Endless Ocean: Survival Begins with a Dugout Canoe-Chapter 116 - 113: Legend of the "God

Originally, Shi Ming’s plan was to grind for another month, or even longer. Once he was strong enough, he would take the Sun-Piercer out alone to hunt the S-rank sea beast and acquire its skill.

But now, the Vortex Country, Lighthouse, the Black Gold Country, the Twelve Stars... numerous factions had gathered, and the undercurrents were turbulent.

It was the perfect time to fish in troubled waters—a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

He had to make a move!

If he acted too late, this prize might slip through his fingers, and all the intel he’d gathered on the Deep Sea Titan would be wasted.

He who hesitates is lost.

As for whether this counted as poaching someone else’s prey?

Everyone, including Wright, was an opportunist. No single faction could confidently take on an S-rank sea beast alone. They were all just trying to leverage one another. Adding Shi Ming to the mix wouldn’t make much of a difference, nor would his absence.

Each side had its own advantages.

And each was confident of its own victory.

Because of this, every single one of them saw themselves as the main character, using the other factions to seize benefits for themselves. Their motivation was through the roof.

Shi Ming mentally tallied the advantages of each party—

’Wright has years of specific preparations, home-field advantage, his own unique intelligence, and the support of the Twelve Stars. There’s no way he only has a few A-rank Awakened on hand. He must have an ace up his sleeve.’

’Lighthouse is a hunter lurking in the shadows. Miss Yan is most likely an S-rank Awakened, playing weak while waiting for the perfect moment to strike a killing blow.’

’The Black Society... Yan Dao Lin is a seasoned strategist, an expert at fishing in troubled waters. And the Black Society itself is desperate for an S-rank Awakened, so they’ve likely invested heavily in this expedition.’

As for the other factions, like the Black Gold Country, Shi Ming didn’t know much.

But none of them could be underestimated.

...

...

...

The wandering ship, the *Fontainebleau*. Its two-hundred-forty-meter hull was sharp and imposing, like a deadly weapon honed by a master craftsman.

It was a general-class wandering ship of the Twelve-Star Alliance, representing the nation of "France" from the old world.

But thirty years had passed, and power had shifted several times. The Albert Clan, with its powerful Awakened, now had 100% control over the general-class ship’s resources and the status it represented in the Twelve-Star Alliance. Wright, as the current "shot-caller," was eager to climb even higher.

Honor, status, and power.

Especially since he had an adventurous spirit by nature. After more than twenty years as an A-rank Awakened, he was thoroughly sick of it.

During a sea disaster three years ago, he had accidentally discovered the ruins of Mount Olympus from Ancient Rome, where a powerful S-rank sea beast lay hidden.

The Deep Sea Titan.

The moment he laid eyes on the Deep Sea Titan’s mighty form, Wright knew that hunting this S-rank sea beast would be so perilous that even with an S-rank Awakened leading the charge, one misstep could lead to total annihilation.

He had therefore spent three years preparing.

During those three years, he befriended Mr. Lei, a powerful Awakened from the Twelve Stars, and gathered all sorts of intelligence and resources.

At the same time, to assemble a high-end combat force, he openly recruited A-rank Awakened from around the world under the guise of a level-5 Hunter. Secretly, however, he "inadvertently" leaked the true plan to other major powers, using their wishful thinking to attract truly powerful Awakened to sign up.

Not everyone who signed up was given a chance.

He had to maintain a certain balance, assembling a team that was highly effective but wouldn’t upstage the host, all to hedge against the risks.

Even so, the success rate was only forty percent.

’Not bad at all,’ Wright thought to himself.

Of the seven Awakened aboard the *Fontainebleau*, Mr. Lei, Yize, Wright, and another young man from the Albert Clan formed an absolute faction.

They shared intelligence and had the same goal.

Their objective was to make Wright another S-rank Awakened among the Twelve Stars, thereby increasing the *Fontainebleau*’s influence in the Twelve-Star Alliance.

The other three Awakened had also been "hand-picked" by Wright.

Everyone was tacitly aware of the real plan.

They just didn’t speak of it openly.

The world was a giant, makeshift stage, and everyone had the right and opportunity to perform.

...

In the early days of the Wandering Era, humanity lost many of its monuments.

In the fields of culture and art, especially, not even one in ten survived.

But Shi Ming had some understanding of the three main mythological systems of the European Sea Region. Of course, he wasn’t an expert, just familiar with the general framework, and he knew there might be discrepancies.

In Shi Ming’s previous life, this region had three main mythologies: Greek, Norse, and Celtic.

Much of Celtic mythology was lost, with the story of King Arthur being the most famous part.

Norse mythology was characterized by Ragnarök and the World Tree, where giants, elves, and humans repeatedly brought the world to an end, decaying into twilight only to be reborn from the rot.

’It sounds a bit like that Rotting Whale.’

As for Greek mythology, it was divided into two parts: the legends of the gods and the heroic epics.

Putting the heroic epics aside for now, the legends of the gods told that the Titans were born of the Earth Mother Gaia and the Celestial God Uranus. There were twelve of them originally. The youngest son, Chronos, seized power with a sickle, castrating his father Uranus and ushering in the age of the Twelve Titans. History later repeated itself when Chronos was overthrown by his son, Zeus. The third generation of the Divine Race then took the stage—the Olympian Gods familiar to many, led by the twelve main deities with the Divine King "Zeus" at their head.

Myths were just myths, from an era too distant to verify.

In his previous life, Shi Ming would have just thought these stories were well-crafted—grand, solemn, and inspiring.

But in this Endless Ocean World of "dragons" and apocalypse, nothing strange could surprise him anymore.

The Eye of Intelligence had stated that the "Deep Sea Titan" possessed the bloodline of an Ancient Titan. This was both a crucial fact and precious intel.

According to the intel, the Deep Sea Titan’s bloodline was berserk. Any Awakened of B-rank or lower would die on contact. Furthermore, the Deep Sea Titan had no skills of its own in the true sense; it could only stimulate the power within its bloodline to draw upon the strength of its ancestors.

It could only channel the response from one ancestor’s bloodline at a time.

And the probability of each ancestor responding was different.

One bloodline had a response rate of only 2%, two others had a response rate of 4%, and the remaining nine bloodlines had similar response rates of 10% each.

It was quite like the gacha game probabilities from Shi Ming’s previous life.

The first prize had a low drop rate, the second prize a slightly higher one, and the third prize had the highest rate.

It was filled with uncertainty.

But the most important piece of intelligence was this:

When faced with a life-or-death crisis, the Deep Sea Titan would transform into phantoms of the Twelve Titans, temporarily gaining the abilities of all the Titan Gods!

Even with a "third-prize" ability, the Deep Sea Titan was ranked a solid 66th.

’Twelve of them?’

’It’s hard to believe how powerful that would be.’

Shi Ming felt that to defeat it, the final blow had to be fatal! He absolutely could not allow the sea beast to activate its do-or-die skill. Otherwise, not even several more Wright Squads could withstand the phantoms of the Twelve Ancient Titans!

It would be certain death.

As his thoughts raced, he received a notification from a crew member.

"Captain. The *Da Yun* has reached the designated coordinates in the Olympus Sea Area. Shall we deploy the stabilizers?"

Shi Ming stopped thinking.

"Deploy the stabilizers and activate the stealth system."

"Roger that."

The *Da Yun*’s current location was only at the edge of the Olympus Sea Area, not over the ruins of Mount Olympus. It was still 120 nautical miles from the black dot on the Map of the Endless Sea.

nautical miles wasn’t far, but it wasn’t close either.

It was a safe distance.

Moreover, their position was very clever. There were no other powerful sea beasts nearby, making it a temporary base that Shi Ming had hand-picked using the Map of the Endless Sea. It was also not on the route between the Twelve Stars’ position and the ruins, so they wouldn’t have a direct confrontation with the *Fontainebleau*.

With the stealth system active, its presence in the ocean was practically zero.

He decided to leave the *Da Yun* parked here while he took the Sun-Piercer, which had already been upgraded to general-class, to scout out the ruins.

It was vital to gather the necessary intelligence in advance. Preparing ahead of time was the key to securing victory from afar.

Besides, he now had dozens of Pure Dome Crystals. At a critical moment, he could recklessly use the general-class ability "Sun-Piercing," combining its super-overloaded triple-sonic speed with stealth mode to escape the danger zone!

Whether he could win or not was another matter,

but he could definitely escape!