Volume Two: Naked Primitive Accumulation of Capital - The Dance of the Turtle and Snake (Part Two)

The hill-sized shadow's back had already lifted the Torch Dragon Boat. Patches of green algae covered it like tufts of long hair. Only when the monster surfaced completely did Luo Qian see that it was an incomparably huge sea turtle. Two gleaming green eyes sat in its round head like lanterns, casting an eerie glow toward the enormous Silent Vortex nearby. It seemed wholly unaware of the uninvited guest on its hard shell.

The giant turtle's four thick legs emerged from beneath the sea and slowly paddled through the water, carrying it forward without a sound. On its back, Luo Qian relaxed a little. It seemed his being left "high and dry" here was pure chance. A turtle this enormous clearly had no interest in his little scrap of "meat"—he would not even fill the gaps between its teeth.

But the turtle's next move left Luo Qian unsure whether to laugh or cry. As it paddled along at an apparently leisurely pace, it headed straight for the Silent Vortex he had tried every way he could to escape!

The orange-red light of the Torch Dragon Lamp was steadily squeezed inward. The turtle stopped several hundred meters from the Silent Vortex, by which point the lamp's light had shrunk to a diameter of just five meters. Luo Qian could not understand what the turtle was doing. Wasn't coming this close to the dangerous vortex asking for death?

As Luo Qian puzzled over it, the water beneath the turtle suddenly churned. From his position above, its enormous body blocked his view. Beneath the surface, the turtle's belly heaved sharply, setting the surrounding water rolling. Its chest and belly swelled, then its huge mouth spat out a mass of ink-black water. The water shot forth like a kinetic cannon round. With a pop,