Underground World resources were inferior to those of the Surface World in every respect. This was also the direct reason why the various struggles in the Underground World were so exceptionally brutal.
In the Underground World, everything had to be fought over. Food, minerals, energy... all were key targets of competition.
Yet even with the struggle reaching such extremes, hardly anyone ever set their sights on the rivers beneath the earth.
Compared to the Surface World, the Underground World's only real advantage might be water. Its crisscrossing, interconnected waterways and its lakes of various sizes, scattered across the land by the terrain, held far more water than those aboveground.
The resources in the water were no less abundant than those on land. In some respects, they were even richer. Yet in the Underground World, despite its abundance of water, very few people truly dared to exploit what lay beneath the surface.
The reason was simple. The water in the Underground World was extremely dangerous!
Water in the Surface World was dangerous too, but it was far less so than in the Underground World. Inland especially, there were few overly dangerous creatures in the rivers—at most, crocodiles, piranhas, and the like.
The lakes merely contained more water-element monsters. They were few in number and not particularly strong.
Even in the most dangerous open seas, the terrifying sea beasts capable of swallowing a large ship with ease or even wiping out an entire fleet, though formidable, were even rarer. With so many fleets traveling back and forth across the sea, they might not encounter a single one in several months.
The waters of the Underground World were far more terrifying than those of the Surface World. They were a horrifying expanse capable of devouring even peak-level powerhouses. Most terrifying of all, no