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Boom!
Lightning flashed and thunder rolled overhead. The sea was stormy. The wind grew fiercer, and the misty drizzle gradually turned into pea-sized raindrops falling continuously.
"Who are you?"
On the deck, Beyond looked at the blond middle-aged man who had just warned them. Others also turned their gaze to him.
"My name is Heracles, Chief Administrative Sub-Officer of the Special Expeditionary Division."
The blond middle-aged man pushed up his glasses again and scanned the crowd on the deck, who were drenched in the pouring rain.
"Special Expeditionary Division? I remember that's V5's..."
Illumi lowered his gaze. He hadn't expected V5 to also send people to participate in this Dark Continent journey.
Beyond's Hunters also had calm expressions. No matter how many people came, it was all the same to them.
"That's right, I am indeed from V5's Special Expeditionary Division. But rest assured, I am absolutely not here to cause you any hindrance. I am merely here to record everything you do and become a [living witness] to verify your achievements."
Heracles expounded on his mission. The Kakin Empire wanted to go to the Dark Continent. Although V5 wouldn't stop them, they still dispatched Special Forces personnel to follow and record.
"Tch, does he mean he definitely won't die?"
Greed sneered. Even top Hunters might not return alive from that hell. What made this ordinary person think he could?
"Why? Since you're from the Special Expeditionary Division, you must know the hardships and dangers of the Dark Continent."
The white-haired man behind Beyond questioned. People from the Special Expeditionary Division should be the clearest about the dangers of the Dark Continent.
"Because Mr. Beyond Netero is participating in this investigation, the Special Expeditionary Division felt it necessary to dispatch personnel to follow."
"And the reason I am here is..."
"My superior agency, the [International Expeditionary Permit Bureau], though not officially recognized, has a director who is one of the [Dark Continent's only survivors]."
Heracles directly stated his intentions, without any pretense.
"You can say I'm here for power, or for fame, I accept it all. But in truth, there's also a Hunter's heart within my chest."
The storm grew fiercer. Illumi turned and walked into the cabin, no longer bothering with his identity or his mission. After he moved, others also successively left the deck.
June 20, 1986, southeast of Mobius Lake, Boundary Sea region.
Eighty-one days had passed since the [Limit Breaker] departed from Limassol Bay, including twenty-one days of sailing in developed and undeveloped waters.
Today was their sixtieth day of sailing in the Boundary Sea region, with ten days remaining until they reached the Dark Continent.
But this did not mean they could safely reach their destination, because ahead of the Boundary Sea region lay the even more dangerous Dark Sea region.
The Boundary Sea region, this sea area, lies between human waters and the Dark Sea region. If the human developed waters belonged to rivers, then the human undeveloped waters belonged to shallow sea areas, and the Boundary Sea region was the deep sea area.
Then the final Dark Sea region belonged to the sea area of the Dark Continent.
Naturally, the deep sea area and the Dark Sea region would certainly have many scenes or monsters that humans had never seen before. Among them, the monsters in the Dark Sea region appeared more frequently and were more dangerous.
In the vast ocean, the [Limit Breaker], a large cruise ship capable of carrying over a thousand people, seemed extremely small, like a single leaf boat in the vast ocean, swaying with the waves, as if it could capsize at any moment.
Boom!
In front of the cruise ship, a huge wave rolled in, crashing violently onto the ship's hull. A large amount of seawater washed over the wide deck.
Illumi, clad in black, stood at the edge of the ship's railing. A circular barrier, rising from the deck, shielded a one-meter radius around him. Not a single drop of seawater could approach or wet his feet.
At this moment, he was intently observing the peculiar creature leisurely swimming in the sea ahead.
On the sea surface, a monster with huge horns on its head and its tail continuously wagging left and right in the seawater was leading the way for the [Limit Breaker]. Even in such a turbulent and vast ocean, it could "walk on flat ground."
After 81 days of sailing, Illumi also roughly understood some of the [Gatekeeper]'s abilities.
The [Gatekeeper] possessed an ability to predict danger and to sense magnetic fields and gravity, similar to birds and elephants.
Following the Gatekeeper, the [Limit Breaker] could avoid most dangers. Of course, some deep-sea monsters who courted trouble would charge up to cause problems during the voyage. The Gatekeeper could handle them itself, without needing to dodge.
However, if the Gatekeeper suddenly made a sharp turn, it meant that there was some kind of crisis or terrifying creature that could not be dealt with in the sea area ahead.
Actually, Illumi's emotion sensing ability could also serve as a way to perceive creature activity.
However, compared to the Gatekeeper, his sensing range was too small to be comparable. Not to mention his En, whose range could only extend to twenty meters now, far less than the range of emotion sensing.
And the [Gatekeeper]'s other ability was its gravity sensing between the planet's magnetic fields, just like birds and elephants. The [Gatekeeper] navigated by relying on its memory of the Dark Continent's gravity field.
Illumi speculated that the [Gatekeeper] was originally a creature of the Dark Continent, but for some unknown reason, it drifted to human waters and settled there.
Roar~
Suddenly, the [Gatekeeper], which had been leisurely swimming, raised its upper body out of the water and roared towards the sky. After roaring, the [Gatekeeper] no longer swam forward but floated on the sea, drifting with the waves.
Illumi's eyelids drooped. In the 81 days of sailing, it had never acted like this before.
After the Gatekeeper roared, the cruise ship following it also stopped sailing and, like the Gatekeeper, drifted with the waves on the sea.
"Hmm!?"
Just as Illumi was wondering, the next moment, his expression suddenly hardened. Because he sensed that a vast and incredibly powerful aura had inexplicably risen from this sea area.
To perceive more clearly, Illumi closed his eyes and activated his innate emotion sensing ability.
Illumi had never felt such a colossal aura before. This aura was vast and silent. It was like a mountain range, majestic, towering, and unshakeable.
"No, it's not the aura of the sea; it's at the bottom of the sea!"
Illumi suddenly opened his eyes. The surrounding black circular barrier continuously twisted into black lines, eventually condensing into a black giant eagle.
Illumi leaped onto the giant eagle's back. Black threads rose and bound his legs, fixing him onto the giant eagle's back.
The giant eagle slowly spread its ten-meter-long wings.
Boom!
Accompanied by a burst of sonic booms, the giant eagle transformed into a black streak of light and shot straight into the sky, instantly reaching a height of over a hundred meters.
"That is..."
Illumi looked down at the ocean. The entire ocean turned pitch black, as if a layer of oil was floating beneath the surface.
He looked into the distance, but the ocean in other areas did not show this phenomenon. To confirm, he again controlled the giant eagle to fly to a height of over a thousand meters.
"This should be clear now."
Illumi controlled the giant eagle to hover at a thousand meters high. A white cloud passed over his head, shielding the scorching sun and making Illumi feel a little cooler. He looked down at the ocean below.
The moment he looked down, Illumi's pupils instantly dilated like expanding balloons.
Deep-sea monster!
Below the surface, the shadow of a terrifying giant creature, over a thousand meters long, was hidden beneath the sea area where the [Limit Breaker] was located. In contrast, the [Limit Breaker], weighing tens of thousands of tons and over a hundred meters long, was like a toy, fragile and tiny.
In Illumi's eyes, it was simply the difference between a freshwater crucian carp and an adult great white shark.
"But, there's no movement."
At a thousand meters high, Illumi frowned and pondered, looking at the giant creature's shadow, which had gradually drifted away from the [Limit Breaker] in a short amount of time.
The giant deep-sea monster did not "attack" the ship or the Gatekeeper. It simply hid beneath the surface and slowly moved away.
Remembering the Gatekeeper's actions before, did this monster only attack moving creatures?
Or perhaps, only the Gatekeeper might be attacked, while the cruise ship, being a non-living entity, would not be attacked by the monster.
Boom!
Just as Illumi was guessing, the sea surface not far in front of the [Limit Breaker] suddenly shook.
Rumble!
The sea surface trembled incessantly, as if an underwater volcano had erupted. Wave after wave of terrifying tsunamis surged, and the Gatekeeper and the cruise ship on the surface could only helplessly endure.
Boom!!!
Accompanied by a colossal roar that echoed through the heavens, a monstrous creature, over a thousand meters long, suddenly burst out of the sea, forming a spectacular oval-shaped water column over a hundred meters high on the surface.
Rumble...
Massive amounts of seawater cascaded from high in the sky, forming dazzling, transient, multi-colored rainbows between heaven and earth.
It took a full five minutes for all the seawater covering the giant creature to finally fall, revealing its true appearance.
The giant creature was entirely white, covered in dense cracks, like countless hard rocks. What was strange was that on its back, there was a barren mountain, with a few trees growing on it.
"This is... a turtle?"
"No, no, a creature of this size should be called an island turtle."
Illumi looked at the monster in front of him, his face...
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