Chapter 225: Approaching Crimson Tides

Chapter 225: Approaching Crimson Tides

In another week, Kai could see the Blood Current on the horizon. He'd expected the name was due to the threat or the lives lost there, but in the distance he could actually see the waves grow increasingly red. Neither Zae Zin Nim nor Omilaena knew why they were red, so they approached with increasing apprehension.

But first, he needed to finish his preparations. Even though their goal was to never enter the water while riding the Blood Current, things could always go wrong and they needed a fallback. Since he was the only one who could breathe underwater, they'd be relying on him.

So in addition to piloting the ship, he was stretching his senses to the limit. He tried to use everything: the gut impressions he'd trained in Goralia, a cultivator's innate sense of qi, the deep hunger at the bottom of his soul. His awareness spread in all directions, seeking out any suitable targets. Normally he felt nothing but fish and the occasional underwater monster, so when he felt something actually powerful he perked up.

"Do you feel that?" He spoke before thinking about who was on deck and had to look around - as was common lately, Zae Zin Nim was inside and Omilaena was doing something on the opposite side.

"What?" She looked up with mild curiosity.

"There's a monster off our... uh, off that side." Kai gestured toward the source. "I think it might be worthwhile to eat, but it's out of our way."ilaena sprang up beside him in a moment, pinpointing what he was talking about. Soon after she placed her hand on the wheel and smiled. "We can afford a detour. We're pushing ourselves so hard so that we have some leeway, after all."

"The cultivators won't think we're struggling and close in?"

"I'll start wavering, like we might break either east or west. That's probably a good idea anyway, to keep them off balance before we hit the Current."

"Then I guess I'll see if I can fight a monster from the Blood Current."

"Oh, this isn't." Omilaena chuckled. "This one feels like it's just an open sea monster. If it was from the Blood Current, believe me, you'd know."

Kai wasn't sure what to make of one more warning, but that didn't really matter now that his plan was approved. Omilaena took them on a westward path toward the monster, and though she said they had time, he didn't want to waste any of it. The fight needed to be swift and effective, just enough to give him a sense for the monster before he consumed it.

Tying the cable around his waist was the easy part. Figuring out which monstrous essence he would use was much harder. Aside from his central abilities, Kai decided to take Sahagin's Lungs and the new capacity he was calling Necroeel's Speed. That meant no empty slots, but he needed to test his underwater speed anyway.

This monster wasn't being particularly aggressive and it wasn't likely to harm anyone, this far out in the ocean. Kai would never feel sorry for a monster, but he did reflect that he was hunting it for no reason except his own power. That didn't stop him from jumping over the edge.

Once underwater, he looked forward, where their ship was rapidly catching up to the beast. Now that he got a better look at it, he saw that it looked like a shark with four massive fins and a blade on its snout. That blade was no natural feature, instead it was a snarled blade designed to catch and tear flesh.

Any guilt he might have felt disappeared when the monster whirled and tried to decapitate him with that blade.

Kai raised his forearm in time to block and felt the impact jar through his body. Only a few points of the blade broke skin, but even underwater it managed to impart significant force. He lashed out in response, and since he lacked Tyrant's Claw he just clubbed the monster in the side.

His best punch to the gills made the monster flinch, but the water slowed his movements too much for it to be a finishing blow. Unlike so many of the agile underwater creatures, the bladed shark seemed to use brute force, so it arced around and swung a blow at his ribs.

There was nothing stopping him from merging the abilities together, the problem was that there was nothing stopping him from making mistakes. Eventually he decided that his best bet was to create an ability around adapting to the water. Sahagin's Lungs was the best candidate for that, so he started there and fed the other two abilities to it.

Immediately he realized that Necroeel's Speed was imbalanced, too light compared to the stronger Bladeshark. So Kai fed it one of the weakest monsters that had retained essence, something called a Bonefish. Once they were more balanced, he fused the two together with Sahagin's Lungs.

After so long thinking, the actual implementation was easy and he soon saw the result in his soul:

Sahagin's Soul - III (gamma)

>

His new capacity, which he called Sahagin's Soul, had started at the third rank. Clearly it wasn't going to be an extraordinary ability like Behemoth's Heart. But had he accomplished his goal? The monstrous ability felt right, not malformed, but the only way to truly know was testing.

Kai tied the cable around his waist again and jumped over the side. At first he was being tugged underwater, pulled as always, and he could only thrash. But as he adjusted to the new ability, he began to swim.

Even though his body undulated slightly, like a fish, he was swimming with more force than the motion could possibly generate. It was pure monstrous power accelerating him forward. For the first time Kai had experienced, the tension around his waist lessened. He could swim as fast as the ship, and if he really pushed himself, he could even exceed it.

Grinning, Kai took a few swings underwater. The water no longer suffocated his movements, it seemed to part in front of him. He quickly realized that he couldn't move exactly like in the air, because he still needed to work with the flowing currents, but he'd be far more lethal underwater now. If only there was a handy monster there to test his power on.

Lacking any targets, Kai instead swung his hand in a Tyrant's Claw to the depths. He'd just been hoping to unleash it a little quicker, but to his surprise the spiritual claw swept through the water faster as well. Sahagin's Soul adapted him to the water better then he'd anticipated.

Throwing himself into the swimming with reckless abandon, Kai got ahead of the ship, looped around, and then headed for the surface at top speed. Suddenly he was hurtling overhead in a spray of water, arcing over the ship. It must have looked impressive, and Kai would have been more impressed if he hadn't been trying to land on the deck.

On his second try he aimed his arc better and landed on the ship. He was grinning despite himself, just because the easy movements underwater were such a joy after struggling this far.

"Good work," Zae Zin Nim said with a brief nod. Omilaena was not far away at the wheel and gave a nod of her own

"That will help, but don't get overconfident."

"The monsters will get that much stronger?" Kai asked. He stepped to the front to look out at the waves, which were even redder than before. There was something out there, almost like a small island...

"I think we've almost reached the Blood Current." Omilaena squinted ahead, then shook her head. "We'll be in the dangerous region soon. We need to be ready."

As they moved on, Kai got a clearer look at the object ahead, which loomed larger every second. He saw one long fin, covered in spiny hooks, and would have jumped if his monstrous instincts hadn't been sure there was no life left. Once they got close, he finally understood that the main bulk was the body of the creature with large pieces torn out of it. It looked like a massive whale, covered in spines and hooks that hadn't been enough for it to survive.

Floating in the ocean, adding its blood to the tides, the dead beast marked the beginning of the Blood Current.