Chapter 930: Hunting Ground (3)
Chapter 930: Hunting Ground (3)
The North Sea Monster, Kraken, was a legendary giant octopus. It was different from the likes of Behemoth, Leviathan, and Naga. The other five kings were all humanoid creatures, and only Kraken was a life form that belonged to the sea to begin with.
Unlike the other monarch beasts, it didn't need to turn around or take the resistance of seawater into account as it was naturally the king of the sea. Qin Ye's understanding of marine Yin beasts was still too limited, and that led to his failure to take into account the possibility that they could be encountering Kraken.
Hundreds of enormous tentacles were dancing violently above the surface of the sea, and this was a scene far more terrifying than any nightmare. The entire area had been transformed into a forest of blood, flesh, and Yin energy, and Kraken's vast Yin energy would surging incessantly out of its tentacles, forming dense black mist that permeated in all directions. In no more than the blink of an eye, an area with a radius of several dozen kilometers had already been plunged into complete darkness with only the several hundred glowing eyes beneath the surface flashing like stars in the depths.
He could no longer even hear the screams of the Yin spirits aboard the ships. Amid this doomsday-like scene, massive valleys and mountains of seawater were rising up incessantly. The Liberty was abruptly raised up by the seawater beneath it, and despite the fact that it was a galleon that was over 100 meters in length, it was tossed up into the sky like a ragdoll before crashing heavily back down onto the surface of the sea, sending violently foamy waves erupting in all directions.
Yin spirits were perishing by the second, and The Liberty had only just crashed back down onto the sea before the surface of the sea in front of it began to rapidly bulge upward, forming a wall of seawater that was close to 100 meters tall. In the eyes of Rick, who was looking on with a horrified expression while grabbing onto the railing of his ship for dear life, it looked as if the palm of a giant were crashing down toward him.
The calm facade of the sea had finally been torn away to reveal a scene of violent devastation.
Kraken wasn't targeting them, but just the movement of its body alone spelled disaster to all of the Yin spirits on the three ships.
"Good god..." Rick was staring at the massive wall of seawater with a slack-jawed expression, and before he could do anything else, the devastating wall of seawater had already crashed down onto his ship violently, instantly shattering it into countless pieces.
In the wake of one of the most powerful beings in the sea, The Liberty was completely powerless to resist.
In the blink of an eye, several hundred specks of netherfire flew up into the sky, and at this point, Qin Ye had already sunk into the sea in the wake of The Liberty's destruction.
Countless air bubbles escaped out of his mouth as he swore into the seawater, then frantically swam in the opposite direction away from the battlefield.
Right as Kraken's frenzy had commenced, he had already mentally prepared himself for the possibility of the ship's destruction, and after careful consideration, he had decided on the second option, which was to refrain from lashing out.
If he were to go on the attack, the four death gods here would immediately detect his presence, upon which they would be alerted to the fact that another death god was getting involved in the sinking ship that was the new continent.
Immediately following this would be an exhaustive search effort across the entire continent, and even for him, it would be quite unlikely to avoid being discovered then. Three complete religions had been born on the new continent, and in his eyes, there was no way that the continent didn't have any creation-grade divine artifacts. If he were to be discovered, countless problems would arise.
Why was the Cathayan Underworld's King Yanluo here? What had he come here for? Why had Kraken gone on a frenzy, traveling all the way here from its territory near the five nations of Northern Europa, passing even Greenland in the process? What could be so important that it had convinced the Cathayan Underworld's King Yanluo to pay the new continent a visit in person?
Eventually, it would be discovered that he was searching for Xu Fu's notes, thereby directing everyone's attention toward those notes. If those notes were to be found by someone else, he didn't dare to imagine the fate that would befall the Cathayan Underworld!
Thus, his only option was to sneak away from this place. He couldn't even use Yin energy, and only after getting a kilometer away from Kraken would he be able to draw upon his Yin energy to head directly to Los Angeles.
The world beneath the surface of the sea was one of complete peace and quiet.
Not a single sea beast dared to linger in the area while Kraken was on a rampage, and looking at the serene conditions below the surface, no one would be able to guess that there was such a hellish scene unfolding above the surface.
Looking up at the surface of the sea, Qin Ye could see countless pieces of broken ship material above him. He had no interest in knowing the fate of The Liberty and its crew. After all, he had only made a deal with Rick, and he had no attachment to them.
The most important thing for him at this moment was to leave this place right away. The showdown between the three death gods and Kraken definitely wouldn't end anytime soon, and not long after this, the entire area was most likely going to be surrounded by the ships of the Red Eagle Navy soon.
Once this area was placed under lockdown, it would be virtually impossible for him to leave undetected.
At this depth, he still wasn't sufficiently concealed to make his escape. Thus, he gritted his teeth and stealthily dove down another 100 meters, ensuring that even if any ships were to pass by overhead, there was no way they would notice him.
All of his Yin energy was sealed within his own body, and at this point, his body was like the most resolute material in the entire world, so the seawater posed almost no resistance to him. However, not long after he began his descent, his pupils abruptly contracted.
He had caught a glimpse of a massive mountain range in the murky seawater.
However, this was no mountain range, it was merely one of Kraken's tentacles, and there were even more tentacles deeper in the water. In the face of these gigantic tentacles, it would be a severe understatement to describe Qin Ye as tiny. Such a terrifying sight deep in the sea would be enough to make anyone's skin crawl.
Qin Ye didn't approach those tentacles. Kraken's enormous size made it an extremely formidable moving marine fortress, but one of the downsides to being so massive was the delay in neural transmission.
Even if its tentacles were to come into contact with him, it would most likely take over a minute for the information to be transmitted into Kraken's brain, and that was enough time for him to escape. Similarly, Kraken was definitely aware of its own weaknesses when it came to neural transmission from touch, and it was extremely unlikely for it to swivel its entire head around just to try and examine something that it had come into contact with over a minute ago.
"I have to get at least 10,000 more meters away before I can truly call myself safe." Qin Ye was extremely calm as he quickly swam outward. Five minutes passed by... then 10 minutes... then 15 minutes... then 20 minutes!
He was unable to use any Yin energy, so his speed was only comparable with the top speed of an elite short distance swimmer. At the same time, he had to stop every once in a while to observe Kraken's movements. However, even after 20 minutes passed, he discovered that he hadn't opened up much distance between himself and Kraken!
"What is going on?" He turned to look behind him with a bewildered expression. Kraken's tentacles were like a blooming flower of death in the sea, and because of how absurdly massive it was, Qin Ye couldn't even tell if it had moved or not.
Has it noticed me? I'm definitely swimming away in the opposite direction, so why is it pursuing me? No, it's not pursuing me. If it's doing that, then there's no way it wouldn't have caught up to me already!
His eyes narrowed slightly as Kraken extended all of its countless tentacles in the distance, reaching as far and wide as it could with every single one of its tentacles. It didn't look like it was pursuing anything. Instead, it seemed to be searching and probing for something.
"It doesn't look like it's noticed me..." With that in mind, Qin Ye gritted his teeth and sank directly downward.
300 meters... 500 meters... 1,000 meters!
Very soon, he reached a depth in excess of a kilometer, but even from there, he could still see the outline of Kraken's enormous body and clearly sense the violent currents it was producing with every single one of its movements.
However, Kraken still hadn't backtracked. Instead, it was continuing to stretch as far and wide as possible, as if it were searching for something, but even it didn't know what exactly it was searching for.
Air bubbles flowed out of Qin Ye's mouth as he floated in the dark seawater, and only now did he think of something that hadn't occurred to him prior to this.
Why had Kraken appeared here? It clearly hadn't been summoned here by the new continent. In that case, was it searching for something? Alternatively, perhaps something had chased it here?
It had to have some very strong incentive for it to crash through Xolotl's Screen and make enemies out of the death gods of the new continent.
His thoughts reached a dead-end here, and his brows furrowed tightly as he struggled to come up with the answers. However, the one concrete conclusion that he could arrive at was that the new continent was truly in a state of complete pandemonium.
There were people trying to break the barriers between life and death, Mictlantecutli and Mictetikasiwa had reduced the continent to a living purgatory, all of the death gods were gearing up for battle once the rulers of the continent passed away, the Red Eagle Navy and Black Shirt Navy each had their own ulterior motives, three more death gods had arisen in the Caribbean, and now, the arrival of Kraken...
"This is like a primetime soap opera..." He blew a bubble before swimming outward like a mermaid.
The giant Kraken was right above him, but he was confident that it wouldn't go very far. At the very least, the three death gods definitely wouldn't allow such a monster to enter the inner sea of the new continent.
"If I can just get 10 kilometers away from it, I'll be able to complete my escape!"
However, right as this thought took shape in his mind, he suddenly looked up with narrowed eyes.
Countless gashes had opened up on Kraken's tentacles above his head. To put it accurately, these were tumorous growths rather than gashes, and on each and every tumor was a ghastly human face.
This was a scene that would only appear in the most terrifying of nightmares, and deep in the pitch-black sea, Kraken extended its tentacles in all directions while the tumorous human faces intently inspected everything around them.
In the next instant, all of the faces opened their mouths with terrifying contorted expressions in unison to let loose silent roars in the water. It was impossible to see this from the surface, but beneath the surface, violent currents instantly erupted in all directions as if an underwater volcanic eruption had just taken place!
"It really is looking for something! This time, it's using soundwave detection!" The surging currents were converging toward Qin Ye from all directions like physical walls. What was quite amusing was that even divine artifacts wouldn't be able to see through his concealment, but in the face of a living being's basic bodily function, he was unable to hide himself.
"I'm too close to it. At the very most, it'll only take five seconds to notice me..." Qin Ye turned around to stare intently at the violent currents surging toward him, and he gritted his teeth as he arrived at a decision, following he voluntarily released a burst of Yama-King level Yama-Kings directly toward Kraken.
His heart was thumping violently, and he was taking a gamble.
There was no way for him to escape under these circumstances. The sea was paradise for the six kings, and he was making a bet that Kraken wouldn't dare to provoke another death god when it was already facing the combined pressure of three death gods. The three death gods definitely wouldn't be able to detect what was happening in the depths as the sea would be able to mask everything.
You may not be intelligent, but surely, you at least have the instincts to sense danger!
His Yin energy clashed with the sound waves released by Kraken, and its enormous body shuddered violently as if it had been struck by lightning. Immediately thereafter, a series of golden eyes appeared within the boundless darkness up above.
Countless golden eyes had appeared like stars in the night sky, and all of the inky-black pupils within them were staring directly at Qin Ye. Qin Ye made no effort to conceal himself, choosing to adopt his Hell's Emissary state instead.
Qin Ye was less than two meters tall, while Kraken was several dozen kilometers in length.
The two of them were staring at one another deep in the sea, while above the surface were the three death gods of the new continent.
After a full 30 seconds had passed, the eyes up above abruptly vanished, and Kraken's tentacles dispersed one after another.
It was stepping aside to allow Qin Ye free passage.
A silent agreement had taken shape between them, one in which Qin Ye was given passage in exchange for not attacking Kraken.
Qin Ye heaved an internal sigh of relief before immediately continuing to swim onward.
This was a massive catastrophe to begin with, and every part involved in all of this had gone insane long ago. In order to secure Xu Fu's notes amid the chaos, he had to do everything as quickly as possible!
He had a feeling that if he were to stall here for too long, even Zhao Yun wouldn't be able to rescue him.