Chapter 249 Fierce Battle Under the Sea
The hull groaned under the violent tremors, sending everyone on deck sprawling, except for Li Wen and Moria, who had stabilized themselves the moment the ship lurched, standing firm on the deck.
Murky seawater, mixed with foul-smelling seaweed and unidentifiable rotten matter, rained down on the deck like a torrential storm, bringing a bone-chilling cold and a suffocating stench of decay.
Li Wen gripped the slippery gunwale tightly, her hood blown back by the gale, her wet black hair plastered to her cheeks. Her icy gaze pierced through the churning, ink-black sea, spotting a colossal, distorted shadow deep beneath the ship, emanating a heart-palpitating malice.
The edges of the shadow writhed like living things, countless thick tentacles slick with sickly green slime aggressively coiling around the Adventurer, each contraction eliciting a death rattle from the colossal vessel, nearing disintegration. What alerted Li Wen even more was the aura emanating from the shadow—cold, deathly still, with an instinctive craving for souls—identical to the residual soul aura within the statue of the Twin-tailed Mermaid she’d sensed beneath the church in Port Beren.
“It’s a creation of the Decayed Lineage,” Li Wen’s voice, clear and cold, cut through the wind and rain with irrefutable certainty.
“Damn it all!” Remington’s roar was like thunder, drowning out the storm’s fury. The “Raging Tide Commander” of the Calamity Path showed no fear in his eyes, only the ferocity of being utterly enraged. He handed the helm to the most burly sailor beside him and bellowed, “Hold steady! Don’t let it tear the ship apart!”
Before his words even finished, Remington stomped heavily on the soaked deck, his body launching like a cannonball towards the ship’s side. Without a shred of hesitation, without even unbuckling his saber, he plunged headfirst into the surging waves and straight into the black, churning sea radiating endless malice.
Plop!
The sound of him falling into the water was instantly swallowed by the storm.
Beneath the sea’s surface was a different kind of hell. The murky water was as viscous as ink, with extremely low visibility. However, Remington’s eyes, accustomed to years of battling the ocean, were unaffected. In an instant, he locked onto the colossal entity coiled at the ship’s bottom – a terrifying sea monster defying all description.
Its main body resembled a writhing mountain of flesh, crudely pieced together from countless rotten corpses and pale bones. Numerous thick tentacles, covered in suckers and oozing dark green slime, snaked out from the flesh mountain, tightly constricting the Adventurer’s keel. The tentacles were studded with mouths of all sizes, ferociously gnawing at the sturdy ship timbers with an ear-grinding “creak.” Deeper within, a giant, clouded single eye, flashing with a scarlet light, could be vaguely seen, staring fixedly at Remington who had trespassed into its domain, filled with greed and brutality.
“Damn beast,” Remington cursed inwardly, his lungs compressed by the immense water pressure. But as a Phase Four “Raging Tide Commander,” the ocean itself was an extension of his power; he wasn’t struggling in the water, but had returned to his own battlefield.
With what seemed like a casual push of his feet in the water, a violent undercurrent surged beneath him. Like an invisible giant palm striking, it not only negated the immense water pressure but also granted him speed far beyond that of ordinary individuals. He was like a deep-sea fish, ignoring the powerful resistance of the viscous water, charging directly towards the monster’s single eye.
Sensing the threat, the monster loosened several tentacles wrapped around the ship. As they swung, they possessed the power to tear through winds and waves, generating tsunamis, and slammed towards Remington. Simultaneously, the grotesque mouths on the tentacles opened, spewing out dark green poisonous mist, instantly dyeing the surrounding seawater even murkier. The highly corrosive vapor caused the seawater itself to emit a “sizzling” sound.
Facing this deadly ensnarement, fierce light flashed in Remington’s eyes. He didn’t choose to dodge but charged headlong into the sweeping tentacles.
The instant the tentacles were within reach, his arm muscles bulged, his fists clenched, and he violently punched towards the attacking tentacles.
“For me… open!”
There was no brilliant magical glow, only pure, extreme power resonating with the ocean. The moment his fists struck, the seawater within a radius of several meters seemed to freeze, then compressed inwards and condensed by a terrifying force. The compressed water flow, guided by Remington’s fists, transformed into two visible, high-speed rotating drill streams.
Ch-ch!
The drill streams tore through the monster’s tough outer skin without resistance, piercing deep into its interior. Viscous, foul-smelling dark green blood and shattered tissues instantly erupted in the murky seawater.
“Roar—” A piercing shriek, transmitting through the water and reaching the soul, vibrated through the sea. The monster, in pain, its colossal flesh mountain trembled violently, its scarlet single eye filled with agony and fury. The heavily wounded tentacles thrashed wildly, the blood flowing from the wounds appearing highly corrosive, turning the surrounding seawater into a boiling pool of poison.
But Remington was no longer in the same spot.
The moment he broke through the tentacles’ defense, his body trembled, and the surrounding currents seemed to become an extension of his will. A strong lateral undercurrent precisely supported his body, allowing him to spin like a top in the water, narrowly evading the encirclement of other tentacles and the spewing poison mist. His movements in the water were incredibly agile; every push of his feet, every swing of his arm, precisely utilized the power of the water to adjust his direction, completely subverting the common understanding of underwater combat.
He was like a deep-sea ghost, circling the pained monster at high speed, searching for an opportunity for a killing blow. Each surge was accompanied by the terrifying impact of maximally compressed water flow, either powerful punches landing on the monster’s relatively vulnerable tentacle joints or sweeps of his legs, driving ferocious water currents into cutting blades.
On the sea surface, the Adventurer continued to sway precariously under the wind, rain, and the monster’s residual tentacles, while sailors drew their weapons, engaging in a fierce struggle with these appendages. The sounds of impacts and tearing from the ship’s bottom reverberated dully through the heavy hull, accompanied by the monster’s intermittent cries of pain and rage that penetrated the seawater, filling everyone on deck with dread.
Li Wen did not engage in the fight. Her gaze pierced through the churning seawater, intently fixed on the entangled shadow below.
Before long, with a clang that tore through the waves and the storm, a massive explosion cloud, formed from viscous dark green blood, torn rotten flesh, and bone fragments, along with a destructive shockwave, violently spread out from deep beneath the ship.
Above the sea surface, a vast vortex, churning with dark green filth, suddenly opened up, violently shaking and pulling the Adventurer. A thick, nauseating stench of decay surged out like a tangible entity from the vortex’s center, filling the entire sea surface.
From the depths of the vortex, a well-built figure broke through the filthy seawater and nimbly leaped up, grabbing a hanging rope from the ship’s gunwale with one hand, landing steadily on the violently shaking deck.
Remington was drenched, his bare upper body covered in tiny scratches and corrosive marks, but otherwise unharmed. Even his chest barely rose and fell, as if the fierce battle before had been nothing more than a minor warm-up for him.
