The situation was a little different from what Song Xu had imagined.
The island she was currently on was not their original destination, and the island she had seen from the sea when she woke up, at a farther distance, was not it either.
Along this straight line, there were actually three islands distributed.
When they were riding the boat on the sea, what they saw was only the first island, which was their destination.
As a big snake with no fur, heavier weight, and able to swim, Wumu was the first to be slapped off the boat. He rolled and rose and sank in the waves, and in the end reached the range of the first island. At that time, the big tiger was still tightly clinging to the wooden boat, pressing the little squirrel under his belly and continuing to surf.
The big tiger, whose weight was also very heavy, in the end together with the wooden boat, was washed to the vicinity of the second island.
And the little squirrel, the lightest in weight, still clinging to an empty fruit shell life ring, was like a feather drifting with the waves, floating the farthest, arriving near the third island.
Three islands, three people, evenly arranged.
Compared to the little squirrel who, because of being harmless and cute, was directly taken back to the tribe by the orca beastman on the third island, Wumu on the first island was not so lucky.
He was beaten by the waves and briefly passed out for a moment, and when he surfaced from the water again, he did not see any trace of the tiger or the squirrel. What he could see were only the nearby islands.
Wave after wave had beaten them into a sorry and dizzy state, and at the same time had delivered them to their destinations at the fastest speed.
Wumu did not find the boat around, so he decided to go ashore. He thought that both the tiger and the squirrel had been washed onto the island.
The marine beastmen living on this island were shark clansmen. They were famous sea killers. Because of their ferocity and the numerous types within their clan, this allowed them to occupy the largest first island.
Because of the special nature of the island, half-beastmen from the land would come here year-round seeking metamorphosis. They usually arrived at the first island, so the shark beastmen on the island were accustomed to half-beastmen occasionally emerging from the sea.
Normally, the shark beastmen on the island would, depending on their mood, tease these pitiful fellows or ignore them, and some with worse temperaments would carry out attacks.
When Wumu approached this island, the one staying in this direction was a belligerent great white shark beastman. He opened his mouth full of serrated teeth and swaggered over in front of Wumu, observing this half-beastman.
He looked somewhat like a sea snake. It could be seen that his beast transformation had already reached the later stage. Generally, half-beastmen in this kind of situation had no rationality, and only knew to launch attacks at whoever blocked them.
The great white shark blocked the front, waiting for the other party to crash into him, so he could stretch his body a bit.
Recently, the winds and waves at sea had been frequent. There had not been any land beastmen coming over for a long time, and he was so bored he was about to go to the third island to quarrel with those hooligans.
However, Wumu stopped. He recognized that the one in front of him was a beastman, so he opened his mouth and spat out several fragmented words: “Island, Song Xu, at… Black forest, boat, to, island.”
The great white shark did not understand what this muddle-headed half-beastman was saying, and he also did not have the patience to distinguish it. What business could half-beastmen who came here possibly have? Wasn’t it all just wanting to enter the island to gnaw stones and metamorphose.
He directly cracked his mouth and answered maliciously: “That’s right, what you want is on the island, but I won’t let you pass!”
Would Snake Snake tolerate this provocation? He had just lost the squirrel. Hearing this, his face wrinkled, instantly turning into a ferocious snake head, and he lunged to bite the great white shark blocking the way.
“Hmph, you think our tribe is somewhere you can come whenever you want, useless land beastman! Watch me tear you apart and scatter you into the sea to feed the fish!” The great white shark also rushed forward.
The seawater churned, threads of red floating up to the surface. The two giant beasts tearing and biting each other swam beneath the sea surface, dragging red trails that spread around, and after a moment were diluted by the seawater.
The bloody smell attracted other shark beastmen. A swordtip shark with a pointed head and a hammerhead shark with a hammer-shaped head arrived at the same time. They were astonished to discover that the companion who often rested in this nearby sea area, that strange-tempered, fight-loving Jianchi, was floating on the surface with rolled eyes and white belly exposed.
“Did he lose the fight? Even Jianchi lost, are we still going up?”
“I’m not going. I only thought Jianchi was eating some prey here and wanted to come over and ask him to share a bite. Who knew it was a half-beastman. Forget it, forget it.”
“What’s wrong with Jianchi? Is he dead?”
“Probably poisoned. Didn’t Banlie get stung by those jellyfish on the neighboring island before and look exactly like this.”
“Should we do something about him? Let’s just drag him away. Yeah, where did that half-beastman who beat Jianchi into this go?” The swordtip shark said, and with quite a bit of same-clan affection, used his pointed head to poke the great white shark lying belly-up, wanting to push him away from this place.
The half-beastman was quietly watching the two shark beastmen discussing from the water. The big snake still had several poisonous fangs extended from his mouth, despite the many torn wounds on his body. In his not-very-clear mind, he was analyzing whether he should attack these two new beastmen.
At this moment, the great white shark, who had been poked awake by his companion’s pointed mouth, struggled: “…This lord can still fight, don’t touch me! This lord is the fiercest around here, anyone who sees me has to avoid me…”
That statement was actually true. Jianchi had been roaming and provoking trouble around the three nearby islands since childhood. Not to mention the orca beastmen who were their natural enemies and had poor relations with them by nature—even the jellyfish beastmen on the neighboring island who didn’t like to mingle with them were annoyed to death by him. Whenever they saw him, they would turn around and leave, too lazy to bother with him.
And the fact that he woke up so quickly from Snake Snake’s severe poison was also thanks to years of provoking jellyfish and getting poisoned so often that he had developed experience with it.
The hammerhead shark helped push the great white shark toward the island and advised him a couple of times: “Your eyes can’t even roll back properly anymore, stop thinking about fighting. That half-beastman has no idea where he went. Forget about him.”
Most of the other clansmen on the island didn’t care about those half-beastmen who came from far away anyway. After all, they would go to the sinkhole on the island to gnaw stones and then leave. They wouldn’t stay here.
This was a mixed shark-clan island. Anyone could come and go as they pleased. It wasn’t like the orca tribe, which was extremely exclusionary and would hunt any unfamiliar beastman who came close. Of course, if a clansman hunted an unfamiliar beastman, they wouldn’t interfere either.
Only Jianchi would provoke every half-beastman who came. Mainly because everyone around here was annoyed with him and too lazy to fight him.
The big snake lurked in the seawater, followed behind the great white shark being pushed away by his companions, and swam to the island.
After going ashore, the three shark-clan beastmen all transformed into humanoid form. Of the two pushing, one had a long pointed nose and long chin, the other had a big head. The pushed great white shark was a young man with short black hair and dark circles around his eyes. When he spoke, his serrated, snow-bright teeth clacked loudly.
After reaching the shore, the great white shark Jianchi rolled over and sat up again, insisting on going back into the water to continue looking for that poisonous half-beastman to fight. But he couldn’t even stand steadily, and his head slammed into the ground again, smashing out a pit.
“There isn’t any half-beastman. We didn’t see anyone. He must’ve left.” The two companions tried to persuade him.
If Song Xu were here, she would be able to vividly describe the interaction between these three—an unlucky guy drunk and causing trouble, and his two friends.
Splash—water sounded, and a big snake head emerged from the sea, staring fixedly at the three of them.
Long-nose pinched his own nose: “So he really didn’t leave. What now, fighting?”
Big-head touched his own head: “He seems to be saying something?”
The great white shark grew irritable: “Who cares what he’s saying. If you’re brothers, then come hack him with me!”
Wumu repeated to the three of them his request to find someone, because after arriving on this island, he also hadn’t sensed Black Forest’s or Song Xu’s presence. He wanted to know whether the two were deeper inside the island.
However, in his current state, his language function had degraded rather badly. And the squirrel translator with super comprehension ability wasn’t here. The three didn’t understand. The big snake also realized they couldn’t understand him, so he decided to enter the island to search on his own.
The great white shark still wanted to stop him, but land was the big snake’s domain. The great white shark had already been poisoned senseless in the sea, let alone after leaving the water. Without transforming into beast form, he couldn’t contend with such a large snake. If he transformed into beast form on land, he could only roll around like a spindle and rely on weight to crush people, which to the big snake was equivalent to a useless attack.
The big snake walked past this great white shark beastman who staggered while walking, and focused on going onto the island to find people.
The island was bare, all rocks, without a single flower or blade of grass. In Wumu’s not-so-clear mind, a thought surfaced: Song Xu definitely wouldn’t like this place.
The big snake, carrying still-bleeding wounds, passed by several older shark beastmen. Those old sharks, who were chatting about the recent decline in the tribe’s birth rate, glanced at him indifferently. “Another half-beastman came this year.”
“In the past few years, there have been fewer half-beastmen coming too.”
A star shark beastman saw the big snake holding his head high, looking like he couldn’t find his direction, and thought he didn’t know where to go. Some half-beastmen, although they managed to reach the island, didn’t know what to do next, and would look this confused.
He kicked the big snake’s long tail and casually pointed in a direction for him: “Hey! Hey! The sinkhole is over there.”
Wumu understood this sentence. It was giving directions. He quickly headed toward the indicated direction to look for the tiger and the squirrel. Of course, he couldn’t even remember now why the other party had directly pointed the way without him asking. His brain was currently a single-threaded processor, with only one thought left: forward!
The island’s sinkhole was at the center. There was water accumulated at the bottom year-round, and it was the place where the clansmen fetched fresh water. The appearance of a big snake drew the attention of two water-fetching beastmen. They were two female great blue sharks, a mother and daughter.
“Eh? Another half-beastman came, it’s a snake beastman. Snakes haven’t been seen for a long time.”
“I remember dozens of years ago there was also a snake that came. That one was really fierce, attacking beastmen on sight and even poisonous, poisoned several of us… What is he doing?”
“Looking for something? Aren’t the stones right by his mouth? What is he still looking for?”
When half-beastmen came here, as long as they ate a kind of stone in the sinkhole that emitted a pale blue glow, they could undergo metamorphosis. It wasn’t that difficult. The hardest part was actually the journey to get here.
But the half-beastman in front of them, with stones clearly everywhere right next to his head, instead looked like he couldn’t find his direction. His head turned all around, his snake tongue flicked out frequently, yet he just wouldn’t lower his head to eat.
