Chapter 881: A Pearl in an Old Oyster
The vast red sea seemed to go on without end. Because it was frozen, there were no waves to be seen. It seemed to be floating in the middle of the starry sky in between the spider webs. If you could take the scene and shrink it down, the red sea would actually look like a drop of blood within the spider webs.
Within that blood drop of a sea, there were hundreds of huge bivalve shells, and they would open and close randomly. When they opened, it was possible to see huge eagles that would stretch out from inside and explore the surroundings. Apparently, the shells were part of the eagles’ bodies. The eagles had scarlet feathers, and their eyes were closed as if they were sleeping. They emanated gruish auras, and even looking at them from a distance would make one feel uneasy down to the soul. They were like enormous deities in the middle of growing.
The view gave Xu Qing an even deeper understanding of god domains. As he and the Captain had traveled, he had seen and sensed things that surpassed anything he had understood before. Most of them defied logic. Whether it was the tentacled fish floating through the void, or the enormous eyes of annihilation, or the spiders that could ignore magical techniques, they were all incomparably gruish.
“See that, little Ah Qing? Those shells are amazing things!” The Captain stood next to Xu Qing, looking excitedly at the shells as he explained. “Look closely, and you can see the fleshy parts inside the shells. Check this out: that flesh contains god pearls!
“Such pearls might not be useful to most people. But to us it’s the opposite. Those thingies are going to be the foundation of the next step of the big job! Now, you know how kindhearted I am, and how I just can’t stand to see others suffer. Do you see how, when those shells open up, they look like they’re in pain? It’s obviously because of the pearls!”
The Captain licked his lips as he eyed some of the pearls. “Ai. It’s time for us to do a good deed and help them! We need to get those pearls out of there so the shells can have a bit of comfort!”
Xu Qing looked at the shells and then the red-colored sea. There was something terrifying about that sea, and it imparted a sensation of dangerous crisis. He could tell that this was a potentially deadly place. Ignoring the Captain’s introduction, he stayed firm to his original decision to refrain from participating. Turning, he prepared to leave.
Seeing that, the Captain suddenly got very anxious.
“Don’t go, little Junior Brother!” he said. “I have a way to safely get the pearls! You’ve already seen how well-prepared I am.”
The Captain quickly took out a rope.
“I’m going to tie one end of this rope around myself. You’ll hold the other end. Then, you just find one of the open shells and throw me into it. After I dig out the pearl, I’ll give you a signal, and you yank me back out. Simple! Given how fast I work, as long as you help out, we’re guaranteed to succeed!”
Xu Qing hesitated as he looked at the rope. Something about it seemed familiar. At first it just looked like an ordinary rope, but if you looked closely, you would see complicated designs on its surface. Xu Qing sighed inwardly as he realized what it was.
The Captain grinned. “Recognize it? Hahaha! See how hard I’ve worked getting ready for this? Now, give me a hand, okay?”
The rope was made from his skin. Similar to what he had done in the Moonrite Region, the Captain had sliced his own skin off and used it to make a rope. Given that level of commitment, Xu Qing felt bad about refusing. Giving the Captain a deep look, he finally nodded.
The Captain was thrilled at Xu Qing’s agreement. With that, he discussed more of the details. He had really thought things out thoroughly. After making a few adjustments to the plan, Xu Qing gritted his teeth, tied the rope around the Captain, and then hurled him out over the red sea.
Before long, the Captain spotted an opened shell with an eagle inside. As the eagle leaned out of the shell, the Captain donned a special pair of gloves and shouted, “That one right there!”
Without the slightest hesitation, Xu Qing snapped the rope out in the direction of that specific shell.
The Captain was sent flying down in a blue streak of light, moving at astonishing speed to shoot right into the opened shell.
Maybe it was the Captain’s ample preparations, or maybe it was the invisibility provided by the Wordless Book of Stone, but either way, the Captain flew right past the eagle without attracting any attention.
As the Captain landed on the fleshy part inside the shell, his eyes glittered with blue light. Without any hesitation, he reached out with his gloved hands and started digging through the flesh. The special characteristics of the gloves ensured that the flesh actually moved away from them, and thus, the pearl was quickly revealed. The Captain excitedly wrapped his arms around the pearl, which was roughly as big as he was. Then he pulled forcefully.
At the same time, Xu Qing yanked on the rope as hard as he could. As a result, the Captain burst out of the shell.
Once back at Xu Qing’s side, the Captain laughed heartily. “What do you think, little Ah Qing? Didn’t I say that success was guaranteed?”
Xu Qing was slightly suspicious. It did seem to be going as smoothly as the Captain had said, with no dangerous developments. But considering how things usually went, Xu Qing still kept his guard up.
The Captain shook his head and sighed. “You need to trust me, little Junior Brother. Alright, let’s keep going.”
With that, the Captain pointed at another opened shell.
For the time it takes an incense stick to burn, Xu Qing helped the Captain collect pearls from over a dozen shells. Each and every attempt led to success. There were no failures. There was even one instance in which the Captain got two pearls from one shell, and still made it back safely.
“I’m starting to get a bit tired. Come, little Ah Qing. It’s your turn. You give it a try.”
“Nope,” Xu Qing said.
The Captain’s eyebrows shot up. “Little Ah Qing, you’re really not helping much here. Since when did you become such a scaredy-cat? Ah, whatever. I’ll do it. We need to have a total of about a hundred of these pearls.”
The Captain stuck his chin up disdainfully and indicated for Xu Qing to throw him out again.
Xu Qing wasn’t moved by the Captain’s words. He had already made his decision to not get too involved. Therefore, just as before, he tossed the Captain out.
On this particular occasion... it took a while for something unexpected to happen. But it happened. As the Captain entered the shell, and before he could dig out the pearl, the eagle suddenly opened its eyes, and snapped its sharp beak down onto the rope. The rope snapped. The Captain’s expression flickered dramatically, and he tried to back up. He was too late.
The shell snapped shut. A boom rang out as it sealed tightly. The sea was quiet. There were no fluctuations.
Xu Qing just hovered in midair looking out. He sighed. He’d known all along something like this would happen. He looked at the shell where the Captain was trapped. Then he looked at all the other shells the Captain had visited up to this point. All were closed. Obviously, some time needed to pass before the shells opened again.
I can’t just sit around waiting.
Xu Qing sighed and entered his fourth-level god state. The soul threads swept out around him and the Ninedawns skulls started rotating around him. Just to be safe, he tapped into his mage trove and summoned half of the projection of an antemage. At that point, he headed out over the red sea.
The red sea vibrated, and the shells started rocking back and forth. Godly might seemed to build up, covering the area and causing a sensation of crisis to build.
Xu Qing wasn’t in the mood to think things through very thoroughly, so he just tapped into all his strength to grab the shell that had swallowed the Captain.
Rumbling sounds echoed out from the shell as Xu Qing struggled. In the end, he managed to open a small crack. It was small, but it was enough to see inside.
“Eldest Brother!” he shouted. Something blurred out of the shell.
At that point, Xu Qing couldn’t hold it open any longer. He lunged backward, and the shell slammed shut loudly. Xu Qing reined in his aura, and the godly might that had been converging in the area faded away.
The Captain was in bad shape. He was dripping wet and had patches of rotting flesh all over him, some of which reached down to the bone. That included his face. Apparently, if Xu Qing hadn’t opened the shell as quickly as he had, the Captain would have been completely digested. There was even a pearly layer of shell that had started to build up on him....
Xu Qing looked the Captain up and down but didn’t say anything.
“Ahem. What just happened wasn’t unexpected, little Junior Brother. That kind of thing happens all the time!” Although the Captain was actually very embarrassed, he would never admit it openly. “I did it on purpose, actually. See this stuff covering me? It’s the same stuff that makes the pearls. It’ll be very useful later.”
“Oh.” Xu Qing nodded, glanced one more time at the Captain’s sorry state, and held back from berating him.
Sadly, the look in Xu Qing’s eyes made the Captain feel like he had lost a lot of the dignity of an Eldest Brother. He looked furiously at the shell that had swallowed him, his eyes slowly filling with a crazy look.
“Little Junior Brother, let me borrow that Dawning Sun of yours!”
Xu Qing was about to refuse when the Captain blinked a few times.
“Rest at ease. I’m not going to detonate it. That ancient sun of yours has one of my own treasures in it, and I need to extract it. All you have to do is hand it over.”
Xu Qing sighed. Although he wasn’t convinced the Captain was being completely forthcoming, he took out his ancient sun and handed it to the Captain. Then he backed up by about 3,000 meters. Even then, he didn’t feel completely safe, so he backed up to 9,000 meters.
The Captain wasn’t very pleased to see Xu Qing backing up so far.
“What happened to the trust between us?” he murmured with a cold snort as he gripped the Dawning Sun. By this point, all of his emotions had combined into pure craziness.
Just as Xu Qing had suspected, the Captain didn’t extract anything from the Dawning Sun, as there was nothing inside that he had left behind.
Glaring at that one specific shell, the Captain squeezed the Dawning Sun with his hand, bringing it to life!
Intense heat erupted from the Dawning Sun, as well as a terrifying aura and fluctuations that spread out to fill the entire red sea. The surrounding void started to distort and ripple; the heat of the Dawning Sun seemed like it could scorch anything and everything.
Speaking in a crazed voice that echoed out in all directions, the Captain said, “Alright, bitch. Usually I’m the one who goes around biting things. This is the first time I’ve run into something that bit me! And that’s why I’m going to boil you up, fool!”
Off in the distance, Xu Qing’s expression darkened, and he backed up even further....