Chương 347: No Need For A Straw

Apparently, losing a leg is not enough of a punishment for carelessness in the healer's eyes, as she continues to berate the severely injured on and on even after he goes quiet like she asked–I remember hearing that healers tended to either be the nicest people alive or the angriest creatures to ever walk this earth. Thankfully, her lengthy sermon was full of useful information since she recited the dangers back to the man as if he were a misbehaving toddler. She would also slap the back of his head at times.

Truly, healers are fierce creatures. In her rants, she mentioned several kinds of creatures specifically. They were named in rather simplistic manners, but they did a fairly good job of providing a description for the entities dwelling in and outside the blood ocean. For example, the beast that had chomped this man's leg was nicknamed 'Blood Eel', and it was seemingly just a large, crimson eel with a somewhat misshapen body.

As this man had experienced, these things could actually manoeuvre on land fairly well, so they weren't afraid of leaping far outside of the blood ocean to catch something. This man had gotten lucky because some other people were present, and the Blood Eel is far too awkward on land to fight back against an organised group. The beast was slain fairly easily before it could run away back into the blood ocean.

She also mentioned another creature that could have snatched him from far away, as apparently, there was at least one whole Kraken in the blood ocean, perhaps even more. They called it a Kraken, but from what I was hearing, it was a rather bizarre creature on account that it had several kinds of tentacles and tendrils, as if it were some deep-sea chimaera. Apart from these two, the only threats that could get you, could only do so if were if you were close to the shores or in the blood ocean.

Well, apart from the monsters roam around the caverns. They were humanoid creatures of varying shapes and sizes that moved in small groups most of the time, but had apparently shown up as a small army outside the base once before. They aren't very strong, but they can manifest weapons out of solid blood and being hurt by them means having your blood infected by theirs, which apparently was a death sentence until recently, but the healers had managed to find how to purge the foreign blood.

Apart from those, all of the dangers were firmly set inside the blood ocean and acted as one would expect. They were just sea monsters with a coat of red paint. After her lengthy sermon intended to scare the man into never getting himself into danger again, the healer went silent with a triumphant smile on her face. The man had successfully been spooked. … Why would he need to be spooked, though? Were the people sent down here not actually properly briefed on what they were getting into? How odd.

Regardless, thanks to all of this alongside some good senses, I quickly found a path leading through the blood ocean, and boy, were they not messing around when they decided to call it an ocean. I literally can not see the other end of it at all. In fact, I can't even see where the shore I am standing on ends despite there being a wide open space all around the ocean. This place is also filled with a crimson mist, and it is so damn large that it has its own weather.

The clouds are blood red as one would expect, and they are currently calm, but I do not doubt that they can manifest a torrential downpour or cast lightning down… Would the lightning be blood red as well? I can imagine magic doing something weird like that, but here, that would be a fully natural phenomenon, no? Or is mana involved with the blood? Blood mana is indeed abundant down there, but there are many variants of it all over the place.

I am surprised this place isn't overcrowded with crystals of blood mana since it is so densely present… If I had to guess, I would say that the crystals are either gathered at the bottom of the ocean, or something draws the mana that should crystallise to itself The second option wouldn't be so surprising.

Considering that this ocean has somehow nurtured life, it wouldn't be surprising if it has some master that has grown incredibly powerful, slumbering at the bottom Giant sea monsters tend to just sleep all the time and only exhale and inhale every few years or so. If you hear a loud, bone-shaking noise, we'll probably have our answer on this. The heartbeat of such large creatures is so loud that it blows people's eardrums Good thing I don't have those, then…

Should I just jump in like a maniac and count on my ability not to get killed even when I am severely mangled? If you entered a state of dormancy whilst in your 'Base Form', it would be likely that creatures would ignore you, but the senses of underwater entities are usually a bit unusual, and they often make mistakes. Some will probably react to movement and attack without realising that you are technically just a lump of steel Right, but finding a secluded spot near the shores will just invite trouble.

I can probably deal with the eels without problem, but the Kraken thing will probably pick me right up and drag me to the depths–Actually, that sounds pretty good. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. If the Kraken grabs me, then I can get to the bottom without having trouble with the other creatures–Probably, there might be giant horrors that these people have no idea about.

The Blood Kraken or whatever is horrifying to them, but it might actually be prey to other creatures down there. Mmh… El Gigante-01 isn't large enough to contend with those things, but I suppose dropping myself in my 'Wire Mess Form' would be effective in frying whatever is around me. Liquids aren't the friends of this form, and I'll eventually be unable to keep up the flow of lightning. I wish I had a marine-specialised form right now, but I don't even have one of those amidst the list of partly unlocked forms.

Maybe I should have asked Mari to cook up some vehicle that can travel underwater… Or rather, underblood. I kept my distance from the shore as I tried to think of something, but I only drew blanks. It seemed like the best option was the simplest, and was to simply drop myself into the ocean. Perhaps, instead of just sinking, I could stay near shore in a state of dormancy, and the creatures that do come near the shore will ignore my inert body. Well, it's not like I have countless options.

I am here to drink this entire ocean, and there aren't many paths available. So, I'll just walk in, I guess.

"What are you doing so close to the blood ocean?" Of course, someone had to interrupt… I do feel like I recognise this voice, though. I turned around to the source of the voice, and behold, there was someone whose presence here was actually one hundred per cent logical.

"I thought I had seen someone else walk over there, but it must have been my imagination" I spewed out a complete lie with the same ease I blinked.

"... Is that so? We do suspect that some monsters might be capable of using illusions" Standing before me, dressed in the same red uniform I remembered, and wearing the same golden mask bearing a sad expression, was Holgod. A powerful adversary that had managed to figure out how to force me right out of my 'Molten Steel Form' and who had come quite close to defeating me entirely. Considering his affinity for blood, him being here wasn't exactly unexpected.

Of course he would show up if he heard of a whole ocean of blood. What I was surprised by was that he wasn't a wanted fugitive or anything. He literally showed up exactly as he had back then, and it didn't seem like anyone minded. I guess people grew softer. Back in the day, blood mages weren't exactly respected. Are people fine with necromancers too, now? Holgod readjusted his mask.

"It is quite pretty when the blood ocean is shining like this, isn't it?" Is this fucker flirting with me right now? Go ask a vampire out. You are the type of every vampire in existence.

"Yes" I responded casually, but the way he formulated his sentence made it sound like the ocean didn't always shine in this way. I had assumed that it was perfectly normal when I got there, but I suppose the area would sometimes become pitch black, which would be to my advantage.

"You are one of the people who perform patrols, yes? Are the Blood Wights more or less active than before?"

"During my patrol, I ran into none of them" I once again lied with confidence, and Holgod seemed to believe me. The only annoying part is that he brought me back with him, and it wasn't like I could lie my way out of it. In my current disguise, I had no good reasons to venture anywhere close to the blood ocean, much less wander near its shores. I also got to experience Holgod's flirting techniques. They weren't bad, but he was more than twenty years too late. …

Also, I do not have a clue where the tent of the woman I am impersonating is, so I just loitered around pretending to do things until I felt a shift of some kind. It was like an invisible pressure spread throughout the caverns. It seemed like the people around me didn't feel it at all, and it made sense as I soon realised that the pressure was caused by intense and profound boredom, and it was coming from the direction of the blood ocean. Unfortunately for me, there wasn't any defined day and night cycle down here.

People just kept relaying each other, and the amount of traffic was always the same, so I hid behind a large tent when I found an occasion and turned into my 'Plush Form'. I hugged the wall to my left, moving behind tents and other structures that had been established down here, stealthily making my way back to the blood ocean. It was no longer glowing, and everything was drenched in darkness.

I walked a fair distance from the way I arrived here before turning into my 'Base Form' and slowly making my way to the shores. I placed one finger in the blood at first, and feeling the sheer influx of quote-on-quote 'flesh', I pulled back. If I absorb it at this rate, my mind will definitely go completely blank. So before immersing myself in the crimson liquid, I trained myself to only absorb the blood at a slow rate. The profound boredom was still present, and it was clearly coming from the very bottom.

It was quite far away, in the center of the ocean, if I had to guess. What this thing is, I have no idea, but it is clearly immensely powerful. Not something I would challenge willingly. Well, sorry big buy, but I really need to sip your home. So… I hope you'll only be able to flop around once I am done. Eventually, I lay down right next to shore, my body just barely disappearing beneath the opaque blood.

I allowed myself to enter a state of dormancy to maximise my chances of not being pulled deeper by something nasty. In any case, I had already hidden a handful of plushes around that I could warp to if necessary. Alright, let the drinking begin. With some luck, I won't be interrupted too many times–I do not believe that I will be able to absorb the full ocean without running into some serious issues along the way, so I can only hope that there won't be an absurd number of distractions. Fingers crossed.