Chen Mu stood naked, endlessly scrubbing the clothes in his hands, which were almost reduced to rags. To leave not the slightest trace of blood behind, he washed and scrubbed them over and over. His already ragged shirt no longer bore any resemblance to a garment. Even then, he seemed unsatisfied, looking determined to knead it to shreds. Perhaps the cold water had stimulated him, but some of his strength finally returned, and his exhausted perception recovered a little.
As Chen Mu battled his clothes, he remained alert. Suddenly, he seemed to catch a dark shape flickering in the water nearby. Night lay thick over the jungle. Without the faint reflections on the water and his greatly improved ability to see in darkness, he would never have noticed it.
His movements stopped abruptly. He watched the stream warily and, almost instinctively, activated the Dual-Polarity Thunderball Card.
The instant the five little thunderballs appeared, a dark shape shot out of the water straight at Chen Mu's chest. With a crackle, a perfect pentagonal shield of light appeared before him.
Crack, crack, crack!
The three sounds of shattering light shields came so close together that they seemed like one. The dark shape struck with tremendous force. The first shield burst into a spray of shattered light with a sharp crack, and the shape continued shooting toward Chen Mu without losing its momentum. Fortunately, the Dual-Polarity Thunderball Card was extraordinary. A second shield formed in the blink of an eye, only to shatter with another crisp crack. Then came the third shield-and it shattered!
Finally, the fourth shield stopped the dark shape dead. In its faint glow, the creature's appearance was at last revealed. It was slightly thicker than a finger and about thirty centimeters long, resembling an eel or a water snake