Chapter 90: Another Use of Ice Frost, Strange Change at the Bottom of the Sea

If it had been before, a little blood dissipating like this, he probably wouldn't have cared.

Let it dissipate—if it attracted other predators, that would just be an extra meal for him.

But right now he was preparing to continue testing the feasibility of flight, so he had to minimize the appearance of other targets that might interfere with him.

So it seemed he had to freeze this big fellow for a while, to prevent blood from flowing out and attracting other sharks or large carnivorous fish that would affect him.

Thinking of this, he once again gathered in his neck and spurted out a thin stream of white ice essence.

In an instant, at the moment the white thread-like ice essence appeared, clean white ice began to slowly form from where the ice essence emerged.

After just a few breaths, the great white shark's wound area all the way to its entire fish head was frozen into a large lump of opaque ice.

At this moment, because of the massive ice block on its head, it was floating with its tail fin pointing down and fish head pointing skyward, sinking and rising in turn.

Looking at this somewhat comical scene, Baichuan also found it rather interesting and couldn't help but laugh a little.

Shaking his head, he no longer paid attention to this frozen great white shark, and once again raised his head, looking toward the sea surface.

Now that the uninvited guest had been dealt with, he had to consider the problems that appeared during flight again.

The reason he had crashed into the sea surface before—now that he had calmed down and thought about it.

Baichuan found that three factors were at play.

First, his own body weight was too heavy. One had to know that he was now as long as eight meters, and most of his body was muscle—he could truly be called a solid chunk of iron.

With this, such a massive body was bound to be extraordinarily heavy.

Second, the muscles connecting to his wing parts were not strong enough, as one might expect.

His original ability came from an eagle's ability. With an eagle's size, its wingspan was less than two meters, yet his wings now had a wingspan of fifteen meters.

Wings this large, no matter how light, the force required to flap them once in the air was not to be underestimated.

Even Qiangzhuang LV1 (Xiongqiang Yihua), this ability on his body, had also achieved a certain degree of amplification following the growth and lengthening of his body.

But this was only other aspects driving its growth; one could say it was not amplification brought about by the ability itself.

It's like the same ability used by different beings having differences—a cat's sharp claws are claws, a tiger's sharp claws are claws, but if you gave a tiger a cat's claws, would that affect the tiger's strength?

It wouldn't!

The only difference was that the claws wore down a bit more, and were a bit more fragile, but the damage from a single strike wasn't reduced by much.

This was the amplification brought about by the powerful muscles on the tiger's body.

But now Baichuan wanted to use this ability to drive wings with a fifteen-meter wingspan. Even if he pushed this ability to its absolute limit, and even with amplification from other abilities, it was still far from enough.

Perhaps if his body weight were a little lighter, he might be able to fly.

But this was ultimately impossible.

Unless this creature's growth had the possibility of reverse growth…

In the final analysis, for the current Baichuan, he had already reached the upper limit of Qiangzhuang LV1 (Xiongqiang Yihua).

Finally, the third was that he had leapt out of the seawater and spread his wings to take off, yet his wings were not entirely formed of flesh membrane.

While thinking, Baichuan once again approached the sandy beach near the shore, returning to land once more.

At this moment, on the sandy beach.

He looked at a wing that had come up close to his eyes and examined it.

That's right, now that he had come closer and observed carefully, he discovered that his pair of Wing Hand wings were actually not purely formed of flesh membrane.

There were still extremely fine and dense black fuzz hairs on them!

Even though from a distance they looked like perfectly smooth flesh membrane, up close they were actually not smooth!

At this moment, Baichuan finally understood why, every time he broke through the water and spread his wings, each flap of his wings could fling off large amounts of water droplets.

At the same time, he felt the weight of his wings more and more.

Now he figured it out—it was precisely because these imperceptible hairs had absorbed large amounts of liquid in the water that the more he flapped his wings, the heavier they felt. Otherwise, that previous attempt might have allowed him to hold out for a bit longer.

After learning this, he was rather caught between laughter and tears.

It seemed his first takeoff had chosen the highest hellish difficulty, but now that he knew where the problem lay, it would be easy to handle.

If it didn't work in water, then he'd first try whether he could fly on land.

Moreover, from the blooming of the ice flowers at the bottom of the sea just now, he had also received some inspiration.

Since the Frost Ability could freeze water into ice crystals, could he, at the moment of emerging from the water, freeze the water droplets on his wings into tiny ice beads and shake them all off in an instant?

The answer was feasible.

When he had first obtained the Frost Ability, Baichuan had discovered that he could move the Light Point representing Ice Frost to any position on his body and emit biting cold air.

Since that was the case, couldn't he simply move this power to his wings right now?

At that time, at the instant he emerged from the water, he would control the Frost Ability to freeze the water and shake it off, and he could completely return to being dry all over.

Thinking this, Baichuan also began slowly controlling the Light Point representing the power of Ice Frost to move rapidly.

Previously, in order not to be too conspicuous, he had always hidden this power within his flesh and blood, never exposing it on the surface of his body.

With this movement, a large swath of faint pale-white light immediately appeared on his body, and within this light, biting cold air also began to emanate.

Accompanying the movement of this power, the moisture on Baichuan's body also rapidly condensed into tiny ice crystals, which fell heavily to the ground between his breaths.

The few that didn't fall were also flung away with a light flap of his bat wings.

Normally speaking, if it were an ordinary freezing ability, it would probably only freeze the water into a large sheet of ice stuck to his wings, adding to the burden.

But the freezing ability he used came from the Frost Light Point—this peculiar power could be precisely manipulated entirely according to his will.

Thus, after just a few breaths, Baichuan discovered that his entire body had once again become completely dry.

And at this moment, his wings, due to the gathering of the Frost Ability's power, were shining with dazzling pale-white light.

For a time, on the sandy beach.

Dragon head, snake body, eagle claws, bat wings.

Like a monster of the Feathered Serpent or Yinglong from mythology standing on the sandy beach, under the sunlight, the hard scales all over its body and the pair of wings spread out like clouds hanging from the sky were incomparably dazzling.

At this moment, it was as if a myth had come to life!

After flapping his wings a few light times, Baichuan felt them lighter than ever before, as if the great mountain he had been carrying on his back had been cast off.

For a time, his confidence swelling, Baichuan directly began flapping his wings nonstop.

Yet all it brought him was fine sand blown fluttering into the air by the beating of his wings.

He himself had only barely floated up for a moment.

Well, slightly embarrassed, Baichuan glanced left and right—surely no one had seen that, right?

Otherwise he'd have to silence the witnesses.

Shaking his head, Baichuan finally realized that if he wanted to take off, it seemed he still couldn't do without a running start.

He looked at his newly grown hind claws—a pair sturdier and stronger than his front claws, claws strong enough to support his heavy body.

And precisely because of these hind claws, his tail fin no longer had to drag along the ground and hinder his movement.

After stretching a little, Baichuan decisively looked ahead at the soft sandy beach—it seemed he still needed to change location.

It was too soft here, hard to push off from; better to go farther away.

He raised his head and looked around, and before long he spotted a corner of the distant island where there was an extremely flat stretch of road, and the end of that road faced the sea.

In an instant, Baichuan's eyes lit up—wasn't this a heaven-sent treasure spot? Perfect for him to use as flight training ground.

Thinking this, he set his newly grown hind claws and front claws in motion, beginning to walk step by step.

It had to be said, after being used to crawling for so long, returning to walking on feet—four feet at that—Baichuan always felt something was off, as if each of his four paws had its own idea and walked its own way.

This wasn't because of any awkwardness, because the panel's evolutions had never caused him to need any breaking-in period like this.

Rather, it was because he kept subconsciously wanting to drop down and crawl with his belly scales, resulting in a lack of coordination in his body.

Like during his past life's student-era military training, when people under the drill instructor's pulling and gaze would start marching with arms and legs out of sync.

Now he was in a similar situation. He steadied his pace and thought about it—since that was the case.

Why not learn from animals like tigers or cheetahs how they run? For instance, the front paws leap up, the long body arches and contracts, driving the hind claws to leap along with it.

Thinking this, he tried it—and unexpectedly it really felt much more comfortable, and the speed wasn't bad either.

Because his body was long enough, soft enough, and the stride was large enough.

And so on this stretch of beach there appeared a strange flood-snake, bounding along like a cheetah or a husky (crocodile).

Before long, he crawled up onto that flat flight training spot from the side.

He gazed at the sea surface at the far end, where waves were constantly crashing and rolling—truly turbulent.

Taking a deep breath, Baichuan's gaze hardened and he got serious.

Now was his moment in peak condition; if he still couldn't fly, there really would be nothing more to say.

Finally, he once again gathered in the Ice Frost power emanating from his wings with its eerie cold.

Because he suddenly recalled a little piece of knowledge from his past life: hot air rises, cold air sinks.

If he kept the cold air running and added more burden to his wings, wouldn't that be foolish?

Everything ready, at this moment.

Baichuan's raised dragon head slowly lowered, no longer disrupting the fluidity of his whole body.

"Whoosh!"

With a sound of cutting through the air, Baichuan shot forward at extreme speed.

……

At the same time, elsewhere.

Just as Baichuan was once again preparing to fly.

The seabed.

At the spot where Baichuan had once split a grouper in two with a single fin strike.

In the seawater, drops of extremely viscous bright-red liquid drifted up and down, surrounded by wispy ribbon-like matter.

That was the derivative produced as the seawater slowly broke down these drops of viscous liquid.

At this moment, this small patch of sea had been turned by these few drops into a domain of wispy matter.

And with the departure of the true master of this place, presumably the innate威慑 pressure of a massive creature was gone.

These few drops of mysterious liquid began slowly emitting an extremely alluring scent.

This scent rapidly dispersed and spread through the seawater.

Soon, in the crevices of the surrounding coral reefs.

A large school of tiny, translucent little fish were drawn over.

They were like dogs seeing a bone, wolves seeing meat.

Famished, they rapidly flicked their tiny tail fins and swam over quickly.

Before long, they filled up a small patch of sea, their bulging round fish eyes fixed on the wispy matter swaying in the water, and began constantly opening their little mouths to suck at it.

In an instant, these darkening crimson wisps were quickly devoured clean, leaving only the few drops that had truly given birth to the wisps drifting up and down.

Seeing this, a few of the nimbler fish that had ventured closer immediately began flicking their tail fins first to scramble for them.

And with that one move, the entire school went berserk, beginning to snatch frantically.

In just a few breaths, the bright-red mysterious substance that had just occupied a small patch of sea vanished completely.

And at this moment, the true mutation had only just begun.

The school of fish that had just been fighting over the mysterious liquid like mad dogs began, one by one, to stiffen.

Looking closely, one could see strange bumps rising all over their bodies, as if something was crawling beneath their scales.

Truly bizarre beyond words.

Yet this strange state lasted only a few breaths before one pale-cyan fish began to swell all over—swell, swell, keep swelling—until it finally burst apart with a boom into a spray of bloody water, and that was that!

If one looked closely, it seemed one could still see a faint remnant limb left behind by this exploding fish, its shape bearing a striking resemblance to an eagle's claw.

The detonation of this pale-cyan fish was like a domino effect; among this school of fish, one after another began to explode in succession, turning into a stretch of bloody water.

At this moment, thick clumps of blood burst open one after another, then began ceaselessly mingling together.

In the end, within this stretch of sea, it transformed into an immensely vast blood mist.

And within the blood mist, some fish whose bodies had not exploded also began to be affected by the smell of blood, their fish-eyes turning crimson one by one.

Their eyes brimmed with savage bestiality and utterly irrational, ravenous hunger.

They began one after another to flap their fins, lunging and biting at those bizarre remnant limbs left behind by the explosions, or constantly opening and closing their mouths to swallow and filter this seawater saturated with scarlet liquid.

And as more and more fish began to die, the bloody water grew ever more abundant, and began to spread rapidly outward in all directions.

Enveloping even more distant regions and more fish within it.

Thus, even more fish began to be affected by this scarlet liquid and started turning on one another.

In the span of a single instant, this stretch of sea region, over fifty meters deep, was utterly transformed into a meat grinder.

A large-scale fish meat grinder!

(End of this chapter)