Chapter 160: Chapter 160- Too Hard To Turn Down

Staring at the small puddle of water he had in his hand, Talon stood there silently. A myriad of thoughts crossed his mind in a split second before he looked up at the river.

"Leader? What happened?" The group quickly approached him.

"The river had completely mixed with the sea. The water is salty now." He replied. "Dammit, give me the walky-talky."

The students were confused as to why Talon's mood suddenly soured but they still quickly rummaged through their belongings before they handed him the device.

Talon then pressed one button and talked. "Hey, Hyun-Jae, do you copy?"

A few seconds later, a voice responded to him. "Hyun-Jae here, I do copy."

"Did you reach the river yet?"

"Yes, we're here... The water is salty." The girl replied.

Rubbing his face gently, Talon took a deep breath. "We should meet up now. Tell Chin-Hwa and the others."

"Roger... I'm on my way."

After that, Talon handed the walky-talky back. "We're going to stay here for a while until Hyun-Jae and the others come here. Stay alert for any monsters."

"Yes, sir." The group replied in a clearly confused tone.

They really had no idea why the fact that the water turned salty made Talon react that way. If anything, wasn't the expansion of the river far more alerting?

But, because of his aura at that moment, they were hesitant to ask. In the end, curiosity just took over them.

"Uh, leader..."

"What?"

"What's wrong with the water being salty, sir?"

Talon sighed and turned around. "If the water had turned salty then what does that mean?" He asked.

"That... the sea mixed with the river?" One of the students thought for a moment before they replied.

"In other words, the river is now an extension of the sea. Now, if the river remained fresh and simply expanded, it would've not that big of a problem. However, with this, we might expect a huge trouble. Whatever creatures live in the sea are probably going to migrate to this area."

So far, Talon had only met monsters on land and they had been quite the terrifying bunch. However, when it came to the creatures of the sea, Talon had a completely different dread toward them. The reason for that was a small piece of information he knew.

'Deep sea creatures have a higher tendency to grow way bigger than shallow waters creatures and even land creatures...' He squinted his eyes as he remembered that sentence.

So far, the evolution of monsters on Earth has been extremely abnormal, to say the least. Monsters grew stronger extremely fast and seemingly had no limit at all. In a matter of weeks, creatures over level 20 appeared regularly which was something that normally would take months to happen in other dimensions.

'If that's the case for the land creatures, then what about the sea?' Just asking that question sent a chill down Talon's spine.

The monsters that lurked in the sea were perhaps far worse than the ones on land.

The two moved a little bit far from the group.

"I wanna do something that you might not like." He said.

"What is it?" The girl frowned as she had a bad feeling about what he said.

"Hmm, I think I'm going to dive into the river." He replied with an awkward chuckle.

"What?! Why would you need to do that?"

"Well, one has to kill those monsters, no? Even if we bait them to the surface, we have to still kill them."

"We can simply attack them with long-range weapons." Hyun-Jae retorted with a frown.

"Do you really think whatever lives there would actually be killed with weak long-range weapons?"

Hyun-Jae: "..."

Opening her mouth to speak, the girl found herself unable to reply. What Talon said was true, the chances that their weapons would be effective against monsters that lived in the sea were highly unlikely.

If they wanted to kill them then they had to actually get close and slay them with sharp weapons.

"My Blue Lapis spear is actually really good for such a thing. Its performance peaks when it's in a water environment." He replied. "Besides, I think I'm far stronger than anything that lives in the sea and even if I'm not, I can definitely escape with a few simple tricks."

Hyun-Jae rubbed her temples tiredly as she looked at Talon.

"Sigh... Is there really no other choice?"

"I doubt. But, trust me, I will be fine." He said with a small smile.

Seeing that look on his face, Hyun-Jae felt her heart skip a beat as she fell into a daze. Every single time she saw his smile, her eyes will get completely sucked in by it.

'He always changes my mind so easily... I don't know if that's even a good or bad thing.' She thought to herself.

The sheer effect Talon had on her was slowly sinking into her head and making her realize that there was simply no way for her to actually deny him a request if he tried hard enough to convince her.

Her heart would ache greatly if she saw him disappointed or sad.

"Sigh, fine, you can do that."

Hearing that, Talon's expression beamed, only to dim again when he heard her next words.

"But, I have one condition..."

"What is it?" He asked.

"I'm going to get on a boat and follow you wherever you go underwater. Also, you need to wear a diving suit and tie a rope around your body so that I can pull you out if the worst happens." She said.

A//N: Don't forget to support the book if you enjoyed reading ????