Changes In The Sea

When he sent out the Golden Armours, the Snow Plains Lord had said, “If the intruder isn’t dead, don’t come back,” but it was the anger speaking, not him. Even if the intruder wasn’t dead, he wouldn’t send the soldiers he painstakingly trained to die. However, that sentence did come true.

The soldier’s individual skills were actually pretty average, they were trained to work in a team and their opponents were always humans or large desert beasts, not small agile bugs that crawled in and out of their armour and shirts.

The moment the bugs attacked, the soldiers who were always so calm couldn’t keep their cool anymore. The beasts they were ridding on were stomping around irritably from the insect bites, twisting left and right but they couldn’t shake off the pain from the bites.

The soldiers without their neat formation weren’t as intimidating as before. In addition to the manic movements of the beasts they were riding, the situation was a mess.

The silknoses that were hiding between the soldiers had planned to fly away from the disaster but before they could fly high, they got caught by the beetles that started to fly. They were only trained to trace objects, they weren’t trained to fight so in this battle against the insects, they lost immediately.

The mixture of painful cries, screeches from the silknoses and metals clanking were a pain to the ears but the battle didn’t last long. Those that managed to escape early on in the fight had left the circle of insects but the unfortunate ones, even if they managed to survive until now weren’t able to last any longer. The distressed men had become food for the bugs. Soon, only skeletons would be left.

Those who escaped were running towards Snow Plains City with the belief that they would be safe as long as they reached the city grounds. However, to their misfortune, they encountered a group of people that had attacked the city multiple times.

If they met encountered the usual fierce and mighty golden armour soldiers, these people would not attack them but they had encountered this distressed batch of soldiers who looked like they were fleeing, not attacking them would be a crime to the swords they were holding.

The Snow Plains lord waited patiently for a few days. Then, he felt the loss of the soldiers.

The soldiers were all personally enslaved by him. If it were some common low-level slave, he could feel their death but he couldn’t care much. It didn’t matter if they were assassinated or got caught in an accident, he just didn’t care. The golden armour soldiers were different. Ever since he sent them out, he had always paid attention to them. The cut to their connection caused by death felt like a direct punch to his heart. It felt like his skull was cracked open and it couldn’t be saved.

The troop went off to follow the trail of the golden armour soldiers left when they were chasing after Shao Xuan. As they followed it, they couldn’t find any traces of them. The people that attacked them had got rid of all evidence, not even a bone or a stone was found. In addition to that, the climate and winds of the desert had covered most things when the troop was dispatched.

The troop only found something when they arrived at the area where the soldiers were attacked by the bugs. They were petrified when they saw it.

They could only feel the chill in their backs under the hot sun. Their teeth were chattering while looking at the scene. Even the bravest of them couldn’t walk closer to inspect.

The vast desert, metal armour and thorn clothes were covering skeletons. The skeletons were half-buried by the sand, only the armour and sharp weapons that were exposed glimmered under the sunlight.

On the other hand, Shao Xuan who had dived into the sea was finally still for a moment.

Shao Xuan thought he was standing at the seafloor but with his supervision, it turned out that he was standing atop something like an underwater mountain. The two sides were slanted down reaching the deeper parts of the sea. He didn’t see what was at the deeper parts as he didn’t have the time to do so.

Where he stood at was the energy source for the force that dragged him down.

Looking at his surroundings, Shao Xuan noticed it wasn’t much flat but it was still quite broad.

He had been submerged long enough if he continued to stay underwater he would drown. He thought of saving up his energy and swimming to the surface. The sea beasts had already left, maybe because of the appearance of the large beasts, there were no fishes around. There probably wouldn’t be any other beasts appearing for now.

This was the opportunity!

However, as he swam upwards, the current changed its course of flow.

The change wasn’t like those from a beast, it was the huge shift as if a whirlpool would form.

The change happened fast, Shao Xuan couldn’t even escape and only held on to the uneven ground he was standing on.

There was a whirlpool forming right before Shao Xuan but nothing could be seen from the surface. The eye of the whirlpool was where he was at.

Physics would tell, as this slab of stone didn’t reach the seafloor, the water could be flowing from the bottom.

It was as if there was a suction that sucked away Shao Xuan’s body heat, dropping his temperature as low as the freezing seawater was. As he felt his senses numbing, he quickly activated his totem power. It flowed through his body raising it his body temperature to a normal range. He could feel his senses coming back.

On land, if he had activated his totem powers in the mountains, many predators would feel it so if he wanted to hide from them, he wouldn’t use his totem powers until right before he needed to fight.

It was then, as Shao Xuan prepared to face the beasts that felt his powers activate he realized that no beasts showed up. Not even a fish!

The pulling force from his surroundings was getting stronger by the moment, the speed of the whirlpool was increasing too.

Shao Xuan felt the scab on his cut rip open. His blood flowed out and into the sea.