Chapter 940: Danger

Chapter 937: Danger

In the cold seawater, Li Huowang moved his webbed feet, holding a military knife in one hand and Yang Na's hand in the other, as he followed Ling'er. Glancing down, Li Huowang felt a strange sensation as he hovered above a vast desert, as if he wasn't swimming in the water but floating in mid-air.

"Would their Si Ming truly be in a place like this?" Li Huowang wondered. "Last time, the Si Ming's projection was a factory. What could it be this time?" He diligently scanned his surroundings, searching for anything that might be a Si Ming's projection. However, the area was incredibly barren. He could see from one end to the other, with nothing but occasional fish drifting by and vast stretches of sand on the seabed. It didn't seem like there was anything substantial enough to serve as a Si Ming's projection. If it were a projection, it should at least be active and capable of posing a threat. Just like the previous drug manufacturing operation, where, if Li Huowang was correct, the drug lords were the Si Ming's limbs.

Just then, Li Huowang felt a tug on his arm. He turned to see Yang Na. Unable to speak with her oxygen mask on, she simply pointed upwards towards the water surface above them. Li Huowang carefully observed and noticed ripples spreading across the "inverted" surface of the sea. "It's raining outside," he realized. "Attention! Everyone return to the ship immediately! A typhoon is heading this way, I repeat, return to base immediately!" Zhao Shuang's anxious voice crackled in their ears.

Hearing this, everyone immediately stopped what they were doing, turned, and swam towards the surface. The ocean weather was notoriously fickle, and the typhoon had arrived surprisingly fast. As Li Huowang reached the surface and removed his goggles, he was shocked to see distant dark clouds rolling in like a collapsing sky, bearing down on them. Watching the thunder and lightning rumble ominously within the clouds, Li Huowang swallowed hard, his face instantly turning pale. "What is going on?!" he thought. "Could this truly be a Si Ming's projection?! Why is this Si Ming so powerful?!" He reminded himself that he was a Si Ming. If a previous Si Ming's projection was just a human, then what kind of entity could project such a terrifying presence before them?

"Get on the ship, quickly! They've found us! This is an ambush!" Li Huowang yelled at the top of his lungs to those around him. It was clear that after their successful sneak attack last time, the Si Ming from the other side was not about to let Li Huowang and his companions repeat the same trick. Whatever this phenomenon was, it now seemed they had been ambushed from the start.

Sheets of seawater lashed everyone's faces, but at this point, they paid it no mind, swimming with all their might towards the distant, bobbing cruise ship. The waves were growing larger, but fortunately, Li Huowang and the others had their diving equipment. Since the surface wind was too strong to swim against, they decided to dive underwater to quickly approach the ship. Yet, even underwater proved exceptionally dangerous, with strong currents swirling everywhere; several times, Li Huowang was nearly swept away.

Spotting the barnacle-covered hull of the cruise ship directly ahead, Li Huowang swam quickly, then burst out of the water, reaching for the iron ladder on the ship's side. But just as his hand was about to grasp the ladder, the ship, with an ominous creaking sound, lifted into the air! It was as if an invisible, giant hand had grabbed the vessel. As the cruise ship rose, Li Huowang saw what had been obscured behind it: a towering pillar of seawater reaching between the sky and the sea! "A waterspout!!"

Faced with such immense natural power, Li Huowang could do little. His only immediate action was to push his companions' heads back under the water. "Don't surface! Go to the seabed! Bury yourselves in the sand!" he shouted. Running was clearly impossible; their only chance of survival was to dive deep to the seabed and minimize their exposure to the surface chaos.

Amidst this chaos, Li Huowang suddenly felt a shadow fall over him. When he looked up, he was instantly overcome by a powerful sense of suffocation. The cruise ship, which had just been swept up, spun in the air and was now directly above him, plummeting down with the rain, crashing straight towards him. A piercing ringing erupted in Li Huowang's ears, and his body instinctively moved. He desperately tried to dive as deep as possible into the water. Before he could swim more than a few strokes, a powerful shockwave from above sent him flying through the water. Fortunately, there were no other hard objects in the area, and Li Huowang's body largely slammed into a submerged sand dune. The impact stopped the ringing in his ears, replacing it with a deafening roar.

Feeling a slight return of strength, Li Huowang immediately pulled himself out of the sand dune. He then found himself face-to-face with the severed head of Ba Shengqing. It seemed to still be alive, as its tattooed eyeball blinked faintly while looking at Li Huowang. "Gu Shen... dead?" it mumbled.

Li Huowang suddenly remembered something and immediately looked up, searching for Yang Na. The entire cruise ship had broken apart, and its contents were sinking vertically towards the underwater desert like the carcass of a dead whale. Li Huowang searched anxiously, when he suddenly noticed something moving in the upper left. He turned to look and realized it was Ba Nanxu, half of her body crushed and flattened. From her appearance, she must have been struck by the ship's wreckage. She was no longer wearing her oxygen mask and was swimming frantically, seemingly searching for something among the debris. Although she appeared to be moving, Li Huowang knew that with such injuries, she wouldn't last much longer, especially since the two Si Mings who governed pain were dead.

Next, Li Huowang spotted Qing Wanglai in the water. He was alive, and seemingly unharmed, pulling Zhao Lei towards an area clear of falling debris. When he saw Chen Hongyu's corpulent body tumbling uncontrollably, Li Huowang quickly propelled himself with his fins and swam towards her. But just as he managed to stabilize Chen Hongyu's body, he saw an iron plate directly impaled in her face. Corruption was dead too. "Yang Na! Yang Na!!!" Li Huowang frantically searched his surroundings, his heart pounding, but she was nowhere to be found.

Just then, a snow-white hand touched Li Huowang's shoulder from behind. His heart leaped with joy, and he immediately turned, only to see a "mermaid." It was indeed Yang Na, but now only her upper torso remained; her lower body had been severed by something during the recent chaos. Intestines and organs spilled from the wound, mixing with blood that diffused into the seawater. In the water, Yang Na looked like a mermaid with a grotesque red tail. She appeared to have been dead for some time; her skin was exceptionally pale from blood loss, the combination resembling a withered rose, imbued with the beauty of death. Propelled by the underwater currents, Yang Na's lifeless body swayed its "tail" and circled around Li Huowang.