Silverwing blinked a few times, processing the explanation. Then he grinned. I approve. Small pesky creatures are my biggest frustration in life.
“All a matter of the past,” Ling Dong said, wiping the sweat from his brow. “I naturally saved the best for last.” He paused for dramatic effect before opening a small box.
Huxian looked inside briefly and looked back up. Those are goggles, he said.
“They’re goggles,” Ling Dong said, nodding slowly. “Your goggles.”
This isn’t what I asked for, Huxian said, noting that this was a large departure from the super-mega armor—the one that weakened oncoming attacks while making him much stronger and faster—that he’d requested. His gauntleted paws should have been able to crush any opposition, while the eyes on his helmet would unleash beams of concentrated light on his enemies. This wasn’t it.
“I know it’s not what you asked for, but it’s what you need,” Ling Dong said, shaking his head. “You’re a Godbeast, Uncle Huxian, so it’s extremely difficult for me to improve on perfection. Your claws are sharper than Uncle Silverwing’s, and you’re almost as fast as Uncle Lei Jiang while much tougher. Your suppression and trapping powers are much better than Uncle Gua’s.”
All true but irrelevant, Huxian said. He hated not getting what he wanted.
“What you’re missing is perspective,” Ling Dong finally said. “I thought long and hard about your weapons, and eventually I thought to use the illusory steel left over from Brother Zi Long’s staff. I infused it into deep-sea amber retrieved from the fissure, and the band is made from peak core-grade shark skin. Meanwhile, the runes I inscribed are my best work to date.”
What do they do? Huxian asked, pawing at them curiously. He didn’t like the goggles, but he knew quality when he saw it.
“They let you see things as they could be,” Ling Dong whispered. “I won’t even pretend to know how that works, or how I did it. It was a mad moment of inspiration, something I won’t be able to replicate. From what I understand, it can help you better unleash your abilities by noticing causality and the very nature of things.
“Right now, you’re looking at life through an unfocused lens. What these goggles do is focus on minute details and overlay them with your regular sight. When I wear them, I catch glimpses of what could happen just a split second before they do, greatly enhancing my reaction time. And that’s just when I’m wearing them. I have a feeling they’ll be much more effective when you do.”
Fine, Huxian said, dripping his blood on the goggles, which appeared on his head instead of blending in with his fur like for the others. At least they’re stylish. Unlike someone’s accessory.
Gua glared at Huxian, who used his paw to adjust the new addition to his wardrobe.
“About your trip…” Ling Dong said sheepishly.
“You’ll get first pick as agreed,” Huxian said. “You can keep picking until you make a fair profit from our gear. Though like I said before, your master and I need some items. Those are off limits, but everything else isn’t.”
“Of course,” Ling Dong said. “The guards outside want armor and accessories for their mounts, more than I have materials for. I can buy any surplus from you for a decent price.”
“You helped me, now I’ll help you,” Huxian said. He and his crew departed the bubble and floated off into the darkness. They were headed toward the fissure.
Here it is, Huxian said as they swam up to a dark crevice on the ocean floor. They effortlessly bypassed the blue shield around it with his spatial powers. The aptly named fissure was a deep gouge in the rocky ground that hid beneath a sandy exterior. Shelves and caves peeked out every few hundred feet, hinting at dangerous creatures that attacked both the clueless and the brave. People, demons, it didn’t matter to these darker creatures.
Huxian stared down an eel with his violet Demon-Subduing Eyes as they swam along the length of the crevice. The fissure soon widened into a large outcropping on the side of the stone cliff.
Would you look at that, Gua whispered, swimming ahead to get a better look.
The cliff was covered in floating green and blue plants. Multicolored flowers grew everywhere in what appeared to be a wild but fiercely protected garden. The most vicious predators in the sea swam about as they guarded the stockpile of natural treasures. Sharks. Fiendish ones. Lots of them.
I don’t think this is a good idea, Silverwing said, flying forward. He’d summoned his new claw armor and spread his massive wings, signaling for their squad to stop. There are too many of them, and some are even stronger than we are.
But the treasures, the delicious treasures, Huxian said. Seeing but not touching just isn’t my style. How about we take a quick look? A discreet one?
Silverwing frowned in disapproval as Huxian blended light and shadows around them, cloaking their small group against the hundreds of carnivorous fiends down below.
Why do they grow plants? Huxian thought as they swam. Can they even eat them?
Maybe they add them as spices to their prey? Lei Jiang suggested.
Likely, Huxian said. It can’t be anything else. There’s not enough here to grow livestock.
As they swam, the sharks grew larger and larger. Smaller, obviously infant sharks could no longer be seen amidst the dangerous frenzy of demonic predators. Their small compressed forms darted between them, carefully taking note of the various treasures growing in the garden. To their surprise, small octopuses were busy pulling weeds away from more valuable herbs while guard eels scared away smaller fish the sharks ignored.
Huxian’s breath quickened when he found what he was looking for. Apparently the information he’d purchased had been accurate. A single white flower grew atop a large, juicy bud on a mountain deep within shark territory. It was a seabreeze lily. Several peak core demon beasts watched over