Departure

"Goodbye, Mr. Black Fish."

On the ship, Marcel stood there, waving farewell as he watched Black Fish gradually disappear into the distance.

Captain Joezer, Kafur, and the others stood beside him. As they watched Black Fish vanish from sight, sadness appeared on their faces.

But then Joezer patted Marcel on the shoulder and said, "We've reached port. We need to unload the cargo."

"Yes."

Marcel nodded heavily, then walked to the loading area and began moving the goods.

His father's revenge had been avenged, and he felt strength coursing through his entire body. Yet there was still a trace of regret in his heart. He did not know when he would be able to see Black Fish again.

But he believed they would meet again someday.

Deep in the waters far from the island, Xia Qiu looked at the merchant ship in the distance, snorted, circled around, and headed toward the back side of the island.

After a day and a night of sailing, the merchant ship arrived at the island the following morning and began unloading its cargo at the harbor.

Xia Qiu planned to use this island as his next habitat, so he kept away from the merchant ship and circled around the island to avoid it.

Xia Qiu first circled the island, mainly exploring the waters around it, as well as its perimeter and size.

This island was huge, far larger than Naruto Village.

The island was about six kilometers long and roughly two kilometers wide. By a rough estimate, it covered twelve square kilometers, nearly three times the size of Naruto Village.

There were two settlements, one on the east side and one on the west, separated by mountains and jungle. The mountains were not as tall as those on the island where Naruto Village stood.

The waters were fairly deep. Both the eastern and western settlements had deep-water harbors, with depths exceeding ten meters, enough to accommodate ships over a hundred meters long in this era.

As for the south, the mountains could be clearly seen. Yet the land between the mountains and the coast was relatively flat, though no one lived there.

The water here was even deeper, nearly fifty meters deep. Like a cliff face, it extended straight down to the seafloor.

And just five hundred meters offshore, the water was already a hundred meters deep.

The moment Xia Qiu entered this area, he was surrounded by a pack of Great White Sharks. The longest was nine meters, while the shortest was around five meters.

Such sizes had already exceeded both the average and maximum lengths of Great White Sharks on Earth.

No wonder no one lived here. With such a pack of ferocious sharks around, few people would dare approach.

These sharks were not intimidated by Xia Qiu's enormous size. They had hunted Blue whales over thirty meters long before, and the first thing they did upon seeing Xia Qiu was rush forward to attack.

With sharp teeth and powerful jaws, these sharks had few enemies in these waters.

But they posed no threat whatsoever to Xia Qiu.

The strongest among them could bite with a force of sixteen hundred pounds, while the weaker ones managed only eight or nine hundred pounds.

That kind of force could not break through Xia Qiu's defenses at all. It could only leave shallow dents.

More importantly, their mouths were limited in size. They could not fit Xia Qiu's body inside, nor could they bite down vertically, so they could not unleash their full bite force.

Moreover, Xia Qiu's scales were smooth. When they bit at an angle, their teeth could only slip, dispersing the force.

Under such circumstances, being able to use forty percent of their bite force was already quite a lot.

Thus, their attacks could only leave white marks on Xia Qiu's body.

What Xia Qiu had to worry about were their attacks on his fins.

His fins had hard spines and were enormous and sturdy, but they were also easy for sharks to gnaw on. They could leave deep teeth marks, and after a few bites, they could tear the fins apart.

So they still posed a threat.

As the sharks attacked, Xia Qiu launched his counterattack.

Bang.

Xia Qiu swung his body, sweeping his tail and sending a shark flying.

Then he opened his huge mouth, swallowed one shark into it, and clamped his teeth shut, biting the shark's middle directly into his stomach.

As for the head and tail, Xia Qiu had no desire to eat them.

Crunch, crunch.

Xia Qiu bit them one by one, killing the sharks in succession.

There had been more than a dozen sharks in the pack. After Xia Qiu ate six of them, the remaining sharks scattered and fled.

Xia Qiu caught up with one and bit it to death, but the rest had already vanished.

They were too fast.

Xia Qiu stopped chasing and slowly drew back his body. A strong scent of blood filled the surrounding waters.

After eating sharks, Xia Qiu had developed broad olfactory membranes, giving him a shark's powerful sense of smell. He could detect the scent of blood from extremely far away.

But like sharks, Xia Qiu would not go mad from the smell of blood.

A powerful sense of smell was merely one ability for detecting prey.

Even if his olfactory membranes detected blood and amino acids, he would still distinguish prey based on the type of scent.

Sharks did not go mad when they encountered blood. Rather, the information conveyed by the blood told them it was food, prompting them to hunt.

Among such scents, however, human blood was not food sharks particularly desired. Sharks preferred blood, bile, and amino acids from marine animals.

Thus, sharks generally did not actively hunt humans. Nor were sharks truly that aggressive by nature. Aside from feeding, they rarely launched attacks on their own.

Most attacks occurred because people, animals, or even objects had entered their habitat.

Xia Qiu had seen in the documentary Shark Ocean that sharks killed an average of five people a year, though some years the number could reach ten.

But one thing was certain: every year, fewer people died in shark attacks than from taking selfies, and most of those killed had attacked sharks before.

Sharks were quite timid. When they encountered unfamiliar creatures or objects, they felt afraid and became wary.

At that point, any action you took that they perceived as an attack would be considered threatening.

So the best thing to do after encountering a shark was to remain still, ignore it, have no intention of attacking it, and do not block its way.

If it did not sense a threat from you, it naturally would not see you as a threat either, and would swim past you.

Sharks other than Great White Sharks, especially smaller sharks, rarely attacked people unless you attacked them, their vision was poor and they mistook you for a seal or sea turtle, or you kept blocking their path.

Many people who enjoyed diving hoped to encounter sharks. Not only would they not avoid them, they would even try to take photos with them.

Some places even promoted diving sites where sharks could be encountered, and Shark Diving had become something many diving enthusiasts pursued.

Xia Qiu had once tried Shark Diving, but he arrived too late. Humans had entered those waters, and the noise they made had driven the sharks away. It had to be called a regret.

So if one wanted to encounter sharks, one had to go early.

Xia Qiu slowly returned to the shore. The water here was deep enough for him to come and go freely.

Thus, Xia Qiu planned to make this place his habitat, periodically clearing out the large sea fish nearby to keep this stretch of sea peaceful.

Even when hunting, aside from venturing into the deep ocean, he would also travel to waters in other directions.

That way, he could claim part of the area as his territory and cultivate it, while also minimizing the chance of being discovered by other humans.

Next, he could spend a fairly long period growing.

His four enhancements had already given him enough of an advantage over marine creatures of the same size.

As long as he remained cautious and did not provoke the strong, he would not face much danger.

All that remained was to grow step by step.

Xia Qiu planned to stay here for as long as possible.

To live an ordinary, peaceful life without threats.

The gates of Impel Down slowly opened, and a prisoner was escorted out of the prison by a Marine warship.

Outside the prison, a huge pirate ship was docked, its deck packed with people.

The prisoner looked at the ship that had come to collect him, as well as the figures standing aboard it, but his expression darkened.

How could I have fallen so low?

I absolutely cannot become like you people.

As he thought this, he bent his legs slightly and shot forward, landing on the pirate ship like a cannonball. He looked at the leading figure, split his lips, and revealed a savage grin.

Xia Qiu would never have imagined that, in the near future, this prisoner who had just been released from Impel Down would shatter his peaceful life and turn his world upside down.

For a long time, he would be Xia Qiu's strongest enemy.