Deep Sea Sojourn, Whale Sharks' Natural Nemesis

Jing Chen did not push the boat too fast, keeping it at a normal speed.

At first, the journey was smooth, and they encountered no Soul Beast attacks. But after traveling nearly a hundred li from shore, things changed.

A six-thousand-year White Shark launched an attack on him. It was two or three times the size of his small boat.

As the White Shark rammed toward them, Jing Chen released the Time and Space Divine Tower at top speed, drawing both himself and the boat into it.

Yi Yi's body rapidly expanded as it entered its combat form, swallowing the grain-of-sand-sized Time and Space Divine Tower.

This was a maneuver Jing Chen and Yi Yi had practiced many times before setting out to sea. Now that they used it in actual combat, their coordination was exceptionally smooth.

The enlarged Yi Yi dropped into the water. Though it was in the sea, it was not actually touching the water.

Yi Yi's black fur gleamed with dark light as intense spatial fluctuations spread around it. It had activated its spatial abilities.

The Dark Demon Evil God Tiger was a land Soul Beast and was not adept in water. Once it entered the sea, it would be fortunate not to drown, much less fight.

To allow Yi Yi to battle at sea, Jing Chen had come up with this solution.

Yi Yi used its own spatial energy to forcibly push away the water around its body, creating a dry environment for itself.

This allowed it to remain in the ocean while moving as though it were walking on level ground, making combat much easier.

After pushing away the seawater, Yi Yi was essentially suspended in midair, much like flying.

This was also an application of spatial power, following the same principle that allowed Jing Chen to make objects float in midair within the Time and Space Divine Tower.

This use of space seemed miraculous, but it was actually fairly easy to achieve.

After Jing Chen came up with the idea, Yi Yi had learned it successfully in less than an hour of practice.

Facing the charging White Shark, Yi Yi calmly swung out its right paw.

With that swipe, the seawater ahead split in two, while the White Shark that had been struck flew diagonally downward in a straight line.

The relatively clear seawater was dyed red. That blow had torn through the White Shark's skin, and blood flowed uncontrollably from its body.

Yi Yi plunged into the sea and activated its wind-element ability, using it to propel itself rapidly toward the White Shark.

The White Shark ultimately could not escape death. Yi Yi devoured it whole, while Jing Chen did not collect its corpse.

The meat of shark-type Soul Beasts was unpleasant to eat, carrying a strong urine-like stench. Keeping the corpse would only make trouble for himself.

After the battle ended, Yi Yi spat out the Time and Space Divine Tower. Jing Chen first brought out the boat, then emerged himself and continued sailing onward.

Since the boat could run as long as the Soul Power Milk Bottle supplied it with energy, Jing Chen did not need to keep pouring Soul Power into it.

He left the boat's power on and allowed it to sail forward automatically while he sat back and cultivated at leisure.

Yi Yi lay lazily atop his head. Even while sleeping, the little fellow remained alert to its surroundings.

With its current strength, its senses were extremely sharp. It could detect any Soul Beast aura within several li.

If a Soul Beast approached them, it would alert Jing Chen.

Whenever he was hungry or tired, Jing Chen entered the Time and Space Divine Tower to deal with it. Everything was fairly convenient.

After he and Yi Yi entered the Time and Space Divine Tower, he had the grain-of-sand-sized tower float in the air rather than fall into the sea.

Five days passed quickly. Based on the boat's speed and the amount of time he had traveled, Jing Chen calculated the distance he had covered.

He was now more than eleven hundred kilometers from the coast and had officially reached the deep-sea region.

Along the way, he encountered attacks from quite a few Sea Soul Beasts. Without exception, Yi Yi dealt with them all.

Ordinary large ships could also encounter Soul Beast attacks at sea, but not nearly as frequently as he did.

That was because ships were too large. Ordinary Soul Beasts found it difficult to take them down and thus would not easily choose them as targets.

Jing Chen, on the other hand, was riding in a small boat. He was far too easy to attack. If they did not attack him, who would they attack?

Jing Chen could not have been happier about these frequent Soul Beast attacks, though there was one small imperfection.

It would have been better if the attacking Soul Beasts had been older. The strongest Soul Beast they had encountered so far was only a little over fifty thousand years old.

Soul Beasts of that age did not provide much improvement for Yi Yi, making them somewhat dull to devour.

After all these battles, Jing Chen had gained a relatively clear understanding of Yi Yi's combat ability at sea.

He could now basically make his decision. For the next two or three years, the ocean would serve as their long-term hunting ground.

When fighting in the deep sea, Yi Yi was certainly not as strong as it was on land, able to display only seventy to eighty percent of its usual power. This was Yi Yi's disadvantage.

But when facing Sea Soul Beasts, it also possessed a huge advantage: its size.

Most Sea Soul Beasts were fairly large, especially shark-type and whale-type Soul Beasts.

Once Soul Beasts of that kind reached ten thousand years, none of them were smaller than Yi Yi in its combat form.

Yi Yi, which counted as large among land Soul Beasts, instead appeared somewhat small before them. Yet that was not a disadvantage—it was an advantage.

Yi Yi could cling tightly to their bodies, then stab the Evil God Hook into them and begin draining them.

Sharks and whales had no arms. It was difficult for them to shake Yi Yi off, so they could only let it devour them without being able to mount an effective counterattack.

Using this tactic, Yi Yi could kill shark-type and whale-type Soul Beasts with ease.

It was far simpler than fighting them head-on. Against them, Yi Yi's combat strength was at least doubled.

It was precisely because of this advantage that Jing Chen decided to make the ocean his new hunting ground.

"This island should be... to my front right." Jing Chen sat in the small boat, holding a map in one hand and a compass Soul Tool in the other as he determined his direction.

He had bought every ocean map he could find. The one he was looking at now covered the sea northeast of the continent.

Humanity's development of the ocean was limited, which mainly meant there had been little hunting of marine Soul Beasts.

However, ordinary fish were still caught in considerable quantities. Fishing fleets had existed since ten thousand years ago.

These ocean maps had gradually been compiled and drawn by fishermen based on what they had seen.

Many small islands in the ocean had also been discovered by them. People had landed on and explored some of those islands, while others had never been visited.

The island Jing Chen wanted to visit now was one that had been discovered but never set foot upon.

Originally, he had not planned to land on any island, because he had not yet decided whether to make the ocean his long-term hunting ground.

Now that he had made up his mind, he needed to find an island like this as a foothold in the ocean.

Then he could stay on the island while Yi Yi hunted Soul Beasts in the surrounding waters, which would be more convenient.

After confirming the island's location, Jing Chen began sailing toward it. Along the way, they continued to encounter Soul Beasts.

The Soul Beasts Jing Chen most liked to encounter were whale-type Soul Beasts. They were easy to kill, and they also yielded Whale Rubber.

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