Endless Ocean: Survival Begins with a Dugout Canoe-Chapter 74 - 72: S-Rank Sea Beast: Tide-Calling Whale?
The sound of the tide swelled, an incessant murmur filling the air. It was like an oceanic symphony, its overture suddenly beginning.
Shi Ming was perplexed, but he sensed no other abnormalities, nor did his body feel any different. He fixed his gaze on Huang Mao not far away, preparing to cut him down again and eliminate the source of the problem.
The Arm of Power still had a five-minute cooldown.
Huang Mao, however, wore his usual smile and spoke in a flamboyant voice:
"Do you know? You were so close!"
"So close to snuffing out a true powerhouse!"
"A true powerhouse with limitless potential!"
Huang Mao applauded and grinned, lavishing praise on Shi Ming, but his eyes held an endless confidence.
Shi Ming had seen that same confidence in Demon Sword’s eyes.
’Overconfidence is often a sign of arrogance.’
Edward continued to ramble on, unconcerned with tropes like the villain dying from talking too much; he was truly that confident.
"Do you know the frustration a true powerhouse feels, unable to show his full strength and forced to feign weakness?"
Shi Ming didn’t respond. He just swung King Slayer down on him.
’He was cut in two, and he’s still alive?’
’That’s actually pretty damn impressive.’
’Feigning weakness? Was that really necessary? And those eyes on his chest... they’re seriously messing with my head. Is this sound of the tide some kind of skill coming from them? What a bizarre ability.’
’I’ll just slash first and figure it out later!’
’Let’s see how many times you can regenerate!’
Edward dodged, but didn’t completely avoid the attack, and his forearm was cleanly lopped off.
"Don’t be so brutal. The moment I meet an elite like you or Demon Sword, I get this uncontrollable urge to express myself."
During a lull in the fight, he picked up his severed forearm from the deck. He pressed it against the wound, and the flesh writhed, forming a scar over the break as the arm reattached itself, as nimble as ever.
As Shi Ming stared in astonishment, he heard another whale’s song.
AUUUUU—
The roar of the tide grew even more ferocious.
’The whale’s song, the tide... why does this feel so familiar?’
In an instant, a thousand thoughts raced through his mind!
In that instant, every piece of intel he’d ever gathered flooded his mind.
Suddenly, it clicked, and a familiar name surfaced in his thoughts.
"The Tide-Calling Whale!"
"Amazing! You even know about that! Buddy, you’re a real genius!"
Edward applauded again!
"Cover your ears, now!"
The moment he gave the order, the crew members behind him collapsed onto the deck one by one, already sound asleep.
’The skill ranked 67th on the S-Rank Awakened Skills Leaderboard in the Huangshi Report... Tide of Confusion!’
’From the S-rank Sea Beast, the Tide-Calling Whale!’
’No, that’s not right!’
Shi Ming quickly assessed his own condition. He hadn’t been affected in the slightest.
’An S-rank skill shouldn’t be this weak! It seems to only affect the crew. Most of them are ordinary people, or maybe D-rank Awakened with poor resistance.’
CRASSSSH,
The roar of the tide grew fiercer.
Shi Ming remained perfectly clear-headed, not falling asleep like the other crew members.
...
"It seems your defense is quite high. This skill is useless against you."
Edward said, sounding regretful.
"But it doesn’t matter. I have other skills."
"Which one would you like to try first?"
He ripped off the remaining scraps of cloth on his body.
Of the seven eyes on his chest and abdomen, three were closed, while the four open ones bulged out, swiveling nonstop.
...
Edward’s abilities were activated by his "eyes." They were unsettling to look at, but they were unique, and their uniqueness made them powerful.
The A-rank skill, Flesh Roulette.
This was an ability Edward gained after his second Awakening, which occurred after he bathed in the Beast Blood of an A-rank Sea Beast—the Seven-Eyed Chameleon.
A biyi is a chameleon.
The Seven-Eyed Chameleon, a chameleon with seven eyes.
Back then, Edward, already a Navigator, had wanted to increase his offensive capabilities. He leveraged all his connections and resources, painstakingly piloted the vessel *Water Arrow* into the deep sea, and managed to slay an unidentified A-rank Sea Beast.
Strangely, after bathing in its blood for his second Awakening, he discovered that his physical abilities hadn’t changed at all, nor had his physical strength improved.
Worse still, seven disgusting organs had sprouted on his chest and abdomen.
Large eyeballs that swiveled about nonstop.
He lost all hope of ever finding a partner.
All women avoided him like the plague.
His heart turned to ash.
But then, by accident, he discovered that these eyes could actively devour parts of Sea Beast carcasses or the flesh and blood of other Awakened. In doing so, he would gain a single-use cast of their abilities. The most peculiar thing was, even if he devoured the flesh of a D-rank Sea Beast, the resulting skill could be unleashed with A-rank power.
Each act of consumption granted only a single use of a skill, after which the corresponding eye would close for three days.
But after three days, he could consume another sample to replenish the charge, and the eye would reopen.
He was ecstatic and reported his findings immediately.
Michael connected him with researchers from Lighthouse.
Lighthouse, also recognizing his immense potential, unsparingly fed his eyes seven types of Sea Beast tissues for an experiment: three from S-rank Sea Beasts, and four from A-rank Sea Beasts.
The experiment revealed that Flesh Roulette could replicate a one-time use of an S-rank skill by consuming even useless tissue—no blood bath required. However, due to Edward’s own limitations, the skill’s power was capped at A-rank.
That is, unless Edward himself could evolve into an S-rank Awakened.
Anyone could see that Flesh Roulette had immense potential.
Lighthouse even drew up plans to hunt other Seven-Eyed Chameleons and mass-produce the Flesh Roulette ability. Unfortunately, they never found another.
Lighthouse’s high command promised Edward that the next S-rank Sea Beast they hunted would be given to him, to help him break through to S-rank.
He waited for two years.
Before he got any news about an S-rank Sea Beast, an even greater surprise arrived. Not long ago, he had received a secret message from Michael: Lighthouse had discovered the Relics of a Holy Hall-level Sea Beast and was preparing to feed a portion to his eyes.
He immediately realized that, at this moment, his value far surpassed that of any S-rank Awakened.
’A Holy Hall-level Sea Beast!’
’If my eyes devour a part of those Relics, even if I’m limited by my own power cap and can’t replicate its full Holy Hall-level might... just releasing a scaled-down version would be a world-changing breakthrough.’
S-rank Awakened were incredibly rare, but not unheard of. There were at least a dozen people in the world who possessed S-rank Awakened skills.
But whether it was Lighthouse, Da Yu, Katyusha of the Ice Sea Watchers, or the loosely-organized Twelve Stars... not a single person among them had so much as glimpsed a Holy Hall Level Skill.
Not even a weakened version.
’And I will be the first to replicate a Holy Hall Level Skill. I’ll go down in history!!!’
’Who could possibly have better prospects than me then?’
...
...
...
The sound of the tide stopped.
The eyes of the Flesh Roulette on Edward’s body lit up again. They spun one by one before finally settling on a new position.
