Molting the Mortal Coil - Chapter 853: Dangerous

Chapter 853: Dangerous

After making it through the excruciating pain, he felt as if he fell into a void and lost all sense of self. There was only silence and darkness. He felt something restraining him and he struggled against it. He couldn’t move his limbs so he swung his head forward and there was a soft crack. Light suddenly flooded in from the hole he’d created and he kept ramming his head against it. He used his mouth to bite the hole bigger and then the barrier he was leaning against fell away. His body rolled forward and sprawled onto the ground. It took him a few long moments to adjust to the brightness of the light, and he looked down to see he was laying on a bed of sand. In front of him was the loud crash of ocean waves, and behind him was a giant shell.

Without any thought or deliberation he started moving towards the water. He kept his belly on the sand and his large and long front limbs moved either side like oars, flipping against the sand to propel him forward while his short legs could only make little kicks to help keep him pointed in the right direction. The beach seemed to get larger and larger, the distance to the water seemed to never get smaller. Then before he knew it he felt the coldness splash against his face and neck. A wave rushed in and then it lapped around his belly, with one more push of his limbs the water level rose up to his neck and then when the next wave crashed over his head he felt it grab hold of him. The sea rushed away from the shore and took him with it. With the water around him he was suddenly free of the sand’s restraint upon him and his limbs propelled him down into the water.

He saw the sand below him, but now he was flying over it. Above him, he saw swirling white foam and waves crashing against each other. Instinctively he altered his course and without even having to paddle his limbs he felt a current drag him away. Without any effort it pulled him away, carrying him far from the shore at rapid speed. He looked back and saw a creature with a leathery head, two long paddle-like arms and a big shell on its back. It was riding the current just like he was, getting carried out towards the sea. Then he swung his head forward and his jaw opened and closed, clamping down upon something small and slippery. A big tail flipped against his face but he didn’t loosen his jaw. He swallowed and the lump in his throat was pushed down. The tail disappeared into his mouth and he felt pleased.

Glancing back he saw a swarm of fish trying to swirl around the current, and the creature behind him snapped its beak-like mouth a few times before catching one of the fish and swallowing it in a single move. The current carried him away from the choppy water on the coast and out towards a brightly colored wilderness. It abruptly changed directions and he didn’t go with it, letting it deposit him beside the brightly colored reef. As he got closer the color abruptly disappeared. Many flower-like blooms of color suddenly retracted and turned the colorful landscape into dark rocks. As soon as he pulled away again, the anemone’s ‘bloomed’ once again and the colorful display returned.

Behind him, the other creature drifted to the left and the right, following behind him. They turned a corner and suddenly he saw a dozen others just like the one behind him. They were slowly circling around each other and sticking their heads into holes between the rocks. Sometimes they startled a fish out of a hole and then they’d race to try and swallow it. One of them stuck its beak into a crevice where an anemone was previously emitting its tentacles from. It rooted around before seeming to find something. Its beak crunched a few times and then it pulled something away from the rock, munching up whatever it found. A few others were catching bits of vegetation that were swaying back and forth with the water and biting off bits of them.

Just as it was seeming festive, a dark shadow appeared in the distance and he snapped his beak to warn the others. As he did he was already swimming back towards that current, moving as fast as he could. Rounding a corner he saw the other scattering, but one of them had its head inside a hole and didn’t see the massive creature behind it. A powerful suction force appeared and the trapped fellow as well as all the water around it disappeared into a huge cavernous mouth. An immense fish slurped up that trapped fellow without it even realizing what was going on. After eating one of them, the gigantic thing swung to the side and moved towards another one. That was when he saw what it was, the massive fish had a mottled hide and short, yet aggressively shaped spines down its back and at the edge of its flippers. The gigantic grouper moved off towards the others and out of his view, but he had no idea how many of them would escape from it.

With a few of his other companions they found the sea current again and rode it away from that dangerous place. This violent introduction to the world was only the first of many, and he learned to run away quickly and always stay on alert for those larger than him. There were many more memories, but most of them were all just variations on these same concepts and eventually he learned how to hide among the reefs and let them spread onto his back. He didn’t have to eat as much anymore and so he could spend decades in one spot without moving.

He was surrounded by a curtain of tiny bubbles, obscuring his vision and drowning him in a rushing sound. With just a few moments the bubbles cleared away and he looked down to see a pair of hands clad in a glowing green aura. He quickly rushed out of the rocky cavern he was in and kicked hard against the water with his glowing flippers. The rock that was beneath him shot away at an astounding speed and he flipped over, altering his course towards the bottom of the sea.

Sage had experienced the whole life of the giant sea turtle and it was nowhere near as interesting as that of the Living Disaster. It wasn’t the story of a normal turtle stumbling into a Spirit Plant and transforming into a Spirit Animal. Nor did it go wild and get a taste for the flesh of cultivators and find a Heavenly Material. The sea turtle was just a species of sea turtle that was extraordinarily large and as it grew gained mastery over a Water Law. He also felt it’s aversion to him and his complicated and alien history. Sage couldn’t help himself from attempting Soul Resonance with the giant sea turtle, and now he was feeling a tinge of regret. Not for making the attempt, but that it had failed. He experienced first-hand how powerful its Water Law was. The sea turtle’s law could act as offense, defense, and support. It was not just a limited minor law, but the Major Law of Water.

Instead of gaining a powerful ally he had created an enemy. A powerful enemy that was now completely at odds with him.