The coral forest's bioluminescent haze thickened as Li Yongzhe materialized between Cha Feixiong and Zhao Rui, his silver hair swirling like mercury vapor. "Brother Cha," his voice carried the weight of tectonic plates shifting, "the Dragon King's Crown takes precedence over blood debts."
Cha Feixiong's scarred jowls trembled. Seventeen generations of ancestral tablets screamed in his marrow—their whispers of vengeance warring against Demon Sect oaths branded into his soul. His fist clenched, frostfire talismans dissolving unused. "You defend this gutter rat?"
"Defend?" Li's chuckle held no mirth. A fractal map of the coral labyrinth materialized above his palm—their mission's progress bleeding crimson at the edges. "I preserve our chances of leaving this tomb alive. Your vendetta risks awakening far hungrier things." His gaze slid meaningfully toward distant pagoda shadows where something scaled shifted.
Zhao Rui observed the dance of power with detached curiosity. Golden motes swirled along his meridians, their whispers translating Cha's erratic qi pulses: Dissonance. Fractured loyalty. A predator leashed. He stepped forward, boots crunching fossilized seagrass. "Your descendants chose annihilation when they kidnapped my friend. I merely... expedited their journey."
"Expedited?" Cha's roar sent crustacean swarms skittering. A Splitting Body adept behind him vomited black bile, unable to withstand the sonic assault. "You erased three centuries of Cha lineage in a single night!"
Dun Che's laughter boomed, shattering stalactites. "Your whelps fought like drunken shrimp! Even the brothel brawlers of—"
"Enough." Zhao Rui's quiet interjection carried finality. The fox demon's jaws snapped shut mid-taunt. To Cha: "Seek retribution after your master's treasure is secured. Until then..." He nodded toward Li's fractal map now glowing urgent gold at its core. "...we share common prey."
The Six Paths Master's eyebrow arched. "Oh?"
A three-headed serpent shadow rippled across the crystalline dome above. Zhao Rui's second spirit stirred—its golden specks resonating with the God-Sealing Tome's feverish vibrations. "You feel it too, Demon Master. This isn't some sunken palace. It's a feeding ground."
The détente held through seven li of collapsing seabed architecture. Cha Feixiong's disciples took point, their resentment manifesting in gratuitous destruction of coral reliefs depicting dragon-human alliances. Li Yongzhe walked beside Zhao Rui, their conversation a blade dance of probes and parries.
"You claim no sect allegiance," Li murmured, fingers brushing a mural of merfolk offering pearl-laden tribute, "yet wield arts predating Yu the Great's flood control. Curious."
"Curioser still," Zhao Rui countered, "that Demon Sect's Six Paths Masters serve as glorified tomb raiders."
A seismic rumble spared Li from reply. The labyrinth's western quadrant collapsed, revealing tiered terraces of black jade. There, coiled around a spire of fused battleship steel and coral, slept the reason for their pilgrimage—a serpentine skeleton stretching into darkness, each vertebrae larger than a cargo container.
Dun Che whistled. "Dragon King's Crown my furry ass! That's a damn titanoboa!"
Cha Feixiong's disciples faltered. The skeleton's empty eye sockets began glowing sulfur-yellow.
Li's composure cracked. "Not skeleton. Chrysalis."
The attack came in hypercane ferocity. Cha Feixiong's frostfire met scales harder than neutron star matter. Three Splitting Body adepts died mid-transformation, their demonic manifestations shredded like rice paper.
"Formation Seven!" Li barked, blood trickling from his nose as he wove spacetime-bending arrays. "Zhao Rui! The third cervical joint!"
Golden motes blazed like supernovae. Zhao Rui's leap carried him through fractal dimensions—Li's portals bending reality itself. The God-Sealing Tome pages screamed as he plunged hands into quantum foam beneath the serpent's scales.
Cha Feixiong chose that moment to strike.
Vengeance transcended reason. While the serpent-dragon thrashed against Li's spacetime snares, Cha's blade arced toward Zhao Rui's exposed back. Dun Che's interception came late—the fox demon's left arm sheared clean as Cha's sword continued its lethal trajectory.
The golden motes sang.
Time dilated. Zhao Rui watched Cha's strike approach at Planck-scale increments—a frozen ballet of hatred. His fingers closed around warm jade deep in the serpent's quantum core. Reality rebooted.
Cha's blade shattered against sudden golden carapace. The serpent-dragon's roar shook dimensions as Zhao Rui emerged clutching the Dragon King's Crown—not jewelry, but a throbbing organ of pure gravitational malice.
Li Yongzhe smiled beatifically. "How... cooperative of you."
Demon Sect's trap snapped shut.