evil Orca lunged again, faster than before. Lin Qingzhou had no time to draw his gun, nor time to think; he instinctively channeled that power within him.

Purple-gold magic patterns spread from his chest, tracing along his collarbone, shoulders, and arms, burning all the way to his fingertips.

These were not lines carved into his skin; his very veins and bones were glowing.

A deep purple phantom slowly rose behind him. Its outline was blurred and not yet fully formed, but the moment that aura emerged—

The Evil Orcas within a radius of several dozen meters around the ice froze for an instant. It was not the pressure of Soul Power, but something deeper—a deterrence spreading from the level of universal laws.

This did not seem to be power from his Martial Soul itself, but rather the pressure of the Silver Dragon King's bloodline; after all, the Silver Dragon King's bloodline was quite effective against Soul Beasts.

The moment the phantom opened its eyes, a layer of dark purple light coiled around Lin Qingzhou's warhammer. He had no Soul Rings and no Soul Skills to call upon, but that power adhered to the hammerhead as naturally as breathing.

He took a step forward and swung the warhammer in a full arc.

This strike was on an entirely different level than his previous attacks on the ice-bound Orcas. As the hammerhead descended, the air itself shrieked, and the ice cracked outward for seven or eight meters beneath his feet.

The Orca's left bone plate was caved in by the blow, and the skin beneath the plate burned with charred cracks, the purple light seeping inward along the fissures.

The Orca let out a shrill, miserable cry, its entire body twitching as it retreated.

Lin Qingzhou did not give it a chance to withdraw; he chased it down and struck again, this time hitting its lower jaw. Four of its interlocking teeth were shattered and sent flying, scattering across the ice along with flecks of blood.

He hoisted the warhammer back onto his shoulder, his chest heaving so violently he could barely stand straight. This was the first ten-thousand-year Evil Orca killed since the battle began.

A purple Soul Ring rose from the Orca's corpse, its light particularly blinding against the dim ice.

Lin Qingzhou's body jolted violently. The purple-gold power within him seemed ignited by the aura of the Soul Ring, surging crazily, every cell in his body screaming with the hunger for more.

He did not understand what was happening, but his body's instinct told him he could advance.

Before he could even think it through, a dark-red water blade slashed in from the side, faster than any previous attack.

It was the Orca Tooth-Shattering Slash from another ten-thousand-year Orca.

Lin Qingzhou lunged to the left, the ice blade grazing his back. The spot where he had just been standing was carved into a neat, smooth trench, with residual dark-red energy churning at the bottom.

If his reaction had been even a fraction of a second slower, that blade would have sliced through his spine.

He rolled to his feet on the ice, his fingers still numb from gripping the warhammer. The few Soul Masters nearby were already struggling; their ammunition was nearly depleted, and their Soul Power was running dry. The ordinary people behind the ship's railing were shrinking into the cabin, none daring to step out.

He gritted his teeth and called out to Zero in his mind.

"Zero, can you teleport? If not, I need to think of another way."

Zero's voice echoed in his mind, as flat and devoid of emotional fluctuation as ever, but the content of her words made him freeze. "I have marked the enemy leader. I suggest you do not retreat yet."

He opened his mouth, not yet having the chance to ask why, when the dark-red sky was suddenly torn apart.

Not shattered—torn.

A steel fist wreathed in white flames smashed down from directly above the Evil Orca King, with force beyond measure, driving the thirty-meter-long Orca King and the dark-red energy swirling around it deep into the ice layer.

The shockwave from the exploding ice kicked up a three-to-four-meter-high ice wave that spread outward, shattering the ice within a hundred-meter radius into small, floating fragments in an instant.

A water column dozens of meters high surged from the sea, mist steaming upward; heat waves and cold currents churned together, and the entire sea area began to boil.

After the mist dispersed, everyone on the deck finally saw the figure high in the air.

It was a Mecha, deep red in color—not painted, but the very material of the Mecha itself was that shade of red.

Heavy, dense, the raw color left behind after quenching steel billets that had been forged countless times.

Every joint of the Mecha was embedded with Soul Guidance arrays so precise the seams were barely visible, with four wings of light suspended behind it.

They were not physical wings, but flowing, feathered wings condensed purely from Soul Power, each flap leaving a burning white trail in the air.

Inside the Mecha, a figure floated in the core cockpit, the glow of a Four-Word Battle Armor faintly visible beneath their skin.

Some crew members knelt down. Not out of fear, but because their legs had gone weak with excitement. The middle-aged crewman gripped the railing tightly, his lips trembling for a long time before he squeezed out a single sentence.

"God-level Mecha... Four-Word Battle Armor... That is combat power at the level of a Limit Douluo..."

Lin Qingzhou was visibly stunned when he heard this. He looked at the crewman beside him with some surprise, truly not expecting them to know so much.

The mecha cockpit door opened, and the person inside stepped out, treading on the void and standing above the churning waves.

The man was dressed in a white chef's uniform, with grease stains still visible on his apron and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing two thick, sturdy forearms.

He appeared to be around forty years old, with a square face and features that were rugged rather than handsome, his chin covered in stubble.

If not for the fact that he was stepping on thin air and clutching a ball of burning white flame in his hand, he would have looked exactly like a cook who had just finished tossing a wok in the back kitchen.

Mu Ye. Sect Master of the Body Sect, titled "Body," a level 94 Power Attack System Titled Douluo, and the only powerhouse on the continent to hold the dual identity of a Four-Word Battle Armor Master and a Red-Grade Mecha Master.

At the same time, he was also Zhen Hua's "personal chef."

Lin Qingzhou stood on the shattered ice, looking up at him without blinking. This was the first time since his transmigration that he had seen a true powerhouse standing at the pinnacle of the continent's combat strength with his own eyes.

His first impression of Mu Ye was exactly as he had read in the novels.

Slouchy, casual, and unkempt; at a glance, he was just a cook.

But when those half-lidded eyes occasionally swept over him, Lin Qingzhou's back involuntarily tensed. There was something extremely sharp hidden in that gaze, like a blade pressed just beneath the eyelids.

Mu Ye's gaze lingered on him for less than half a second before withdrawing, turning instead toward the 100,000-year Evil Orca King that was resurfacing from the deep sea.

"Little Red, time to wrap it up."

The mecha Little Red coordinated with its master's command; its light wings suddenly expanded, four wings turning into eight, and the temperature of the white flames surged more than twofold.

Mu Ye's right hand spread slightly, the light of his Four-Word Battle Armor seeping out from beneath his skin to link with the mecha's soul guidance array, two layers of amplification stacking simultaneously onto his palm.

His self-created "Armor Stacking" secret technique was the integration of Martial Soul, Battle Armor, and mecha into a single, unified amplification.

When he struck down with that palm, the sea surface was first pressed into a hand-shaped depression dozens of meters wide, before it exploded.

Seawater, ice shards, and fragments of orca bone were all blasted into the sky.

The 100,000-year Evil Orca King's final struggle was to spit out a dark red water column over five meters in diameter.

That water column was powerful enough to blast a frigate in two, but upon colliding with Mu Ye's palm force, it didn't last even a second before being pushed back.

When the water column exploded, the entire sea area shook. The people on the deck were sent reeling by the shockwave, and several crew members clutching the railings were lifted off their feet, floating horizontally for several seconds before falling back down.

When the water mist dissipated, the Evil Orca King was floating on the sea surface with its grey-white belly turned upward. A penetrating crack ran from the top of its head to its spine, and dark red blood bubbled out, staining a large area of the sea in no time.

It twitched its tail fin one last time, then went completely still.

The remaining ten-thousand-year Evil Orca pod let out shrill, mournful cries, their tail fins slapping the water frantically, but this time it wasn't an attack—it was a flight.

A dozen orcas turned and dove into the deep sea simultaneously, not even sparing a glance for their companion's corpse.

Within a few breaths, only churning blood-red water and shattered ice remained on the surface, slowly drifting away in the waves.

Mu Ye stood in the void, making no move to pursue.

He looked down at the corpse of the Orca King floating on the sea, his right hand reaching out gently. The scarlet 100,000-year soul ring rose from the body, rotating and shrinking until it obediently landed in his palm.

He then used some unknown method to collect a soul bone that shimmered with a dark red light. The entire process was fluid and seamless, like a practiced task he had performed countless times.

Lin Qingzhou stood on a piece of broken ice, soaked to the bone, his war hammer still gripped in his hand, the head of the hammer stained with the blood of the ten-thousand-year orca.

Like everyone else on the deck, he looked up at the man in the chef's uniform hovering in the air, not saying a word.

This was the height he would have to surpass in the future. And at this moment, he had finally seen with his own eyes just how high the ceiling of this world truly was.