Endless Ocean: Survival Begins with a Dugout Canoe-Chapter 80 - 77: Information on the Great Black Heaven Dragon
Shi Ming didn’t sleep well that night. The several communicators in his hand kept ringing—DING DING DING DING—with a new message arriving every so often.
It was a good thing he had a restorative item like the sleep pod, otherwise his rest would have been completely ruined.
He checked every message the moment it came in.
From Demon Sword’s communicator:
First message: Demon Sword, reply immediately upon receipt.
Second message: Who are you, and why have you made an enemy of our Black Society?
Third message: I have already detected your location in this sea region. I advise you to watch yourself!
Shi Ming smiled.
It was obvious these messages were from Demon Sword’s superior, the so-called Admiral of the Sea.
’Who are you trying to fool?’
’If you could get a real-time location from a palm-sized communicator, even Lighthouse would have to call you boss.’
’Besides, if you really had my location, why wouldn’t you just sneak over? Why announce it so openly, basically telling me, "I’m coming to get you! Run!" It’s clear Yan Dao Lin has no idea if Demon Sword was killed by a sea beast or an enemy, so he can only test the waters with words.’
’Just a triggered clown.’
’Not worth a response.’
What surprised Shi Ming, however, was that the communicator from Chunyi, which had been silent for so long, actually sent a new message in the dead of night: "Well done! My good friend! You have earned my sincerest friendship!"
Shi Ming pursed his lips.
’Looks like the Black Society is just a shoddy operation, rife with internal conflict.’
Shi Ming didn’t reply.
Nor did he consider trying to use the situation.
The other party’s identity was unknown. Trying to leverage something uncontrollable was just asking to be leveraged in return.
No one could manipulate Shi Ming’s actions; he only followed his own heart.
Even if killing Demon Sword had helped the other person, it was merely a coincidence.
Meanwhile, there were no messages from Edward’s communicator.
In "Let There Be Light," however, the fury of Lighthouse was palpable—
[The three-day period is up. Is the Navigator’s mission complete? Report your progress to me at once!]
This time, unlike usual, no one replied within five minutes.
After a long wait with no reply, Lighthouse slowly sent another message:
[?]
Nearly two and a half hours later, replies from Jinshan and Michael finally trickled in.
[Commander, my deepest apologies. The Navigator was killed in action, suspected to have been eliminated by an S-rank Awakened or a sea beast. This incident was beyond our control. The primary cause was a severe discrepancy in the intelligence provided by the Black Society, which led to a misjudgment on our part and the Navigator’s, preventing us from taking adequate risk-prevention measures.]
[Commander, we have coordinated with Michael and the Black Society to initiate an incident investigation and will do our utmost to mitigate the losses from this accident.]
[???]
[What? You bastards! Are you serious?]
[Can you even mitigate it?]
What followed was a torrential downpour of F-bombs.
Those in power could hurl insults freely, with no regard for their own decorum.
In contrast, the real workhorses had to carefully consider every word and action, terrified that even a single punctuation mark might displease the commander.
Shi Ming could imagine the commander’s fury.
The one and only "Seven-Eyed Chameleon," who could replicate a sea beast’s abilities from just a tiny piece of its skin tissue. He was on the verge of helping Lighthouse replicate the abilities of a Holy Hall-level Sea Beast, allowing the research institute to break through a twenty-year bottleneck and find a new direction. And yet, he died on a perfectly ordinary mission!
It was like frantically downloading a 100GB file, getting to 99.9%, only to accidentally kick the power cord.
When you plug it back in, you have to start over from 0%!
Who wouldn’t have a meltdown in that situation?
Behind the curtain, Shi Ming quietly watched the top-secret, real-time communications in "Let There Be Light" scroll across his vision, one after another, as if they were free.
[Recover the Navigator’s body, no matter the cost. We’ll have the research institute figure out a way to create another Awakened with the "Flesh-Eye Roulette"!]
[Yes, Commander!]
Jinshan and Michael agreed readily.
But in their hearts, they held no hope for this mission.
’An unknown location, searching for a single corpse in the Endless Ocean?’
’The Yellowstone was massive, and they haven’t found it after searching for over a decade!’
’Let alone a single body!’
’It’s probably long since been eaten by fish and is now traveling the world from inside their bellies!’
Jinshan was even more speechless.
’That guy was your man, Michael. It’s one thing if he wasn’t capable enough, but of all the times to die, he had to pick now and land me with this huge dirty work! Now I’m getting blamed for it too!’
’Fucking shit!’
...
...
...
「As the sun rose over the sea」
Shi Ming woke up early and ran laps around the deck of the Dayun for half an hour.
Phew~
His warm-up complete, he wiped the thin sheen of sweat from his body.
"Eye of Intelligence, acquire intelligence!"
[BEEP~ BEEP~]
[Collating intelligence...]
[Searching. Confirming host’s detailed coordinates... Detected host’s spoils of war: fragments of the Famous Blade Xianyue. Traces of a faint aura from an unknown powerful lifeform have been detected on them. Summarizing intelligence...]
’Xianyue?’
’An unknown powerful lifeform?’
Shi Ming froze for a moment.
[Intelligence generated.]
[Unrated Intelligence: Great Black Heaven Dragon] 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚
[The Great Black Heaven Dragon, a Holy Hall-level Sea Beast slumbering deep within Fujing Mountain. It has three heads and six limbs, having later mutated to possess nine heads.]
[...]
[Its nine heads are primal and ferocious, each one different: the Main Head, Lava Head, Venomous Smoke Head, Rock Spike Head, Steam Head, Earthquake Head, Devouring Head, Perception Head, and Regeneration Head. The Great Black Heaven Dragon spends most of its time in a state of deep sleep.]
[While it slumbers, its nine heads droop. The dreams of its nine heads variously affect the real world near Fujing Mountain, causing earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and more...]
[...]
[The Great Black Heaven Dragon’s awakening is slow, but catastrophic.]
[The main head of the Great Black Heaven Dragon possesses intelligence, but its thought patterns are fundamentally different from a human’s, leaning more toward an instinct for destruction.]
[Danger Level: Holy Hall-level]
[Method of Elimination: Use an Extreme Cold Ability to simultaneously sever the connection between its nine heads and its body.]
’Why did it suddenly spit out such high-level intelligence for me?’
’And it even gives the method of elimination?’
He mulled it over. As one of the Black Society’s top fighters, Demon Sword must have once been ordered to investigate the slumbering Great Black Heaven Dragon, leaving a faint trace of its aura on his sword. Now that the shattered fragments of Xianyue were his spoils of war, the Eye of Intelligence had detected it.
The intelligence was very high-level.
But for him, at his current stage, such information was still far too remote.
The Eye of Intelligence had even thoughtfully provided the method for killing the Great Black Heaven Dragon.
Use an Extreme Cold Ability and simultaneously sever its nine heads!
No fancy, convoluted process needed.
It was like in a beginner’s tutorial, where the old man in the starting village tells you, "This is how you slash, this is how you dodge, this is how you heal. Okay, I’ve taught you everything. Now go kill the final boss!"
’Is that realistic?’
’Not at all.’
But to say Shi Ming didn’t covet the abilities of that Holy Hall-level Sea Beast would be a lie.
’Who doesn’t have a dream, right?’
’That will have to wait for another day.’
"Speaking of which, if I really were to bathe in that Dragon Blood, would I end up like the Mahakala from the myths and grow three heads and six arms?"
"No, no way. That doesn’t really align with human aesthetics!"
Shi Ming mused about the future.
