Early that morning, before the sky had fully brightened, a thin mist shrouded the sea, limiting visibility to less than a hundred zhang. Yet the harbor on Divine Wind Island was already bustling.
Chen Ming stood on a raised platform at the harbor, looking down at the fleet below as its crews raced through their final preparations. Behind him stood Wan Yao'er, Zhao Tie Zhu, Liu Qingqing, and the other key figures of Divine Wind Island, their faces solemn to varying degrees.
Twelve Spirit Boats lay in neat formation on the harbor waters. These were the main warships Divine Wind Island had painstakingly built over recent years. Each was more than twenty zhang long and roughly five zhang wide, its exceptionally sturdy hull constructed from millennium ironwood combined with deep-sea black iron. Dense defensive formations and acceleration runes covered their hulls, shimmering with faint spiritual light in the morning glow. Each Spirit Boat carried ten Foundation Establishment Stage disciples and two Golden Core Stage cultivators. Together with the ten-person assault team Chen Ming personally commanded, the expedition's total force numbered twenty-four Golden Core Stage cultivators and one hundred and twenty Foundation Establishment Stage disciples.
For any emerging power, this was already an elite force that could not be taken lightly. But compared with behemoths like Tianxing City and the Luo Heaven Gate, whose legacies stretched back hundreds or thousands of years, it still seemed rather thin.
Chen Ming understood this perfectly. That was why he had never intended to meet anyone head-on. His strategy was simple-fish in troubled waters and turn another's strength against them. He would let the two elephants, Tianxing City and the Luo Heaven Gate, tear into each other, while he, the nimble monkey, watched from the sidelines for opportunities to reap the greatest rewards.
"Island Master,