The spatial array flared with a blinding blue light that quickly faded into the salty mist of the coastal border.

Li Yu stepped off the platform alongside Sovereign Morven and Malos. Three elite generals of the Violet Deep followed closely behind them. They arrived at a sprawling port town situated on the very edge of the empire. It was usually a bustling hub of commerce where merchants traded their exotic goods for deep sea resources.

Today the town was completely silent. Li Yu looked up and immediately understood why Sovereign Morven was so incredibly frustrated.

Floating lazily in the sky directly above the center of the town was a bivalve the size of a royal palace. The Samsara Dream Clam was an absolute monolith of nature. Its massive shell was a pristine pearlescent white covered in beautiful swirling patterns of ancient coral and barnacles that looked like precious gems. It hovered silently without wings or visible Qi fluctuations.

A thick shimmering mist constantly cascaded from the edges of its tightly sealed shell. The mist fell like a gentle rain and blanketed the entire port town below in a sparkling haze.

“Look at the people,” Malos whispered while pointing down at the streets.

Li Yu focused his spiritual sense and peered through the mist. The citizens of the town were not dead and they were not injured. They were simply frozen in place. Merchants stood perfectly still with their hands outstretched. Guards leaned against the stone walls with their eyes closed.

But their faces were incredibly expressive.

Li Yu watched a grizzled looking mercenary drop to his knees. The man had a look of pure and unadulterated joy on his face. Tears of happiness streamed down his scarred cheeks. A few feet away a wealthy merchant wept with an expression of agonizing heartbreak. Sometimes the expressions shifted. A woman who was smiling brightly suddenly frowned with deep melancholy before returning to a peaceful slumbering state.

“They are lost in the dust,” Morven explained while gripping his towering trident. “The clam forces them to live out their deepest unresolved grief or their greatest unfulfilled longing. It is a flawless illusion. They cannot tell the difference between the dream and reality.”

“It feeds on the emotions.” Li Yu observed while watching the mist subtly cycle back upward toward the floating behemoth. “It is harvesting their feelings and their Qi in the surrounding area.”

“And it is disrupting my town!” Morven grumbled loudly. He turned to his generals and pointed his trident at the floating palace of pearl. “You know the drill. Make some noise and try to annoy it into leaving.”

The three generals drew their weapons and soared into the sky. They surrounded the massive clam and unleashed a barrage of elite tier techniques.

One general summoned a torrential vortex of water that slammed against the pristine shell with the force of a tidal wave. Another hurled spears of highly concentrated acid that hissed and boiled the air. The third general used a massive war hammer to send shockwaves of kinetic force directly into the side of the beast.

The combined assault was visually spectacular. The sky exploded with violet light and roaring water. But when the energy dispersed the Samsara Dream Clam remained exactly where it was. It had not moved a single inch and its shell was completely flawless. There was not a single scratch or scorch mark on the pearlescent surface.

“Incredible.” Malos breathed while his dark eyes widened in awe. “The generals are striking with enough force to level a mountain range and the shell simply ignores it.”

“It is that damn shell!” Morven said with a heavy sigh. “It is not just a physical barrier. The shell actively rejects the concept of damage it would seem. Watch this.”

Morven stepped forward and channeled his Sovereign Qi. The air around the Lord of the Violet Deep warped and shrieked as he gathered the absolute crushing gravity of the abyss into his left hand. He formed a sphere of condensed destruction and hurled it directly at the clam.

The Sovereign tier attack crossed the distance instantly. It struck the center of the massive shell with a deafening boom that rattled the buildings in the town below. The shockwave blew the hallucinogenic mist away for a brief moment.

Li Yu stared intensely. The clam was completely unharmed. The shell had not even vibrated from the impact. The attack of a Demon Lord was entirely useless.

“Fascinating.” Malos declared while drawing Tuwark’s bone-hilted sword from his spatial ring. “Allow me to try! I wish to test my edge against the ultimate shield!”

Malos flared his own Sovereign aura. The Lord of Foresight coated the blade in his Qi. He focused all of his intent and power into a single pinpoint strike designed to sever the underlying laws of the target. He slashed his sword through the air and unleashed a massive crescent of dark energy that shrieked toward the clam.

The starlit blade struck the shell and instantly shattered into a million harmless sparks of light. Malos blinked and slowly sheathed his sword. “Well then. That is genuinely absurd. I had heard the rumors but to see it for yourself is something else.”

“I told you!” Morven groaned while rubbing the bridge of his nose. “It is the most stubborn and immovable object in the realm. Violence does not work. We just have to make it uncomfortable enough to leave.”

Morven flew up into the air and hovered a few dozen yards away from the massive floating shell. He took a deep breath and expanded his chest. Then the Sovereign of the Violet Deep began to scream.

He did not use a grand sonic technique. He just started hurling the most vile, creative and absurd profanities he could think of directly at the giant mollusk. He called it an overgrown bottom feeder. He insulted its mother. He cursed its barnacles and threatened to turn it into a very large bowl of soup.

He roared insults that made the hardened generals blush and look away in embarrassment. While he was doing this he was also attacking the clam. Nothing seemed to bother it though. Li Yu hovered beside Malos and stared at the screaming Demon Lord in disbelief.

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“Is he serious?” Li Yu asked while raising an eyebrow.

“He says this sometimes works.” Malos chuckled while crossing his arms and enjoying the show. “Apparently if you yell loud enough and long enough the clam decides the environment is too hostile for a quiet nap and floats away. Or something else entirely. He looks to be trying everything.”

Li Yu listened to Morven string together a particularly colorful curse involving a sea urchin and a magma worm. It was a completely ridiculous sight. One of the most terrifying entities in the world was throwing a temper tantrum at a giant pearl.

“Perhaps it is getting used to the hostility,” Li Yu suggested jokingly. “Maybe it is a creature of culture. It might prefer to hear a song or a poem rather than crude insults.”

Morven instantly stopped screaming. He turned his head and looked down at Li Yu with a wicked bright grin.

“An excellent suggestion Brother Li Yu!” Morven boomed while gesturing grandly toward the massive shell. “A poem! The perfect change of pace! You go first. I will soon follow with a song!”

Li Yu froze. He realized immediately that he had walked right into a trap. Morven was exhausted from yelling and was more than happy to pass the humiliating task onto his sworn brother. The three generals snickered quietly as they were holding their hands over their mouths. Malos patted Li Yu on the shoulder with a wide and encouraging smile.

“Do not keep the clam waiting,” Malos urged cheerfully. “Give it your best verse.”

Li Yu sighed and accepted his fate. He floated upward until he was level with Morven and the giant floating shell. He cleared his throat and tried to think of something appropriate. He was a pragmatic survivor not a scholar of the arts but he had read a few ancient texts during his travels.

He looked at the pristine shell and the shimmering mist falling over the silent town below.

“The ocean sleeps beneath the dark.” Li Yu spoke clearly as he was projecting his voice with a small amount of Qi so it echoed across the sky. “A quiet world without a spark. But hidden deep within the stone, a pearl of wisdom sits alone.”

The three generals exchanged confused glances. Morven crossed his massive arms and nodded as if he were a strict poetry critic evaluating the performance and finding it acceptable.

Li Yu continued feeling incredibly foolish speaking to a giant clam. “It does not seek the blazing sun. It rests until the day is done. It holds the dreams of those who weep and guard the secrets of the deep.”

As Li Yu reached the midpoint of his impromptu recitation the ambient air pressure suddenly shifted.

The thick, shimmering mist cascading from the edges of the shell began to swirl and change direction. The Samsara Dream Clam let out a low resonant hum that vibrated the very marrow in Li Yu’s bones.

Then the massive palace sized creature began to move.

It was an agonizingly slow process. The colossal shell slowly rotated on its invisible axis. It turned away from the center of the border town. It drifted forward at a pace that a crawling infant could easily outrun. But it was moving.

Li Yu nervously finished the last few lines of his poem while watching the giant clam drift closer to him.

After a long while, the massive beast floated entirely past the border town leaving the frozen citizens behind. The hallucinogenic mist stopped falling over the streets and the people below slowly began to blink and shake their heads as the illusion faded.

But the clam did not stop. It continued its incredibly slow creeping advance directly toward Li Yu.

“Sovereign Morven!” Li Yu called out without taking his eyes off the approaching monolith. “Is this normal?”

“I have no idea,” Morven replied with genuine surprise in his voice. “This has never happened before. Usually it just slowly ascends into the clouds or goes into the water. It disappears back to wherever it came from. It moves so slowly that no one has ever had the patience to follow it back to its home. I have never seen it actively approach a person.”

Li Yu did not like the idea of a giant indestructible anomaly showing interest in him. He decided to test the waters. He activated his Void Step and vanished from his current position. He reappeared a hundred yards to the left hovering near the edge of a coastal cliff.

The Samsara Dream Clam did not stop. It slowly rotated its massive bulk once again. It adjusted its trajectory and continued its creeping agonizingly slow advance toward Li Yu’s new position.

Li Yu frowned and flew to the right. He moved several hundred yards in the opposite direction. The clam patiently rotated again and resumed its pursuit. It was locked completely onto his signature but its slow pace was ridiculous.

“It is following me!” Li Yu stated the obvious. He felt a strange mixture of tension and sheer absurdity. The creature was tracking him perfectly but its top speed was so incredibly slow that it posed absolutely zero immediate physical threat. He could simply fly away and the clam would take centuries to catch up to him.

Morven burst into a booming fit of laughter. He clutched his stomach and pointed at Li Yu.

“It seems you have an admirer!” Morven roared out loud. He was wiping a tear of mirth from his pale eye. “Your poetry has won the heart of the great beast!”

“Congratulations on your new pet Li Yu!” Malos cheered from a safe distance. “It is a bit large for a courtyard but it is certainly well behaved! And very slow!”

“What should I do?” Li Yu asked while slowly flying backward to maintain a safe distance from the creeping shell.

“I do not know!” Morven laughed loudly. “This has never happened in the history of the Violet Deep! Just keep reciting poetry, perhaps it will eventually get bored and leave!”

The three generals joined in the laughter, finding the sight of the combatant being slowly chased by a giant clam incredibly amusing. Li Yu sighed and crossed his arms letting the clam slowly drift closer. It was eerie but it felt entirely non threatening. It was like watching a mountain try to sneak up on you.

“Fine…” Li Yu muttered to himself. “If it wants to follow me it can follow me. It is too slow to cause any real harm anyway.”

The laughter from the Demon Lords and the generals echoed across the coastal cliffs. It was a bizarre but lighthearted moment after the heavy casualties of the recent war. But the laughter suddenly died.

A deep ancient grinding sound echoed through the sky. It sounded like tectonic plates shifting beneath the ocean floor. Li Yu stopped flying backward and his eyes widened.

The pristine pearlescent shell of the Samsara Dream Clam was moving. The two massive halves of the impenetrable armor were slowly pulling apart.

Morven instantly stopped laughing and gripped his trident with both hands. His pale eyes narrowed into slits of predatory focus. The three generals immediately drew their weapons and flared their auras as they were preparing for combat. Malos dropped his cheerful demeanor.

“Morven?” Li Yu asked. He kept his voice incredibly calm despite the sudden spike in tension.

“Get back Li Yu.” Morven commanded. “Get back right now.”

“Why?” Li Yu asked while preparing to activate his Void Step.

“Because in all the recorded history of the realm.” Morven said while gripping his trident so hard his knuckles turned white. “In all the years this beast has roamed the oceans and the skies it has never once opened its shell for anyone.”

The massive crack in the pearlescent armor widened exposing an absolute pitch black void within the clam. The thick shimmering mist poured out of the opening in a torrential waterfall of hallucinogenic dust.

The agonizingly slow pursuit had stopped. The clam hovered in the sky perfectly still with its shell slowly creaking open to reveal the darkness inside. The bizarre comedy of the moment vanished entirely. It was replaced by a heavy and suffocating sense of the unknown.

Li Yu readied his staff and prepared to fight after he had gotten back and away from the clam. The slowest beast in the realm had finally made its move and no one had any idea what was coming next.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep