Black Tide
The customs and way of life in the Nantu Archipelago were somewhat like those of Southeast Asian countries in Cheng Sheng's previous life.
The people of Nantu had been fierce and hardy since ancient times.
Nantu people could eat venomous creatures like centipedes, spiders, and scorpions raw with their drinks, keep ferocious crocodiles and pythons as pets, and venture into forests and out to sea to camp and surf during typhoons...
But there wasn't a single Nantu person who didn't fear the Black Tide!
It was like an instinct that had long been etched into their bones, far deeper than their fear of ordinary floods and ferocious beasts.
Since transmigrating here, Cheng Sheng had been doing his best to understand, explore, and fit into the world he now inhabited.
The Black Tide was what he found most intriguing and puzzling in the process.
The cramped bedroom was dim, and rain pattered against the small south-facing window.
Cheng Sheng lived in an old apartment building, its lower exterior walls covered in ivy. Several leaves were pressed tightly against the glass outside, looking at first glance like a multitude of little hands. Translucent streaks of water ran down their edges...
Instead of turning on the light, Cheng Sheng sat down at his desk and switched on the bulky desktop computer.
Compared with his previous life, this world's technology was undoubtedly much less advanced.
Of course, he couldn't be sure. It was also possible that Nantu, where he currently lived, was economically underdeveloped.
The people from neighboring Dongyue Country, who often came to visit and vacation, all had bright, stylish clothes and belongings. They looked far more advanced than the locals.
The light from the computer screen illuminated a corner of the bedroom. Cheng Sheng patiently logged into several of his usual chat apps, then opened a browser and typed "Black Tide" into the search bar.
Cheng Sheng's home still used dial-up internet from who knew what era, with a connection as slow as a crawling snail.
Then again, this "setup" he despised so much had made his younger sister, Cheng Yue, so envious that there was no telling how many times she had hidden under her blankets and cried at night...
Cheng Sheng waited a long time without the webpage loading, but the chat app icon in the bottom right corner started flashing.
"Beep-beep-beep-beep-"
Cheng Sheng clicked it open. A friend with a green dolphin avatar and the nickname [Cai] had shared a video link with him.
Then came a second, a third, a fourth...
In just two or three seconds, [Cai] had frantically shared more than a dozen links with him!
Cheng Sheng, used to this, scrolled to the top and looked at the first link's title-[Shocking, terrifying, whatever you do, don't click!!!]
It was followed by another five or six bold red exclamation marks.
Cheng Sheng hesitated for a moment, then "resolutely" clicked it.
This time, the connection was surprisingly fast, and a video page popped up instantly.
The footage showed a cluster of low earthen buildings, houses made of mud and wood that had been almost completely submerged by floodwater. It looked like a village somewhere in Nantu.
It was unclear whether it was in Qingsha City on Wuda Island. It was the rainy season, and rain was falling in many places. Villages and even streets being flooded was a common occurrence.
For the first few dozen seconds, the video showed nothing but the flooded village. Just as Cheng Sheng was starting to feel bored, something suddenly appeared in the footage, and his hand tightened around the mouse.
It was an enormous python!
It was so big that Cheng Sheng couldn't describe it. Less than half its body nearly blocked the entire flooded village road.
It looked a little like an anaconda, but it was black all over, without a single marking. It also seemed to have a single horn on its head and membrane wings on either side of its cheeks...
The moment the horned anaconda appeared, a thin layer of black mist immediately rose from the muddy yellow water. The footage also began to flicker and blur, as if some mysterious magnetic field were interfering with it.
Someone in the video screamed, or perhaps they were praying...
Cheng Sheng instinctively leaned closer to the computer screen, trying to get a clearer look. Just then, the giant horned anaconda in the footage suddenly turned its head-
"Snap!"
The video ended!
"Whew-"
Cheng Sheng let out a short breath. Without any hesitation, he closed the page and quickly clicked the second video link.
The title of this video link was simple and direct-[Location: Sucha Street, Qingsha City, Wuda Island. Time: 2:54 p.m.]
In this city...
2:54 p.m...
That was twenty-five minutes ago.
As Cheng Sheng thought this, the page popped up and the video began to play.
This video was far more intense than Cheng Sheng had expected.
To be precise, it was gruesome!
The video opened with several Dongyue people dressed like tourists walking down the street under umbrellas. Then, without warning-"Bang!!"
Their bodies exploded simultaneously, sending flesh and blood flying in an instant!
Immediately afterward, the awning-covered stalls and buildings lining the street...
Exploded one after another!
Massive chaos erupted...
"A bomb?! A terrorist attack?"
Cheng Sheng's eyelids twitched violently, and several words instinctively flashed through his mind.
"No, it doesn't look like a bomb!"
After watching for a while, Cheng Sheng noticed something was off. He rewound the video and watched the instant the Dongyue tourists died over and over again.
When he dragged through the footage almost frame by frame, he finally saw it-
At the very beginning of the video, a blurry black shadow suddenly shot out above the street on one side of the frame and slammed straight into the unlucky Dongyue people!
"So all those things afterward... were smashed by this thing too?"
Wooden or steel stalls, awnings, concrete buildings, living people... before that blurry, barely visible shadow, they were all as fragile as tofu, reduced to pieces in an instant!
When Cheng Sheng realized this, a chill shot up from the bottom of his heart, making the hairs on both his arms stand on end!
He stared blankly at the computer for a while until the beeping of a new message brought him back to his senses.
[Cai: Done watching?]
Cheng Sheng glanced at it, ignored it, and clicked the third link.
-"Sorry, the address you are trying to access is no longer valid."
The link was dead.
Cheng Sheng frowned, moved the mouse, and clicked the fourth link.
-"Sorry, the address you are trying to access is no longer valid."
The fifth.
-"Sorry..."
The sixth...
Every link after that was dead, and even the first two videos he had already watched were gone.
Cheng Sheng gave up clicking and sent a message back: "I only watched the first two. All the rest are dead."
"What a shame."
[Cai] sent a regretful emoji.
"The ones after those were even better."
"Where did you get them?"
"From the Dark Forum. Didn't you say you were interested in this a few days ago?"
"Damn... even the Dark Forum is down! (Terrified)"
"By the way, are you coming out tomorrow? It's so boring at home..."
Cheng Sheng ignored the messages that followed.
He leaned back against his chair, the faint light from the computer screen falling on his pale cheeks.
"Is this the Black Tide?"
Cheng Sheng listened to the rain beating against the window and gazed at the ceiling as he murmured.
There were several things Nantu people generally agreed on about the horrors of the Black Tide.
First, terrifying monsters existed within the Black Tide, and it was also the source of all bizarre incidents.
Second, anyone-or rather, any living creature-that entered the Black Tide would be swallowed up by it and never return.
Third, there was no pattern to the Black Tide's appearance. No one knew how it formed, and no one knew what lay beyond it. Most of the time, the Black Tide stayed in the open sea, but according to research and statistics, the Black Tide surrounding most of Nantu was gradually contracting inward...