Chapter 426: Method to Break the Deadlock
“Huu— Huu—”
The battle on the sea surface continued. Not only were the police ships engaged, but the cruise ship where Kazumi was previously located had also been boarded by police officers from other teams, who began fighting with the members of their own groups stationed on the ship.
Suijinkuya leaned on his right shoulder, looking somewhat disheveled. The significant consumption of psychic energy made his breathing rapid, and the large impact wound on his shoulder indicated that the defensive sorcery he had hastily cast did not completely block the girl’s unexpected attack.
“Solved.”
A soft blue light radiated from his left hand, and gentle water-based energy caressed the wound. Suijinkuya, while healing his injury, looked at the now calm sea surface and couldn’t help but speak.
Although it wasn’t the executive [Poisonous Snake] he had predicted, this person in the black robe had still caused him, Suijinkuya, quite a bit of trouble. Especially the spatial and ice-attribute abilities displayed. In fact, in terms of the breadth of abilities, they might even be richer than those of Masashi Sakuraba.
This was also why Suijinkuya chose to cast the sorcery even at the cost of his own injury. With his strength, although the girl’s attack method was sudden, he could have dodged it by either directly setting up a defense or using sorcery to transfer his position if he abandoned the sorcery. The reason for choosing this path was a strategic consideration.
Sacrificing an injury to resolve an enemy was undoubtedly worthwhile, especially when their side had a numerical advantage. Forcing an enemy reduction and then helping to liberate other companions was the optimal combat choice.
Tearing off a few strips of cloth from his pocket to wrap the wound, Suijinkuya extinguished the energy glow in his hand and tried to use his right hand. However, the only response he received was the limp, powerless feeling of his right arm hanging down.
The damage caused by blunt objects was entirely different from that caused by sharp objects. What Suijinkuya treated with sorcery were only the open wounds grazed on the surface. Although they looked terrifying, they had actually recovered more than half with the help of the healing sorcery.
But the real damage lay within the tissues destroyed by the heavy pressure. Dislocation or fracture were injuries that simple battlefield healing sorcery could not resolve. Forcing a recovery would instead cause bone misalignment, and in severe cases, it could even cripple the nerves of the entire arm. Especially for psychics, who require high precision in energy manipulation, the backlash from incorrect sorcery could be greater than the sorcery’s damage itself.
He threw out another blue talisman with his left hand, and a pale green jellyfish shikigami appeared in mid-air. Countless water arrow barrages emerged again. The remaining psychic energy summoned two more water snakes, and this time the target was the mountain-like man who was fighting amidst the police officers.
“Whoosh—”
The sound of a giant breaking through the water came from the side, and a strong, fishy wind pressed towards him. A black crocodile, more than five meters long, leaped out of the water, its massive mouth directly biting the jellyfish shikigami floating in mid-air and swallowing it.
“Clang—”
A weight of nearly a ton suddenly pressed down on the ship, causing the ground to shake. What made Suijinkuya even more unbelievable was the emaciated figure in a soaked black robe lying on the crocodile’s back.
“How is this possible!”
The sudden appearance of the figure made even the usually calm Suijinkuya lose his composure. He quickly sensed information about the giant shark, but only received a silence like a stone sinking into the sea.
“Huu— Ha— Huu— Ha—”
Climbing up from the crocodile lord in a somewhat disheveled state, the girl’s thin chest heaved violently. Prolonged oxygen deprivation was somewhat unbearable even for her, a half-undead being. She greedily felt the comfort of her lungs filled with oxygen.
Suijinkuya was indeed a psychic with rich combat experience. In fact, Kazumi’s exchange of injuries was also her intentional act. With spatial abilities, the girl had more means to react to most attacks compared to others.
However, she didn’t expect that after only a few rounds of combat, Suijinkuya had completely grasped the loopholes exposed in the girl’s abilities and employed a highly targeted attack method.
The giant shark swallowing half of the deck first prevented Kazumi from using [Ghost Gate] to transfer to a small area. Unless Kazumi was willing to transfer to the sea surface, where she had no advantage, the attack at that time was unavoidable.
What was even more brilliant was that Suijinkuya had also set up a formation inside the giant shark, directly thwarting Kazumi’s plan to leave using [Ghost Gate] in the shark’s belly. She could only watch herself being encased in specialized stomach acid.
It could even be said that Suijinkuya had used means to try and retain the [Black Coffin] from the outside. However, as a true form ability, [Black Coffin] clearly had higher priority and still returned to Kazumi’s side across the spatial obstruction.
To put it a bit exaggeratedly, if not for the ability [Black Coffin], our Kazumi might have truly died here this time. Little Black’s sharp claws were no match for the massive size of the giant shark, and if Little Black did not cover Kazumi, the girl’s body would not be able to withstand the melt-like stomach acid, so she couldn’t release Little Black at all.
After a moment of panic, the girl smoothly found a way to break the deadlock. With the abilities Kazumi currently possessed, she lacked the instant lethal damage capability against highly defensive enemies. Although the nature of Death Energy itself basically ignored physical defenses, if she really wanted to contaminate the giant shark with undead energy, she would probably turn into an undead herself first.
And the method Kazumi thought of was another way to use the [Black Coffin] ability. Thanks to the girl’s thrifty nature, Kazumi, who had been slacking off on the ship before, had also poured a lot of seawater into her territory through [Ghost Gate]. On the one hand, it enriched the diversity of the territory for future undead ecosystems, and on the other hand, it increased the water element content of the territory, making Lei’s frost magic even more efficient.
Although she didn’t know the exact size of the giant shark, it couldn’t be larger than the lake in her territory, right? And what would be the result of filling a creature’s confined abdominal cavity with a volume of liquid far exceeding its own size? Kazumi said that she probably never wanted to experience such a thing again in her life.
Moreover, the giant shark was located much lower than the sea level. The girl was already struggling to hold her breath in its stomach, and she was nearly pushed to the seabed by an explosion of flesh and blood. If it weren’t for the crocodile lord’s speed, Kazumi might have drowned at the bottom of the sea.
Feeling her body condition gradually recovering, Kazumi adjusted her hood, which had been filled with water and was sticking to her face. She placed one hand on the crocodile lord.
As if inflating, the giant crocodile’s originally massive body suddenly became a size larger. Short fangs broke out from its scale armor, and the murky whites of its eyes were replaced by scarlet. A terrifying and violent aura surged from the crocodile lord.
Looking at Kazumi, who was approaching with ill intent, Suijinkuya also reached into his pocket. The rusted bell, bound by a chain talisman, floated in his palm, and ethereal blue energy instantly enveloped the entire bell.
“Whoosh—”
The moment the two faced each other, a sound larger than the crocodile lord breaking through the water before echoed from the side of the cruise ship. a metal iron ball, the size of a house, soared into the air and finally landed on the top of the cruise ship, causing the enormous ship to draw more water.
And when everyone present focused their vision, they discovered that beneath the metal cage, there was a bare-chested, blindfolded man holding the iron object with one hand, and in the other hand, a neatly piled stack of fishman corpses, like a pile of firewood?
