The Downpour Finally Stops, Departure

The next day, the rain was still falling, and the water level had risen considerably.

Bai Chuan even spotted a few bloated, partially decomposed human corpses drifting past with the current. He took a closer look and noticed the fabric of their clothes seemed to be linen.

This confirmed his guess from yesterday—he wasn't far from human habitation after all.

But given the scene before him, this wasn't just the rainy season. If his guess was right.

This should be considered a flood.

He had no idea what year it was now, or if this was still the world he knew. How many people would this flood claim?

After sighing a few times, Bai Chuan decided he would move out immediately once this was over.

He was indeed strong by nature's standards now, but when it came to facing humans, he was still far too fragile.

Think about it—tigers are strong enough, right? Brown bears too? Either could kill him.

But even those mighty beasts, when pitted against humans, were basically dead once targeted, even if they could kill a dozen or twenty people.

If such powerful beasts couldn't escape death, how could he, a venomous snake with glaring weaknesses, fight back?

Just a few generations of snake catchers who made a living hunting snakes would be enough to give him a hard time.

Having been human in his past life, he deeply understood: "Those not of my kind are bound to have different hearts."

Even humans fought each other to the death over nothing—how could they tolerate an alien like him?

When he wasn't strong enough, he'd better stay as far away as possible.

"Squeak~"

At that moment, a faint sound came from behind.

Clearly, that little rat had woken up too.

Bai Chuan glanced back and then ignored it, a trace of regret flickering in his eyes.

Yesterday, to test his theory, he had forcibly pinned the rat down, preventing it from resisting, to see if the panel would deem it unable to fight back and scan its info.

Unexpectedly, it worked. Unfortunately, its panel abilities were utterly ordinary, no different from a regular rat, except for one slightly stronger skill.

This fact shattered his fantasy.

Oh, that fantasy was that this rat might be like something from a novel in his past life—a special rodent carrying an unawakened rare bloodline.

But cruel reality told him: Sorry, stop dreaming. It's just a slightly tougher rat.

The only thing he felt he gained was this: the model abilities recorded by the panel weren't the species' racial stats, but those of the individual prey he had hunted.

Or more precisely, on the foundation of the species, if an individual had some opportunity, a particular ability might be abnormally enhanced.

That meant, perhaps one day, he could record some unique abilities belonging to specific creatures.

Five days later.

This torrential rain, which had lasted seven full days and nights, finally stopped. By now, the water level had already submerged the tree hollow where Bai Chuan had been sheltering.

In fact, on the third day, he had already left that hollow and climbed to higher branches. Worth mentioning was that the little rat, for some unknown reason, hadn't chosen to flee despite Bai Chuan kindly letting it go.

Instead, it followed him step by step up to the higher treetops.

Seeing this, Bai Chuan let it be. He had already given it a chance; if it didn't run, he couldn't be blamed if hunger struck and he ate it.

But now that the rain had stopped, it was time for him to find a moment to leave.

To be honest, these past few days he had seen too much chaos and endured several brutal battles. Faced with nature's vast calamity, countless creatures struggled desperately to survive—the scenes were truly shocking.

He had seen herds of deer risking their lives to wade through the water, trying to escape, while countless piranhas and crocodiles and other aquatic predators followed close behind, tearing into them, dyeing a large stretch of water red with blood.

He had also seen a former apex predator, driven mad by hunger, pick the wrong prey and unluckily bite an electric eel. In that moment, he witnessed the true power of electricity. Countless small fish floated to the surface, while that apex predator thrashed and convulsed wildly in the water, churning up huge waves.

Just watching that scene sent chills down Bai Chuan's spine. If it had been him, he couldn't guarantee he would survive in that electrified water. Even if he could withstand the current, he'd probably be stunned unconscious, sink, and drown.

That scene also made him abandon any ideas of hunting electric eels for now. No matter how much he craved their electric ability, he firmly decided not to touch them until he was sure he could take one down easily.

Touch one and die—who could handle that?

He had even seen one of his own kind, a king cobra, drifting from afar through the water, only to be ambushed and constricted by a boa underwater, strangled to death beneath the surface. A bolt of lightning struck from the sky, toppling a massive tree and affecting a wide swath of creatures...

After witnessing so many brutal scenes, Bai Chuan suddenly felt grateful that he had already eaten his fill before the disaster fully struck, and that snakes had an astonishingly long digestion cycle.

Fortunately, it was all over now. He cast one last look at the rat and began climbing higher into the treetops.

Having seen too many cases of underwater ambushes, and having experienced one himself not long ago—falling into the water during a fight with a strong enemy on a branch and being ambushed by a crocodile—Bai Chuan suddenly found himself resistant to that murky water.

That time, if he hadn't had the extra Danger Perception ability, he probably wouldn't have sensed the crocodile's attack. And even if he had sensed it, without the inexplicable Agility Lv1 ability, he might not have dodged that bite.

If either had been missing, he would have definitely suffered a severe injury that time, or possibly even died.

After this, he decided to avoid entering the water as much as possible until he gained the ability to breathe underwater.

Fortunately, he was in a dense forest. Countless branches crisscrossed between the trees, and with his abilities, he could still leave.

Three days later, Bai Chuan finally left the previous area and once again set foot on solid, stable ground. At that moment, he couldn't help but sigh—it had been too hard!

After that, he pressed deeper into the mountains.

As mentioned earlier, the area where Bai Chuan found himself was a stretch of endless mountain ranges, and the forest from before was near the foothills at the outer edge of those mountains.

From what Bai Chuan knew now, that place should be extremely close to human settlements, which was why a human corpse had washed over earlier. Judging by the clothing on that corpse, he guessed this world was roughly similar to the ancient world of his past life.

Of course, he couldn't be completely certain. He could only barely tell that the clothing material was something like sackcloth, and the style was very crude. As for the patterns and colors on it—forgive him, but with his current snake eyes, he couldn't make them out.

The information he had gathered was still far too little to analyze any decent specifics, and on top of that, he didn't dare go out and investigate.

In the end, his foundation was still too shallow!

He decided to burrow deeper into the mountains this time and not make contact with humans until he was invincible.

Along the way, everything was lush and green, the air filled with the sounds of birds and all kinds of insects.

For the first time, Bai Chuan felt that all of this was so beautiful.

In contrast, the place before had been like a hell.