D.I.O

Splash! Splash! Splash!        

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Yongno did a flip turn near the cliff and quickly escaped from the school of blade fish aiming for his chest, head, and left leg.
He trembled when he saw those creatures miss him and burrowed horrifyingly into the rock surface as if it was mud.

Come to think of it, they easily stabbed me when I was performing Body Strengthening!

If Yongno didn’t operate that skill, those fish would have penetrated through his arms and chest.
While their blade-like nose couldn’t squarely pierce through the waterdrop turtle’s shell, they were still the tyrant of the deep sea who considered the mighty turtle as their game.

Splash! Splash!

Avoiding two other blade fish, Yongno bit his lips.
The current situation was as tricky as it had been during the combat with the waterdrop turtle.

I can’t retreat…!

He felt like he was stepping backwards to avoid the arrow flying toward him.
Truthfully, if an arrow was shot from far away, there was no reason he couldn’t avoid it.
If an arrow was shot straight, he could dodge it by moving one step to the left or to the right by reading the wind’s direction.
But what would happen if he tried to dodge the arrow by moving backward? It was simple, it would be a bull's eye.
Unless he could move quicker than the arrow and go somewhere unreachable, it was impossible to completely avoid it since would still be within range of attack. 

Yongno was in the same situation with the school of blade fish.
No matter how far he retreated, if he couldn’t move faster than these creatures, he could never escape from them.
Of course, he also had a time-consuming option of moving slowly in a zig-zag, but it would gradually drain his internal force since he had to focus on their movements and ascend to the surface from 1,000 meters deep while speeding up each moment.

Do I have about three years’ worth of internal martial arts left…?

After earning Penetration Power, Yongno had been able to dramatically reduce the amount of internal martial arts necessary for this special ability but he could currently shoot only one or two blows of Penetration Power.
The problem was that there were approximately twenty blade fish near him.

Splash!

The blade fish swam at him again and Yongno moved slightly to dodge them while constantly performing the Golden Pill Immortal Technique.
However, diving while operating Attribute Power consumed a lot of his internal energy, so it was impossible for him to quickly recover his internal martial arts.
He would need to endure twenty minutes to barely release one blow of Penetration Power. 

I can’t sustain anymore.
If I keep wasting my time this way, I’m dead meat.
I have to either hide and wait until those bastards leave or get distracted by something else…

While thinking that, he activated Aura Vision and looked around, then detected some living creatures reacting inside the cliff.

Awesome, I see two inside that’s pretty strong.
Of course, if I’m unlucky, I’ll might be surrounded.

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The blade fish around Yongno kept attacking him without a break.
Dodging their speedy intervention, Yongno carefully studied the cliff.
He noticed an entrance to a cave by a big rock.
The entrance was hidden from sight and required him to climb upwards.
Clearly, it was a man-made cave.
There was no way nature would create an entrance in the shape of a ‘ㄱ.’

Pow! Wham!

One of the blade fish shot itself at Yongno like an arrow, but he had already left the spot and was entering the cave.

BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM!!

It was like a scene from a movie.
They fired themselves at him and drilled dozens of holes in a line, tracing his movements. Their accuracy, power, and reaction speed were so great that despite swimming fluidly like a dolphin, Yongno barely managed to avoid their machine gun-like attacks. If these fish were just a bit more intelligent and could predict his direction of movement or attacked him at once in a siege formation, then he would have died. 

Gosh! Help me!!

Yongno shrieked to himself and went gliding past their attacks.
Truthfully, it was physically impossible for a human to move that smoothly in the water.
After all, even if his swimming speed and skill was remarkable, he wasn’t a fish.
Humans didn’t have the streamlined body, fins or even a flexible tail so it was rather strange that he could move this easily through the water.  Of course, due to his Attribute Power, Yongno could control the water around him and move like this, but even considering that, he was  surprisingly fast in the water. 

Oh my god! How could the school keep getting larger?

Having entered the cave, Yongno realized that the number of blade fish chasing after him had increased to thirty.
However, Yongno could shoot only one or two blows with his current Penetration Power, and that was also all the blade fish he could kill.
Considering how he was also likely to fail in emitting enough force through those blasts of power, it was truly a dismal situation.
Amid this frustrating situation, Yongno made up his mind.

Pause.

When Yongno stopped moving, the school of blade fish also came to a halt.
Before he moved to a reddish-brown rock, he raised his left hand to prevent the creatures from suddenly attacking him.
The moment he put his hand down, a group of six blade fish swarmed in on him as if they had been waiting for this moment.

KRAKA-BOOM!

Yongno dodged their attack like the way he had been doing so far, but unlike before, the swarm of blade fish couldn’t pierce through the rock like butter.
Truthfully, what they bounced off of wasn’t actually a rock – it was a creature mimicking a rock. 

Clank.

Yongno could have sworn that the gigantic lobster, approximately 2.5 meters long, with massive claws made that noise as it opened its eyes.
Actually, at this point,  it was too big to even call it a lobster. 

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Splash!

However, the blade fish ignored the lobster and tried to target Yongno again.
From the beginning, their target was Yongno and nothing could distract them from attacking him. But that was only the blade fish; the lobster thought differently.

POW!

When Yongno saw the massive lobster’s claws, he expected them to be its major weapon.
Of course, he wasn’t wrong since the lobster’s main weapon really was its claws.
However, the way the lobster used them was beyond his expectations.
The lobster threw a punch with its claws.
 

Yikes…!?

The lobster was swinging its claws shocking, and absurdly, at the speed of Mach 3.
Whether it was unfortunate or fortunate, none of the blade fish were directly struck by the claws, but sadly, damage doesn’t come just from being directly hit.
Even Yongno, who had been outside the attack range, felt the underwater waves hitting him hard in the stomach. 

What the heck is that?

Then he recalled the mantis shrimp  he had seen on TV before.
The mantis shrimp, also known as the Mike Tyson of the ocean, was only 20 centimeters long, but it was a very strong sea creature.

The power of its claws, its largest weapon, was equivalent to a 22-caliber bullet.
It had a 23 meters per second punching speed that reached 10,400 grams of acceleration and gave 1,500N of strength, so it made it difficult for people to remain unharmed if they were hit.
In addition, the mantis shrimp’s punch caused a vacuum phenomenon underwater and generated internal waves, which added a tremendous power to the attack and caused damage to the other creatures nearby.

Thus, the mantis shrimp hunted its prey by “hitting” it.
Whether it was an oyster or crab that had a hard shell, once hit, it was done for and the Tyson of the ocean would enjoy it deliciously.
Even the divers who went down to film the mantis shrimp had their camera lenses broken once or twice by the shock wave created from the creature’s strong punching force.
Not only that, but it is said that the mantis shrimp had also broken through a quarter of an inch thick glass in an aquarium in Norfolk, England.. 

Is that bastard on the fighter line?!

If even a 20 centimeter small mantis shrimp could swing such a violent punhc, Yongno couldn’t even imagine how forceful the claws of this 3-meter long lobster would be.
In fact, he didn’t have to think about it since the lobster was currently wielding its claws right in front of him!

THUD!

Just a single blow was enough to instantly kill the six blade fish in the front. The rest of the fish quickly swerved their target from Yongno to the giant lobster who wielded tremendous power and caused great damage, but…

BOOM!

The lobster threw another punch, which was followed by a huge shock wave.
Yongno crouched to endure it.
Thankfully, he had gone beyond the lobster and was hiding behind a rock in the cave. 

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Eek!

He gritted his teeth from the pain, but this time he wasn’t just trembling from it; it felt like all his bones were cracking in pain.
But he couldn’t circulate his qi to protect his body or perform Body Strengthening. 

I have to endure… I’m running out of internal force…

Yongno clenched his teeth.
His Golden Pill Immortal Technique had reached 30% of its mastery and his Swimming skill had also increased to a higher level, which reduced the amount of internal force required to dive.
As a result, his Gathering Magical Force exceeded the consumption speed of internal martial arts for diving, but that didn’t mean he was completely safe.

Cultivation methods controlled the user’s internal martial arts and accepted the external qi, so if Yongno had a very small amount of internal martial arts left, then it would be difficult for him to recover.
If he drained all of his internal martial arts, then he would fall into a state where qi absorption was no longer possible for a long time. 

Splash!

Yongno kicked off the wall and went deeper into the cave.
It wasn’t because he was trying to accomplish something but because he couldn’t endure another shock wave if the lobster wielded its claws again.

BOOM!

However, Yongno crashed into a wall when he was pushed by the shock wave that shook the entire cave.
To make matters worse, his severely injured right arm collided with the hard surface. 

God darn it! My arm is almost crushed like minced garlic.
I don’t think even modern medicine could have a cure for this…

Yongno was bleeding in a cloud of gold dust, and his right arm had many bone fragments exposed that it almost seemed like a scene from a horror movie.
He touched his right arm with his left hand.
It felt squishy.

Ugh, it looks so painful! If this game didn’t have the pain control system, I would have died from the excruciating pain.

BOMB!

The shock wave once again shook Yongno’s surroundings without letting him get distracted, but thankfully, it was bearable this time.
Yongno had been swimming desperately from the lobster’s attack, so he was thankfully a safe distance away from the battlefield. 

Wooong.

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What is this?

A bit far away from the battlefield, Yongno had found a marble emitting purple light.
He stared at it with a dumbfounded expression.
It was a pearl.
Of course, he had never heard of a purple pearl, but either way, it was still a pearl.
And from his experience so far, a pearl was usually inside a… 

BOMB!

How lucky.
The fact that Yongno survived by lucky.
He was just barely avoided the worst situation of getting bitten by the giant clam.
He would have died immediately if he didn’t perform Aura Vision and notice that something alive was around him and had a slower swimming speed. 

The huge rock bitten by the giant clam was ‘sliced’ like magic.
The clam had spiritual power and seeing how it even had teeth, it seemed like it was a carnivorous sea animal.
In addition, the hole in the back of the clam was constantly absorbing water.

THUD!

Ugh, how come every sea creature has it? Is it like they’re necessary part in this game?!

Yongno deftly dodged the clam dashing toward him.
Perhaps he was now accustomed to the creatures’ attacking him by propelling themselves by a jet of water because he was able to read the sea animals’ movements.
If he encountered this clam in the beginning, he would have got attacked without figuring out the situation. 

Do I still have only three years’ worth of internal martial arts left? Geez, it’s driving me crazy…

Yongno was recovering, but his condition was still dreadful.
He had to keep performing Water-friendly skills to endure the high water pressure and also operate Diving skills to breathe underwater.
However, Yongno realized that he had to consume more internal energy since the sea creatures wouldn’t let him go that easily. 

BOOOM!

Yongno clenched his teeth as he quickly moved to escape from the giant clam that tried to swallow his entire body.
It wasn’t because it was difficult to avoid the giant clam.
The clam was huge, but it was moving in a straight line like the blade fish, so it wasn’t that hard for Yongno to dodge its attack.
There were about 0.5 seconds of Time Lag[1], therefore, if Yongno was prepared for the attack, he would never collide with the creatures.
However…

CLANK!

What the…! How could it already catch all of them?!

Yongno shuddered when he saw the gigantic lobster that had appeared on the opposite side of the cave.
Although it had just been tackled by approximately thirty blade fish, only a few little scratches appeared on its armor-like shell. 

1.
a period of time between two related events ☜