Chapter 80: The Shore

Sighing, Baichuan stopped overthinking and simply held the ice blocks containing a few of his favorite glowing fish, scanning as he swam forward.

Four hours later, Baichuan finally sensed that the vibrations coming from the waters above had grown extremely faint.

At that moment, he knew he had finally moved far away from the typhoon's center.

Having long grown sick of staying in these dim deep waters, Baichuan took one last look at the seemingly eternally still, dead-water expanse below, then hurriedly whipped his tail and sped away.

All that remained was a crystal-clear ice block, frozen with a strange fish inside, glowing with blue light, bobbing up and down.

That was what Baichuan had left behind after finishing his scan.

With his departure, this stretch of water once again returned to its former silence.

Occasionally, a few oddly shaped fish trailing fluorescent light drifted slowly past, trailing a small string of bubbles, adding a faint touch of life to the place.

Yet this touch of life, set against the dead silence of the surrounding space, only made it all the more eerie.

No one knew how long had passed — perhaps three days, perhaps ten, perhaps even longer, or perhaps only a few minutes had gone by.

From the deeper, darker waters below, a thick, long black shadow shot upward, sweeping up the still-unmelted crystal ice block and pulling it back.

All that remained was a string of bubbles stirred up, along with a few unfortunate strange fish caught in the disturbance.

Once again, silence reclaimed this place.

……

At night, after a full day of travel, Baichuan finally returned to the coastal area late at night.

Looking at the shoreline right before him, Baichuan finally let out a sigh of relief.

It hadn't been easy — he could finally get a proper rest.

One had to remember he was a snake; even a flood dragon snake walking the path of transformation into a dragon, he couldn't go for long without rest. He would still grow weary in the end.

A snake originally from the land could never, like sharks or dolphins, rest while swimming, never needing to stop.

Because they were always resting, and always moving at the same time.

And over these past few days, rushing from the previous river mouth toward the Shenhai Qu, more than a full week had already passed.

For such a long stretch of Time, he had to swim day and night without daring to stop.

Because the moment he stopped swimming, he would lose momentum and slowly sink to the sea floor.

But in the Shenhai Qu, reaching the sea floor basically required diving at least two or three hundred meters down.

Yet his current diving limit was only around two hundred meters; if he sank, he would face absurdly extreme water pressure.

So he could only grit his teeth against his weary spirit, force himself to stay alert, and swim faster.

Striving to return to the Qian Hai area as quickly as possible.

Fortunately, he had finally reached the offshore area now, and could already see the shoreline.

At this moment, Baichuan finally dared to let out a breath of relief, and sighed in his heart.

This could be considered the first difficulty he, a land creature, encountered during a long-distance ocean migration after his first time entering the sea.

He couldn't be blamed for failing to think it through — some things, before being experienced, simply never occur to one.

Just as the saying goes: "Talk of war on paper feels shallow; to truly know, one must go through it oneself."

It seemed he still needed to solve this predicament.

Baichuan silently summed up the lessons learned from this experience, then rallied his spirits once more, began swimming faster, and prepared to approach the shore to rest well for the night!

……

Half an hour later, Baichuan finally saw the soft, fine sand on the seabed. He excitedly raised his head and let out a cheer, then hurriedly flicked his tail fin and surged forward.

The moment he truly touched the fine sea sand, Baichuan could no longer hold back — it was like an utterly exhausted person finally returning to the soft bed in his bedroom.

He simply went limp and lay flat on the fine sand of the seabed, never wanting to move again.

Right now he didn't want to, and didn't have the energy to, look for any food, let alone a safe cave.

Not to mention, in this offshore area, how many were there that could actually take him on?

Just his tough scales alone were not something ordinary predators could bite through.

So, for the first time, he lay defenseless on the seabed and fell into a deep sleep.

Of course, that last sliver of vigilance was still there.

If any slightly larger, familiar water-current vibration frequency came toward him, he could erupt into attack at any moment and give the other party a vicious strike.

Any creature living in the ocean must possess its own unique water-current vibration frequency — this is caused by the swinging of its body or tail fin as it swims, and cannot be hidden.

So based on this, any creature sensitive to changes in water pressure in the sea — especially large predators like sharks or killer whales —

They would all record the body size of any creature within their perception range, thereby determining whether food existed within that range.

Baichuan was no exception. After passing through the Daze river mouth and the super typhoon fish swarm, the water-current vibration frequencies he had recorded were already numerous.

……

The jade rabbit set in the west, the golden crow rose in the east.

Winds and clouds shifted ceaselessly; a night passed.

At noon, the blazing scorching sun freely poured out boundless heat, granting this stretch of ocean ample warmth.

By the shore, massive dark reefs piled together to form a vast beach, upon which grew dozens of tall coconut trees.

Casting a cool, shady shadow over this beautiful beach.

But unfortunately, these coconut trees now looked rather pitiful — their trunks were no longer tall and straight; some had been snapped clean in half, while others had their dense treetop foliage torn away entirely.

Looking closely at the shore, countless fish, shrimp, and crabs lay scattered about, some even dried out by the sun — likely flung ashore by yesterday's super typhoon as it passed through, tossing creatures from nearby waters that hadn't managed to take shelter.

In the distance, sea breezes occasionally blew in, sending white waves crashing against the rocks and sending up fine white spray.

Soft underwater seagrass swayed with the current, while countless crabs, shrimp, and fish swam about freely.

And on the seabed covered with clean, soft, fine sand, a flood dragon snake measuring seven point two meters in length lay in a deep slumber.

The flood dragon snake's scales were black across its entire body, glittering under the light refracted through the clear seawater, like scales forged from metal.

From time to time, curious fish would flutter their soft tail fins over and take a few experimental nips at the taste of the flood-dragon serpent's scales.

Suddenly, a domineering crab—whether it hadn't seen where it was going or not—crashed headlong into the head of the slumbering flood-dragon serpent.

At once, the crab was sent reeling backward from the impact. It seemed to think this massive object was blocking its path, or perhaps it sensed the aura of a living creature, or maybe it had decided it had found an enemy.

It began to brandish its enormous claws in a show of bravado, then lunged viciously at the slumbering flood-dragon serpent's dragon head!

……

(End of this chapter)