Chapter 299. Counterattack

Charles found himself in complete darkness in the blink of an eye. Soon afterward, he felt objects of varying hardness colliding with his diving suit. Everything around him writhed and pulsed, sending him deeper somewhere.

A crisp noise echoed as a sharp, barbed tooth lodged itself in the mesh right in front of his diving helmet.

"Damn it! Something swallowed us, and we're in its mouth! We have to find a way out of here!" Charles cried out and reached out for the rod tied to his calf, but a muffled boom echoed outside, and they could feel the tremors within.

A hint of delight and hope arose within Charles. The muffled booms meant that the Narwhale was bombarding the creature with torpedoes.

A strong tremor ran through everyone in the pitch-black darkness, and Charles finally managed to grab the Lightning Rod. He flipped it over and thrust it ruthlessly into the wall made out of flesh in front of him.

Crackle!

Lightning erupted, and the jumping lightning arcs briefly illuminated the surroundings. Charles started convulsing as well, but he was surprised to find that the Lightning Rod's damage to him had considerably lessened.

He would always get paralyzed for a good few seconds every time he used the Lightning Rod. This time, he felt numb all over, but he hadn't been immobilized.

With that realization in mind, Charles threw all caution to the wind. The spasms didn't stop as he incessantly electrocuted the wall made out of flesh in front of him.

It took just a few seconds for the wall of flesh to turn white as if it had been cooked by the Lightning Rod. Moments later, everything spun violently; Charles finally saw light as he and his sailors were spat out of the sea creature's mouth.

Charles took a brief glance at the sea creature in the periphery of his vision and noticed that it was starting to deflate. However, Charles didn't even take a proper look at the sea creature before looking down at himself to check his diving suit.

They were under extreme pressure in such depths, so a diving suit rupture could easily prove catastrophic.

Charles let out a sigh of relief after a close examination. The diving suit weighed a whopping two hundred and twenty pounds; clearly, all that weight wasn't just for show. Aside from its ability to withstand immense pressure, it was astonishingly sturdy as well.

The sea creature's maw was filled with rows of sharp teeth, so the fact that the diving suit had remained relatively unscathed was a testament to its durability; there wasn't even a single scratch.

Charles waved his hands briefly to stabilize himself. He looked up and finally got a good look at the sea creature.

At first glance, the sea creature looked like an oversized catfish, but the fleshy appendages sticking out of its colorful scales, as well as its rotting body, showed that it couldn't be further from ordinary.

Six crimson eyes reminiscent of human eyes were on both sides of its face, creating a ghastly visage. However, its three massive jaws that resembled a scorpion's pincers caught Charles' attention.

Charles became sure of one thing upon taking a good look at it—this sea creature was the same sea creature that had attempted to swallow the entire Narwhale earlier.

Its elongated body wrapped around the Narwhale while its terrifying jaws gnawed relentlessly at the ship. Clearly, it was furious at the Narwhale because of her bombardment.

The Narwhale resembled an iron fortress while she was in her submarine form, but she still couldn't withstand the sea creature's might. An ominous shrill noise echoed incessantly as her steel plates started to bend from the attack.

Charles swiftly ran toward the massive sea creature. The Narwhale had to remain safe. Otherwise, they would get trapped here and die miserable deaths, even if they somehow managed to chase the sea creature away.

Slash!

Charles hacked at the sea creature with the Dark Blade, and purple blood burst out of the wound, dyeing the seawater in a purple hue. However, Charles' attack was like a mere scratch against a sea creature of such size.

Charles clung to one of its scales and propelled himself like a rocket toward the fish's head. The fish's three eyes on one side of its face stared fixedly at Charles; there was barely half a meter of distance between them.

Charles whipped out his Lightning Rod and thrust it toward an eye. A surge of electricity burst out, and bright white lightning arcs jumped out of the Lightning Rod before wrapping around the sea creature's head.

The sea creature thrashed violently. Charles gnashed his teeth and tightened his grip around the rod before pulling it out. He raised it up high before thrusting it deeper into the same eye.

Crackle!

A sonorous cry reminiscent of a whale's cry echoed, and it abruptly went silent as the sea monster caved inwards in the blink of an eye.

When Charles came to his senses, the inky waters around him had become desolate. The Narwhale was free once more, and the sea creature had gone missing.

Did it teleport away, or did it just swim away? How come it's so good at escaping?

Charles thought. He decided to go back to the Narwhale and inspect its condition, so he turned around to swim away, but—

A four-meter-tall pale, humanoid figure was standing in front of him, its body pressing against the glass panel of his diving suit. Charles looked up to see that the milky-white humanoid figure had no eyes, but he felt as though something was watching him through the holes in where its eyes were supposed to be.

Charles' body reacted faster than his thoughts; the Dark Blade drew a cold arc as Charles thrust it toward the figure. The blade capable of slicing through metal pierced the humanoid figure, and even Charles' hand sunk into its body.

At the same time, Feuerbach's sharks came to their senses and rushed toward the humanoid figure. They opened their maws lined with razor-sharp teeth to shred the figure into pieces. However, Charles' attack and the sharks' maws failed to inflict even the slightest injury to the humanoid figure.

It seemed as though its entire body was made out of clouds—impervious to physical attacks.

Despite that, Charles was undeterred. He moved quickly and brandished the Lightning Rod, but before he could swing it toward the humanoid figure, one of the humanoid figure's partially translucent tentacles on its right hand rose.

The temperature of the seawater around Charles plummeted to freezing point in the blink of an eye; Charles couldn't even react as he quickly found himself encased in ice.

Just then, two torpedoes from the Narwhale streaked past Charles and struck the humanoid figure. A deafening boom echoed afterward, and the explosion blasted Charles away. The ice immobilizing him shattered at the explosion, and he could move once again.

However, Charles couldn't be happy at the fact that he had just escaped a life-or-death crisis. The milky-white humanoid figure was clearly unscathed as it emerged from the explosion. The torpedoes could stall it, but it seemed impossible to kill it with run-of-the-mill hot weapons.

The cogs in Charles' mind turned as he tried to figure out a way to defeat the humanoid figure.

Wait... don't I have a relic capable of injuring souls?

Charles thought, and he reached out for his flesh revolver. However, the humanoid figure had made its move at the same time and engulfed Charles.

Charles' vision went white, but he had managed to pull out his flesh revolver in time. He then fired multiple shots at the humanoid figure. The white bone bullets easily tore through the humanoid figure's seemingly impervious body.

The flesh revolver works! It can deal damage to it!

Charles was delighted, and he pulled the trigger without stopping. Charles heard the creature scream for the first time, and its shriek resembled two aluminum sheets rubbing against each other.

The humanoid figure finally decided to retreat after Charles obliterated over half of its body.

Unfortunately for the humanoid figure, Charles had no plans of letting it escape. He kicked off of the Narwhale and kept firing at it while swimming toward it. The humanoid figure's scream grew increasingly shrill as the bullets tore through it.

Charles showed not even an ounce of mercy toward it. He knew that if he were to let it go, it might return with vengeance along with an entire horde of his fellow species.