Earth's Core 193

“Calling for tying and ignoring Bin Bin for the rest of the journey to the Eastern Continent, all who agree say ‘aye’!” Enderta, the Blood Claws Hound beast, peached in – though she did prefer to beat Bin Bin to unconsciousness and drag him by a rope, a very long rope.

“Aye!”

“Aye!”

“Aye!”

“Aye!”

“Aye!”

“Aye!”

“Aye!”

Even Liminton concurred, treating it as a compromise to the previously beating suggestion.

“Nay!” Bin Bin yelled, thinking of retreat but remembered that he is currently hanging on Liminton for his dear life. Aggrieved, he sucked in a deep breath in shock, though it only was his own mist energy, and started shedding crocodile tears. “Uncle Liminton, I can’t believe that you will betray me, your ONLY nephew, like this. My heart is shattered to countless pieces. You might as well leave me here, to die by the terrible whirlpools of the Gentic Belt!”

“Brat! You are the one holding me! Did your grip just tighten?!” Liminton turned red from embarra.s.sment.

Moments later…

“Fine, treat me like I’m the problem. This is a warning for the next to speak the truth, don’t do it, else you want to become a poor martyr like myself”. Constricted by a formation and tied to a ten meters rope of seaweed that its opposite side wrapped around Liminton’s torso, Bin Bin shouted a constant flow of words.

“When do you think he will notice”, a slandered male figure with a long flowing brown hair raised its head and looked back at Bin Bin while asking Liminton. “That Vars’s binding formation also blocks sound waves from leaking?”

“At some point he will probably say something that he knows I can’t ignore. Then he will notice”. Liminton replied, grumping. “I told his parents that I will take care of him, but I never imagined you humans can be so difficult”. Shaking his head, he submissively resigned to the situation. “Never mind him, Zenkai, right now we have to make a decision, to return or proceed with the Gentic Belt’s currents to that place…”

“I know. Actually, it’s why I slowed down to your pace. The protective formation is holding fine, but sooner or later it will collapse, it was not meant to sustain an eruption. Enderta and I convince the rest to head for that ‘place’; we don’t want to be late to the Eastern Continent. Since Bin Bin will ultimately follow your steps, I’m here to ask whether you want to join us or try your luck on a later date?”

The whirlpools’ fluctuations intensified. They started to emit dark brown lightning that disintegrated everything they struck.

“We are about to exit the Gentic Belt”. Liminton mentioned. “If the Overlords weren’t provoked…” He felt miserable for not stopping Zax when he first saw him heading to the sea.

“If only they killed him, like we all thought they would, then their temper would have been appeased. Regrettably, that man’s luck was too amazing. I really wonder if he survived the second departure, I think those that chased after him were from the five powers”. Zenkai said, knowing exactly how Liminton feels. Back then he and his three companions were also laughing at the rush Zax.

“We’ll go there. Besides, it’s been a while and the Horned Eel is preoccupied with the Four Wings Stork. Who knows? Maybe a detour through ‘there’ is a blessing in disguise…”

“Well, I’m not sure about it, but maybe you are right”. Zenkai was not as certain as Liminton, but he agreed that with the Horned Eel out of the way, things at that place might play differently.  “Still, all I want is a safe pa.s.sage to the other side of the Gentic Belt”.

…

‘The whirlpools are drawn to this direction’. Zax followed the undulations in the water. Initially he thought the cause of them were the whirlpools, but after observing the situation for a little while, from a safe distance, he figured that the same something he sensed in the current that hit him and the whirlpools is merely a sc.r.a.p of something bigger and far away.

‘Weird, the dark attribute worldly energy his getting suppressed’. He maintained his calm, though the realization that up ahead there is something or someone strong enough to annul his greatest source of strength was terrifying. If he did not see others advancing to the same direction, he would have probably looked for another way.

‘I need to pa.s.s this wall of whirlpools to go to where the third Black Core is’. That was the essential purpose of his journey. ‘If I can’t go through water, I should examine the conditions above it before risking myself at the unknown’. By now he had to have learned a thing or two…

Ascending to the surface of the sea, in no time Zax saw beams of warm light piercing the water. ‘Clear sky?’ He sure was surprised, he thought the whirlpools were connected to some kind of storm.

SPLASH!

He came out of the sea, suspiciously hovering between it and the blue sky. Looking down and checking with his Soul Sense. ‘They are several hundred meters from here, but still there…’ The giant whirlpools continued to spin and block the pa.s.sageway through the sea. ‘Why those who came from within’, he referred to the number of experts who showed up retreating from Gentic Belt after the eruption, ‘didn’t simply go above water?’

Zax hesitated. In the air he still felt the attraction of the Black Core. He chose the sea just because it was a fascinating new world to explore on his way.

He resumed his flight toward the Black Core in the air. ‘Below is too dangerous and the direction the whirlpools are going is taking me far from the Black Core. It’s sunny day, anyways’.

In a few seconds he got above the rim of the Gentic Belt, pa.s.sing above the first whirlpool. ‘Here, too?!’ He sensed it again, an unfamiliar type of energy, an invisible force in the empty s.p.a.ce between the sky and sea. “Argh!” An indescribable pressure weighed down on him out of the blue. “Gravity…” Zax uttered through clenched teeth.

BOOM!

It pulled him to the sea, blasting the water in an explosion that surged tsunami waves.

The pressure vanished inside the sea, but Zax was above a giant whirlpool when it pulled him.

“Grrr!” Extracting all of his strength, Zax tried to get away from the violently swirling motion of the whirlpool. The water moved so fast that they bruised and even cut him.

He attempted to change into his Dark t.i.tan Storm form, but the suppression on the dark attribute disrupted the precise control he had to muster, just like it did to his Soul Sense, but he still had an alternative.

Channeling the dark attribute worldly energy to his legs, combining the immense power gathered with the new maneuvers, Zax waited for the instant the whirlpool will carry him to its edge, all the while being cut and bruised by the invisible force mixed with the water.

BANG!

He released all the concentrated dark attribute energy in his legs through his fast, blasting himself out of the Gentic Belt.

WHOOSH!

BANG!

BANG!

He managed out, shuttling so fast he reached to a stop after crashing against a structure of rocks on the sea floor.

Yet again, deep in the sea, confronted by the towering sight of giants whirlpools, Zax raised himself up, alarmed of what would have happened if the pressure pulled him down after getting farther from the rim of the Gentic Belt. Now he got why no one tried to cross the wall of whirlpools from above, and why everyone he saw resorted to following the undulations.

Waiting for his wounds to heal. ‘It seems I must go in this direction’, he wondered how ships sail past this pressure without being affected.

“Hey”, as Zax swum along the Gentic Belt he heard someone shouting from behind. “Hey, are you okay? You got tossed from the whirlpool back there”.

Turning his head, Zax saw nine incoming figures, five humans and four beasts.

“I’m fine-”

“It’s you!” The same voice who was leading the group changed his tone; it was a long brown haired man, wearing an orange, yellowish chest armor made from the carca.s.s of some Deformed Being. The man was Zenkai!

“How can this be?!” Another person joined the flabbergasted Zenkai, a short black skinned, curly haired girl, Benni, and soon after the remaining seven as arrived.

“You are?” Zax asked, confused by how the other party knows him. Of the nine he could sense that four were in the third realm, however, their exact cultivation concealed and this was not a trifling matter. The other five ranged from the Beginner to the Peak of the second realm.

“Zenkai”, Zenkai introduced with a smile to avoid a misunderstanding. Even if Zax is the source of their trouble, it obviously was not done intentionally and picking up a fight with someone mad enough to antagonize the Overlords and the five powers was not someone he wanted for an enemy.

“You are the one that angered the Overlords and got chased by members of the Blessed Army and Violet Scaled Troops, it’s inconvincible to see you alive, still!” Seeing the odd look on Zax’s face, Benni hurriedly return to the subject of introduction. “Forgive me, I’m ‘Benni’, these are…” She turned to introduce the rest. “Enderta, Vars, Shila, Zenkai, Nirik Je, Hason, Liminton and Bin Bin”.

“Zax”. Zax said calmly. The group seemed to follow the undulation, as well, and though they appeared to hide something, he was curious of what they know about the wall of whirlpools, the invisible force and everything else regarding the sea.

The seven who were couple of seconds late read the atmosphere, quite awkward.

“As you may have understood we saw you both times you entered the Seer Don Ocean. We were waiting for our cruise ships to set sail when not a day after your first departure the Overlords went crazy”.

‘So that’s it’. Zax nodded. “Sorry if I caused you problems”. He could not blame the entire world for the Dewgong family’s and the orange haired Debuk Jin’s actions against him.

“Can’t be helped now”. Zenkai waved his hand. “Besides, because of you the Horned Eel Overlord has left the Earthly Crater”.

“Yes, weak cultivators and regular mortals might be p.i.s.sed at you, but those with the strength to get to the Earthly Crater are most likely quite thankful”. Hason, the brown fox, said.

As some started a conversation with Zax, other quietly scrutinized him.

Liminton was one of those p.i.s.sed at Zax despite the opportunity in the Earthly Crater. He created a rift between him and Bin Bin.

Vals, the forth and weakest Martial Mortal in the group, also found Zax unsightly. The slanted blue eyes, short blond haired woman was not interested in the Earthly Crater in the least, unlike Liminton who had a small urged to go there now that the Horned Eel was away. Her desire was in the Eastern Continent.

As he resumed his way after the undulations with Zenkai and the rest, Zax conversed with them, raising all the questions he wanted to ask.

According to Benni, they were situated in the Seer Don Ocean, not far from its boundary actually. The Seer Don Ocean is one of the five oceans of Ercas Mir, one of three accessible from the Western Continent. It is the second most dangerous ocean among the three, but with sufficient preparation its dangers can be eliminate from the equation and it is the shortest one to cross by a vessel to the Eastern Continent, which is why ninety present of all cruises take place in it. The two other oceans encompa.s.sing the Western Continent are the Nidbuk Ocean and Down Ocean. The Nidbuk Ocean is the safest among the three; however it takes the longest to reach from it to the Eastern Continent. The Down Ocean is the biggest of the three, is at the opposite side of the Western Continent, and notorious for its treacherous waters, which sinks nine ninety percent of all the vessels trying to cross it, hence the name.

Zenvir Ocean is Blue Sea’s turf, in the south part of the planet.

Kuden Dar Ocean is in the north part of the planet, the only ocean, other than Zenvir Ocean, that is not ruled by the Horned Eel Overlord. Its sky, however, are said to be under the sovereignty of an Overlord Deformed Being from the Eastern Continent.

The party of nine was stunned from all of Zax’s elementary questions that anyone who is strong enough to get to where he is should know the answers to, yet they refrained from pointing out his inexcusable ignorance. Who knows how many experts are out there in seclusion, waiting to come out and learn about the world they missed?