Chapter 4 (1/2)

Translator: Nyoi_Bo_Studio  Editor: Nyoi_Bo_Studio

The sun was shining and the seawater was warm.

In the warm water, a gray monster moved quickly. It had a long oval body with two distinct ends: one sharp and angular, the other round. A thick gray outer skin covered its body, which culminated in a clump of many powerful tentacles.

It was chasing fish of all sizes, small or big, and killing everything it could possibly catch. Its prey eventually became lifeless bodies, floating on the sea in a trail of death behind the monster. Only a select few enjoyed the privilege of being carefully chewed by this gray monster; if they tasted good, the monster might even have enjoyed it. Even those that didn’t taste good were never spit out, seeing as this monster wouldn’t dare to waste valuable resources.

This powerful monster was the jellyfish’s body possessed by Sui Xiong.

Even turtles with their hard shells and seabirds flying overhead could not escape him. With each passing day, he grew bigger and bigger, and fiercer and fiercer as well. He seemed to have no natural enemy in this world: he could do anything he wanted and go anywhere he wanted. He was enjoying himself and thriving, like when a gamer’s character levels up and becomes unstoppable by defeating monsters and running up a high score.

“How long has it been since I was transported?” Sui Xiong thought, after having a nice meal and bathing in the sun. He had no clue: he hadn’t been recording the days, so he’d totally forgotten. He had gradually gotten used to his current life, his new identity—a fierce creature at the top of the food chain, a terrifying sea monster, an overlord moving through the shallows with nothing to fear.

Still, although he hadn’t found a way to leave this body yet, he didn’t really mind. This body was much better than that of a human being. For example, the tentacles (which he’d improved a few more times) were so much better than the hands and feet of a human being; the propeller brought him up to speeds that a human could never reach; and he had the firm, thick outer skin too, armor so strong that even the Golden Shield and the Iron Cloth from Chinese fairy tales couldn’t compare to it. In the water at least, this body was perfect.

Also, by hunting and devouring the souls of many weak creatures, his own soul had gotten much stronger. Now, he could swim deeper than before, and the area in which he could attack to extract his preys’ souls had become much larger. He thought himself almost invincible.

“Now it is time to challenge the more difficult dungeon!” Sui Xiong told himself, looking into the deeper, creepy water in the distance. He had a gut feeling that there was an extremely powerful enemy down there.

“What could it be? A big fish? Maybe not, and to be honest, a big fish is just a heavier pile of meat. Could it be a sea monster then? Maybe. Perhaps it might think I’m coming to occupy its territory. Or maybe…it could be a giant whale, the same breed as the one that almost killed me before?”

Sui Xiong felt his heart tingle when he considered this last possible scenario. He had never been a generous person. He believed the quote from Game of Thrones that “a Lannister always pays his debts”, and that was his guiding principle in life. As a powerful man himself now, he also wanted to fight a powerful rival.

In the endless sea, he had no concept of time or even where he was. Only one thing could revive his heart, a heart which was gradually becoming emotionless, and that thing was fighting! Yes, fighting! He had a gut feeling that this powerful rival would appear from a certain direction, so Sui Xiong turned that way and prepared to fight.

After a short while, from the deep sea, a big shadow gradually began to reveal itself. It had a huge body and a sharp horn: it was him, the same giant whale with a unicorn horn. Watching it approach, Sui Xiong started to sneer.

“You have come at the right moment! You and I will have a good fight and put this personal grudge behind us once for all! To be honest, I’m quite curious about how a big guy like you tastes…” It was quite clear that this whale was the one which had almost killed him before. Just like the saying that “a man who thinks too much gets old much easier”, Sui Xiong wanted to stop thinking and start fighting!

Looking at this imposing sea monster ready to fight, the whale became very cautious. This time, it didn’t swim straight toward Sui Xiong; instead, it slowly approached and then stopped. Sui Xiong carefully sized up the whale and found that it too had a streamlined body, with an upper half of pure black and a lower half of slight white. Its two big eyes kind of looked like a human’s, and the horn on its forehead made it look very dangerous. Somehow, Sui Xiong’s couldn’t take his eyes off that horn, and every time he saw it, it made him more alarmed.

It seems that horn is a powerful weapon! He silently thought about what tactics to use. “A head-on confrontation won’t work. I’d better wait until it begins to swim towards me. Then I’ll swim up to it, stop right beneath it, and attach myself to its stomach by winding my tentacles around it. At first it won’t suffer much, but then I’ll smash it so hard even its own mother won’t recognize it!”

Now that he’d decided his tactical approach, he became less anxious and began to wait at ease. But it seemed that the whale didn’t intend to initiate the attack either; it was just waiting. Two powerful creatures, both at the top of the food chain, had reached a quiet stalemate.

After a while, Sui Xiong was starting to get bored, when all of a sudden, he had a strange gut feeling, leaving him cold and unsettled. He soon found that it was the whale that caused this feeling.

“What are you?”