“Tower Master Guo, if you keep stonewalling me, the whole Oceanward Tower’s about to topple like driftwood in a storm.”
Watching Guo Wentao dart and weave in midair, Nana Toki stood in the tower’s heart and yelled, voice cutting like a bell in fog. “I’m not refusing to return it, junior me will just borrow it. When I’m done, come to my Cloudpeak Sect and ask it back. Why make it ugly?”
Guo Wentao, twisting from the Nesting Phoenix’s flaming lash, almost tumbled headfirst. Come to your Cloudpeak Sect to claim it back?
If the world heard that, they’d laugh themselves toothless, a tide of mockery washing the piers.
“Junior! From today, my Oceanward Tower and your Cloudpeak Sect are sworn enemies!”
He roared above the eaves, voice like a cliffside gale. “As long as I’ve got a single breath left, you can forget getting this Tower Master’s Soul Pearl!”
People these days—so mulishly stubborn, like stones sunk in a pond.
Nana Toki sighed below, breath a soft frost. Loan it to me and you won’t lose a chunk of flesh.
Forget it. Have your fun. Let’s see if that grin survives the storm.
“Listen to you, Tower Master—so distant. Haven’t our tower and sect already gone no-contact for ages? How is it only ‘from today’ we’re at odds?”
She practically welcomed more enemies for Cloudpeak Sect; sooner or later Her Ladyship would take the sect anyway. When the heroine’s still fledgling, you press the world like a storm front.
“...”
She stepped around Oceanward Tower disciples sprawled and groaning like fallen reeds, found a clean patch, and pulled a little stool from hidden space. She sat and called up again.
“Tower Master Guo, you and the Nesting Phoenix enjoy your slow dance! I’ll be right here, waiting for you to change your mind.”
“By the way, your disciples are weak as hatchlings. Train more.”
She fished out pastries from her space, took lazy bites, and watched the chaos like a child at a lantern festival.
Pure mischief, craving the world to burn.
The disciples on the floor: “...”
Is this still our tower?
Feels like we’ve wandered into a bandit den, wind biting and lawless.
Guo Wentao’s eyes burned red, veins like cracked earth. He was helpless, forced to watch the red-clad woman below crush his life’s work inch by inch, a scarlet tide gnawing at coral.
“What are you waiting for? One more heartbeat and the whole Oceanward Tower’s gone!”
Rumble—rumble—rumble.
Guo Wentao bellowed at the rooftop, and before the last syllable fell, the entire tower shuddered like a ship in a squall.
For an instant, heaven and earth traded places. Nana Toki nearly slid off her stool, balance a leaf on a torrent.
“Luoluo!”
Not far off, the Nesting Phoenix snapped a razor of flame toward Nana’s perch, a fiery crescent like a hawk’s talon.
Nana’s face chilled. She angled her body, and the slash—packed with slicing Spirit Energy—smashed into a dark-green wall behind her like a meteor.
“Behind you!”
Her hands moved on instinct to guard; the impact felt like a mountain slamming her ribs, ten thousand weights turning her organs into a storm-tossed sea.
“What the hell?!”
She tore out the Colossal Axe, caught a breath, and before she could curse, a sharp, jagged spike punched up from the floorboards like an ice fang.
If she hadn’t slipped aside, that strike would’ve skewered her clean through, a skewer through winter haw.
“Luoluo!”
Like a primordial flood, the Nesting Phoenix’s vast fire hammered forward. Heat rolled, and the jagged mass in front of Nana seethed in the blast, whoosh and roar.
On the spike, scales bulged and locked, a lattice of armor. Phoenix flame licked like wind-whipped tongues, swaying as the spike shifted.
That must be the sea-guard beast the inn’s waiter mentioned, an old rumor surfacing like a whale.
She swung the Colossal Axe. Ka-cha. Not a scratch—like biting granite under the surf.
Zraa! Zraa! Zraa!
On the Phoenix’s side, the rolling blaze turned into tempered blades, stripping the beast’s scales layer by layer, ruthless as frost on autumn grass. The heat churned. The beast shrieked like torn thunder.
Thunderous roars detonated one after another, as if the air itself would split along an invisible fault.
The Nesting Phoenix seized its frenzy, hooked the dizzy Nana Toki by the waist, and sprinted for the outer parapets, sparks trailing like comets.
Outside the Oceanward Tower. The sea beast had coiled its massive trunk around the tower, body segment upon segment like a serpent binding a lonely spire.
Is this a sea serpent?
Then why the heavy scales? A mix-blood in the deep?
The thought had barely surfaced when the world went dim. Thunder rolled in the heights, and black clouds piled like mountains, a canopy blotting sea and sun.
A bad taste pricked her heart like a fishbone.
Damn it—it’s crossing tribulation!
The sea beast raised its huge head, ink-green eyes predatory and cold. Even tens of meters away, its breath washed over them like hot tide.
Who can stand that?
A Void Realm beast’s lightning tribulation isn’t like the lower plane’s toy storm. One slip, and you’re ash on the wind, your soul scattered like sand.
Sick beast—choosing now of all times!
Isn’t this the kind of disaster that only triggers when the protagonist arrives?
Ding! Side Quest triggered: South Sea Annihilation.
Quest: Stop the Chiliao from lifting the South Sea seal!
Accept?
Auto-accepted!
Nana Toki: “...”
Hey, hey! This looks totally last-minute, you lousy System! You won’t even let me refuse?
Could you be any more half-baked?
And what even is this South Sea seal?!
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Thunder grumbled, lightning screeched. Nana and the Nesting Phoenix stood at the tower’s rim as the gale tore past, and the black sea boiled like a cauldron, waves rearing like white stallions.
It felt like a long-dormant volcano beneath the surface had reached its season to erupt.
“Chiliao, are you insane? Cross tribulation here and you’ll wreck the entire South Sea!”
Outside, Guo Wentao had finally slipped the Phoenix’s pursuit. Seeing the upheaval, fury surged through his skull like a red tide. Hair wild, clothes in tatters, he stood by the Oceanward Tower and glared up at the Chiliao coiled above.
“You still owe our lineage of Tower Masters two hundred more years. Don’t forget our pact!”
“I order you to stop!”
Silence answered him, save for violent thunder and knifing wind.
The Chiliao flicked its tongue, ink-green eyes fixed on Guo like a hunter sizing a deer.
Boom—boom—boom—!!!
Suddenly—
A heavy splash erupted. A horned beast vaulted out of the water, roaring at the black sky.
Then a second.
A third—
Splashes rose one after another, like strings of firecrackers. Beasts of every shape burst from the sea and streaked in all directions, a stampede across the waves.
From above the Oceanward Tower down to the horizon’s dark rim, the surface looked carpeted by a swarm of bees, bodies packed and writhing.
Roars of colossal beasts echoed between sea and cloud, each threaded with different Spirit Energy. Guo’s chest clenched; blood surged up his throat, and his gathered Spirit Energy threatened to shatter like brittle ice.
Only now did Guo Wentao grasp the Chiliao’s aim.
“You… plan to borrow the tribulation’s force to crack the South Sea seal!”
He clutched his chest, face blank with shock, watching the beasts climb ashore in waves.
This end-of-the-world scent matched the battle in Oceanward Tower’s archives, the one said to rend sky and drown earth.
Pu!
Nana yanked the Colossal Axe from a beast’s skull, shook blood from the blade, and looked up at the dim sky, seams forming like cracks in pottery.
The Nesting Phoenix stood at her side, and her inexhaustible phoenix flame spread around them like a burning meadow. Monsters poured in, hurling themselves at the fire, moths drawn to a lamp.
They turned to bone ash, drifting like dry snow.
Stopping a Void Realm beast mid-tribulation from breaking a seal… that’s cruelty dressed as a quest.
Frustration knotted first; helplessness pooled after. I’m only at Foundation Establishment.
Honestly, might as well help it break the seal and cut the knots, a sword stroke on tangled weeds.
System: “...” Host, please complete the task properly.
“Luoluo…”
“What?”
Ever since moments ago, the Nesting Phoenix kept calling her name, voice soft as a flute. Maybe it had something.
“Why are we still here?”
She swatted a lunging beast into sparks and turned, puzzled clouding her brow. “Weren’t we here for the Soul Pearl?”
“...”
Right. If you hadn’t said it, I’d forgotten. I’m here for the Soul Pearl!
The South Sea seal? Not my business, like distant thunder over another valley.
This side quest is a life-drainer. I’m heading back into the Oceanward Tower to find that pearl.
She bent to run.
But—
System: “...”
Cruel to say, Host, but the Oceanward Tower no longer has the Soul Pearl.
“Huh?” Nana froze, eyes wide like moons. “What do you mean?”
Well… after the Nesting Phoenix’s free-fire rampage inside, the vault storing the Soul Pearl got melted like wax.
So the South Sea has no Soul Pearl now.
Nana Toki: “...”
She turned to look at the Nesting Phoenix, gaze flat as winter lake.
“What is it, Luoluo?”
The Phoenix blinked innocently under her stare, feathers glowing like embers.
“...”
“Nothing. You’re amazing.”
Nana sighed, a long wind down a canyon. All that effort for nothing, and now a mess pulling her in like undertow.
Bleeding loss.
System: “...”
However, this System has a way for you to get a Soul Pearl.
“What?”
Complete the side quest.
Nana Toki: “...”
