Chapter 100.1: Capturing the Sea Monster
Cheng Qisheng could feel several more faith links appear in an instant.
And they were extremely thick ones at that.
—BOOM!!!
The deafening thunder continued to roar.
With every flash of lightning, the number of Blue Sea ships on the dark, heaving surface of the sea rapidly increased.
It was as though the main villain of a horror movie had suddenly been replaced.
Amid the thunder and lightning, the source of the overwhelming sense of oppression was no longer the gigantic sea monster, but the ever-increasing number of Blue Sea ships, appearing and disappearing beneath the shadows of the lightning as they closed in.
At a command, the largest of the ships opened fire on the giant sea monster.
—BOOM!
—BOOM!!
This time, what rang out was no longer thunder, but cannon fire.
And what illuminated the horizon was no longer lightning, but cannon fire that flashed into existence for an instant, then vanished just as quickly, only to flare up again moments later.
Amid the torrential rain, the crews of the Sun and the Inkshadow strained to keep their eyes open as they watched the Blue Sea ships advance fearlessly toward the giant sea monster in a rapidly tightening encirclement.
The Stretch-and-Yawn, which had just been frantically fleeing, immediately turned around and joined the operation to surround and eliminate the monster.
Cheng Qisheng turned on the light in her room and ordered a late-night snack. Tonight, she might as well stay up and watch Old Eighth fight.
Although that giant sea monster was enormous, the moment she saw the reinforcements arrive and immediately open fire, she knew that Old Eighth wasn’t going to lose.
The Blue Sea people’s image in the outside world had always been that of people who feared neither danger nor death, charging headfirst into battle whenever they saw one.
In reality, however, if they genuinely judged that they couldn’t win, they wouldn’t foolishly throw themselves against an overwhelming enemy. They would either call for reinforcements or change tactics and retreat.
For example, in the current situation, they could have simply kited the sea monster, keeping their distance while waiting for more reinforcements to arrive.
The reason they were charging straight in like this was because, after assessing the situation, they had decided that with the current number of Blue Sea ships, they already had enough strength to fight.
Cheng Qisheng gave everyone a pre-battle blessing. The residents, who were already brimming with fighting spirit, instantly became even more energized.
“Open fire! Keep increasing the firepower!!!”
Even the smallest cannons mounted on the Blue Sea residents’ ships possessed a certain amount of destructive power. No matter how enormous the sea monster was, after being bombarded by more than a thousand ships, green splashes of blood began bursting from various parts of its body.
Enraged, it rolled through the sea and charged straight toward the Blue Sea fleet.
The sea monsters on Green Billow Star were not completely mindless. They understood perfectly well that ordinary humans could never possess such destructive power. The weapons exploding into their flesh were all mounted on the ships.
As long as they endured the pain and destroyed those ships, the humans, once deprived of their weapons, would have no way to deal with them.
And that was exactly what the Blue Sea people had intended from the beginning.
—Whoosh!!
Numerous Blue Sea people took flight.
Amid the cannon fire and torrential rain, they narrowed their eyes slightly as they studied the monstrously oversized sea creature below. They examined its sickle-like tentacles, then the long tail trailing behind it, and finally the rows of fins along its sides, each one a full five meters long.
Below, the Blue Sea ships rapidly spread apart as the giant sea monster drew closer.
At a glance, it looked as though they had been intimidated by the creature.
The crews of the Sun and the Inkshadow couldn’t help but grow worried for the ships.
Only from above could one see that the distance between the scattered ships was precisely about the same as the sea monster’s overall width.
The Blue Sea people in the sky dove downward.
Their objective was clear. Working together, they lifted enormous, unbelievably heavy chains from the individual ships.
The crew of the Sun were initially astonished to discover that the Blue Sea people could actually fly. Then they were rendered speechless for a moment by the chains those people were effortlessly carrying together—chains nearly half a person’s height, and whose length was impossible to determine.
“Are those… chains?!”
Anyone who saw those long, heavy chains would immediately realize that they had been specially designed to deal with sea monsters.
Sure enough, in the next moment, as the sea monster rapidly approached, the Blue Sea people carrying the chains moved as well.
Even with their enormous wings, the Blue Sea people were as insignificant as ants before the colossal sea monster. Yet they showed no fear, flying straight toward it.
The process was far from simple.
The rain was coming down too heavily. Even though the flying wings had no feathers and therefore wouldn’t become unusable because of the downpour, the Blue Sea people in flight still had to increase the frequency of their wingbeats so that the rainwater clinging to them would be shaken off.
At the same time, the heavy rain also obscured part of their vision.
The sea monster was simply too enormous. Whenever it moved even slightly, the waves around it would first sink down, only to suddenly surge upward to heights like mountains.
—BOOM!!!
The cannon fire stopped, and the sound of thunder once again became impossible to ignore.
One Blue Sea resident after another rapidly shifted their positions, dodging the sickle-like tentacles that slashed up from beneath the sea. At times, they even had to hover in midair while suddenly bending their bodies low to evade the sweeping strikes of that long, massive tail.
The sea monster’s strength was indeed terrifying.
It possessed not only an enormous body, but also numerous body parts that could be used as weapons, and it was incredibly fast as well.
Some Blue Sea people managed to evade the sickle-like tentacles but failed to dodge the tail. When that tail, whose pointed tip alone weighed several tons, swept violently across them, they were sent flying backward.
Some of them were caught by Blue Sea people flying behind them. Others took advantage of the momentum, adjusted their direction in midair, and let themselves be flung onto abandoned shipwrecks floating on the sea. They covered their chests and rested for a moment before charging back toward the sea monster with renewed ferocity.
Some were struck and sent flying, but halfway through their flight, they turned back and randomly chose a chain-carrying group with fewer members to join.
The white-robed, black-winged clergy moved swiftly through the crowd, carrying away residents whom they judged temporarily unable to continue fighting and bringing them back to the ships for treatment.
Some of the residents were only lightly injured, so the clergy opened their medical kits and gave them an injection of a specialty treatment from Dazzling Star.
Pan Tuan was also sent flying.
The first thing she felt was a terrible pain in her chest, as though she’d been run over by a heavy truck, followed by her mind going blank for a brief second.
If this had happened on Velvet Star, her first reaction to being injured would probably have been relief.
Relief that she had actually survived a single blow from such a gigantic sea monster, followed by concern over her injuries. She would then have wondered whether they would affect her subsequent activities, and what she would do if the injuries were serious enough to require her to rest and recover.
But perhaps she’d simply been in Blue Sea for too long.
Or perhaps it was because ever since she had officially joined Blue Sea, every day had been spent either fighting or on the way to a fight.
In any case, Pan Tuan was still being flung through the air.
Yet her brain, briefly knocked offline by the impact before quickly coming back online, was already absolutely furious.
She had actually been injured!!
Damn it!
She absolutely had to get her revenge!
Following the momentum, Pan Tuan picked out a suitable spot, adjusted her body in midair, and let herself fall onto a broken wooden plank.
—THUD!!
Although the impact made a loud noise, Pan Tuan had adjusted her landing posture while still in midair and then used a roll to disperse the force. As a result, this forced landing did not cause any secondary injury to her already wounded body.
Pan Tuan lay on her back on the plank, her chest rising and falling rapidly several times as she felt the dull ache in her chest becoming increasingly sharp.
She grinned.
That was good news.
Judging from the pain, she could tell that none of her internal organs had ruptured. She might have a minor fracture, but it wouldn’t affect her ability to continue fighting.
Pan Tuan looked utterly disheveled. She was drenched from head to toe, with small wounds across her back and arms, and a long slash across her abdomen that had even torn through her clothes.
She slowly got to her feet and gestured toward the clergy member in the sky who was preparing to land, signaling that she was fine.
Pan Tuan stared intently at the enormous sea monster ahead of her, a surge of exhilaration gradually building within her.
Back when she was on Velvet Star, she had been intimately familiar with the effects that injuries of varying severity to different parts of the body could cause.
At that time, Pan Tuan was the only powerful fighter in her family.
She had to constantly fight zombies in exchange for food and supplies. She also had to maintain herself in peak condition as a highly capable fighter at all times, so she could deal with other survivors and slaves and prevent them from setting their sights on her family.
That was why Pan Tuan had memorized the symptoms and consequences of every possible injury, ensuring that she could identify them promptly and receive treatment in time.
Pan Tuan knew very well that after suffering a bone crack, she could still move and swing a weapon normally. But if she continued fighting, the crack could gradually widen under the pull of her muscles, turning a cracked bone into a full fracture.
In terms of immediate danger, the broken bone could potentially pierce through her skin later, causing severe blood loss.
In the long run, a secondary worsening of such an injury could also lead to chronic sterile inflammation—the kind that caused a faint, aching pain whenever the weather turned cold and rainy. If it became severe, she might even be unable to engage in strenuous running afterward.
If she were still on Velvet Star, back when her entire family was being kept as sl*ves by another Safe City, Pan Tuan would have done everything she could to conceal her injuries and reduce the frequency of her battles, recovering as quickly as possible.
But now, Pan Tuan, a resident of Blue Sea, only wanted to keep fighting.
She knew very well that even if her injuries worsened during this battle to the point that she could no longer fight, Blue Sea would not abandon her. Instead, they would make sure she received proper treatment.
Her family would not be driven out simply because she had temporarily lost her ability to fight, either.
At this very moment, Pan Tuan’s family was perhaps sleeping peacefully under Blue Sea’s protection.
In about three hours, her parents would have to get up and go to work, while her younger sister would have to go to school.
They would have breakfast at Canteen No. 1276 near their home, then take the aerial bus to their respective workplaces and school. The skies above Blue Sea were always filled with large numbers of patrol drones, while troops stationed at home were deployed throughout the various districts.
In the evening, after work, her parents might go for a walk together along the sidewalks, while her younger sister, Pan Yuan, might still be with her classmates, tinkering with and studying some kind of technological product.
But no matter what they were doing, the whole family would carefully tend to the vegetables growing in their small planting box.
Keeping these vegetables alive was actually quite difficult. After all, their residential quarters were not very spacious and couldn’t receive sunlight, so the family would take turns carrying the planting box outside every day to let it bask in the sun, while carefully studying the cultivation techniques sent down by the intelligent brain.
It didn’t matter if they accidentally killed the vegetables. With just a small number of points, they could exchange them for new seeds.
With the experience they had gained from their previous attempt, their chances of successfully growing the vegetables this time were much higher.
Her mother would water the vegetables, her father would catch the bugs, and her younger sister would fertilize them. Then, whenever Pan Tuan came home, they would turn the small amount of edible vegetables they had managed to grow into a dish and watch her eat it with beaming smiles.
Under Blue Sea’s protection, Pan Tuan’s family could live each day in peace and security.
And this sea monster had threatened Blue Sea.
Pan Tuan flapped the wings she had worked so hard to obtain several times. After confirming that the muscles along her back were still functioning normally, she took flight once more and charged toward the giant sea monster without hesitation.
As she flew, she could feel a warmth rising from the depths of her heart, and the painful areas of her body seemed to ease.
It was our God!
Our God’s blessing!!
Feeling the pain from her injuries diminish, Pan Tuan became even more exhilarated and plunged straight into the battlefield through the torrential rain.
“Wrap it up!!!!”
The Blue Sea people, constantly weaving through the air, repeatedly falling and taking flight again, patiently searched for opportunities. One by one, they wrapped the heavy chains around the giant sea monster’s sickle-like tentacles, fins, and tail.
One chain after another was wrapped around the sea monster’s limbs. As it moved, the chains would occasionally be flung loose and fall toward the sea, prompting numerous Blue Sea people to dive down and catch them before they disappeared into the water.
The sea monster’s limbs were covered in mucus and extremely slippery, so the chains couldn’t completely secure themselves around them.
But that didn’t matter.
Old Eighth had prepared for this long ago.
