“Why are you running?” Boulder’s voice boomed through the deep sea, shaking the surrounding seagrass so hard it flattened outward. “Aren't you great at scheming? Aren't you great at tricking people? Go on, keep tricking me!”
The basalt beneath his feet exploded.
He charged straight at Ethan.
His body tore through the seawater, leaving a white underwater wake in the cavity behind him.
The water at the edges of the wake surged outward, kicking up all the silt and sand from the seabed.
Ethan stomped his foot onto the ground.
The patch of seagrass beneath his feet suddenly grew wildly.
Hundreds of seagrass vines swelled from their roots, thickening from the width of a finger to the size of a waist, their length extending from a dozen meters to over a hundred meters.
Emerald-green light flowed across the surface of the seagrass, looking like burning green flames in the deep sea.
Dozens of seagrass vines interwove into a thick wall of grass, blocking the path in front of Ethan.
The grass wall was over ten meters thick. Every single vine was woven from dozens of secondary branches, layered on top of each other, completely airtight.
Boulder's fist slammed into the grass wall.
Boom!
The grass wall exploded from the center. Shattered seagrass fibers shot out in all directions, swirling in the seawater along with pulverized sediment shell fragments, riddling the surrounding coral trees with holes.
Boulder charged right through the shattered grass wall, his fist aiming directly for Ethan's face.
The instant the grass wall shattered, Ethan had already slid to the side.
His feet stepped across the seagrass beds. Wherever he stepped, the seagrass would instantly grow dozens of meters long, whipping toward Boulder.
A dozen seagrass vines whipped toward Boulder simultaneously from different angles.
Boulder swept his right arm horizontally, a layer of aqua-blue, scale-like light patterns surfacing on his arm.
The seagrass whipped against the scales, producing dull thuds.
The scales remained completely undisturbed, but the seagrass began to disintegrate from the point of contact, its shattered fibers washed away by the seawater.
“Is that all you've got?” Boulder’s mouth split into a grin, his vertical pupils swirling with rage and a near-manic excitement. “When you schemed against this prince at Horn Mountain, weren't you quite capable?”
As he spoke, he opened the fingers of his left hand and clawed toward Ethan.
Five aqua-blue energy blades shot from his fingertips.
Each energy blade was two meters long and crescent-shaped, their edges gleaming with a cold, pale gold light.
Tearing through the seawater with sharp, screeching explosions, the energy blades cut off all of Ethan's paths of retreat from five directions.
The seagrass around Ethan grew frantically.
Hundreds of seagrass vines surged from beneath his feet, weaving into three grass walls in front of him.
The weaving density of each wall was more than ten times greater than before. Empowered by the emerald-green light, the seagrass fibers took on an almost metallic texture.
The first energy blade slammed into the grass wall.
A burst of aqua-blue light exploded on the surface of the grass wall.
The energy blade sliced into the seagrass fibers. Under the erosion of the energy, the fibers disintegrated layer by layer with a sizzling sound. By the time the energy blade penetrated the first grass wall, its size had shrunk by a third.
When it penetrated the second grass wall, it shrank by another third.
Upon hitting the third grass wall, the energy blade was finally exhausted, dispersing into countless tiny motes of light in the seawater.
The remaining four energy blades followed close behind.
The seagrass beneath Ethan's feet propelled him upward.
His body rose rapidly through the seawater as the four energy blades brushed past the soles of his feet and crashed into the coral forest behind him.
Dull explosions echoed from the coral forest.
A dozen glowing coral trees were sliced in half by the energy blades. The severed branches surged upward, and coral fragments dragged hundreds of pale gold light trails through the seawater.
Luminous pearls fell from the branches, tumbling down into the seawater, the light patterns inside their bodies still flickering intermittently.
The shockwave of the explosion cleared an open space a hundred meters in diameter in the center of the coral forest.
The seagrass on the open ground was uprooted, and the sandy bed was torn away, exposing the black bedrock beneath.
During his ascent, Ethan tapped his fingers toward Boulder several times in quick succession.
Thousands of Seed Bombs shot from his fingertips, drawing thousands of fine white trails in the seawater as they swarmed toward Boulder from all directions.
A flash of disdain crossed Boulder's vertical pupils.
He crossed his arms in front of him, and the aqua-blue, scale-like light patterns emerged from his skin, covering his entire body.
A dense barrage of explosions erupted on the seabed.
Emerald-green fire flared up one after another, dyeing the seawater for several hundred meters around Boulder a deep dark green.
The shockwaves of the explosions stacked upon each other, whipping up a violent vortex of sand and silt on the seabed.
The sand and silt at the center of the vortex were ground to powder by the shockwaves, and the powder was swept toward the surface of the sea by the gales.
The fire subsided.
Boulder stood in place, completely unmoved.
There was not even a single crack on the surface of his scale armor.
“Are you just tickling me?” Boulder's voice echoed from behind the scale armor.
A circular shockwave exploded beneath his feet.
He soared into the sky, lunging straight at Ethan.
Ethan had already reacted the instant Boulder threw his punch.
The seagrass beneath his feet pushed him to the side, while thousands of seagrass vines surged from the seabed to entangle Boulder.
Boulder's punch missed.
The force of the punch blasted a vacuum zone over fifty meters in diameter on the seabed.
The seawater at the edges of the vacuum surged outward, forming a circular shockwave.
Wherever the shockwave swept, the sandy seabed was torn up, coral fragments were flung high into the water, and seagrass was uprooted.
Before the seagrass vines wrapping toward Boulder could even touch his body, they were shattered into pieces by the aqua-blue halo erupting from around him.
The instant he missed, Boulder shifted his stance.
Pulling back his right fist, he swept his left leg.
His lower leg was wrapped in aqua-blue energy, and the resulting shockwave pushed away all the seawater for several hundred meters around him.
Ethan had only just been pushed away by the seagrass, his feet not yet touching the ground.
Boulder's left leg had already swept to his side.
He had no choice but to cross his arms in front of his chest.
The Thorn Blood Armor automatically manifested. Blood-red wooden fibers surged from beneath his skin, weaving a thick defensive layer over his arms.
The wooden fibers of the defensive layer continuously grew, stacked, and interwoven, piling up to three meters thick in less than half a breath.
Boulder's left leg swept into the defensive layer.
Bang!
The defensive layer began to disintegrate from the point of contact.
The three-meter-thick defensive layer was kicked through in less than half a second, and Boulder's leg slammed directly into Ethan's arms.
Ethan felt a faint cracking sound from the bones in his arms.
He was sent flying by the kick, tumbling through the seawater for several thousand meters before crashing into an undersea mountain at the edge of the plaza.
A human-shaped crater exploded on the surface of the mountain.
The rocks at the edges of the crater curled outward, and cracks spread from the edges deep into the mountain.
The entire mountain shook violently from the impact.
Boulder caught up, slamming his right fist down once more.
Ethan rolled up from the bottom of the crater, and the seagrass beneath his feet yanked him to the side.
Boulder's fist struck the bottom of the crater, and the mountain exploded from within.
The several-hundred-meter-tall mountain collapsed from the middle. The largest rock fragments, the size of carriages, tumbled through the water and crashed into the plaza, leaving deep craters.
Ethan rushed out of the collapsing mountain and landed on the other side of the plaza.
A trace of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth, spreading in the seawater and dispersing as the current swept it away.
The Thorn Blood Armor on his arms was mostly shattered, revealing the reddened skin beneath.
Dark green lines surfaced on his skin—traces left by the erosion of residual energy.
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