Chapter 354: Siege of the Ocean Lord

“If we develop tourism, all the empty houses in the town can be used as guest rooms, and we can also build some uniquely designed and aesthetically pleasing villas and manors in the surrounding area. Let me do the math for you—rent for one ordinary guest room for a week is equivalent to the annual income of an ordinary resident in Dalaran. And that’s just for ordinary guest rooms. There are also luxury suites, independent homes, and vacation villas. Even if only a small number of tourists come each year, it will still make this town prosperous. Which type of industry do you think is more profitable?”
“Of course, the environment must be kept clean and beautiful. We also need to build some recreational facilities in our territory to ensure visitors enjoy themselves, feel at ease, and have a good time eating! Only then can we attract more outsiders!”
After hearing this, Jesse was utterly impressed.
“The Lord Daren is truly a genius. Such a brilliant plan—I dare say that not only in our Selth, but across the entire continent, no one could come up with something like this!”
Donald smiled and said,
“No need to flatter me. Once I complete this task, I can appoint you as a grand duke and grant you a hereditary knightly title. Although you don’t have a fiefland for now and aren’t part of our Selth nobility, your status will be completely legitimate. You’ll also be able to choose a location around Dragonhorn Town to build a manor, which can eventually become a vacation resort. It’s certain to attract many guests and generate significant income!”
Hearing this, Jesse was overjoyed and promised to complete the task wholeheartedly.
What was his greatest wish since separating from his family as an illegitimate child? It was to obtain a hereditary title and then proudly meet his father and brothers, showing those noble children in the capital who used to mock him who the real worthless fool really was!
Now, less than three years after joining Lord Donald, he had already achieved his dream, along with enviable benefits. With his savings, he could even buy a small manor back in the capital.
And this was just temporary. As his lord’s territory grew stronger and his status rose higher in the kingdom, he might even achieve even greater things—possibly surpassing his own father and becoming a true noble lord!
After outlining the general plan, Donald left the construction of Dragonhorn Town in Jesse’s hands and returned to Dalaran with confidence.

Just after teleporting back to the lord’s mansion, he ran into that guy, Carlisle, returning from outside, who greeted him with fierce combat enthusiasm.
“You’re back at just the right time. I had a tough fight with Uther earlier—let me see how much stronger you’ve become since ascending to legend!”
It turned out that through several battles over the past few days, Carlisle’s strength had surpassed that of a newly promoted legend. His control over domain powers had greatly improved. Although he might not have as much experience as those veteran legend warriors, with the boost from his divine bloodline and fragments of a divine essence, he had no real rivals among ordinary legend warriors!
So once there were no battles, he searched throughout his domain for opponents to spar with and hone his skills, causing quite a headache for some silver-ranked warriors there—except for Abel, the female sword saint who was never afraid of challenges.
But not long ago, with the help of those divine essence fragments, Abel ascended to the gold rank and left Dalaran to go to the capital to train her only disciple, Cornelia. Now that Carlisle had no opponent, he could only spar with Uther, the only gold-ranked paladin in Dalaran.
However, Uther, who focused on defense, was clearly not Carlisle’s favorite opponent. Against the paladin’s highly defensive tactics, ordinary attacks simply couldn’t penetrate.
As a result, Carlisle felt quite frustrated. Now that he’d run into Donald, knowing that Donald was skilled in both magic and combat and had just become a legend, it naturally piqued his interest and combat drive.
Donald also wanted to find a peer-level opponent to test his spellcraft at the legend level, so he readily agreed.
“Let’s fight somewhere else! We don’t want to damage the buildings in the domain!”
Carlisle had no objections. At their level, a battle could easily destroy even the training grounds of the adventurers’ guild, so he let Donald decide.
Considering the damage a legend-level battle could cause to the environment, the nearby wilderness wasn’t a good choice either. So Donald teleported Carlisle to the Emerald Dream Archipelago. After greeting Nozdormu, who was lazily taking a nap in the temple on the main island, the three legend warriors teleported together to asea area north of the Edge of the Falling Stars Bay.
“How about we first help Nozdormu claim that neighboring sea lord’s divine position, and then have another big fight?”
Carlisle nodded excitedly and was the first to dive into the sea.

Although Carlisle, whose strength was already on par with that of a legendary high-level warrior, didn’t possess spells like underwater breathing, he could completely counteract the water pressure in the sea relying on his own sword energy. As a divine being, he naturally had innate abilities that allowed him to breathe underwater. These abilities emerged after Carlisle obtained fragments of divinity during his journey to the Totem Continent and his divinity grew stronger.

The reason Donald didn’t directly grant divinity to Vincent and the others at first but instead went through the trouble of refining it into fragments was fear that they might fail to pass the trials of divinity and integrate it with their own. It was better for them to gradually understand the rules through the process of integrating these fragments and then cultivate their own divinity on their own. Moreover, this rapid improvement in strength was beneficial for facing the Totem Continent at that time.

Of course, Carlisle, who was originally a descendant of true gods with divine bloodline, didn’t have such concerns. But his cursed bloodline posed a significant risk. Donald couldn’t predict what changes the direct integration of external divinity might bring to Carlisle’s own divinity, so he treated them all equally.

Following Carlisle, Nozdorm, who learned that his territory would expand, also plunged into the water excitedly. At that moment, he seemed to forget his lazy and sleepy nature as a dragon and became proactive. Donald shook his head with a smile and followed into the sea as well.

With the effects of true knowledge magic combined with divine vision, Donald could see everything clearly even in complete darkness underwater. Besides, this area wasn’t very deep—the seabed was merely dim, with some glowing marine plants and animals emitting faint light. With this light, it was as clear to powerful beings like Donald as daylight on the surface.

“Boom!”

Hearing the ripples coming from ahead in the water, Donald immediately located their target. At the same time, Carlisle, who had entered first, and Nozdorm, who found the target first, had already begun fighting against the local ruler.

The ruler of this thousand-mile-wide sea area was a black eel, whose strength was much greater than that of a golden sea beast. Yet, against a deity blessed by the will of nature, such strength was rather weak.

Although its territory was blessed by the totemic divine realm, allowing it to reach a pseudo-legendary level, the legendary dragon Nozdorm was confined to the golden peak tier. Yet, thanks to its innate advantages as a dragon, the Bronze Dragon King alone was enough to defeat this black eel, not to mention Carlisle, who, despite being suppressed by the divine realm, still retained legendary combat strength.

Due to the combined effects of divinity and domain power, the divine suppression had less impact on Carlisle compared to the Bronze Dragon. After all, although higher dragons possessed immense innate talents at adulthood—reaching the golden tier—with strong combat abilities and quasi-magical powers—their progress took much longer than that of short-lived species like humans. Just the transition from a young dragon to an adult dragon could take two or three human lifetimes!

So, despite breaking through to the legendary level with the help of the Ocean Lord’s divinity and possessing formidable combat strength on par with most legendary warriors, Nozdorm was still essentially a powerful golden dragon. It needed considerable time to accumulate strength and truly master the legendary realm—this was also the fundamental reason why it hadn’t yet grasped domain power.

Since the battle over there didn’t seem to require his intervention, Donald headed straight for the Ocean Lord’s totem. With his divine vision, the location of the opponent’s totemic deity was as conspicuous as a light in the darkness. Soon, Donald arrived at its crude nest.

The cave, hidden among underwater coral reefs, seemed rather secluded. Seeing the rough altar made of piled coral, Donald couldn’t help but find it amusing. Indeed, this coral reef, shaped like a giant mushroom, was the Ocean Lord’s totem altar, adorned with simple patterns that were hard to spot unless observed closely.

Of course, the small amount of faith energy stored within the altar and the radiating divine glow confirmed that this crude coral reef was indeed a shrine to a deity. Its followers were likely only some intelligent sea beasts in the vicinity; otherwise, no intelligent race with even basic craftsmanship would build such a shoddy altar to worship their great god. Even orcs or goblins would know to polish the stones to make the altar more aesthetically pleasing. This Ocean Lord really had a pitiful situation!

In reality, many lower-ranked Ocean Lords at the Golden tier are like this, as there are few intelligent races among marine creatures, and those that do usually form powerful forces—these are referred to by humans as sea races, such as the legendary merfolk and sea elves. It’s quite rare for a creature like the Golden Bottom-Dwelling Demon Fish to gain the worship of fish tribes in shallow seas; thus, that underground monster is considered powerful among Golden Ocean Lords. If it hadn’t been so arrogant as to leave its territory to attack human ports, it probably wouldn’t have been so easily subdued by Donald and the others!