With Li Ya guiding him, Ming Zhao encountered no serious obstacles along the way and reached the Ice Sea's coast without trouble.
Just as he had guessed, not long after he killed Li Ya, the Sea Princess in the depths of the Ice Sea learned of her daughter's death and went utterly mad on the spot.
The Sea Princess dispatched large numbers of tribes subordinate to the Mermaid Clan, expanding the search across more than half the Ice Sea for any possible culprit who might have attacked Li Ya.
But with Li Ya acting as an inside traitor, every sea creature that tried to find Ming Zhao came up empty-handed.
The occasional sea creature that got lucky enough to nearly enter the underwater hollow was personally nudged away by Li Ya's mental suggestion.
Let alone hunting Ming Zhao down, to this day, the Sea Princess still didn't know how her daughter had died, much less whose hands Li Ya had died at.
But that didn't matter...
When in doubt, just pin the blame on humans.
My darling daughter lived in the sea for nearly a hundred thousand years without encountering any danger, yet she died in the Ice Sea, in her own home. No matter how I look at it, it must have been those evil humans who killed my darling daughter!
Inherently evil human Soul Masters, I, the empress, will personally...
And so the fishing villages, towns, and even cities around the Ice Sea were struck by sea Soul Beasts in attacks of varying scale. Wave after wave of beast tides made life miserable for the humans in the coastal cities and caused heavy losses.
When Ming Zhao came ashore, he happened to see a fishing village being flooded by several ten-thousand-year Sea Soul Beasts that had drawn the water in.
And then he...
Felt not a ripple in his heart.
He even felt like laughing.
Only the powerless and weak vented their anger on ants.
Those ants had died a fitting death, because the chief culprit responsible for their deaths, the Sea Princess, would join them sooner or later!
But...
"The Sea Soul Beasts of the Ice Sea are unleashing beast tides against human cities. I wonder if I can use this chance to be the oriole behind the mantis and gather some high-quality Soul Masters and Soul Beasts to fill out my Hundred Ghosts?" Ming Zhao narrowed his eyes, which were full of calculation.
A beast tide assaulting a city was a disaster, but only for civilians and the weak.
In the eyes of true powerhouses, every beast tide was a rare opportunity, practically a gift from nature.
That was especially true for Evil Soul Masters.
The vast numbers of dead humans and Soul Beasts were superb nourishment for Evil Soul Masters.
Useless things like low-year Soul Rings and Soul Bones could only be exchanged for other resources once acquired, but fresh flesh and souls could directly boost strength and cultivation.
Ming Zhao put his ghostly brain to work and immediately came up with a superb idea.
He wasn't worried in the least about there being too many ghosts under the Ghost Bride and Water Vengeful Spirit. His Hundred Ghosts could devour one another and grow stronger through the method of raising gu, so no matter how many ghosts he absorbed, he would never run out of capacity.
That being the case, Ming Zhao could only wish for more humans and Sea Soul Beasts to die, preferably all of them powerhouses.
If Titled-level Soul Masters and Soul Beasts with a hundred thousand years of cultivation died, Ming Zhao would really strike it rich.
"To carry out this plan, I'll have to make some preparations."
He got to work at once.
Ming Zhao had long grown accustomed to killing. He didn't remember how many people he had killed, just as he didn't keep track of how many meals he had eaten.
As long as it made him stronger, he wouldn't care even if he sacrificed the entire Douluo Continent in blood.
Stirring up trouble between Soul Masters and Soul Beasts and provoking the Soul Beasts into attacking human cities was something he knew like the back of his hand.
As for where to set off the situation in the Ice Sea, Ming Zhao had already made up his mind.
He didn't have many targets to choose from.
On the Douluo Continent's side, beyond Dragon City lay the Frozen Forest and the Far North Ice Plains, which did not border the Ice Sea. Although there were other coastal cities, they were farther south, beyond the edge of the Ice Sea.
On the Sun Moon Continent's side, by contrast, there were no large Soul Beast gathering places like the Far North at its northern end, and there were quite a few sizable cities near the Ice Sea coastline.
The largest of them was the place where Li Ya had fallen in the original story-
Dongyang City.
Ming Zhao had set his sights on it as well.
The larger a city was, the more important it was, and the more it needed powerful Soul Masters to protect it. If Ming Zhao set the Ice Sea's Soul Beasts off at Dongyang City, the Sea Princess would surely send Sea Soul Beasts with at least a hundred thousand years of cultivation to attack a human city of that size.
Once Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts appeared, the Sun Moon Empire would certainly send a Level 9 Soul Engineer to guard Dongyang City.
Then Ming Zhao could sit on the mountain and watch the tigers fight, reaping the benefits and harvesting fresh souls and flesh while Dongyang City and the Ice Sea fought to the death.
"I'm so bad! Jie jie jie..." Ming Zhao's shoulders trembled slightly. The thrill of doing bad deeds sent excitement and pleasure coursing through his nerve endings.
With a wave of his hand, he released his Water Vengeful Spirit Martial Soul and asked Li Ya, "Is there any way to disguise your presence and let your mother sense where you died?"
Li Ya's mind was linked to Ming Zhao's, and she instantly understood exactly what he was cooking up in that wicked belly of his.
"Yes, Master." Li Ya smiled faintly and parted her lips. "As long as you take me to Dongyang City, Master, I can make it look like the place where I fell. Mother will definitely come to avenge me."
"Good. Then let's go!" Ming Zhao grinned, drew Li Ya back into his body, and turned toward Dongyang City.
Many people had ample patience and inexhaustible energy when doing bad deeds.
Especially the kind that harmed others to benefit themselves.
Clearly, Ming Zhao was one of those people.
"Report!"
At Dongyang City's city lord's residence.
A panic-stricken guard stumbled into the city lord's study. Although Dongyang City was cold, the guard looked as though he had been pulled straight out of the water.
Was it sweat?
No, it was rain.
The pressure had maxed out, bro.
"What happened this time?!" The middle-aged city lord's features were all twisted together, giving him a head start of one mask.
These past two days, he had truly learned what it meant to feel suffocated as though wrapped in a python's coils, and what it meant to feel terrified as though besieged by fierce ants.
As a coastal city, Dongyang City was frequently harassed by Sea Soul Beasts, and the city lord should have been prepared for it. But no one knew what had gotten into the Ice Sea's Sea Soul Beasts lately; they were attacking every human settlement along the coast indiscriminately.
Villages and towns, large cities alike had all suffered harassment and attacks of varying intensity.
Especially these past two days.
As though they had received some order, those Sea Soul Beasts had abandoned their attacks on other human settlements and converged on Dongyang City from every part of the Ice Sea.
They hadn't formally attacked the city yet, merely gathering on the seabed outside it.
But anyone with eyes could tell that an attack was only a matter of time. They hadn't struck yet only because their forces had not all assembled.
The city lord had thought things couldn't get any worse, but the guard's next words nearly made his vision go black.
We're cooked!