Stand still and let her strike him?
This was the first time Nan Zhi had ever heard such a bizarre request.
Her hand was already on her storage bag, prepared to pull out the Fish-Dragon Guillotine, when this troublemaking Yaksha suddenly came out with that line.
A Foundation Establishment cultivator, a ghost cultivator of over thirty years, and a newly transformed little hedgehog.
No matter how one looked at it, this combination seemed like a soft target that could be bullied at will.
Thus, before boarding the ship, Nan Zhi had already prepared herself for someone to look for trouble.
The trope of playing a pig to eat a tiger could be used occasionally, but if one played the pig too often, what was the difference between them and an actual pig?
“No, no, no, that's not what I meant.”
The Yaksha sputtered for a moment, realizing he was too thick-tongued to explain himself, and turned to look at a female Yaksha beside him.
Most Yakshas looked similar, both males and females having blue skin and long fangs protruding from their mouths.
The female Yaksha was also bare-chested, and the bone tuzi hanging across her chest were bright and round.
“Ha-ah-ka-ka-ka-ba-ba—”
【You look good. For you, for you.】
She couldn't speak the human tongue. She let out a series of garbled growls at Nan Zhi and reached out to pull at her, prying off a bright pearl and insistently stuffing it into Nan Zhi's hand.
“Gulu, ka, ba-ba-ka...”
【This, pretty, for you to play with.】
Nan Zhi was confused, but seeing these Yakshas trying to be friendly after only just meeting her, she could guess the reason.
It was likely the Savior halo above her head at work.
A two-hundred-point boost to favorability across all factions.
Human cultivators might only find her face kind and approachable, but for foreign races with beastly instincts like the Yakshas and Rakshasas, two hundred points of faction favorability was enough for them to offer her their hearts and souls upon first meeting.
Wait, the twelve nations of the four directions of the southern seas seemed to be mostly populated by foreign races.
Didn't that mean as long as she didn't seek out death, she could use this faction favorability to lay low and develop herself like a fish in water?
Nan Zhi's thoughts strayed for a moment. Seeing that she wasn't taking the pearl, the leading Yaksha generously stuffed it into Hongluo's arms and stammered out an apology in human speech.
“Sor-ry.”
“!”
Hongluo had never seen a Yaksha before. Seeing such a fierce looking race actually apologize, she peeked at Nan Zhi, her heart filling with even more joy.
Mistress is truly amazing!
Even these scary Yakshas are afraid of her!
Nan Zhi glanced at Hongluo. Seeing that she wasn't frightened and had instead accepted the pearl, she turned back to the leading Yaksha.
“My little friend has accepted the pearl and accepts your apology.
We humans have an old saying: ‘Friends are often made after a fight.’ My words earlier were also a bit harsh. As for the matter of the Life and Death Arena, let's just treat it as a joke.”
The Yakshas nodded repeatedly like chickens pecking at grain.
Just as the atmosphere softened, a few peculiarly shaped Sea Dragon people walked over. Seeing the Yakshas, they immediately began to mock them.
“Oh, I was wondering why there was a stench of rotten fish and shrimp in the air. I could smell this foul odor from three miles away. As expected, it's you Yakshas.”
These Sea Dragon people included both men and women, and their appearance was similar to humans.
However, while their upper bodies were human, their lower halves were thick, prismatic snake tails, arched like sea horses.
Unlike the Yakshas who disliked clothing, the Sea Dragon people preferred to cover themselves in light gauze. Both men and women wore extremely thin and comfortable Water Cloud Silk.
When they walked, their abdomens would contract along with their tails, their abdominal muscles clearly defined and partially visible beneath the light gauze.
“It's the Sea Dragons and the Yakshas...”
“They've run into each other again. How unlucky. Let's go, quickly, lest we get caught in the crossfire when they start fighting.”
“Shh, the Sea Dragon and Yaksha nations have been at war for decades without a clear winner—”
“That female cultivator is in trouble. She took the Yaksha's pearl. Everyone knows the Sea Dragons want to strip the bones and eat the flesh of any Yaksha they see. She'll likely be dragged into it.”
“They'll probably end up in the Life and Death Arena. Tsk tsk, it's a rare sight when the Yakshas and Sea Dragons meet and someone doesn't end up dead!”
The crowd of onlookers suddenly retreated several yards, leaving a vacuum that exposed Nan Zhi and the Yakshas to the Sea Dragon people.
Suddenly insulted by their mortal enemies, the Yakshas were not to be outdone.
“Slutty Sea Dragons, just like wild seagulls, your mouths are foul and annoying. Take this!”
The leading Yaksha stomped his foot and threw his trident without another word. It pierced the chest of one of the Sea Dragon people, and sky-blue blood sprayed out.
The event was sudden. Nan Zhi pulled Hongluo and Wanniang into a hasty retreat. The Sea Dragon people bared their claws and lunged forward, biting and tearing at the Yakshas!
In an instant, flesh and blood flew. The sounds of biting, gnawing, and swallowing were constant. It was a life and death struggle between beasts. In the blink of an eye, two Sea Dragon people and one Yaksha lay dead on the ground.
Whoa!
Seeing that they had gone straight to killing, the surrounding people retreated even further, fearing they would be affected.
A moment later, disciples from the Wuwei Sect arrived in a hurry on giant eagles. The eagles were as large as vats, their talons gleaming with cold light. The wind from their wings was so strong it forced people to squint.
The Yakshas and Sea Dragon people, who had been in a death match, finally separated, cursing each other.
“Gulu-lu-lu! Ga-ga-ga! (Dead snakes! Sooner or later, I'll gouge out your eyes!)”
“Yaksha ghosts, one day we will trample the Yaksha Nation, skin you to make rugs, and chop your bones for firewood!”
They cursed each other with the most vicious language, their faces filled with such loathing that they seemed to want to bite each other to death.
It was a hatred carved into their bones, a feud that would only end in death.
Nan Zhi covered Hongluo's eyes, her expression solemn.
The Yaksha who had just been talking to her was now a cold corpse.
The Sea Dragon people were no better; two had died in an instant.
A Sea Dragon woman crouched over her companion's corpse, her lower body coiled as she slowly licked her wounds.
She met Nan Zhi's gaze, her pupils suddenly turning into vertical slits. Her brown eyes shifted into a diamond shape before returning to normal after a long moment.
“Hiss—what are you looking at? I saw you take that Yaksha's pearl. Get lost.”
“My apologies, I had no intention of disturbing you.”
Nan Zhi frowned slightly, glanced at the two Wuwei Sect disciples, and led Hongluo and the others back into the crowd.
...
Fifteen minutes later, Nan Zhi pieced together the generational feud between the Yaksha Nation and the Sea Dragon Nation from the gossiping cultivators.
The twelve nations of the four directions of the southern seas were Chuyun, Yaksha, Rakshasa, Sea Dragon, Poison Dragon, Peony, Black Crow, Qingqiu, Jiao People, Dragon Kingdom, Alligator Dragon, and Afterlife.
The Dragon Kingdom had the largest territory and bordered the Alligator Dragon, Poison Dragon, and Sea Dragon nations. Next was the Afterlife Nation, where the souls of the dead remained.
To the west were the Jiao People, Black Crow, and Qingqiu nations. To the east were the Yaksha and Rakshasa nations. Chuyun and Peony were the most mysterious, existing outside these island nations, so their residents were rarely seen.
The Yakshas lived by the sea and were extremely fond of a certain type of bright pearl.
The Yakshas called these pearls bone tuzi and wore them around their necks as decoration. The higher their status and strength, the more bone tuzi they wore.
However, these pearls only grew in the deep sea, birthed by giant clams that bathed in moonlight. The deep sea was profound and dark, making it difficult for Yakshas to harvest them.
The eyes of the Sea Dragon people, however, could emit a soft light in the dark, much like the moon. When the giant clams saw this, they would mistake it for moonlight and open their shells, revealing the pearls within.
Thus, some Yakshas who craved the pearls would turn to dark means, secretly killing Sea Dragon people to take their eyes, then using them to harvest the pearls.
With their kin murdered and eyes gouged out, the Sea Dragon people naturally refused to let the matter rest.
Over time, the two nations declared war. For a thousand years, they fought and stopped, then fought again, accumulating a deep-seated generational feud.
Rate on N.U.
