It wasn't often that the sea fought against those who sought to travel her waters, safe passage was given to them that only desired to move from one port to another—but this time, those who died were the ones who reached out and reacted to the scent filling their surroundings.

An ambiance of those who knew death but did not cower from it.

They sought to find the source and found it in a living man.

Li Yang eyed what appeared to be a corpse of a Mermaid, her wrists were bent unnaturally as she hovered in the air. The strong majestic tail of such a creature seemed to have been stripped off—the scales skinned off. Only a faint glimmer of what might have been shone despite the fog blocking out the moon and stars.

He might have attempted to talk to it.. her, but only the sound of rumbling and low groans filled the air. There was no siren using her vocals to lure him into the deep, she was a shadow of her former self.

No longer a creature of water or that of the earth. historical

Its eyes glowed with an eerie light.

Behind it were human skeletons—their sacked fleshes giving away to rot and wear compared to the beautiful maiden. One of them looked like its ribs had been punctured aiming for a heart that was long gone, whereas another one had a dislocated jaw.

There was only one singular Mermaid amidst the human corpses so it wasn't hard to imagine what might happen. The human skeletons held on to harpoons and spears, others held on to nets and other things used to capture fish.

Or a much larger one.

Li Yang held on to the Yao Slayer he bought but did not make the first move.

He remembered what the Aroma of Death did by protecting him from the mindless undead, those not controlled by another individual or practitioner of death, and while he thought it already waned in effect.. that didn't seem to be the case.

These lost souls did not attack him at all.

Groaning and bemoaning, as if telling him a tale of their woes and demise but never striking first. A haunting beauty that stayed with him.

They considered him a kindred spirit—but it all changed when the first scream pierced the night. One of the men in the ship reached above the deck and was quickly met with the rampage of these creatures and tore him to flesh.

He didn't even realize what was happening at first until he saw the first blood spurting out from an arm. Li Yang snapped out of his stupor and launched himself forward—whether they attacked him or not, these creatures did not hold the same standard to those of his companions.

Not knowing any specific Necromancer skills or those of eastern methods to control the undead, he was forced to cut them down and bring their bodies to their eternal rest.

A macabre of death.

At first they seemed to have allowed Li Yang to approach and pass, but once they realized that he was making his way to the ordinary man—they started attacking him. The instinctual desire to be alive and yet not being capable of doing so, they only held onto this stage in between living and dying.

"Get them and finish them off now!" Yuan Gen shouted.

Below the deck, a couple of the men started going out and wielding weapons of their own. It seemed like despite being non-cultivators, they were still capable of holding these things off on their own.

Even the shopkeeper went out with a large stick and used it to bash the skeleton's out of his way. With the safety of numbers, he and the others were able to perform some kind of war technique by sticking to one another and using defensive attacks.

Li Yang on the other hand dealt with the ones on his front—bringing them to their end.

These creatures didn't know what hit them at all as the last skeleton went down.

A certain vapor of qi expelling upon their death like their own aroma on their demise. The men of Yuan Gen were quickly lighting up matches and burning the corpses down.

Li Yang held on to his sword and saw the first man that had gone up, only a stump available in one of his arms—despite him moving in to fight only after a second.

"Are you okay, Ping?"

One of the men quickly replied. "Does he look okay to you?"

"That was a stupid question—dangit, bring him to the medical bay." Yuan Gen covered his face with a hand, watching as the other guys started bringing the injured fellows below the deck, until he finally looked at Li Yang. "What about you? How are you okay? When did you even have that weapon with you?"

Li Yang held the Yao Slayer and gave him a shrug. "I always had it with me, you just didn't notice."

"That's a specialized weapon for fighting ghosts, spirits and those of mostly yin-nature.." Yuan Gen frowned as he eyed the weapon and then Li Yang up and down. "Did you have a storage ring with you? I didn't see one on your fingers when you came in, and I don't see any earrings on you either. You have a bracelet underneath the sleeve of your suit?"

"I guess I can understand why you're a shopkeeper, you have an eye for merchandise." Li Yang held on to the weapon and didn't exactly place it back in his Inventory.

While it wasn't apparent before, it seemed like this shopkeeper individual didn't just provide service without taking an assessment of his customer.

"Wow, now you're complimenting me."

"Perhaps. But what's that stick for a weapon?" Li Yang raised a brow. He remembered the time when Taiga trained him and he was forced to use an actual tree branch for a weapon, but now it seemed more practical to have a blade.

His training with the Kin Hunters and those of Mashiro Temple helped him use it more.

"Not everyone likes violence," Yuan Gen said. "Besides, it's good for both hitting individuals and also as a backscratcher. Try doing that with a sword and you'll end up with stabs all over your body."

He considered that as the end of that conversation.

Li Yang's gaze then flickered to the corpses and other skeletons from the fight being burned and turned into ash by some sort of purple flame. "What's the purpose of that? Some kind of special flame to actually extinguish the souls?"

"You've never seen Purple Qi?" Yuan Gen raised a brow and snickered. He wagged his stick and pointed it to the people using matches that burned the bodies but didn't seem to harm the ship itself. "Talk about the path of enlightenment, huh?"

"I don't get it at all, as far as I know—qi has affinity to certain elements, and while there are colors associated with each one.. is there such a thing like purple flames?" Li Yang inquired. "Beyond what I'm seeing now."

He could recall Telriah's Ao Seven Energy Types.. but it didn't mean that things were similar here back on earth. Knowing how there were different cultivation methods, techniques and other information available to grow stronger—he decided to just focus on what was the most fundamental.

Purple flames didn't seem like a skill or technique for those around his level.

"Well, if you must know, purple tends to be associated with wood and also wealth in bagua and feng shui.. heck, even other countries associate it with royalty so you can see a pattern."

"I think purple was associated with royalty because purple dye was very expensive in the past," Li Yang said.

Yuan Gen gave him a look, but then proudly whisked the stick at the flames. "This is a profound spiritual qi that can expel the negative qi from these creatures to prevent attracting other creatures from the sea. The patriarch of the Liu is capable of imbuing this pure qi into various objects for later use."

Li Yang raised a brow. It seemed like the people in the organization truly looked up to elders within their group. "I see.."

"You don't seem capable of appreciating it yet." Yuan Gen wrinkled his nose. "Well, what's your spiritual root affinity? You managed to open your spiritual roots through the use of the tea that you bought from us, right?"

That wasn't exactly what happened, but he didn't need to know.

"I don't actually have to tell you anything, you know?" Li Yang frowned slightly as he gazed at the vapors that still seemed to expel from the corpses despite the purple flames.

"Of course you just have to be one of those secretive guys."

Actually, there was something else that was bugging Li Yang more than the explanation of the purple qi. "Are you sure that this profound qi is working? From what I know, Mermaids have very high spiritual roots with water affinity. Shouldn't that pose a problem when dealing with these flames?"

"Mermaid.. you know, we encountered Gui now, whatever their previous nature, it's changed. They've transformed into something more akin to ghosts that continue to plague the earth." Yuan Gen frowned at him. "We have to remove these kinds of phantasm qi or else we risk the chance of attracting other creatures that seek to destroy them."

"Other creatures?" Li Yang didn't like the sound of that.

"We're obviously not the only ones who detest these kinds of creatures. They also haunt and attack those who dwell under the sea—so don't jinx us by asking about it, or else we're going to face something more treacherous than these. We're already getting delayed by the injuries, but we're nearly at our destination."

Li Yang needed to remove that Aroma of Death status now.