The squirrel’s fluffy tail flicked once. She hugged the top of the mast, staring at the shadow below. From its shape, it didn’t look like a fish, and its aura didn’t resemble a beastman either—rather, it was somewhat similar to those primitive beasts along the shore.
Wumu had already dived into the water, but most of his shadow overlapped with that thing’s shadow, making it hard to see clearly.
It was already dusk. The seawater’s visibility was poor, and from the swaying mast, Song Xu simply couldn’t tell what the situation of the battle below actually was.
The big tiger on the ship was especially restless. She stepped onto the gunwale, seeming to want to go down, but when her paw touched the water, she hesitated again.
Even if she was formidable on land—the king of beasts who could punch five-meter primitive beasts and kick twenty-meter giant snakes—in the middle of the ocean, she could only be a tiger trapped in a cage.
Song Xu could only tell from the violent rocking of the hull that the battle below was intense. If not for an overweight big tiger pressing the ship down, this boat would have long since been overturned by the waves churned up by that thing.
The tiger took two steps on the narrow deck, lifted her head, and called out to the squirrel, urging her to come down. The squirrel, having been momentarily distracted, slipped down, ran to the side of the boat, and plunged her head into the water.
—She was the type who would turn back to look even if she encountered an explosion.
With her head underwater, things indeed became a bit clearer. Enduring the slight stinging and soreness in her eyes, Song Xu first saw a body covered in dark green scales. It wasn’t Wumu—it was that big fellow.
Its body was too thick to look like a fish. Instead, it resembled a… crocodile or a lizard. But compared to the lizards and crocodiles on land, it was also different, with many mutations appearing on its body.
It had grown gills for breathing in water, while its nose and mouth had degenerated. Its four limbs had also degenerated into short stubs—if one didn’t look carefully, they might even be mistaken for fins. Only that single tail still allowed one to tell what its original form might have been.
Above this giant beast’s murky eyes grew shellfish, almost covering its eyes entirely, and its body was covered with barnacles, making it look even uglier and more grotesque.
It had a crocodile-like huge mouth, and inside that mouth was clamped Wumu’s tail. Wumu’s body couldn’t compare to this giant beast’s in thickness, but he was very long. With his tail stuck in the giant’s mouth, he could still coil tightly around that thing’s neck and part of its body.
A snake’s hunting was different from a tiger’s hunting. Most of the time, it didn’t look bloody; instead, there was a kind of slow, quiet feeling. Entangling, constricting—the gradually increasing force would make the captured prey slowly suffocate, or have its body crushed from the inside.
That big fellow was clearly uncomfortable from being coiled by the snake. It paddled its short, degenerated limbs and rolled in the sea, trying to use this method to break free from the giant snake’s entanglement.
It was quite cunning. The shellfish and barnacles growing on its body—things that limited its movement and made it slow—became its armor when facing an enemy’s attack.
As it flipped and rubbed about, those sharp shells and barnacles cut into the snake’s body, leaving one wound after another. At the same time, it increased the biting force in its mouth, its teeth sinking deeper into the snake’s tail.
Song Xu had seen Wumu fight with normal-sized crocodiles before. Compared to being completely unscathed when he faced three at once back then, the snake now was in a bitter fight. But the harder that big fellow bit, the tighter he coiled, showing no sign of loosening because of injury or pain.
Song Xu watched anxiously, wishing she could roar loudly, but when she opened her mouth, she gulped down a mouthful of salty seawater, gurgling.
She pulled her dripping head out and angrily pounded the boat. “Block its gills! Block its gills!” she shouted at the surface of the sea.
That thing was obviously not a local species. She guessed it was very likely once a beastman, who, like the tiger mother, had eaten too many primitive beasts along the coast, causing its body to swell and grow larger, losing its rationality. Then, because it tried going out to sea and stayed in the ocean too long, it eventually evolved gills and turned into a bizarre half-this-half-that sea creature.
Generally speaking, species evolution was very slow, but this place seemed very special, accelerating changes in beastman bodies. Song Xu felt that under such circumstances, although these gigantic wild beasts had a powerful and terrifying side, they must also have weaknesses. Since it had evolved gills, that meant it relied on gills to breathe in water—destroying those definitely wouldn’t be wrong.
From the moment the squirrel jumped down from the mast, rushed over, buried her head into the seawater, and then lifted it again, it was less than a minute, but the situation in the sea had already changed.
The big fellow that had sunk its teeth deeply into the snake’s body gradually could no longer maintain its biting force. It was forced to open its mouth wide, seawater surging in. Even if there were valves in its throat to prevent water from entering, for its degenerated state this was still a painful matter. Moreover, the giant snake twisted its body and tightly blocked the gills it had grown.
While entangled, the giant snake dragged it toward deeper parts of the sea. The surface of the water gradually became calm.
This calmness made the big tiger unable to stay calm. She remembered this strange thing. After seeing it, new grudges and old hatred drove the vengeful tiger to recall some things.
In several of her attempts to cross the sea, two times it was this thing that had rammed and overturned her boat. It was crafty and vicious—whenever it sensed beastmen passing through this stretch of sea, it would attack them. If she hadn’t been fierce enough, she would have almost become food in its mouth.
If it were on shore, the big tiger wouldn’t fear this thing at all. She had killed primitive beasts several times larger than herself. But it just so happened to be in the sea. Every time she encountered it there, she ended up in a sorry state. Even though she hadn’t died in its mouth, she had nearly drowned in the ocean.
“Roar!” The tiger let out a loud roar and still jumped into the sea.
She couldn’t possibly watch that ugly thing drag her cub into the depths of the ocean.
“Wait!” Seeing them jump into the water one after another, Song Xu grew anxious. She fumbled for the tool she had prepared—a rope twisted from bundles of vine stems—and quickly tied it around the big tiger’s paw, rapidly instructing her, “Mom, use this to wrap around that guy!”
And also, if they sank in the water, the rope might be able to pull them back up along with the boat. The snake had gone down too fast just now—she hadn’t even had time to react.
The big tiger resolutely entered the ocean and, going against her usual habits, forced herself to submerge her head as well. Tigers were, after all, not animals that lived in water. Even if they could swim, they were mostly accustomed to keeping their heads above the surface to breathe. They were not good at diving.
The big tiger wore a look of determination. The little squirrel wore a look of tragic resolve. But the battle between the giant snake and the monster in the sea was not as bleak as they imagined. At this moment, the giant snake already held the upper hand.
As a highly venomous snake, Wumu’s abilities were not only immense constricting strength, but also poison. It was just that usually, he didn’t even need to use poison before a fight ended.
This time, he had constricted the thing until its belly bulged, and his sharp fangs pierced through its abdomen. His venom needed only a single drop to poison a large water buffalo. Even for such a gigantic creature, under the injection and spread of his venom, it gradually lost the strength to struggle.
Entangled together, the giant crocodilian monster and the giant snake both looked like monsters in the dark green seawater. They slowly descended, snowflake-like tiny white plankton drifting around them, blood drifting out of their bodies like mist.
Even though it was no longer moving, the giant snake still did not release it, in order to prevent a last-moment counterattack.
Then, he heard movement from above.
A tiger had entered the sea.
Finally, the giant snake released the stiffened monster and swam upward. There was still a rosy, cloudlike blood mist dispersing around his body as he ascended.
The big tiger hadn’t even gone down three meters when the giant snake’s head nudged her upward from below.
With a splash, the big tiger, who had just entered the water, flopped wetly against the side of the boat, nearly tipping it over. The squirrel on the boat, not paying attention, rolled off along with the tilting boat and fell into the sea, smashing onto the head that had just surfaced—Wumu’s.
The squirrel sat up, stepping on Wumu’s newly transformed, dripping-wet hair. She lowered her head to look at his slender vertical pupils that had appeared from the intense battle, then happily hugged his head and planted several loud kisses on his forehead.
“That’s great! You’re okay!”
“Snake-snake, you’re really amazing! Oh my god, how can you be this awesome! So handsome!”
“That thing was so big—how did you beat it? With poison? You’re so poisonous! Venomous snakes really are the strongest!”
“Wuwuwu, I really thought we were going to die this time. Good thing we didn’t, otherwise I could only ‘you jump, I jump’!”
The giant snake, who had received such an enthusiastic welcome from the squirrel, had his head rubbed into a messy state. Then, suddenly, a splash of water sprayed over— the big tiger, who had already climbed onto the boat, was shaking off water.
The commotion was like a sprinkler truck passing right beside them. The excited squirrel was doused with cold water and immediately calmed down.
She jumped off the giant snake’s head and waved at him. “Come up quickly, let’s check if you’re injured anywhere.”
The giant snake obediently swam onto the boat and coiled around the edge.
Song Xu carefully examined the wounds on his body and let out an even louder scream than before. “Oh my god! They’re all cut up! My beautiful scales! This pattern isn’t even anymore! This wound is so deep—next time, even after molting, it’ll definitely still leave a mark, wuwu!”
The squirrel cried, frowning and fussing noisily as she treated the giant snake’s wounds. At this point, one had to thank the squirrel’s thorough preparations. Besides food, water, and tools, she had also brought medicine.
That kind of grass leaf could stop bleeding and disinfect. Whenever she accidentally cut herself on the sharp edges of shells while making food, or accidentally stabbed herself with a bone knife during the process of building the big boat, she would use this plant’s leaves.
At first, when the big tiger brought back this kind of leaf, Song Xu mistakenly thought it was for her to eat and ate two handfuls. Later, the big tiger went to gather more and slapped the leaves onto the snake’s body—onto the wounds that had developed slight ulceration from being soaked in seawater for a long time. Only then did Song Xu understand the use of this grass leaf.
After snake-snake adapted to seawater and no longer had ulcerated wounds, this kind of leaf ended up being used more often by Song Xu instead.
But she had picked especially many of these leaves to bring onto the boat, mainly to eat. The leaves were a bit bitter, but chewing them freshened the breath, and they were also good for cleaning teeth.
Now the entire stock was being used on Wumu.
“Just stay on the boat. Don’t go into the water anymore,” Song Xu reminded.
If there was a favorable wind, they would hoist the sail. If not, they could just stop and rest.
From this position, looking back, the coastline had become a thin line. The island they were heading toward was a blurry mass— a distance where moving forward felt uncertain, yet turning back felt unwilling.
“Was that just now also a beastman? Did he appear here because he once wanted to go to the island too? What exactly is on that island?” Song Xu lay beside snake-snake’s head, scratching under his chin, muttering to herself in a half-distracted way.
