Primordial Snailfish

[The streamer actually got away from that?!]

[I thought he was done for.]

[I never imagined he'd dare cancel the Exploration Bubble. I've got to hand it to him for that move.]

[Shadow Transformation can withstand deep-sea pressure because that pressure has no energy-based offensive properties. Monster attacks can still hit his real body.]

[Turning into a shadow is pretty unbeatable in some ways.]

[That last-second escape had my heart in my throat.]

[That Ghost is shameless! It's already so strong, and it still launches sneak attacks!]

[We didn't even notice the Ghost sneaking up.]

[Exactly. Even with our god's-eye view, we missed it. No wonder the streamer couldn't sense it either.]

Watching the messages continuously pop up in the chat, Xiao Hao sighed inwardly.

Perhaps he needed to start trying to rely less on the chat.

The viewers from another world couldn't always warn him in time.

The chat could offer support, but it couldn't be his foundation.

Xiao Hao quietly took that lesson to heart.

Opening the panel floating in the air, Xiao Hao focused on his Spirit Pearl count.

He had killed over two hundred Thorn Shrimp, yet gained only a little over a thousand Spirit Pearls.

The drop rate was a little low.

It seemed a substantial proportion of the lesser monsters were level 0.

After spending 80 Spirit Pearls to upgrade the Coral Shell Room to level 8, he had 1,220 left.

Xiao Hao upgraded his seven seahorses to level 7 and his mantis shrimp to level 8, leaving 100 Spirit Pearls in reserve.

Xiao Hao wanted to return to the Coral Shell Room first to take a look, but the expected warnings popped up in the chat.

[Don't go back! It's scratching at your window!]

[It's dangerous! You can't go back!]

[Calm down, everyone. The streamer can't see your messages anyway.]

[With his perception, he'll definitely notice! Stay calm, girls!]

[Look at his calm expression, then look at all your frantic messages. The emperor isn't worried, but his eunuchs are worried sick.]

Something about that struck Xiao Hao as odd.

The emperor isn't worried, but his eunuchs are worried sick?

Did the otherworldly viewers have an imperial era too?

Or had humans actually participated in the game before?

The mysteries kept piling up.

Forget it. I can look into that later if I get the chance. Staying alive comes first.

Xiao Hao wasn't surprised at all that the Ghost was scratching at the Coral Shell Room.

The one who understood you best was your opponent.

Xiao Hao had figured it wouldn't swallow its anger and would head straight for his window. He had only moved toward the Coral Shell Room to confirm his suspicions through the chat.

Since the Ghost is scratching at the window...

Xiao Hao switched on his phone's light.

[The streamer's asking to die!]

[Seriously, why not quietly kill monsters and farm Spirit Pearls? Why provoke it again?!]

[It noticed! Run!]

Without hesitation, Xiao Hao used Shadow Transformation and fled.

The Ghost chased after him, nearly grinding its two rows of large yellow teeth to pieces in anger. When it saw that he had vanished without a trace, it returned to scratching the window.

Following the chat's prompts, Xiao Hao repeated the same maneuver.

After several rounds, the Ghost realized it was being played.

He's stopping me from scratching the window!

So it simply ignored Xiao Hao and focused on scratching the window.

Once the chat told him that the Ghost was no longer paying him any attention, Xiao Hao could farm monsters without worrying.

His only fear was that the Ghost would suddenly show up halfway through.

Xiao Hao found a few lesser monsters at random and spent a while farming them. When the Ghost continued to ignore him, he finally relaxed.

Unfortunately, his luck was terrible. All the wild monsters he killed were level 0, and not a single Spirit Pearl dropped.

Xiao Hao decided to travel a little farther and hunt the last miniboss-the Primordial Snailfish.

With one seahorse dead, Xiao Hao no longer wanted to keep playing a drawn-out game with the Ghost.

He wanted to crush it as soon as possible!

There was a huge difference between bosses and lesser monsters. Lesser monsters were generally level 0-2, with even level 2 being relatively rare, while bosses were level 8-10.

He couldn't understand why monsters from levels 3-7 were missing.

Perhaps the game was manipulating things behind the scenes.

Riding the mantis shrimp, Xiao Hao soon reached the boss's location.

It was an enormous fish glowing with blue fluorescence.

About eight or nine meters long, the gelatinous fish resembled blue crystal jelly. Its entire body was translucent and fluorescent.

It was immune to physical attacks.

That was an absurdly powerful ability, but if Xiao Hao had to choose, he would still choose the mantis shrimp.

Choosing the mantis shrimp gave him a chance to turn the tables and kill the Ghost. Choosing the Snail Fish would only let him defend himself until he died.

He couldn't stay on guard forever.

Since it was immune to physical attacks, the mantis shrimp could only watch this time.

Xiao Hao released all seven seahorses at once, and their Shadow Ribbons wrapped around its body.

The Primordial Snailfish barely reacted.

Or rather, it had no fear.

Under Darkness Erosion, the parts of the Primordial Snailfish touching the Shadow Ribbons gradually lost their glow.

But before long, the glow returned to normal.

Frowning, Xiao Hao looked at the chat.

[It's no use. The Primordial Snailfish doesn't have much offensive power, but its recovery speed far exceeds the rate at which the seahorses drain its health.]

[Even if seven seahorses can drain 1% of its health every second, that's nowhere near enough.]

[Its self-regeneration restores at least 5% of its health per second. Seahorses can wear down low-level Primordial Snailfish, but they can't possibly wear down high-level Snail Fish.]

Xiao Hao's plan immediately fell apart.

If the seahorses can't wear it down, then neither of my two attack methods works!

Having little offensive power didn't mean it had none.

Two jelly-like antennae sprouted from the top of the Primordial Snailfish's head.

The wobbling antennae whipped toward Xiao Hao. Before those soft, limp attacks could reach him, the mantis shrimp sliced them into several pieces.

The severed jelly antennae fell to the seabed, then slowly wriggled back like worms.

This was the most ridiculous thing about the Primordial Snailfish.

Immunity to physical attacks.

Even the Deep-Sea Ghost probably couldn't kill it.

The antennae wriggled up beside the Primordial Snailfish, then hopped into its body and merged with it.

How am I supposed to kill a monster that's like modeling clay?!

Xiao Hao had no idea.

[The Primordial Snailfish has weaknesses too. It's afraid of fire. Flames are its bane.]

Xiao Hao grumbled inwardly.

Where am I supposed to get fire on the seabed?!

[Its next weakness is ice-type monsters. Freeze it, and its defenses become incredibly fragile.]

That tip didn't help him either. Where would he find an ice-type monster?

Even if he found one, he had no binding slots available.

The jelly antennae lashed out again. Xiao Hao simply had the mantis shrimp hack it apart, then send the pieces of its dismembered body to different locations.

Yet as Xiao Hao watched the constantly wriggling jelly, he began to question everything.

[It's no use. Dismembering it won't kill it either.]

Staring at the sticky mass of gelatinous jelly, Xiao Hao was at a complete loss.

Maybe observing it up close will reveal something.

The sticky jelly had only just been moved into the Exploration Bubble, and Xiao Hao was about to examine it carefully, when it melted!

What's going on?

Xiao Hao looked utterly bewildered.

[Hahaha, didn't expect that, did you?!]

[The Primordial Snailfish's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness.]

[Here's a little science lesson: its body is composed of a gelatinous substance that allows it to withstand the most extreme pressure. Any physical attack can be considered pressure concentrated at a point, so it's immune to physical attacks.]

[However, that's also its fatal weakness. Once that extreme pressure is gone, it rapidly melts and dies.]

[That's why Primordial Snailfish can only live in the deep sea. Deep-sea water pressure constantly maintains that terrifying pressure. As long as it's in the deep sea, its defenses are practically invincible. Leave the deep sea, and it dies.]

Xiao Hao had never imagined that the way to kill the boss was to use the Exploration Bubble!

No wonder not a single low-level Primordial Snailfish had approached him of its own accord when he was hunting them.

So it was because of the Exploration Bubble provided by the game system!

Xiao Hao suddenly remembered that the game had mentioned numerous functions waiting for players to discover them.

But this was his first time encountering such a way to discover a function-or to kill a monster.

Well, what I thought would be a dangerous hunt has turned into an assembly line.

The mantis shrimp passed pieces of its body into the Exploration Bubble one after another. Once the last piece melted, a game notification appeared.

[Spirit Pearls +550]

The monster had actually been level 10.

Xiao Hao felt as though a windfall had landed in his lap.

On second thought, that wasn't quite true.

Apart from him, probably no other player could kill it.

Just considering the need to hack it into pieces, what wild monster besides the mantis shrimp and the Ghost could manage that?

He hadn't expected the last miniboss to be so easy to kill.

With the difficulty suddenly dropping from hell mode to normal, Xiao Hao found it a little hard to adjust.

He promptly upgraded all seven seahorses to level 8, spending 560 Spirit Pearls. The remaining 90 were just enough to upgrade the Coral Shell Room to level 9, so he kept them in reserve.

There were still a few hours before nightfall.

Even the Coral Shell Room's maximum of eight thousand mana wouldn't hold up against several hours of its destruction.

But Xiao Hao wasn't worried at all.

He wanted it to keep scratching.

If it scratched all day, Xiao Hao didn't believe it could keep scratching through the night.

With that in mind, Xiao Hao simply went off to farm scattered wild monsters for a while. Aside from the 90 Spirit Pearls in reserve, he spent every Spirit Pearl they dropped on replenishing the Coral Shell Room's mana.

Xiao Hao wanted the Ghost to feel that he was struggling desperately on the verge of death.

To make that impression more convincing, Xiao Hao kept using Slowdown Cards.

A plan had already formed in Xiao Hao's mind.

A plan to turn the tables and kill it!