"BOOM—!!"
A dull, earth-shattering roar.
It felt like it would shatter eardrums.
The world went black.
That was the instant the President completely plunged into that colossal maw.
Immediately after.
A sound of grinding that set teeth on edge.
"SCREECH—SCREECH—"
It was the S-Class Particle Shield and those barbs, harder than steel, grinding against each other madly.
Sparks flew wildly in the darkness.
Like an underground fireworks display.
"Shield Energy is plummeting!"
"70%... 50%... 30%!"
Yao Qian clung desperately to the handrail of the console, nearly thrown off her feet.
Her smooth black hair was a tangled mess.
Her glasses were askew, hanging off the bridge of her nose.
"Brother-in-law!"
"Have we hit bottom yet?!"
"How deep is this monster's throat?!"
"Soon."
Qin Yu stood before the control console, his legs planted on the deck like nails.
Unmoving.
He gripped the helm wheel forged from Deep Sea Sunken Silver with white knuckles.
His eyes shone with an intense light.
"Break through... for me!"
Qin Yu shoved the throttle lever forward violently.
The already overloaded power furnace let out its final roar.
"HUMM—!!"
The ram at the ship's bow—the ram augmented with the Eternal Frost Core.
Now erupted with a piercing, frigid light.
The rotting flesh trying to entangle the hull, the still-writhing green inner walls.
The moment they touched that icy light.
Froze solid.
Brittled.
Then were smashed into shattered ice dust by the violent kinetic force!
"SPLUTCH!"
A final tearing sound rang out.
The ship suddenly felt lighter.
The suffocating sense of constriction vanished.
Replaced by...
A vast emptiness.
And...
A deathly silence.
"Stop."
Qin Yu released the helm wheel.
Lit a cigarette.
His hand trembled slightly.
Not from fear.
The recoil from that last impact had been too great, numbing the base of his thumb.
The President gradually slowed, finally coming to a halt, suspended... atop a liquid surface.
"Where is this?"
Li Ruobing held her massive hammer, warily surveying the surroundings.
It was dark all around.
Only a few beams of light from the ship's searchlights pierced the gloom.
This didn't look like the belly of some monster.
More like a gigantic underground cavern.
The vaulted ceiling was extremely high.
Dripping with green, mucus-oozing stalactites... no, those were enormous plant roots.
The air was thick with a pungent, acidic stench.
Mixed with the smell of the sea.
One whiff was enough to make someone vomit up last night's dinner.
"This is its stomach."
"Or perhaps..."
"Its internal circulatory system."
Qin Yu exhaled a smoke ring, which slowly dissipated within the beam of a searchlight.
"Old Qi."
Qin Yu pressed his earpiece.
"Still alive?"
"Zzzzt..."
The earpiece was full of static.
Several seconds passed before Qi Chun's voice, choked with tears, came through.
"Bro... you're my real brother..."
"Where are you?"
"I saw you get swallowed, I was about to start burning paper money for you..."
"I'm fine."
Qin Yu cut off his rambling.
"You keep drawing its fire outside."
"This big lump isn't dead yet."
"Its tentacles are still thrashing around out there."
"You're responsible for distracting its attention."
"I'll perform a 'minimally invasive surgery' on it from the inside."
After speaking.
Qin Yu directly cut off the communication.
"System."
"Time to work."
"Scan the entire area."
"What exactly is this thing?"
[Ding!]
[Initiating deep biological scan...]
[Due to being inside the target, signal interference is severe...]
[Cracking biological force field...]
[Scan complete!]
Immediately after.
A massive three-dimensional diagram appeared on the virtual screen before Qin Yu.
Red lines outlined the full form of this monster.
It wasn't just an island.
It was a tangled, living ecosystem.
But when he saw the core rating.
Even Qin Yu was taken aback.
He didn't even notice the cigarette ash falling on his pants.
[Target Name: Corrupt Black Goat of the Forest (Juvenile/Incomplete)]
[Biological Level: ??? (Energy fluctuation equivalent to "Abyssal Titan")]
[Trait Description: It is a relic of the old era, a certain manifestation of oceanic rules. It possesses limitless regenerative abilities and an instinct to devour all organic matter.]
[Status: Extremely Hungry / Core Missing / Rules Corrupted]
[Weakness Hint: Its "heart" is empty.]
"Abyssal Titan..."
Qin Yu narrowed his eyes.
Those four words.
Carried immense weight.
They represented beings truly at the top of the food chain in the current version.
Any one of them could single-handedly take on the entire human combined fleet.
But this one...
Is incomplete?
"Heart is empty?"
Qin Yu looked at the red dot flashing incessantly on the screen.
That was the monster's core region.
Directly beneath where they currently were.
"Brother-in-law, look at that!"
Yao Qian suddenly exclaimed.
Her finger pointed toward the water surface not far away.
Following her finger.
In the murky green acidic fluid.
Floated a flower.
Enormous.
With a diameter of at least two meters.
The petals displayed an eerie blue-purple hue.
Covered in vein-like patterns resembling blood vessels.
But this flower.
Was withered.
Half-rotted.
Yet it still emitted a faint fluorescent glow.
"This flower..."
Qin Yu frowned.
This flower shape, this color.
Though rotten.
It felt familiar.
Extremely familiar.
"Doesn't it look a lot like..."
Yao Qian adjusted her glasses, her voice trembling slightly.
"Something we saw in that garden?"
"You mean..."
That place was unbelievably beautiful.
Filled with these blue-purple flowers everywhere.
This one here.
Looked as if it had been doused in sulfuric acid and soaked in a cesspool for three days.
Exuding an aura of malevolence and decay.
"Underwater Garden..."
Qin Yu murmured to himself.
His gaze gradually sharpened.
"That dungeon's boss was a never-seen guardian."
"Could it be..."
Qin Yu looked up.
Surveying the massive, writhing plant roots around them.
"This thing is that guardian?"
"How did it end up in this wretched state?"
"And how did it escape?"
"Moreover..."
Qin Yu looked at the line on the System Panel: [Heart is empty].
"Its heart is the fragment we're looking for?"
The logic connected.
This [Black Goat of the Forest].
Originally should have been the boss guarding a certain fragment of the [Ocean Soul Crystal Mother].
Peacefully residing in the Underwater Garden.
But then.
The fragment was lost.
Or stolen.
Even the fragment itself ran away.
Without the fragment's suppression and energy supply,
it went mad.
It broke out of the dungeon.
It began to devour wildly across the sea, trying to fill that void.
That's why it reacted so strongly to the fragment in Qin Yu's hand.
It was the scent of its own kind.
It was its lost "half-life."