1099 Salted Fish

As Lin Huang was running on the surface of the frozen water, the ocean beneath was filled with all sorts of sea monster carcasses. All of them had died from the continuous bashing into the ice.

"Are these sea monsters on Ecstasy? Why are they so crazy?" Lin Huang looked puzzled as he watched the sea monsters under the ice that were killing themselves over him.

He could clearly sense with his Divine Telekinesis that those sea monsters under the ice seemed to have lost their mind when they bashed into the ice. They ignored the ice blocking their way as well as their friends that were dead.

"I think the system set the monsters in this stage to go into a frenzy," said Bloody that was in his sleeve through voice transmission, "Maybe they only have one order in their head when they sense players, which is to attack them. They seemed to be hypnotized.

"Although they have imperial-level combat strength, monsters on this stage aren't gifted with normal intelligence. They're even dumber than the bugs that we encountered in some of the checkpoints. I suspect it's the Stairway Tree's system that set it that way on purpose to lower the difficulty."

"Why do I feel it's actually increasing the difficulty?" Lin Huang could not help but voice his opinion. "They go into a frenzy as soon as they sense the players and attack the players as if they've lost their minds. Moreover, during the frenzy, their speed and attack strength experience an obvious boost. They even gave up on attacking sea monsters of other tribes that were in their territory, whereby the players became their sole target. Isn't that more difficult?" 

"It's more difficult on the surface, but in reality, the difficulty level is lower," Bloody shared a different opinion. "Look at these sea monsters. Under such a frenzy, their attack mode is the same. They know they can't break the ice wall, but they don't even try to figure another way around it. This stage is purely to test one's ability to break through it head-on. If these sea monsters have ordinary intelligence, they would've had more advanced techniques when going after the players compared to what they're doing now.

"Let's use the simplest strategy as an example. They don't even need to attack the players strenuously now. All they have to do is to find a key location where the player will definitely pass by and gather everyone there. The player will then fall into the trap automatically."

Lin Huang just realized that he did not think it through earlier after hearing what Bloody said.

As they chatted, a gigantic black silhouette was approaching rapidly beneath the ocean.

Terrifying waves rumbled on both sides of the ice just when Lin Huang sensed that something was wrong. The waves were up to 10,000 meter high now.

The Enchanted Fairy merely waved her sleeves, and the insane waves turned into two massive icebergs.

Meanwhile, the giant beast beneath the ocean had its mouth wide open as soon as the waves came. It was going to swallow Lin Huang together with the icy path beneath his feet.

However, the massive waves on both sides of the ice path turned into gigantic icebergs just when it opened its mouth, and it happened to bite into them.

Lin Huang heard cracks before gory blood gushed out of the sea king monster's mouth like a waterfall. Even a few of its teeth cracked and fell, creating turbulent waves on the sea.

What made Lin Huang not sure whether to laugh or cry was that this sea king monster's mouth was then filled with the two icebergs. Its upper and lower jaws were opened to the widest. Since the bottom of the icebergs were much bigger than the top, it could not even spit them out now.

At the moment, the gigantic sea king monster seemed to have two giant weights shoved into its mouth. It fell into an awkward situation whereby it could not bite into it, close its mouth and neither could it not swallow the icebergs.

Since the ice path beneath Lin Huang's feet was connected to the two icebergs, the sea king monster's entire head was stuck. It could not move despite attempting a few times by whipping its body about, but its effort was to no avail.

The sea king monster's eight big, googly eyes were staring at Lin Huang. It looked like it was going to cry. Nobody knew whether it felt wronged or if it was hurting.

Lin Huang even sensed that it was revealing a human expression of awkwardness and embarrassment. He was not sure if that was an illusion.

After chuckling at it without showing any sympathy, Lin Huang thought he should snap a photo of such a scene that was hard to come by for memory's sake.

He activated the camera on his Emperor's Heart Ring and took more than ten high-resolution digital photos of this sea king monster that looked like a crocodile. He even posed in many selfies with it as the background.

After taking the photos, Lin Huang left the sea king monster behind and ran towards the 73rd checkpoint behind the Enchanted Fairy.

He decided not to kill the sea king monster mainly because the funny incident would make him laugh for the entire day. It gave color to his rather boring checkpoint breakthrough.

Naturally, he would not let it go. It was fortunate that the Enchanted Fairy did not turn it into an ice sculpture.

Such a monster would not die even if it did not eat or drink while being stuck where it was. As for regaining its freedom, it depended on when the ice path beneath Lin Huang's feet melted. Eating normally again would depend on when it could spit out or swallow the icebergs in its mouth when they melted.

The monsters Lin Huang encountered since the imperial-level purple gold-rank sea king monster were getting more and more powerful.

It proved that the closer one was towards the 73rd checkpoint, the more powerful the monsters became.

After he broke through half the checkpoint, almost all of the sea monsters he encountered were above imperial-level yellow gold-rank.

Especially when he was left with a tenth of his journey, almost all of the sea monsters that attacked him were on imperial-level purple gold-rank.

However, these sea monsters were not as fortunate as the sea king monster. The Enchanted Fairy turned them into ice sculptures immediately as soon as they approached the ice path.

Lin Huang spent over two hours to finally complete the ice path that was 10,000 kilometers long to him since he could not fly and his body had shrunk.

As he stepped out of the ice path and entered the 73rd checkpoint of the Stairway Tree, Lin Huang turned back to his original body size in the blink of an eye.

He stood on a field and turned around to look at the 72nd checkpoint that he had just passed.

He saw a white icy line that was only as thick as his finger. There were ice sculptures of all sizes and forms on the both sides of the icy line, seeming like exquisite art pieces.

Lin Huang tried his very best to see through the clouds above the ocean, peering at the sea king monster, whose mouth was still stuck, far away. It was still there and it had gave up struggling completely. Just like that, it was hanging on the white icy line like a salted fish an aunty was drying on a clothesline.

Lin Huang chuckled and turned around to enter the dense jungle on the 73rd checkpoint.