Sea Snakes

After eating the squid, Xia Qiu and Moo approached the island.

The island is about the same size as Jumada Island, but three-quarters of this island is occupied by mountains, with towering peaks that are shaped like swords.

The lower part of the mountain range is covered with green vegetation, but the upper part is bare rock and black dots.

On the south side of the island, there is a town and a recessed coastline.

Xia Qiu slowly approached the coast and found the location of the port. However, as she got closer, she smelled a foul odor.

It smells awful.

It tastes even worse than eating bananas and jujubes together.

What is this thing?

Moo had stopped moving, but Xia Qiu, suppressing her nausea, swam forward a short distance and reached a point thirty meters from the harbor.

There were rows of ships moored there, with peculiar shapes, resembling rubber boats but much larger.

The left and right sides of the ship resembled two huge brown rubber rods, with smaller pillars supporting them.

The ship can hold about ten people, has a small house, and two sails.

Can such a small ship survive on the Grand Line?

It was a ship, smaller than the Going Merry.

Moreover, the gunwales are relatively low compared to sailboats, making them easy to capsize by waves.

As you get closer, the stench becomes even stronger.

Or rather, it shouldn't be described as smelly.

It is a kind of tiny but dense odor molecule that makes people feel uncomfortable when they smell it.

It smells like a ship.

Xia Qiu was certain that the smell emanating from the ship made her feel extremely uncomfortable.

Xia Qiu could no longer bear it and moved away from the coast, but the stench still lingered in her nostrils.

It seems that the smell of this ship is a way to keep Sea King or fish away.

From a distance, you can only smell the stench.

However, once you get close, there will be a pungent smell, so strong that you can't help but smell it.

I don't drive on instinct; I have my own wisdom and consciousness, and I almost couldn't resist.

No wonder the squid wasn't killed; once you get close to the island, there are very few marine creatures around.

Marine creatures with a keen sense of smell would probably find it unbearable.

Even a faint stench from a distance of tens of meters makes it hard for the Moo to stay.

Is this place uninhabitable?

Xia Qiu frowned. This should be one of the starting points of the seven shipping routes. Is it uninhabitable?

As Xia Qiu travel along the coast, they find that the further they go from the shore, the fainter the scent becomes.

The odor is diminishing. Firstly, the density of odor molecules in the water decreases with distance. Secondly, the farther away from the island, the faster the ocean currents flow, diluting the odor.

Xia Qiu have been circling around until they reached the back of the island, where the scent was almost imperceptible.

The sea breeze, here behind the mountains, is strong, blowing through the cave above the mountains with a whooshing sound.

This place is nice.

Xia Qiu thought for a moment, then released a sound wave. Based on the information from the sound wave, he determined that the seabed was about 300 meters deep.

This water depth is considered quite deep, and it's already considered a marine cliff and a vertical strait.

This is quite rare in the East China Sea.

However, compared to the surrounding water depth, it is actually quite shallow, enough for it to inhabit.

However, in the sound waves transmitted from the coast, Xia Qiu discovered that the cliffs below the island were not flat, and in some places they extended inwards by more than ten meters.

These are cave entrances? And there's more than one?

There are also many cave entrances on the mountain range of the island.

Why are there so many holes?

Moreover, numerous, though small, sound waves appeared all around.

What kinds of creatures live here?

Xia Qiu dared not approach, and waited quietly.

But at that moment, the surrounding creatures rapidly approached.

Xia Qiu didn't take it to heart. These creatures were very small, the longest being only a dozen meters or so, and the smallest only three or four meters.

Even if it were a group of piranhas or sharks, Xia Qiu wouldn't be worried.

Their teeth may not necessarily hurt themselves.

Xia Qiu slowly retreated, and as the creatures drew closer, she saw what they looked like.

snake.

They were snakes, sea snakes.

Xia Qiu turned and ran, heading away from the coast in the direction of Moo.

Clap clap clap clap

The sea snakes rushed towards Xia Qiu, and as Xia Qiu turned around, they crashed into Xia Qiu and bit Xia Qiu body.

However, given the strength of Xia Qiu's scales and fins, their teeth simply cannot pierce Xia Qiu's scales or fins.

However, other parts are different.

Especially on the abdomen, several snakes bit Xia Qiu's wrists and feet, gnawing at them.

Moreover, many snakes appeared in the cave behind them.

Giant sea serpents, some over twenty meters, some thirty meters, and even some forty meters long, rushed toward this side.

Xia Qiu rushed off into the distance, fleeing this place in a panic.

There were many snakes, and they were very large.

This isn't important, because sea snakes have very weak, almost nonexistent, binding abilities. This is because most marine life is difficult to restrain; some have slippery scales, some have long shells, and some have unusual body structures. The second reason is that sea snakes also breathe with lungs. Although they spend most of their time underwater, their lungs make up a significant portion of their body, with some even occupying the entire body. When they coil around a sea snake, they actually force air out of its lungs.

This makes it difficult for sea snakes to entangle their enemies. More importantly, in the long course of evolution, scales and body structure no longer rely on entanglement as a means of attack.

The scales are widely spaced, and the body is slender rather than robust, etc.

Therefore, their size and number do not directly threaten Xia Qiu.

However, sea snakes are venomous, even highly venomous.

Sea snakes belong to a subfamily called the sea snake subfamily, which contains more than fifty species on Earth, and most of them are highly venomous.

Sea snakes are mostly related to cobras, and the subfamily Elapheinae is classified under the family Elapidae.

Sea snakes are generally believed to have originated from the ancestors of cobras who went to the sea and reproduced there.

Of course, sea snakes look almost entirely different from the cobras we are familiar with, with virtually no resemblance.

Sea snakes are different from aquatic snakes. The former refers to snakes that live in the ocean, while the latter mostly live in lakes, swamps, rivers, paddy fields, and ponds.

Although they both belong to the suborder Neoserpentes, one is in the family Elapidae and the other in the family Colubridae.

Snakes possess venom, but it is relatively weak and unlikely to kill.

Sea snakes are all venomous, and highly venomous, because, as mentioned earlier, they cannot be restrained and can only kill their enemies with their poison.

Or rather, it is precisely because of their venom that they can survive underwater and evolve into the sea snake family we know today.

Therefore, Xia Qiu dared not stay here any longer.

Run, run.

Xia Qiu rushed off into the distance at great speed, leaving all the sea snakes behind except for the one she had entangled.

Hey boss, you're running away again.

I won't fall for their trick this time.

When Moo saw Xia Qiu running this way, fearing that Xia Qiu would use him as bait again, Moo turned and ran, keeping a distance in front of Xia Qiu.

Xia Qiu retracted his tentacles, coiling them around the snake that had bitten him. The hooks on his tentacles pierced the sea snake's scales, leaving bloody marks on their bodies.

Xia Qiu ran further and further away, creating a long gap, and slowly stopped when no sea snakes were chasing her.

He released his tentacles, and the sea snakes fell off one by one, about six or seven in total, the shortest about three meters long and the longest seven or eight meters long.

In the Xia Qiu, some of these sea snakes had their lungs ruptured by the hooks and contractions of their tentacles, while others had their bodies pierced. All of them lost their ability to swim and slowly fell to the ground.

Seeing the sea snake fall, Xia Qiu immediately chased after it, biting the snake and swallowing it whole.

Xia Qiu wasn't worried about being poisoned by swallowing venom because the venom was mostly protein, containing toxins, mold, and non-toxic proteins.

A well-known question is whether eating a snake after it has killed its enemy will cause poisoning. The answer is no.

However, some venoms can damage the digestive tract and oral mucosa, and may not be completely digestible.

Therefore, it is not recommended to drink the venom.

Of course, Xia Qiu bit the heads of these venomous snakes and swallowed them whole, allowing the venom to be digested directly in his stomach.

Summer and Xia Qiu have extremely strong digestive abilities, and there is almost nothing they cannot digest.

They eat venomous snakes in Xia Qiu, then quietly wait for the snakes to digest and for the venom to take effect.

Sea snake venom is composed of neurotoxins, but most of it is cytotoxic. Unlike cobra venom, it primarily damages voluntary muscles rather than nerves.

Of course, the effects are the same as those caused by neurotoxins: muscle weakness and respiratory paralysis leading to death.

Sea snake venom is highly potent, but its effects are slower to develop compared to terrestrial snake venom; in some cases, the effects may not be noticeable for 30 minutes to 3 hours.

However, once it occurs, it can be fatal very quickly.

Xia Qiu didn't know how potent the sea snake's venom was, so she could only wait patiently, but she had already taken the best possible precautions.

Xia Qiu ate sea snakes for one reason: snakes can be poisoned by their own venom, but the venom has a much smaller effect on the snake itself. For example, if a cobra bites itself and injects venom, the injury it suffers is much smaller than that of a human, although it is still fatal.

Therefore, people eat a few sea snakes in Xia Qiu in the hope of obtaining this anti-venom effect.

By consuming the sea serpent, you will gain Evolution Energy Evolution Energy, which can be used to heal injuries.

Cytotoxins can damage your own muscle cells, and if they are repaired, the onset of the injury will be greatly slowed down.

The venom secreted by only six or seven sea snakes is already scarce compared to their enormous bodies.

In addition, Xia Qiu's body has been strengthened several times and is very strong, so he should be able to resist the invasion of toxins.

In these four situations, Xia Qiu is very likely to resist the toxins, and even if she is injured, she is unlikely to be seriously injured.

With thorough preparation, Xia Qiu remained calm and patiently waited while recording the information about the onset of the poison.

This is not a bad thing.

Because as long as you can withstand the toxins, you can hunt sea snakes and evolve venom sacs to have venomous fangs.

Xia Qiu are eagerly anticipated.

What's wrong, brother? Why aren't you moving? Did you get bitten?

Moo, watching Xia Qiu from a distance, slowly approached and nuzzled against him.

Xia Qiu lashed out at him with her tail.

You were running pretty fast just now.

Moo was relieved after being hit; if his older brother could hit people, then he didn't need to worry.