"Steer to starboard!" Chuan Zhang was shouting inside the bridge, directing his crew in evasive maneuvers. "Avoid the Void Whale!"

The ship began to bank hard to the right, but the speed at which the Void Whale was approaching meant that we wouldn"t be able to evade it in time. The sheer ma.s.s and velocity of the Void Whale was more than enough to break the Mo Bi Di Ke in half if it successfully rammed into us.

No wonder so few people were willing to take up this mission. It carried such a high risk of death and danger…

"Leave it to me!"

Lao Tou jumped up, and c.o.c.king his fist back, he drove it right into the forehead of the Void Whale. Another bright flash of light – this time it was white – illuminated the sea, and the Void Whale was thrown back a few meters. Lao Tou was also flung backward, his body streaking across the air like a comet before he vanished into the water in a gigantic splash.

"Tou!" Lao Ren shouted.

A few seconds later, Lao Tou burst out of the water, spitting and cursing. Gritting his teeth, he hopped out of the sea and jumped back onto the deck in a single bound, looking none the worse other than being completely drenched.

"d.a.m.ned Void Whale," he complained. I glanced at his opponent. Even though Lao Tou"s punch was more than enough to obliterate a Kraken, the Void Whale was only wounded. It flailed about for a bit before spinning around to face us once more. Its jaws yawned open and it emitted a soulful cry that caused all of us to drop to our knees, clutching our ears.

"The Whale"s Song!" Du Yan swore.

After emitting that horrifying shriek, the Void Whale seemed to take a deep breath, and then it lunged for the Mo Bi Di Ke again.

"Get up! All of you!" Lao Tou was first up on his feet, as usual. Despite his ears bleeding, the bald old man surged to his feet once more and jumped off the deck to confront the immense enemy. "Don"t make this old man do all the work! Come on and fight!"

Wincing as I clutched my ears, I shakily rose to my feet and followed suit. It wouldn"t be a good idea to leave all the work to Lao Tou, as he mentioned. Hauling myself over the railing, I landed on the swirling sea. Using my footwork, I stepped on beads of seawater that sprayed from the white froth of the churning sea and used them to propel myself forward. Drawing both swords, I swung them and unleashed a ranged ice technique that froze the vicinity around me.

However, the Void Whale was too large. Despite my best attempts, I only managed to freeze the front part of it. The Void Whale smashed the ice in an instant, its enormous body beaking free from its icy shackles.

Fortunately, my freezing attack had delayed it momentarily for a second. And a second was all Lao Tou and Lao Ren needed.

I didn"t know when the latter joined in, but he was acting in concert with Lao Tou, and the two old men drove their fists into either side of the Void Whale, elicting a sorrowful wail from the humongous beast. The shockwaves from their attacks buffeted me, sending me sliding across the very ice I froze across the sea.

"Kuh!"

It wasn"t as if there was much ice left, anyway. I managed to arrest my slide right before I went over the edge and jumped off. As the last remnants of my ice broke beneath my feet, I began navigating my way through the treacherous sea by jumping from one spray of seawater to the other. Using the churning waves as footholds, I weaved through the raging sea and closed in on the Void Whale. Swinging my sword, I slashed at the thick hide of the Void Whale, but didn"t leave much of an impact. Still, I managed to draw some blood.

I wasn"t alone.

Behind me, Qiang Zhe and Du Yan were also barreling forward while brandishing their respective weapons. They almost seemed to be using their qigong to fly above the sea, their feet not touching the violent, watery surface. Unlike me, who was using a mixture of my footwork techniques and freezing some parts of the sea to traverse the sea, the two of them had resorted to more powerful means of travel. I guess it was true that martial artists could "fly".

No. I narrowed my eyes as I studied their movements. They weren"t "flying", at least not in the literal sense of the word. They had used their sheer physical prowess to propel themselves across the vast distance in a single bound. That was just a mere jumping action, and in that single leap they crossed over a couple of hundred meters.

Both veterans landed on the top of the Void Whale and immediately plunged their weapons in. Qiang Zhe scythed a huge chunk of meat and blubber from the shrieking Void Whale, sinking in his spear deeper to avoid getting thrown off by the thrashing Void Whale. In contrast, Du Yan was almost everywhere at once. He went along with the flow, running along the side of the Void Whale while slashing unfettered with his sword.

"Whoa! Ha ha ha!"

Lauging joyfully as the Void Whale shuddered underneath his feet, Du Yan jumped up and did a cartwheel in midair before landing on another section of the Void Whale and carving a b.l.o.o.d.y scar into its hide. Unlike Qiang Zhe, who was a rock of unmoving stability, Du Yan was all animation and movement, never ceasing in his attacks and running.

I had neither their strength nor skill, and I thoroughly lacked their combat experience. Hence my movements were a lot clumsier. Unable to anchor myself firmly onto the Void Whale or predict its movements and go along with the flow, or even to fly in midair like the streaming Lao Ren and Lao Tou, I had no choice but to compensate with my footwork tehcniques, disappearing and crashing back into the seea. Fortunately, my footwork techniques allowed me to skim across water and charge at the Void Whale once again, and in the event that I made a misstep, I managed to freeze small sections of the seawater to find tiny floating islands of footholds across the wide sea.

"Not bad, kid!"

Lao Ren grinned at me as he flew by, diving under a ma.s.sive fin from the Void Whale and slamming his fist against the underside. The Void Whale screeched as it was overturned, its immense body rolling about in the waves.

"Hey!" Du Yan hollered as he was forced to make another jump to find a safer place that wasn"t underwater. "Watch your attacks!"

"Or maybe you should pay more attention to your surroundings."

Even though he was the one staying stationary and not constantly moving around, Qiang Zhe had apparently moved when I wasn"t looking and was now standing on top of another part of the Void Whale. He had plunged his spear into the creature once again, gouging out another enormous chunk of flesh and blubber. Blood was bursting upward like a geyser, but miraculously none of the red liquid hit Qiang Zhe and stained him.

I had no idea how he did it. Decades of experience, maybe?

Taking a deep breath, I pressed on with my attack. Jumping up from spray of water to spray of seafoam, I slashed at the Void Whale"s immense bulk again, leaving a trail of ice expanding across its black skin.

Landing on the water, which was slowly freezing because of my frosty qi, I skidded back for half a meter before launching myself at the Void Whale again.

"!"

Too late I realized that the Void Whale was spinning around, one of its gigantic fins lashing out in my direction. I activated my footwork, executing Tui to withdraw to a safe distance, but I was too slow and the Void Whale was too close…

Boom!

A gigantic fireball connected with the Void Whale"s head, rocking it backward before it could collide with me. The inferno was followed by a chain of lightning that sent spasms throughout the Void Whale"s enormous body. I didn"t see much clearly, having been in the midst of using Tui, but when I reappeared on the seawater, I quickly glanced in the direction of the Mo Bi Di Ke and saw that Mo Fa had covered me. She smiled and gave me a little wave with her free hand.

I bowed gratefully and then resumed my attacks. That Mo Fa was providing support fire and covering the weaker members of the team was a great relief.

"How enviable. I wished I had a big sister looking out for me too."

"Eh? Zhao Shi?"

I spun around in surprise when I heard her voice right behind me. Zhao Shi and Da Ge had finally arrived on the scene, having boarded a small motor boat that had silently sailed through the darkness, under the cover of the din our battle with the Void Whale was making.

"We can"t let you hog all the fun to yourselves!" Da Ge told me with a genial grin on his face. He had already unsheathed his broadsword and was getting ready for battle.

"Yeah, sure…where did you guys get the boat from?"

It looked nothing like the lifeboats that hung on the side of the Mo Bi Di Ke. Those didn"t have motors, at least not from what I remembered. Was it stashed away in the storage hold of the Mo Bi Di Ke? Even so…

"Brother Wu!"

A familiar child-like figure popped her head out of the back of the boat. Zi Xiao Ji waved at me, a huge smile plastered on her cute face.

"What are you doing here?" I demanded, shocked. Zi Xiao Ji had little to no combat capability. Being this close to the Void Whale was just suicide on her part.

"Mistress is the one who forged this boat," Zhao Shi replied almost lazily, her focus on the Void Whale rather than me. "Naturally she"s the only one who can operate it."

Oh, that was impressive. I guess Zi Xiao Ji wasn"t just some charge who needed her bodyguards" protection all the time. There were times when she could actually be useful. Come to think of it, she was tha daughter of the greatest blacksmith and Spirit Engraver in the Middle Continent. Of course building a boat like this was no problem for someone of her caliber. I had a feeling that she would rival Tang Qi Hong in ingenuity and innovation.

If Tang Qi Hong and Liang Shao Yang weren"t recognized by the Spirit Engraved Pillars and triggered a reaction out of them, surely Zi Xiao Ji would be next in line to inherit the leadership of the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect from her father. She was on par with Hu Mei Er at the very least. And I would trust her more than the sly, shadowy a.s.sa.s.sin Liang Shao Yang.

"Remember to keep a safe distance!" Da Ge reminded Zi Xiiao Ji, who nodded determinedly. The two Blood Blades bodyguards then jumped from the boat and attacked the Void Whale with their swords. Da Ge"s broadsword scored a large, swathing cut through the Void Whale"s humongous figure while Zhao Shi left a b.l.o.o.d.y trail in her wake.

Not to be outdone by the pair of them, I also kicked off the ice and launched myself at the Void Whale again. Slashing out with my pair of swords, I scored a criss-crossing pattern of shallow cuts across the Void Whale"s hide. Of course, such injuries were superficial at most, and the Void Whale seemed completely unaffected.

However, I had never intended to deal any real damage to the Void Whale. Crystals of frost clung to the Void Whale"s thick hide, the low temperatures and cold slowing its movements ever so slightly. While they might not seem to make any real difference, for experts such as Lao Tou, Lao Ren, Du Yan and Qiang Zhe, even a second"s delay might mean the difference between life and death.

Therefore I continued my efforts to incapacitate the Void Whale with cold ice, hindering its movements as best as I could.

"Gr…"

A low grow rumbled from within the Void Whale and it lashed out with its ma.s.sive bulk, forcing the tiny a.s.sailants to scatter. I landed a few hundred meters away, using footwork techniques to stay afloat. Meanwhile, Da Ge and Zhao Shi landed nearby, finding the safety of Zi Xiao Ji"s boat. The cute-looking girl had steered her boat to be at the pefect location for where they landed.

Lao Ren and Lao Tou continued their gravity-defying stunts and flew around the Void Whale like bonafide immortals while Du Yan and Qiang Zhe shifted their positions.

"Hold it still!"

Yi Shan had finally arrived. Swinging his huge sword down, he used the Mountain-Cleaving Slash that he had used on other sea monsters before this, which had always succeeded in slaying them outright.

Against the Void Whale, however, it was nothing more than a little scratch.

"HUUUU!!!!!"

The Void Whale let out another deafening wail, which was most likely another version of its Whale Song. Everyone crashed downward again, other than the pair of old men, clutching their ears and wincing. Even Lao TOu and Lao Ren were not completely immune, their hands clamped over their bleeding ears as they soared around the thrashing Void Whale.

"Just what do we need to do to take down this monster?!" Qiang Zhe roared in frustration. He probably knew the answer because this wasn"t his first time hunting the Void Whale, but that did not stop the frustration from mounting up.

"A lot of attacks," Lao Ren replied calmly, though I was pretty sure he was aware that Qiang Zhe"s question was rhetorical. That didn"t stop him from being facetious, though. He grinned wolfishly as he hammered another devastating fist into the Void Whale"s side, causing it to flip over in the sea. "Don"t tell me you"re already tired, youngster?"

"Who the h.e.l.l is tired?" Qiang Zhe snapped before he executed a flurry of spear strikes that carved a b.l.o.o.d.y crater somewhere in the middle of the shrieking Void Whale.

"We"re only annoying it…we haven"t delivered a fatal blow yet."

"Be patient," Du Yan reprimanded me when he heard my complaints. His single eye narrowed and he sliced deeply into an incoming fin when the Void Whale rolled over to lash out and the other tiny humans. "Every cut matters."

"Death by a thousand paper cuts, huh?" Zhao Shi remarked, her voice grim.

"They never said this mission would be easy!" Da Ge chirped in amus.e.m.e.nt. The guy had just joined the battle so he still looked refreshed. He wouldn"t be as exhausted as me, Du Yan or Qiang Zhe. Actually, I wondered why the old men Lao Tou and Lao Ren were still in shape to continue flying around so much.

Well, if we talk about clichés, the older you are, the stronger you are, right?

Deciding not to think too much about that, I readied myself for a fresh strike. While the Void Whale continued to loll around, retaliating against the ducking and weaving Lao Ren and Lao Tou, I jumped from wave to wave with my footwork, and slashed both swords down again to leave another gleaming trail of ice on its thick hide.

"Phew!"

Flipping in midair, I executed another footwork technique to kick off a shattered ice crystal that had broken free from the rest of the ice and was flying on the air, and withdrew to a safe distance before the Void Whale"s ma.s.sive bulk filled the s.p.a.ce where I was sailing through a few seconds ago. Bouncing on the surface of the sea, I then readied myself for another charge.

"Watch out!"

Zi Xiao Ji"s warning came almost too late, but I halted myself in midair and pulled back. Fortunately, Mo Fa was covering me, Zhao Shi and Da Ge, and her hail of fire and lightning attacks struck the Void Whale before it could rear up and consume us. The three of us retreated, with Zhao Shi and Da Ge hastily returning to Zi Xiao Ji"s boat.

"I"ve to thank that big sister later," Zhao Shi muttered under her breath, cold perspiration forming on her tomboyish face. "Otherwise we would have ended up being food for that huge whale."

"Ugh…" Da Ge grimaced. "I would rather eat food than be food for other…creatures."

"We might still end up food if we"re not careful," I warned. Waiting for Lao Ren and Lao Tou to deliver another couple of devastating strikes with their bare fists, I then seized the opportunity to jump up and unleah another dual glacial attacks to slow it down further. The Void Whale stirred, barely feeling the effects of my icy a.s.sault, and focused on the pair of flying old men.

"Don"t waste the opportunity they bought us!" Zhao Shi ordered and she jumped out of the boat again. Da Ge nodded and followed shortly, and the two of them slashed deeply into the flank of the Void Whale while its attention was still centered on Lao Tou and Lao Ren. Da Ge sucked in a deep breath and unleashed a single ma.s.sive attack that tore a ravine into the Void Whale"s enormous body while Zhao Shi continued cutting shreds of its hide attack by attack.

Yi Shan joined in, swinging his broadsword and cleaving through a good part of the tail with his Mountain-Cleaving Strike. That caught the Void Whale"s attention and it whirled around, gnashing and shrieking b.e.s.t.i.a.lly.

"Whoa!"

The three of us jumped back at the sudden movement. I didn"t know if Yi Shan"s aggressive maneuver was deliberate or if he hadn"t considered the repercussions of his actions, but I didn"t have time to ponder over that. The Void Whale was coming at us.

"Retreat!"

Da Ge managed to nimbly return to Zi Xiao Ji"s boat, but Zhao Shi – who was closer to the Void Whale – couldn"t evade in time. The gaping maw seemed to tower over her for a moment, Zhao Shi"s slender figure seemingly vanishing into the darkness.

"Sister Shi!!!!" Zi Xiao Ji screamed.

"Ugh…?!"

Zhao Shi never got swallowed.

Instead, I executed Jin and tackled her, sending her flying out of the Void Whale"s mouth and in the direction of Zi Xiao Ji"s boat. The collision meant that my momentum was slightly arrested – for every force, there was an equal and opposite force reacting against it – so I stopped short right within the s.p.a.ce of the Void Whale"s mouth.

Then its jaws closed around me.

"Brother Wu!!!!"

"You…!"

"Not good!"

Zi Xiao Ji, Zhao Shi and Da Ge cried out when they saw me get swallowed by the Void Whale, and then I completely disappeared from their sight.

Now that I realized it, rolling and hitting the tongue, saving Zhao Shi might have been a bad idea. Well, better me than her. I wouldn"t hesitate to save her again even if I could reverse time.

"Hai"er!!!!"

Hu Shi was screaming now, trying to reach out, but unable to help her child.

I closed my eyes as I allowed the burning memories to wash across my mind. Never again would I allow someone in front of me to die just because of my weakness. I had trained and forcibly attained my current strength to prevent that from ever happening again.

It didn"t matter what happened to me. I just couldn"t…let anyone die. Even if I had to take on the world, I would do everything within my power to stop their deaths. My life was a cheap price to pay as long as n.o.body else died.

"…"

But that didn"t mean I was suicidal. If there was a way for me to survive, I would take it. I would cut my way out of the Void Whale if I had to. I wasn"t going to give up until the very end. Being alive meant that I would struggle all the way until the final moment if I had to.

Splash…

I felt the seawater lap against my shoes, an enclosed lake that filled the Void Whale"s maw after it swallowed tons of the surrounding sea. Whales did not have salivary glands, from what I remembered. The few that did possess them were in fact vestigial, meaning they produced nothing. So unlike the time with the Ice Soul Python, I didn"t have to be disgusted.

For the moment, anyway.

The strong currents seemed to sweep me back toward the throat of the Void Whale. I could avoid it by freezing a small segment into ice and anchoring myself to the sides of the inner membrane of the Void Whale"s mouth, but I doubted that would work. Pushing my gla.s.ses up, I peered through the darkness. Even though the night-vision function had kicked on and my lenses took on a greenish tinge, I still couldn"t see anything except the ma.s.sive tongue and gigantic lake of salt.w.a.ter that washed against my legs.

If I didn"t do anything, I would be swallowed as well.

"What"s this?!"

My gla.s.ses detected nothing past the throat. It was like I was staring at a bottomless abyss, almost like that time in Sen Lin Forest. There was no sign of tissue, no esophagus, nothing. It was pure void.

Almost as if…

No wonder they call this monster a Void Whale…

I finally understood. The Void Whale had a special ability to turn its stomach into a spatial void. That explained its voracious appet.i.te. It could eat thousands of Kraken, the combined ma.s.s of its meal several times its entire bulk, without getting hungry because it would store all those Kraken meat within that unrestricted s.p.a.cious anomaly present within its stomach.

It was this very characteristic that made the Void Whale a popular hunt target. For Spirit Engravers could use these properties to forge special Spatial Storage devices that could store countless items that would otherwise be several times the ma.s.s and weight of the device itself. I also had an idea of using this very characteristic to forge a similar device, which was why I volunteered for this mission in the first place.

Glancing up at the upper cavity of the mouth, I did some calculations. If I wasn"t mistaken, the brain of the Void Whale should be located that way…

This could be an opportunity. I have access to one of the most vital parts of the Void Whale by virtue of being inside its body right now!

Gritting my teeth, I steeled myself before kicking off and launching myself upward. Infusing my dual swords with purified qi, I slashed into the membrane and ripped through a cavity, plunging right intp the brain of the Void Whale.

I felt a gigantic quiver all around me when I burst through its st.u.r.dy skull. Initially, my swords clacked inefficiently against the hardened bone, but I twisted around and delivered a roundhouse kick to further weaken it. Here, brute force would prevail over sharp weapons, especially against solid bone. Using Shadow Kicks and the kicks that I learned from the Lunar Rabbit all those years ago, I rained blow upon blow on the gradually weakening skull and watched as the cracks expanded rapidly.

Almost there!

I didn"t know how long I had been kicking the skull. The tremors around me continued to increase, getting more powerful by the second, but entangled as I was in soft, muscous tissue, I managed to find my balance and sprang forward to kick again. And again. And again.

There was no way I was going to give up until I got into the most vulnerable part of the Void Whale.

Bam!

Finally, the bone gave way, a huge segment fracturing and splitting off from the main skull. The bony shards buried themselves in the soft brain tissue within, causing another violent spasm to surge around me. Ignoring the tremors, I plunged into the brain tissue. This time, my swords were more effective, carving a b.l.o.o.d.y path into the core of the Void Whale"s mind.

I was going to slay the Void Whale from the inside.

"Uwooooh!"

With a determined yell, I unleashed whatever purified qi I could with my swords, turning a huge chunk of the brain into b.l.o.o.d.y mush. Twisting around, I kicked out and my foot tore through more nervous tissue. Activating Seismic Step, I blew an enormous crater within the immense brain that belonged to the poor Void Whale.

"…"

The Void Whale was most likely shrieking in pain, given the violent vibrations that were jolting the ma.s.s of tissue around me. Buried deep inside its skull as I was right now, I couldn"t hear the noise, and focused on destroying more of its brain.

"Huff…huff…"

I slashed and cut my way through the Void Whale"s brain, until I finally reached something hard. Another part of the skull, huh?

By now, the shudders and died down and the Void Whale had gone eerily still. I didn"t know what was going on outside, and I was tired of being stuck inside here, so I decided to free myself. Again, I repeated the maneuver of kicking the skull. It cracked a little, showing a little gap, so I shoved my two swords in there and pried open the skull.

Gash!

Using my two swords, I inadvertently cut myself out of the Void Whale"s head in one stroke. Freed from the ma.s.s of brain tissue, I emerged from the gaping wound, drenched in blood and blubber oil. Coughing and wheezing, I dragged myself out of the ragged hole in the Void Whale"s head and sank to my knees near the edge.

"Oh, so you were the one who killed it!"

Lao Ren landed next to me, chuckling. It was only then that I realized that the Void Whale had really stopped moving, its body floating motionlessly on the sea.

"What the f.u.c.k did you do, after getting swallowed by the Void Whale!?"

"I cut my way free," I replied as I gestured to my bloodstained swords. The bald old man blanched, and then glowered aat me.

"That"s not what I mean!"

"Then what do you mean?" I retorted. I had just got swallowed by a gigantic monster, I was covered from head to toe in disgusting fluids and was in an urgent need of a shower and new clothes. I ain"t gonna take s.h.i.t from no one. At last not now.

"You cut your way free of the Void Whale after it swallowed you?" Du Yan was gaping at me as he landed not far away. "Are you out of your G.o.dd.a.m.ned mind?"

"No. I"m out of the Void Whale"s mind, though."

Flippantly pointing at the hole in the Void Whale"s head, I couldn"t help but deliver a snarky reply. I was in no mood to be polite, after all.

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha! The kid has a great point!"

Qiang Zhe burst out laughing as he joined us, landing nearby with his spear resting on his shoulder. Even though I was soaked in blubber oil and blood, he didn"t hesitate to approach me and slap my drenched back with his hand,

"Great job, kid! Even I wouldn"t have dreamed of doing something as crazy as attacking the Void Whale from within!"

"You really make it a habit of getting eaten by magical beasts and monsters, don"t you?"

Zhao Shi had finally arrived, with Zi Xiao Ji and Da Ge in tow. She evidently remembered that time with the Ice Soul Python and was mocking me for it. Da Ge grinned and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Now, now. Whose fault was it that Wu got eaten by the Void Whale? If I remember correctly, he was trying to save you, right?"

"T…thanks," Zhao Shi muttered under her breath and quickly looked away, her face burning. What the h.e.l.l, was she a tsundere or something?

"I"m glad you"re all right, Brother Wu! Or we"ll be in deep trouble when we return to the Nine-Tailed Fox Sect! Especially with Sister Qi Hong!"

The mention of Tang Qi Hong struck a painful accord in my heart, but I swallowed it and forced a smile.

"Yeah. It would be a great inconvenience if she lost her a.s.sistant."

"I"m sure it"s a lot more than that!" Zi Xiao Ji insisted, but I was in no mood to argue with her. Instead, I glanced at the others. Yi Shan and his two comrades had also just joined us, the former looking very apologetic.

Perhaps his attack hadn"t been on purpose, after all.

More importantly, I wanted to return to the Mo Bi Di Ke, shower, change into clean clothes and rest. But before that, we still had one last thing to do. Turning to the others, I smiled wearily and tried to phrase my question as politely as I could.

"Well…now that the Void Whale is dead, should we start cutting it up and putting it in storage?"