An hour later.
The Blood Sea lay still beneath a heavy shroud of mist.
Golden Toad Granny stood at the bow, examining a fist-sized crystal core in her hand with her head lowered. She had just cut it out of a Crystal Mo Giant Python.
The python now lay submerged in the bloody water at the stern, its body, over a hundred zhang long, severed into three sections.
Golden Toad Granny tucked the crystal core into her sleeve and looked around.
Boundless blood mist stretched out of sight.
Wei Yixiao was not aboard.
An hour earlier, after hearing the High Priest's instructions, she had decisively subdued him and sealed him beneath the boat. A high-ranking insider was certainly important, but the High Priest's mission and her own life mattered more.
"Soon," she murmured.
Before her words had faded-
BOOM!!!
A streak of white light cleaved out of the blood mist!
It came too suddenly, too fiercely. A hundred zhang of blood mist split apart beneath a single sword strike!
Golden Toad Granny's eyes flew open, her pupils contracting sharply!
That sword strike was not aimed at her. It was aimed at the boat beneath her feet!
RUMBLE-!!
Nine hundred zhang of righteous sword gang slammed squarely into the side of the boat. The runes on the Sinking Blackwood Boat lit up all at once, then exploded together!
The hull lurched to one side. Golden Toad Granny slammed the Golden Toad Staff heavily against the deck, dispelling the lingering force of the sword qi before she could steady herself.
But the Sinking Blackwood Boat's spiritual radiance had already dimmed, and two of its three masts had cracked.
Yet before she could react-
"Flying Bear Unarmed Technique!"
A furious roar burst like thunder from the blood mist to her left!
A