Endless Ocean: Survival Begins with a Dugout Canoe-Chapter 108 - 105: Crisis! S-Rank Sea Beast: Dusk Whale
S-rank Awakening Power flowed into the Map of the Endless Sea. The Sun Piercer hovered above the ice sheet as Shi Ming stood upon its deck, his gaze sweeping rapidly across the azure map.
One look was all it took.
And it scared the hell out of him.
The S-rank sea beast that had been in the Greenland Island region was now moving at a speed visible to the naked eye! He didn’t know if it had sensed something, but it seemed to be closing in on his current location!
The distance between them was now only about 40 nautical miles!
’Holy shit!!!’
’Why is it heading in my direction?!’
’Did it sense the aura of the Formless Pure Ice? That has to be the only explanation!’
A head-on confrontation?
No way!
Both of Shi Ming’s S-rank skills were defensive, and one of them, "Desperate Stand," was still on cooldown. He had zero confidence in his ability to face an S-rank sea beast right now.
Not to mention, the power levels among S-rank sea beasts varied immensely. The gap in strength between a top-ten beast and one at the bottom of the rankings was probably incalculable. What if this mysterious creature was one of those colossal, high-ranking monsters that could swallow the entire Grand Fortune in a single gulp? Fighting it would be nothing short of suicide!
’Run!’
No, a strategic retreat!
When it came to speed, Shi Ming didn’t believe any sea beast could catch the Sun Piercer with its General-class propulsion active.
He glanced at the "Formless Pure Ice" in the cabin, feeling its suffocating cold. At this critical juncture, he couldn’t afford to hesitate; he had to stow it away.
He gritted his teeth, activated his Black Tortoise Shield, and forced himself to endure the extreme cold of the "Formless Pure Ice" just long enough to store it in his system inventory.
He had been willing to expend Physical Strength using his Black Tortoise Shield at a critical moment for two reasons. First, he worried the S-rank sea beast was after the ice, and carrying it would make him a persistent target. Second, its temperature was so low that it would freeze the surrounding seawater.
If the sea froze over, the Sun Piercer would be fine in flight mode, but the Grand Fortune had no ice-breaking capabilities yet. It would be stranded among the glaciers, its movements crippled, making it impossible to escape the S-rank beast’s pursuit.
"Cease stabilization immediately! Head for the Twelve Stars, maximum speed!"
"Aye!"
A nautical mile was a short distance, and the Sun Piercer rendezvoused with the Grand Fortune in moments.
Fortunately, while he had been submerged, the crew had already hauled the entire carcass of the Glacier Dragon onto the Grand Fortune’s deck. Otherwise, in this crisis, they would have had no choice but to abandon the A-rank sea beast and prioritize their escape.
He went up to the deck and took the helm himself. With a roar, the Grand Fortune started up again, accelerating rapidly!
Ever since its upgrade to a Golden Ship, the Grand Fortune’s speed had increased considerably.
But it still couldn’t match the speed of the S-rank sea beast on the map!
Shi Ming frowned, his eyes fixed on the black dot on the Map of the Endless Sea.
The dot’s color was growing darker, which meant the beast had ascended from the deep sea, entering the Twilight Layer or perhaps even the shallows!
Its speed was increasing!
Furthermore, its target seemed crystal clear—it was heading straight for Shi Ming’s current position!
’Come on, man. You’re an S-rank sea beast, we’ve never even met. Why are you chasing me from hundreds of miles away?’
’I already stored the Formless Pure Ice! Can’t you sense that its aura is gone? You won’t get it even if you make it here!’
Shi Ming fumed silently, his expression grim.
"Whatever it takes, get us to maximum speed now."
Seeing him like this, the crew grew uneasy. Even when facing A-rank sea beasts, they had rarely seen their captain so grim and prepared for battle.
ROAR...
Once again, the cry of a sea beast echoed in Shi Ming’s ears.
The sound didn’t seem to come from vocal cords. Instead, it was more like a high-frequency vibration created by energy reacting with the seawater. Strangely, the other crew members couldn’t hear a thing, leaving them utterly bewildered.
Shi Ming stood on the Sun Piercer, activated its flight mode, and ascended into the sky.
In flight mode, it could reach a maximum altitude of 100 meters.
That was equivalent to the height of a thirty-story building from the old world.
But high altitude didn’t guarantee safety. Many sea beasts had vast attack ranges, and 100 meters was well within reach for most. Being airborne could make him a more conspicuous target.
Right now, however, Shi Ming was simply using the altitude as a vantage point to scout for the distant enemy.
From dozens of nautical miles away, the canoe-sized Sun Piercer was inconspicuous in the air and difficult for a sea beast to spot. This allowed Shi Ming to use it as a watchtower with an incredible view. His eyesight, which had become absurdly sharp after his S-rank awakening and consuming the flesh of a blue trout, was now extraordinary. Combined with the ship’s high-powered telescope, he could easily spot any anomalies over a vast expanse of sea on a clear day.
The sea surface showed no signs of disturbance.
The S-rank sea beast had yet to surface!
But on the map, the black dot was now only 30 nautical miles away from him!
A gust of wind blew past.
Shi Ming caught a faint, putrid smell.
It was like the stench of sea fish that had been dead and fermenting for days.
The Sun Piercer flew high above, matching the Grand Fortune’s speed. Flight mode consumed a massive amount of Sea Crystal Stones, but Shi Ming couldn’t care less about the energy cost right now. His eyes were fixed on the distance, never wavering for a second.
The putrid smell in the air grew stronger.
This stench was different from the one Shi Ming had encountered on Turtle Island.
The Black Tortoise’s decay had smelled of a festering wound, not this pure stench of death. Plus, with the Bloodthirsty Moths cleaning it, the odor had been faint and almost unnoticeable from a distance. The smell Shi Ming was catching now, however, was the nauseating reek of a corpse left to rot for an unknown amount of time. It was enough to make an ordinary person vomit.
They were still a long way from the Twelve Stars.
In regions far from any King-level Wandering Ship, any S-rank sea beast was an absolute sovereign of the sea. Even when facing a General-level Wandering Ship, they could come and go as they pleased. In fact, if a General-level ship lacked multiple powerful Awakened or sufficient maneuverability, an S-rank beast could easily toy with it, slaughtering everyone aboard in a myriad of bizarre ways.
And that was just for the lower-ranked S-rank sea beasts.
If they encountered a high-ranking one, like the Deep Sea Leviathan ranked 25th, an ordinary General-level Wandering Ship would likely be utterly destroyed, with all hands lost.
Of course, most of these powerful beasts resided in the deep sea, and many people could go their entire lives without ever encountering one.
If you did, that life was likely over.
...
The stench of rot grew ever more intense. The crew of the Grand Fortune fought through their revulsion to pilot the ship, while Shi Ming, high above them, seemed to have developed a degree of resistance.
The sea was deathly still. It wasn’t evening, but it felt like the twilight of the gods.
Suddenly, twenty nautical miles away, the sea erupted in a colossal wave.
The beast lurking in the deep had surfaced!
An even more intense stench of decay billowed out, as if dragging the entire sea into a decrepit, corpse-strewn battlefield. Across the distance, Shi Ming could clearly see a gigantic whale breach the surface! Half of its body was rotten, the other half pristine, creating a twisted balance like the two poles of yin and yang.
On the rotten half, decaying flesh festered and splashed yellow fluid. Even from over twenty nautical miles away, Shi Ming could vaguely glimpse bone and squirming entrails through the putrid meat with his telescope.
The pristine half had skin as smooth and delicate as a newborn baby’s, without a single scar or wound.
The whale’s body was about 230 meters long, like a massive dreadnought.
An S-rank sea beast,
The Dusk Whale!
’Holy crap! How can it still be alive when it’s that rotten?’
’Whoever manages to kill this thing is going to be sick for their entire Awakening... I can smell it from this far away. If you got close enough to be soaked in that stench, I bet even an A-rank Awakened would pass out...’
After surfacing, the rotten whale’s speed actually increased.
Chunks of rotting flesh sloughed off as it moved, dissolving into the seawater and vanishing without a trace.
At this rate, it would intercept the Grand Fortune in ten to twenty minutes. A vicious battle seemed unavoidable.
Shi Ming tightened his grip on the King Slayer.
He had no confidence he could defeat an S-rank sea beast in its prime, but no matter the odds, he had to give it his all.
Of course, giving it his all didn’t mean fighting to the death. Abandoning the Grand Fortune to escape alone was his absolute last resort.
However...
The Dusk Whale seemed not to have noticed Shi Ming and his ships. Or perhaps, it simply paid no mind to two insignificant specks.
It swam at incredible speed to the spot where Shi Ming had emerged from the water, easily shattering the hundreds of meters of ice there. But then, as if it had lost its target, it swam over to where the Eye of Extreme Cold had been, let out a few bewildered roars at the sky, and spewed a torrent of pale yellow seawater.
Then, it began to sink.
The life-and-death crisis was averted just like that.
Gusts of sea breeze swept by, largely clearing the putrid smell from the air, but the stench of decay clinging to his clothes refused to fade.
The Grand Fortune, like an unbridled stallion, continued its retreat toward the Twelve Stars. Suspended high in the air, Shi Ming looked down at the Map of the Endless Sea in his hand and saw that the black dot was fading. The half-rotten whale had already descended back into the deep, returning to its lair.
Phew~
Even with his steady nerves, Shi Ming let out a long, deep breath.
That was the first time he had ever seen an S-rank sea beast in its prime.
Even the mighty A-rank Glacier Dragon would have looked like a mere hatchling before it!
