Endless Ocean: Survival Begins with a Dugout Canoe-Chapter 83 - 80: The Huge Bounty from the Black Society and Jinshan

Chapter 83: Chapter 80: The Huge Bounty from the Black Society and Jinshan

Of course, the Eight-armed Hunter remembered the human who had severed one of its limbs. It let out a piercing, high-frequency shriek.

Its seven remaining arms whipped through the water like giant strands of kelp.

They were stretched to their absolute limit, extending for dozens of meters. The constantly flexing suckers exuded an immense pressure, giving Shi Ming the same thrill as facing a Cthulhian monstrosity in a video game.

It moved!

In the blink of an eye, its hideous face lunged to within ten meters of Shi Ming. An indescribable, nightmarish presence—the kind of thing one glance could haunt your dreams—abruptly filled his vision.

No hesitation. No probing. The hunt began.

A primal, chilling thrum of danger pulsed through the water, but it only served to stoke Shi Ming’s will to fight.

A low roar erupted from within the Sun Piercer’s cockpit. Adrenaline, mixed with the absolute calm born of training, drove Shi Ming’s body. He stood firm on the Sun Piercer, swung the King Slayer, and a silver flash like lightning tore through the silent abyss of the deep sea.

At this moment, he and the Sun Piercer were one.

Like the sword-riding immortals of legend, he rode his vessel into battle in the depths of the sea.

The combat space was incredibly constricted.

But it didn’t matter.

The Sun Piercer’s agility compensated for the tight quarters, and the King Slayer’s blade sliced into tough muscle tissue.

Thick, inky-blue blood gushed out, and its intense, metallic stench only made Shi Ming more excited.

The wound only enraged the Eight-armed Hunter. Its giant tentacles thrashed wildly, no longer striking one by one, but weaving a deadly net. The writhing suckers closed in from all sides, trying to completely envelop Shi Ming, crush him, and then stuff him into the massive maw at its apex.

It wanted to savor the taste of its prey, piece by piece.

But little did it know, the man before it was the true Hunter.

The Sun Piercer flickered through the darkness, again and again.

SLICE!

CLANG!

CRACK! 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

The creature’s regenerative abilities and life force were beyond imagination. Under the immense pressure, its wounds contracted to stanch the bleeding, then began to writhe and regrow. The excruciating pain only made the Eight-armed Hunter’s attacks more frenzied.

Shi Ming locked his gaze on the head nestled between its seven thrashing limbs.

Amidst the furious melee, he finally found an opening.

’A perfect chance!’

Without a shred of hesitation, the Sun Piercer accelerated to maximum velocity. Like a true arrow, it faced the colossal shadow and shot straight for the weak point!

One tentacle tried to block it, but was violently flung aside!

The closer he got, the more Shi Ming could feel the behemoth’s oppressive presence. As he closed in, he could even see the reflection of himself and the Sun Piercer in its cold eyes.

Tenfold Power!

CRACK!

At the boundary between the high-pressure seawater and the Sun Piercer’s pocket of air, the King Slayer ripped open a vacuum. Red veins of light pulsed along the humming, ancient blade as it let out a piercing shriek, aimed squarely at the Eight-armed Hunter’s hideous head.

SQUELCH!

As the Sun Piercer shot forward, the nearly meter-long King Slayer plunged in up to its hilt, carving a gruesome tunnel through the Eight-armed Hunter’s head.

WHOOSH!

The Sun Piercer burst through the other side, shooting out from the back of the creature’s head and trailing thick gobbets of brain matter and dark blue blood.

Like a hero’s sash.

It was as if time stood still.

With its brain pierced, the giant creature’s body went rigid. Its seven remaining tentacles tightened like iron rods, then began to convulse and collapse. The immense, oppressive presence receded like the tide, and the deadly limbs went slack, crashing into the silt on the seafloor in a cloud of its own inky-blue blood.

*Phew...*

The Sun Piercer hovered in the rising mist of blue blood. Behind it, a true B-rank sea beast had spectacularly fallen.

...

...

...

Yan Dao Lin sat at his desk, a golden fountain pen clutched in his hand. He wanted to write, but didn’t know where to begin.

It was a letter of resignation.

You can’t cover fire with paper. For reasons unknown, his political enemies seemed to have a grasp of the entire situation. Even Demon Sword’s death in the line of duty had been completely exposed.

As the person with primary responsibility, Great Wilderness had already been executed by firing squad.

The strange thing was, while the Chief Governor of the Black Society was immensely disappointed, he hadn’t punished Yan Dao Lin. He had merely told him to "watch his step."

His mind was in turmoil; a thousand thoughts swirled, but he couldn’t form a single coherent sentence.

He crumpled the resignation letter on his desk into a ball and threw it straight out the window. The wad of paper fell into the water and was sucked into the turbines of a massive vessel, where it was shredded to pulp.

Yan Dao Lin stood at the window, his troubled gaze fixed on the distant "Hai Sheng Ying."

[BEEP]

The communicator on his desk chimed.

He returned to his seat and picked it up.

It was a message from the intelligence organization, the Golden Pagoda.

"General Yan Dao, are you saying that your A-rank Awakened, Demon Sword, encountered your target, sent back a message, but then failed to report a successful outcome? Does this mean she and the navigator, Edward, were both killed by the mission target, rather than by a powerful sea beast?"

"A single Silver-level Wandering Ship was able to take down two Awakened? Your original mission request said nothing about this!"

Yan Dao Lin sighed.

At this point, relying on the Golden Pagoda’s power was his only chance to turn the tables.

He typed into the communicator:

"That’s correct, Mr. Robert."

"The mission’s failure and the unexpected complications were not results that either of us desired."

"This Silver ship has likely fallen into the hands of a powerful organization; even an A-rank Awakened was no match for them. My Black Society suffered grievous losses in this mission, and your side lost an elite operative. Only by joining forces can we share intelligence, learn the truth of the matter, and mitigate our losses to the fullest extent."

"The Black Society has decided to offer a bounty of 600 Pure Dome Crystals for the search of Silver Wandering Ship number 23333 in the Endless Ocean."

Yan Dao Lin’s external communicator could transmit a maximum of 200 words at a time.

His fingertips flew across the keypad as he typed out the last few words.

"I hope you understand, Mr. Robert, that this is not merely a Black Society affair. The reputation and capability of the Golden Pagoda Organization are also at stake."

...

「On the other side of the ocean.」

Robert sat on a sofa, his head splitting, and typed his reply to Yan Dao Lin into the communicator.

"You are correct, General Yan Dao. This is not only a loss for the Black Society, it is a provocation and a challenge to the Golden Pagoda."

"The Golden Pagoda and Michael are also willing to offer a combined bounty of 600 Pure Dome Crystals to search the Endless Ocean for Silver Wandering Ship number 23333. Anyone who can provide valid intelligence will receive a portion of the reward based on their contribution. Of course, this will require you to publicly release the ship’s detailed specifications. I assume you have no objection to that."

"The details of the bounty still require negotiation. If there are no objections, it should be announced swiftly through all available channels. Time is efficiency."

"—Robert"

The Lighthouse had ordered him to retrieve Edward’s body within twenty days.

The immense pressure made Captain Jinshan—Robert, the second-in-command of the Golden Pagoda Organization—utterly miserable.

Now that he’d heard from the Black Society that Edward might have been killed by an Awakened, he felt things had taken a slight turn.

Even if he couldn’t recover Edward’s body, finding the killer would be something he could report back to his superiors.

*Sigh...*

’It’s hard being a captain,’

’and it’s even harder being a broker!’