Chapter Ninety-Nine: The One-Eyed Giant Troll

The instant his staff touched the surface, the water froze outward in a flawless disk, centered on that point. The surging waves were swiftly suppressed and held motionless in place. The hulking fish monsters did not have time to break through the ice; they too were sealed within it, their great eyes rolling in comical circles.

Even the fish that had been caught in mid-leap were trapped halfway in the thick ice, standing at an angle upon the sea. Those that had already sprung free fared even worse: as they fell back down, they struck the solid ice head-on with a dull thud, then thrashed their tails in a frantic struggle.

The people on the ship were all stunned. They had believed White Saint Ye to be nothing more than an apothecary. Ling Xiao Lei, who had spent some time in his company, found it even more incredible; she had never known he possessed such skill.

The ship, which had been sinking, also came to a halt upon the frozen sea. Wooden planks that were about to drift away were likewise sealed into the ice around the hull.

“To keep my ice in place for long costs quite a bit of magic. I can only bind these fish monsters for the moment,” White Saint Ye said.

“Then drag the ship out and repair it!” Chi Xin said.

“Right!”

Working together, they hauled the ship free of the ice, while Black Feather and Chi Xin followed by striking down the fish monsters frozen on the water.

Hissss—hissss—

Suddenly, a sound rose within his mind, carrying the fierce voice of a demon.

He whipped around. Somehow, the ship had already reached the edge of a colossal whirlpool. The whirlpool was still expanding at terrifying speed, and the sea ahead had been pulled downward by its force. The edge of the ice shattered into small fragments. So this was the reason the fish monsters had been so frenzied.

Beneath the thinning ice, the shadows of the fish monsters that had not yet been frozen were gathered into one dark mass, fleeing rapidly in the opposite direction like a bank of black clouds skimming beneath the feet of the people standing upon the ice.

Crack, crack.

The sound of ice splitting reached them. They retreated, and within the ever-deepening abyss of the whirlpool, a bloodthirsty maw slowly opened.

The fish monsters that had just been struggling to escape were unexpectedly drawn backward by the sea’s suction. No matter how they swam, it was useless. Not a single one escaped; all were swallowed into that abyssal mouth.

“What kind of monster is this?” someone gasped.

Everyone drew in a sharp breath, thinking with relief that the ship had not gone one step farther, or they would surely have been doomed.

The great mouth continued to widen. Standing at the brink of the abyss, the group watched as countless fish and demons of all sizes and strange shapes in the pitch-black ocean were dragged into its jaws.

The feeding went on for some time. It seemed as though its stomach were an endless void, swallowing nearly all the seawater in the area.

Then, all at once, it shut its enormous mouth. As the jaws closed, a vast current of rotating water created an overwhelming pressure that drove inward toward the abyss, and the body of the gigantic demon was lifted up from the sea.

“Bad news! Retreat, now!” Chi Xin cried out.

White Saint Ye extended the ice farther away. The few of them ran across it at full speed.

“What about our ship?” Ling Xiao Lei looked back at the lonely little boat abandoned upon the sea.

“Forget the ship. We may not even keep our lives!” Chi Xin shouted.

The demon had not yet fully emerged when a massive octopus tentacle suddenly thrust out, like a pillar of heaven piercing the skies, then crashed down upon the ice. The frozen surface shattered again. The tentacle writhed wetly and slickly, each sucker on it spewing a dark and ominous aura before slapping back into the sea with a sharp smack.

Everyone’s hearts lurched.

“This thing is so huge. What rank of demon is it...?”

Its head took a long while to rise from the water. The smooth dome of it resembled a small island lifting from the sea, slowly growing higher as wave after wave surged over the ice and flooded around their feet. It was only when Ling Meng raised shields for everyone that the impact of the waves was held back.

Only after the head of the monstrous creature had fully broken the surface, blocking the sky ahead like a mountain, and its eight tentacles wriggled across the sea like coiling dragons, did they finally see its true shape.

“It should be an octopus...” Black Feather guessed.

Suddenly, a giant round eye opened on its crown, like the eye of death itself, gazing down upon them as they fled like ants across the ice.

At that moment, Chi Xin abruptly turned and stopped. Even she, usually so composed, had sweat rolling down her face under the crushing pressure. Clenching her teeth, she drew her greatsword.

“You go first. I’ll hold it off!”

“Captain, what rank is this demon?” White Saint Ye asked as he ran.

“Ancient class. A one-eyed giant demon!”

Ancient class. At those four words, every face went as white as ash. The “one-eyed giant demon” was known as the sovereign of the sea; countless masters of the mage rank had perished beneath its tentacles.

Chi Xin thought grimly to herself:

“What terrible luck... of all places, why did we run into it here? Isn’t this the demon that dwells in the depths of the Red Sea?”

Ling Xiao Lei stared in terror at the black silhouette blotting out the night sky, and she too remembered having seen this demon in the bestiary of ancient-class monsters in the library.

Yet its true form was far more horrifying than the picture in the book, and an endless pressure radiated from its body. Ling Xiao Lei subconsciously tightened her grip on the pendant that held her Summoning Tome, steeling herself for a desperate battle at any cost.

One of the three light-elf girls could not withstand the pressure and fainted on the spot. The rest were equally stricken with despair.

White Saint Ye picked up the unconscious girl and checked her body; she was unharmed.

Just then, the raging one-eyed giant demon launched its first attack, swinging one massive tentacle down toward the ice where they stood.

The ice shattered in an instant, seawater surged up, and the group leaped aside to dodge. The tentacle fell so close it nearly brushed the sides of their bodies. The small boat on the ice was also smashed to pieces at once.

Ling Meng immediately cast a shield over everyone, blocking the impact of the waves, but in doing so she lost the chance to evade. She was hurled more than ten meters away by the force of the blow.

“Ling Meng!”

Black Feather was closest to her. He rushed forward at once and caught her before she hit the ground.

Ling Meng’s beautiful eyes were shut; she had already fainted. The demon’s attack was laced not only with brute force, but with a terrifying suppression that the weak could not endure.

Because White Saint Ye was still carrying another light-elf girl in his arms, he had not managed to arrive in time, and his mood darkened with frustration.

“Get up. Fall back!” Chi Xin shouted urgently.

Black Feather knew that against such a powerful demon, he could no longer hold back. To do so would only place his companions in greater danger. He looked at the others beside him, then said to White Saint Ye:

“White Saint Ye, I need your help with something.”

“Hm?” White Saint Ye looked at him in confusion. “What is it?”