Seed of Titan-Chapter 160: Through the Endless Blue

Drai found it quite amusing that despite its name, the ridiculously wide river wasn’t blue at all because it was tinted by the afternoon light.

Gazing at the unseen opposite bank, Drai wondered how much essence he would have to spend to sustain his flight across this natural border.

"I can just swim it out if I run out of essence midway, but I’d rather not test the waters if I could help it. The return trip will be a hassle though, since I’d be bringing a few apes with me.

"Still, I don’t understand why Max doesn’t want me cutting through Funky Valley and reaching the jungle via the cliffs. If I ever encounter the swarm, they shouldn’t be able to pierce my max toughness. I feel like he’s hiding some details. Oh well, since I’ve arrived here, I might as well cross."

’System, how many times can I fully restore Nova Flux with the essence I have?’

[Nine times if you forgo your contingency supply.]

"Six minutes times nine... so I’ll have about an hour of flight, huh? I think that’ll be enough to reach the opposite shore. Luckily, the expenditure doesn’t scale with my flight speed, otherwise I’d have to account for that too."

Drai aimed to land before sunset, so he immediately activated Nova Flux and flew forward in full speed. He maintained a low altitude but still left room between him and the water just in case.

His flight speed was by no means slow, but he still wasn’t as fast as most birds of prey. Compared to the fastest of them all, the Sky King, he was probably only half as fast.

Soon, Drai almost reached the time limit for his first round of flight.

’System, set an auto recovery for Nova Flux when it runs out.’

[Affirmative. Automatic recovery for Nova Flux has been set.]

Shortly after, his aura flickered, signaling that his cooldown had reset.

Drai smirked, ceaselessly grateful to his arguably best support skill.

"I wonder if there’s an overpowered skill waiting to be assimilated around here. I could’ve tried collecting various skills by focusing on gathering just one or two types of essences for each assimilation, but I don’t know if that’s worth the effort. From the two I unintentionally acquired, one has been useful but not game-breaking, while the other is just a waste of space in my status screen, and I don’t want to end up filling my skill section with trash. Besides, I want to avoid accidentally wiping out a species and disrupt the ecosystem."

A few moments later, Nova Flux flickered again.

"That’s two charges spent. Hmm, there’s still no sign of the shore... How much distance have I covered anyway?"

Drai looked down and saw his reflection on the slightly wavy surface, and his mouth curved into a smile.

"I might be scrawny, but this aura definitely makes me look cool, hehe."

Just then, a large wave swept his reflection, and a giant maw emerged from the water, chomping at him.

Drai reacted quickly and swerved, evading the maw. He then activated Nexus Augmentation to the max and thrusted his hand into the creature’s jaw.

Being way smaller, Drai’s attack wasn’t even remotely heeded by the creature. But almost immediately, the creature felt an unstoppable suction from the fresh, miniscule wound that was rapidly draining his energy.

The aquatic beast thrashed, attempting to fling away the latching prey. However, to its horror, not only did it fail to move its maw, its entire body also began to rise uncontrollably out of the water.

"Heh. Size matters, but only if the power gap isn’t too wide," Drai remarked as he flew upward with the creature. Once the creature was fully revealed, Drai could see that it resembled a fusion of crocodile and fish.

The beast’s lower body kept wriggling, but Drai’s hand remained firmly slotted in his jaw. Within a minute, the beast had weakened a lot and eventually, its whole body withered, leaving it dead.

Drai released the carcass, which plunged into the water with a huge splash, before deactivating his augmentation and resuming his flight toward the other shore.

"I hope I got some extra essence from that exchange. Hmm, I guess I’ll have to fly higher to avoid getting ambushed. Maybe the essence is worth it, but I don’t want waste too much time and end up endangering myself by flying blindly in the dark. I could find my way using the map, but it would be difficult to spot potential enemies or react to ambushes."

Drai’s flight path curved up for a few seconds before returning parallel to the ground again. He was now more than a hundred meters above the water, which he deemed safe enough.

Yet, trouble kept finding him nonetheless, for a small flock of black birds appeared out of nowhere and zoomed toward him.

Drai realized he couldn’t outrun these new attackers, so he simply reactivated his augmentation and withstood their salvo, catching two of them in the process.

With his fingers digging into their feeble flesh, Drai only needed a few seconds to turn his catches into saggy flabs of organic matter.

The rest of the flock screeched and cawed furiously, but they seemed to have learned their lesson, as they ceased pursuing the shining white creature whose figure was rapidly shrinking into the distance.

Not even ten seconds after the black birds’ attack, another foe appeared. This time it was a larger brown bird that was flying solo.

Seeing the bird dive toward him, Drai simply flung the dead birds he was still holding at it, which ended up exploding it into a cloud of blood, flesh, and feathers.

The attacks continued for a while as Drai kept stumbling into various hostile birds. Although he had thwarted every single one of these attacks with ease and gathered some essence in the process, Drai was getting increasingly annoyed by the countless interruptions.

"Is the Endless Blue a bird haven or what? It wasn’t like this back in the meadows," he muttered after slapping down another large bird, plunging it into the waters below.

Just then, Drai sighted the shadow of an endless treeline emerging from the horizon ahead of him. He instantly sighed in relief.

"Finally. I’m sick already of all these fucking birds and unchanging scenery."

It took Drai another cooldown reset and several bird attacks before he finally landed at the shore. The towering trees blocked the sunlight, casting deep shadows onto the surroundings.

"Right, the sun sets way quicker in the jungle. I guess I’ll have to camp it out and look for the apes tomorrow," Drai remarked as he surveyed his darkened surroundings. Interestingly, despite being a riverbank, the area was practically devoid of creatures—unlike the lively shore that Drai stumbled upon on his second day in Siyeun Mountains. There were also numerous clusters of damaged stumps close to the shore, which Drai assumed had somehow been eroded by the river, perhaps during seasonal floods.

After deactivating his aura, Drai used Arachno Sense and found that there were no large groups of creatures in vicinity, at least on land. For the ones underwater, he didn’t have a clue, since his skill couldn’t detect them.

Drai proceeded into the jungle, relying on his meager vision and touch to navigate through the darkness and dense vegetation, though he occasionally used Nova Flux to briefly light up a spot of interest.

Eventually, he stopped beneath a large tree with a partially hollowed-out trunk. He then took out his supplies and set up a simple camp.

Thirty minutes later, Drai was sitting by the fire while waiting for the roasted meat skewers to cook. He periodically scanned for any potential intruders using Arachno Sense, but so far, there were none at all.

"Hmm, it’s eerily peaceful here. Maybe I’m in the territory of a strong or apex predator, which could explain the lack of animals around here. It works for me, though—I’d rather fight one really strong beast and get done with it quickly than face waves of weaklings for an extended time."

Just then, his cooking sense told him the meat was ready, so he put aside his thoughts and stuffed himself full. As he cleared his greasy throat with some water, he realized that he was running out of water supply.

"I should probably resupply at the river while it’s clear. Maybe it’s gonna be bustling in the morning, and I don’t want to accidentally contaminate my water supply with pee or poop."

Drai then headed back toward the river while widening the path to make the return trip easier. Arriving at the shore, he crouched by the water, took out all his canisters and refilled them one by one.

It didn’t take long for him to finish, and after putting away the full canisters, Drai finally stood up, ready to return.

However, right at that moment, the previously calm waters began to churn, and a terrifying low rumble resounded throughout the area.

Drai reacted almost instantly, activating his staple skills and assuming a combat stance. His eyes darted around as he half-expected a large beast, presumably the territory owner, to emerge from the jungle.

Yet, what appeared next was way more astonishing.

A gigantic eel-like beast rose from the river. Its body was wider than the Sky King’s wingspan, suggesting that its length likely stretched for kilometers.

However, despite facing such a mountainous beast, Drai couldn’t help but let out a faint chuckle—the creature’s titanic head, turned toward the shore, resembled an absurdly dumb-looking carp.