Meanwhile, in the deep-sea arena thousands of miles away.
Ethan stood in the center of the arena.
The seagrass beneath his feet had grown into hundreds of arm-thick vines, each thrashing wildly in the seawater like the tentacles of some living creature.
A jade-green light rippled across the surface of the vines, exceptionally eye-catching amidst the torrent of dark red crabs.
One vine swept outward, whipping hundreds of Triangular Cannibal Crabs into the air at once.
Their shells shattered in mid-air, leaving behind over a dozen turbid trails of debris and dark green bodily fluids in the water.
【Life Energy +183.】
【Life Energy +191.】
【Life Energy +176.】
...
System prompts flashed continuously at the edge of Ethan's consciousness, the numbers ticking upward relentlessly.
Yet, Ethan was frowning deeply.
It was too slow.
One million one hundred and thirty thousand. Killing them at this rate, how long would it take?
“Then, let's show off a bit more.”
The patch of seagrass beneath his feet suddenly ballooned.
In less than a single breath, the arm-thick seagrass expanded to the width of a human waist, its length stretching from a dozen meters to over a hundred.
The jade-green light on the surface of the seagrass grew even more dazzling, resembling burning green flames in the deep sea.
With Ethan at the center, dozens of giant vines lashed out in all directions simultaneously.
Boom!
The moment the seagrass struck the crab swarm, a visible void was smashed into the seawater.
The seawater at the edges of the void surged outward, forming a circular shockwave.
Wherever the shockwave passed, the crabs were blown away, crushed, and blown to pieces.
Shattered shells and bodily fluids churned in the void, only to be swept up by the incoming seawater and poured back in.
The arena floor trembled violently under the force of the strike.
Dozens of deep trenches appeared on the volcanic rock floor.
Each trench was half a meter wide and dozens of meters long. The rocks at the edges were peeled back by the seagrass's lashings, exposing the dark gray bedrock beneath.
One vine of seagrass struck a building at the edge of the arena.
Hum!
An aqua-blue shield suddenly lit up on the building's surface.
The shield was translucent, its surface rippling with dense runic patterns.
The moment the seagrass struck, the runes on the shield's surface lit up simultaneously. A resilient, repelling force emanated from the shield, completely dispersing the impact of the seagrass.
The seagrass bounced back.
Ethan's gaze swept over the shield.
Several more vines of seagrass lashed out from different angles.
Hum! Hum! Hum!
The shield lit up repeatedly.
With every strike of the seagrass, the shield glowed with aqua-blue light, completely blocking the attacks.
Not a single crack appeared on the shield's surface. The runes operated stably, and the energy fluctuations remained steady.
Ethan withdrew his gaze.
“Looks like I'll have to get rid of these crabs first.”
The patch of seagrass beneath his feet expanded once more.
Every single vine of seagrass sprouted dozens of secondary branches at the same instant, and each secondary branch grew dozens of smaller twigs.
Within a few breaths, the hundreds of vines transformed into a colossal net of seagrass that blanketed the entire arena.
The giant net began to close in from the edges of the arena.
Sweeping along the ground, the seagrass scooped up the accumulated debris along with the crabs that were still alive.
Scraping against the stone walls, it shaved off all the crabs clinging to them.
Vines wormed into the tunnels, dragging out every single crab crammed inside.
The giant net tightened further and further.
The crab swarm was compressed into an area less than fifty meters in diameter in the center of the arena.
Tens of thousands of crabs were packed together. Shells grated against shells, pincers tangled with legs, and eyestalks spun wildly in the crush.
The giant net suddenly snapped shut.
Every vine of seagrass exerted force at the exact same instant.
Boom!
Debris squeezed out from the gaps of the giant net, shooting out in all directions.
Dark green bodily fluids exploded into a massive, murky cloud in the seawater.
Fragments of pincers and legs flew out from the mesh, tumbling through the water before sinking to the ground.
The giant net began to dismantle from the edges, each vine retracting beneath his feet to reweave into a thick carpet.
At this point, the Triangular Cannibal Crabs pouring from the thirteen tunnels were no longer enough to satisfy Ethan's killing pace.
Now, he was blocking the tunnels, killing them the instant they emerged.
If a hundred came out, he killed a hundred.
Right now, Ethan only wished the tunnels were larger; they simply couldn't keep up with his speed of slaughter.
Bored, Ethan glanced at the numbers on his status panel.
【Life Energy: 33,607,724.】
“Oh? It's enough? That fast? Unlock passive.”
【Adding the 26th passive will consume 33,554,432 points of Life Energy. Confirm?】
“Confirm.”
【Energy deducted: 33,554,432 points. Current Energy: 53,292.】
【Generating passive...】
【Generation complete. Obtained passive: Elemental Affinity.】
【Elemental Affinity: Eliminates all talent gaps in the elemental system, allowing you to communicate with, learn, control, and use any elemental ability at will. Your affinity level is set to 10,000%, equivalent to the Master of Elements.】
The corner of Ethan's mouth curved slightly, but he quickly composed himself, refraining from testing the effects of the new passive immediately.
After all, he had been teleported here, and someone might be watching him from some angle.
Given Boulder's personality, he would definitely be laughing heartily at Ethan's miserable state.
Therefore, Ethan directly set the percentage of the new passive to 0%.
Solving the problem at its root.
For now, he would act as if he didn't even have this passive.
Now, he could deal with the shield.
Dozens of vines split off from the seagrass patch beneath Ethan's feet.
The seagrass reared high, suddenly accelerating in mid-air and lashing down at the exact same spot with a piercing sonic boom.
Boom!
A void dozens of meters in diameter was blasted into the seawater, the shockwave sweeping in all directions and sending the rubble on the arena floor flying.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!...
The runes on the shield's surface flickered frantically.
The aqua-blue light wavered, the shield's color fading from deep blue to light blue, and then from light blue to nearly transparent.
Finally, it shattered.
Shattered energy fragments shot out in all directions, leaving hundreds of blue light trails in the seawater.
Before the light trails could dissipate, the seagrass beneath Ethan's feet lashed out toward the outer wall of the arena.
Deprived of its shield, the basalt outer wall was as flimsy as paper.
The seagrass struck the wall, snapping the basalt blocks right down the middle.
Rubble sprayed outward, revealing the scene outside the arena.
Peering through the gap in the outer wall, Ethan saw an ocean of dark red.
Crabs.
Even more crabs.
Outside the arena lay a vast undersea plain.
The plain was densely packed with Triangular Cannibal Crabs, their dark red shells piled high into mounds.
The crab swarm stretched from the plain all the way to the horizon, their dark yellow eyestalks shimmering like countless points of light in the deep sea.
It turned out those thirteen tunnels didn't connect to some breeding farm, but to a small secret realm.
All the crabs were crammed inside this secret realm, waiting for their turn to enter the tunnels.
The boundary of the small secret realm was a translucent energy membrane.
The surface of the membrane rippled with runic patterns identical to those on the aqua-blue shield, enveloping the entire secret realm.
The corner of Ethan's mouth curved upward.
The seagrass beneath his feet suddenly surged with power.
He shot out of the arena's gap, the resulting current sweeping away all the crabs in his path.
Rate on N.U.
