Fang Yuan stared at this letter in a daze. This is not at all how things had gone on in reality.
He had been in the Eastern Sea during this period in his life in order to collect Black Oil, which could be sold for a large amount. During this process he had been contaminated by it - Black Oil was corrosive and could not be touched directly. It had to be harvested using special gu worms.
He had been caught by surprise by a current and had nearly died to Black Oil contamination.
He would've certainly perished in that instant.
That is to say, unless it was for her presence.
She had saved him. Xie Han Mo, who had been the Saintess among the mermaids at the time, had seen fit to rescue him.
Unfortunately, she had been rewarded with treachery for her kindness. The Saintess of the merfolk was supposed to be pure, and so a rival faction accused her of having an affair with Fang Yuan.
Because of this, a rival to the position of Saintess was able to challenge her for the position once more.
Fang Yuan had repaid her debt to him by helping her win the contest. He still vividly remembered the time they had spent singing together... but it went beyond that. She had been the only woman he'd ever truly loved during his past life.
During the time of the contest, the Frost Tide tribe leader, someone who was opposed to Xie Han Mo, had tried to win Fang Yuan over to his side with threats and bribes.
But this had been the turning point in Fang Yuan's life. Soon after, he would find the Blood Sea Inheritance, realize the futility of mortal pursuits, and change to the demonic path.
He had never heard from Xie Han Mo or the Frost Tide tribe leader afterwards.
However, dream realms could often times be strange and nonsensical.
He had never encountered something like this, though, which was a hypothetical scenario that had never happened.
Then again, dream realms were strange and the Dream Path had not fully been developed. Was this also possible? An artificial dream realm?
Fang Yuan's first reaction was to this message was that this was a trap and that he should move away, not even bothering to refine the gu worm in question.
When he did so, however, an intense emotion of loss and longing assaulted him. These were not someone else's emotions, but Fang Yuan's very own; what he had felt during his past life, what he would have felt if he had gotten such a letter stating that Xie Han Mo had been taken captive.
Fang Yuan frowned. This entire scenario was hypothetical. One would think that since it was his own Dream Realm, he should have an easy answer.
But this had been created by someone else. It was extraordinarily odd. Fang Yuan had never heard of a tribulation like this, nor had he heard of a Dream Path technique like this, even in the future. Granted, his attainment in the Dream Path had been rather low, and tribulations could certainly take on odd forms, but this seemed far too specifically engineered just to annoy him.
With no other real choice, he could only make his way toward Shark Peak. Shark Peak was a collection of rocks jutting out of the ocean, the largest of which had a massive gap made from wind and water erosion.
This eroded section created a gap in the rock which almost looked like a shark's mouth, with teeth protruding from both the top and the bottom. Hence, the name Shark Peak.
Some people believed that an Immortal had carved it, but Fang Yuan doubted this; it only vaguely resembled what it was supposed to, and if an Immortal had made it, they had done a rather shoddy job of molding it.
Even Fang Yuan, who had no true artistic ability or Earth Path methods, could have done a better job of making a shark's mouth if he wanted.
Now, he had to assess the situation.
Without a doubt, this was a trap.
If Xie Han Mo was already captured, the chances of her being alive were slim, not to mention the chances of actually managing to rescue her were close to zero.
The smart choice would have been to simply abandon her and leave.
However, each time Fang Yuan thought about doing so, his heart would become overcome by sadness and grief. Without a doubt, if he chose to do that, he would end up failing this Dream Realm.
'But that means that there must be a solution,' Fang Yuan thought to himself. Heaven never presented a problem that someone could not solve. Heaven could not drop a tribulation that a person could not break through. There was no Dream Realm without a solution.
Fang Yuan glanced at the gu worms that he had within his aperture. During this time, he had mainly been focused on collecting Black Oil, so he had a number of support-type gu worms to allow him to dive into the sea more easily and collect the oil. Unfortunately, this meant that he did not have much in the way of an offensive set.
The first was Rainbow Koi Gu, a Rank 3 mount-type gu worm, which was much like the Thousand Li Earthwolf Spider Gu, except it was extremely useful for traveling on water, which is how Fang Yuan got to Shark Peak in the first place.
The second was Water Pistol Gu. This was a gu worm somewhat like the Moonlight Gu but it stayed on the Gu Master's finger rather than their hand and could shoot out a stream of water strong enough to pierce through rock.
There was Rain Dish Gu. It was a healing type gu which could heal a Gu Master's injuries so long as it was raining or, to a smaller extent, if they were swimming underwater.
There was Water Veil Gu, a defensive type gu worm. Unfortunately, it was only Rank two, as Fang Yuan had not managed to find a better one at the time. However, it had a special property: when used within the water, it could show strength almost equivalent to a Rank 3 gu worm. Shark Peak, however, was on land.
He had many other movement type Gu worms, but once again, these were all suited for collecting Black Oil and so could help him move underwater, but were not really applicable here.
The more Fang Yuan looked at Shark Peak out in the distance, the more unsolvable the situation seemed to be. He had no advance intelligence on what the Frost Tide tribe leader was doing. As far as he knew, this was not even the actual Frost Tribe leader, but a character invented by the Dream Realm, meaning he could act completely contrary to how he had actually been.
Because, the Frost Tide tribe leader no doubt bore a grudge against him and Xie Han Mo, but he did not think that the actual one would go to such extents.
Did he blame Xie Han Mo of doing something improper, stripping her of her status, and then kidnap her? The Dream Realm didn't even go into the details of how this had happened, simply plopping the scenario right into his lap.