Chapter 151.2 – Fire Seed (21)
◎ Grown a Tail! ◎
With the retaliation target lost, the armored sea turtle began to wildly thrash around the islands. With a swing of its hind legs, another piece of debris was cut off. The space for awakeners to take shelter was getting smaller, and soon they would have nowhere to hide.
Lu Xiaoyu, facing the fierce wind and shouting, said, “Hey! You’re at least an S-level awakener. Can you control it?”
Zhuang Qingyan replied with the same volume, “Even if I control it, I can’t kill it!”
This armored sea turtle was not as easy to deal with as the cockroach king in Hua City. It had thick skin and a nearly full defense index. Zhuang Qingyan could indeed control it with mental ability, but he couldn’t kill it with a single blow. Moreover, after being controlled once, it would undoubtedly become wary. Dylan’s second attempt just now failed, so his mental attack should be saved for a critical moment, coordinated with Song Ke’s attack.
…
Song Ke and Su Cha both fell into the water. They stuck their heads out, took a deep breath, and continued diving into the sea, chasing after the armored sea turtle.
Through the murky seawater, Song Ke noticed that they were beneath the belly of the armored sea turtle. This area was its softest and least defended weak point. The slightly pinkish flesh appeared smooth and intact.
Su Cha blew a series of bubbles and gestured to her. Song Ke understood; he suggested that if they could endure it, they should launch an attack from below.
Song Ke also blew a series of bubbles, nodded, and indicated that she could stay underwater for seven or eight minutes without a problem.
She grabbed a semi-submerged piece of the building wreckage beside her, and with a flash of blue light in her palm, two frigid saw-toothed knives appeared. She gently pushed one forward, and Su Cha took the other. The two of them swung their legs, quickly approaching the armored sea turtle.
…
A storm raged overhead, and the armored sea turtle went madly charging and colliding. The already precarious islands worsened under the onslaught.
On the few remaining high ground pieces, Zhuang Qingyan was soaked through, his white casual clothes sticking tightly to his body, looking somewhat disheveled. He took off his waterlogged glasses, ran his fingers through his wet hair, suddenly raised his head, and looked towards the vast sea.
“What’s happening again?” Fang Zhixu held onto Lu Xiaoyu’s mechanical arm, asking in a trembling voice.
“Not good.” Zhuang Qingyan’s expression was unusually solemn.
…
Su Cha made several cuts to open the belly of the armored sea turtle, and the toxic mist quickly permeated. He turned back to signal Song Ke to “retreat, retreat, retreat.”
The two of them agilely moved backward. After a few seconds, the armored sea turtle rolled 360 degrees again, and the chaotic waves pushed them more than ten meters away. However, its wound rapidly decayed due to the spread of toxins. Song Ke’s eyes lit up – there was a chance!
Just as she was about to tell Su Cha to try again a few more times, her eyes suddenly widened!
The seawater was infused with a large amount of fresh blood, both from the armored sea turtle and the awakeners. The strong scent of blood attracted other ferocious beasts in the vicinity.
In the blurry and dim background, a group of mutated man-eating sharks (great white sharks) swiftly swam towards them. Their pupils were vertical, and their blood-filled mouths were full of serrated teeth, attacking the awakeners in the water. Two of them were particularly ferocious, radiating chaos and likely being level 4 ferocious beasts.
Song Ke felt like crying without tears; it was like adding insult to injury. A level 5 armored sea turtle was already challenging, and now two level 4 mutated man-eating sharks had joined the fray!
The awakener closest to the shark group was the first to bear the brunt. Without any chance to evade, they were quickly torn apart and devoured by the sharks. This gruesome feast happened in an instant.
The ferocious beasts didn’t stop at just one meal; one of the level 4 man-eating sharks swam towards the abdomen of the armored sea turtle, viciously tearing and biting into it.
The man-eating sharks moved extremely fast. In the blink of an eye, they reached their next target – Su Cha’s surroundings.
Fighting in the water was inconvenient, and Su Cha was trapped. Though he fought back with all his strength, the number of sharks was just too overwhelming. A slight delay in turning around resulted in one of the sharks biting into his arm.
Song Ke gripped a piece of building debris at her fingertips, conjuring a phantom blue spear and thrusting it forward. It hit the offending man-eating shark, causing it to release its grip. Su Cha took advantage of the opportunity to escape, but the assault with the spear continued, sweeping through the sea like a boomerang. The spearhead cut through the spindle-shaped bodies of these ferocious beasts, and black blood gushed out, disrupting the formation of the shark group.
Su Cha followed closely behind Song Ke as they escaped. While swimming, he pulled out a securing band, tightly binding the wound to prevent the blood from attracting more monsters.
…
Bang, bang, bang.
The fragments of the islands continued to be violently impacted. The ferocious shark group stuck their heads out, glaring menacingly at the awakeners on the land.
Even more unfortunate was the sudden thunderous roar from the direction of the Sea of Misfortune, causing shockwaves that triggered a devastating tsunami.
“What kind of cursed mission is this?” Lin Youyou felt like crying without tears. “First the armored sea turtle, then the sharks, and now a tsunami!”
Under the triple impact, the once glorious Elderly People’s Nation finally crumbled and collapsed.
All the awakeners fell into the abyss!
Lin Youyou, who couldn’t swim, closed her eyes tightly and plunged into the water. Despite vigorously flapping her arms and legs, she couldn’t resist the sinking trend.
She frantically felt for her life jacket, but her fingertips suddenly stopped. It seemed that when a person is having a stroke of bad luck, even sipping cold water can be problematic. Her life jacket, which she had checked countless times, was unfortunately torn by falling debris.
Lin Youyou suddenly choked on water, and as her lungs rapidly emptied of oxygen, her heart rate slowed down.
Was she going to die? In her next life, she definitely needed to learn how to swim.
As her vision became increasingly blurred and her consciousness disoriented, Lin Youyou hallucinated at the critical moment. A massive black shadow appeared to swim towards her.
…
The intense seismic waves triggered a tsunami that swept away all the ferocious beasts and awakeners.
Song Ke was caught in a whirlpool, floating and sinking without knowing where she was going. She struggled to break free, finally overcoming the dizziness. A level 4 man-eating shark had just finished devouring two awakeners, and its grey-white vertical pupils focused on Song Ke. With a flick of its forked tail fin, it lunged towards her.
Song Ke hurriedly changed direction, forcefully kicking her legs. However, the marine apex predator, the man-eating shark, was evidently faster in its hunting action. In the blink of an eye, it caught up to her, reaching her lower legs and viciously biting down –
But it didn’t succeed.
Its jaw was firmly wedged.
A lengthened tri-edge military dagger unexpectedly appeared on Song Ke’s lower leg, resiliently holding its jaws open. The shark, caught in agony, violently thrashed about. The sharp teeth with gaps cut through Song Ke’s legs, conveying a knife-like pain to her brain. However, she didn’t retract her leg. Instead, she turned and lifted it, exerting force from the inside outward with the tri-edge military dagger, piercing through the shark’s jaw. Black blood gushed out!
The level 4 ferocious beast, with its limited intelligence, showed signs of retreat due to fear. It desperately swung its dorsal and tail fins, attempting to escape from Song Ke’s clutches.
Biting me and trying to run away? Song Ke’s upper body quickly approached. With both hands gripping the knife, she thrust it into the shark’s dead-white eyeball, cutting out a cross from the inside!
Splash! The entire head of the man-eating shark was split open. Inside the decaying flesh and tissues, a pigeon-blood red crystal sparkled.
Song Ke raised her hand, cut out the crystal, and stowed it in her pocket. The man-eating shark gradually ceased struggling. She then dove into the shark’s mouth, recovered the tri-edge military dagger, slowly withdrew her leg, and gave it a firm kick! The heavy body of the man-eating shark sank to the seabed.
Song Ke glanced at her right leg, which was blurred with blood from the shin to the ankle. Pain was something she could endure, but along with the pain, there was an unsettling shiver that had faintly emerged from the depths of her soul since a moment ago.
It seemed that the aftereffects of the 30% excessive radiation were slowly manifesting now. Song Ke’s entire cellular structure was burning intensely, and the agonizing pain of genetic tearing made her scream silently. In the unseen back of her neck, a branding-like burning sensation penetrated into her bone marrow.
After a few seconds, Song Ke was horrified to discover that scales had actually grown on the back of her hand?!
She looked around anxiously and hastily took refuge in a coral reef, tightly hugging herself and hiding her hands.
What’s happening? Could that man-eating shark have some contagious disease?!
Worriedly, Song Ke touched her leg. Fortunately, her second ability was now taking effect, and her cells were renewing, healing the wound at a steady pace.
It’s okay… it’s okay… it’ll be fine later. Song Ke reassured herself, exhaling a string of bubbles. She had been underwater for almost seven minutes; it was time to go up for air.
Song Ke touched her leg again and felt that it had recovered enough. She slowly swam out of the coral reef.
Then she abruptly stopped, her movements freezing. She lowered her head to look at her legs.
No, those were not legs at all. Her legs had disappeared! From the waist down, Song Ke’s lower body transformed into a long snake tail, covered with fine scales, and the tip of the tail emitted a dazzling poisonous light.
Song Ke shook it forcefully, trying to get rid of whatever it was! Why couldn’t it change back?
Snap! The barbed fork at the end hit the coral reef where she had just hidden, turning its bright red color into ash white, and then it shattered with a resounding crash.
Huh? It’s so powerful? Song Ke dumbfoundedly opened her mouth, letting seawater pour in. She coughed it out.
A figure in the distance swam towards her, and Song Ke raised her head warily.
Whaooo! Don’t tell me she was created to withstand and adapt to any environment. That’s f-cking cool.