Shadow Seahorse

Xiao Hao placed the eight pitch-black eggs on the folded bloodstained cloth.

The blood on the cloth visibly seeped into the eggs, each one devouring the surrounding light like a tiny black hole.

Or rather, they gave off a black glow.

There was a faint sheen to it, too, much like the black-and-gold color of the invitation.

Soon, as though the eight eggs had drunk their fill of blood, they began to squirm.

Like Venom in the Marvel movies, they morphed into shape.

The newborn seahorses were nothing like ordinary seahorses in the real world. Black-and-gold bone spines rose from their dorsal fins, adorned with porcelain-white stripes, while the membranes between the spines resembled black gauze.

Their heads were shaped like horses' heads, but their snouts were slender cones, with a small circular opening at the tip of each gleaming black-and-gold spike.

Their chests and bellies bulged outward, their trunks consisted of numerous sharply angular bony rings, and their long, slender tails had four-sided cross sections. The tails curled inward, and a closer look revealed that they were covered in barbs.

Each Shadow Seahorse was around twenty to thirty centimeters long, its pitch-black, round eyes fixed on Xiao Hao.

Although they were inside the Coral Shell Room, surrounded by air, the Shadow Seahorses floated as if they were underwater.

These were his guardians?

Never mind how strong they were-their looks were off the charts!

On the game panel hovering in midair, the viewer comments grew increasingly dense.

[Aaaaaaaah!!!!]

[So these are Shadow Seahorses!]

[Power and looks in one package. I'm so jealous!]

[Early on, guardians mainly rely on their troops, but they fall off later. The most broken thing about seahorses is that they stay useful even in the late game!]

[If you could change them after binding, the top players of our race would probably replace all their troops with Shadow Seahorses!]

Even through the game panel, Xiao Hao could feel the envy pouring off the screen.

Still, amid the flood of chaotic information, Xiao Hao picked out the key point.

"Once bound, they can't be changed."

This wasn't like other games.

Other games gave you a weaker hero at the start, then made you spend money or grind for a while before giving you a powerful one.

When playing those games, you could switch heroes.

But the most screwed-up thing about this survival game was that you couldn't switch!

That key point suggested there was a limit to binding heroes-or rather, guardians. Otherwise, there would be no need to switch; you could simply bind more.

And since the comments said they couldn't be changed, and even the top players couldn't get them despite wanting them, the number of binding slots clearly had to be small.

Filled with anticipation, Xiao Hao opened the guardian information page.

Guardian (troop type): Shadow Seahorse (juvenile)

Attributes: dark, water

Quantity: 8/10

Level: 0

Reserve troops: 0

Skills:

Shadow Transformation: Shadow Seahorses can transform into shadows. Movement speed increases while in shadow form.

Darkness Erosion: Shadow Seahorses excel at using dark energy to erode their enemies' lives, continuously draining enemy HP. As long as darkness exists in this world, the erosion ignores defense.

Darkness Domain: Darkness Domain and Darkness Erosion complement one another. All enemy units within the Darkness Domain suffer Darkness Erosion.

Stacking: Shadow Seahorses fight in coordination. Each additional stack of Darkness Erosion proportionally multiplies the rate of enemy HP loss, and the Darkness Domain expands accordingly.

After reading the Shadow Seahorses' detailed information, Xiao Hao finally understood just how broken they were.

Assuming one drained 1% HP per second, eight could drain 8%, wearing an enemy down to death in under two minutes.

Most outrageous of all, the Darkness Erosion skill ignored defense!

Unfortunately, the quantity was 8/10. The binding limit was probably ten.

No, wait.

Judging solely by their skills, the Shadow Seahorses were absurdly powerful.

But if that were really the case, the comments wouldn't have said they couldn't beat the ghost.

Xiao Hao kept reading the comments. Perhaps they could help him avoid the game's traps.

[Hehe, do you think he'll assume he's invincible now?]

[Shadow Seahorses are strong, sure, but low-level ones drain way too little HP.]

[The main problem is how much this game screws you over. Whether a wild monster is level 50 or level 5, its HP is always just 100.]

[Yeah, 100 HP in this game represents a percentage, not its actual HP.]

[You think a Deep-Sea Ghost only has 100 HP, but it actually has thousands. Draining it would take forever...]

Xiao Hao's mouth twitched.

He'd known it couldn't be that simple!

This game was full of traps!

He had to hurry up and level up next.

Time to steer these viewers a little.

Seemingly talking to himself, Xiao Hao said, "The game prompt said to collect Spirit Pearls to level up, but how do I collect them...?"

Sure enough, his prompting coaxed an answer out of the viewers.

[Treasure chests might contain Spirit Pearls.]

[Don't count on treasure chests. The main way to get Spirit Pearls is still killing monsters...]

Hmm...

Made perfect sense.

Spirit Pearls were used to level up, making them equivalent to experience points. Killing monsters to gain experience was standard game design.

While pondering this, Xiao Hao suddenly noticed that the fingers on his right hand were flickering in and out of sight.

What was going on?

Xiao Hao opened his personal information page.

Under personal skills, Xiao Hao discovered that he had gained four skills!

Shadow Transformation!

Darkness Erosion!

Darkness Domain!

Stacking!

Players could actually possess their guardians' skills!

[Hehe, our streamer's dumbfounded now, huh?]

[Players can only get all the skills of troop types. For a Battle General, they can only pick one skill.]

Ignoring the other teasing comments from his otherworldly viewers, Xiao Hao activated a skill.

Shadow Transformation!

Xiao Hao's entire body, clothes and all, became a mass of shadow. He moved like the shadow of leaves shifting in a gentle breeze beneath the blazing sun.

Xiao Hao quickly grew accustomed to his new way of moving. As he became more familiar with the skill, his footwork grew increasingly flashy.

[Is it really that smooth?]

Once he deactivated the skill, the mass of shadow reverted to Xiao Hao's physical body.

Xiao Hao felt utterly drained. His legs buckled, and he collapsed onto the bed.

He'd never expected using a skill to consume so much energy.

It seemed he had better avoid using skills unless he absolutely had to.

Fortunately, aside from these active skills, Xiao Hao had also gained a degree of night vision, and his physical fitness had improved significantly.

Now, looking through the floor-to-ceiling window, Xiao Hao could see roughly ten meters away.

It took quite a while for Xiao Hao to recover.

"I wonder if that monster's gone."

[It's gone, it's gone! Hurry up and kill some monsters!]

[Lmao, he can't see the comments you're posting here.]

Xiao Hao raised his eyebrows.

Yeah, sure, sure.

He couldn't see them.

Xiao Hao gently turned the doorknob and stepped outside again.

"Woooo-"

The drawn-out cry of a gigantic creature still echoed in the distance.

It sounded exceptionally clear in the deep, dark seabed.

As he stepped onto the slightly muddy, dark-red ground, the cold sensation kept prickling at Xiao Hao.

He hadn't forgotten the Prehistoric Spiny Shrimp twenty meters from his door.

He would start with that one.

Despite having night vision, Xiao Hao kept his phone's flashlight on.

Sometimes, light could give a person courage.

As he gradually approached the Prehistoric Thorn Shrimp, Xiao Hao began to make out its appearance, and cold sweat streamed down his body.

The Prehistoric Spiny Shrimp looked nothing like the shrimp people normally ate!

Its enormous stalked eyes resembled the bulging eyes of a tentacled monster. Its pair of segmented, spiny antennae looked like two giant centipedes sprouting from its head, and paddle-like fins grew along both sides of its flat, crocodile-like body.

They called this fucking thing a shrimp?!

The flesh beneath the head of the several-meter-long Thorn Shrimp split open.

That was nothing else.

It was its mouth!

Its round maw was packed with countless blade-like teeth as it roared at Xiao Hao!

That roar sent Xiao Hao's heart pounding. Fear burrowed into his marrow like an incurable blight, and his teeth chattered uncontrollably!

The whites of Xiao Hao's eyes filled with blood vessels as he stared fixedly at the Thorn Shrimp before him.

He couldn't run.

The moment he turned around, he would die!

The Prehistoric Spiny Shrimp had no patience. It lunged ferociously at Xiao Hao!

Its blood-red maw, as wide as a manhole cover, bore straight down on Xiao Hao. Its writhing, blade-like teeth gleamed sharply, even reflecting his phone's flashlight.

Xiao Hao trembled all over. It was his body's instinctive response.

The gigantic maw aimed for Xiao Hao's head. He could clearly see those densely packed blades working like a meat grinder, still chewing fragments of bone and flesh.

At that moment, Xiao Hao instinctively recalled the comments.

They had said it would attack if he came within two meters.

He was a good seven or eight meters away! Why was it attacking already?! He hadn't even summoned his guardians yet!

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