Chapter 113 Qualitative Change.
The Douluo Continent is surrounded by the sea, with the vast ocean covering over 70% of its area.
Humanity's understanding of the ocean is limited to the nearshore areas; little is known about the unfathomable depths and the legendary forbidden zones.
At this moment, deep in the ocean, the sky changed.
It wasn't the frozen emerald green of the far north, but a suffocating deep blue-black that devoured all light!
"Rumble—"
It wasn't thunder, but a terrifying roar as billions of tons of seawater were forcibly pushed aside by an invisible force!
The sound traveled through the endless seawater, its muffled thud like the heartbeat of an ancient behemoth, shaking the souls of all coastal creatures.
Tens of thousands of miles above the ocean, the sky was torn apart!
A pitch-black vortex, over a hundred miles in diameter, appeared out of thin air, spinning wildly!
It wasn't a vortex formed by clouds, but rather the form created by space itself being distorted and torn apart by some terrifying force!
At the edge of the vortex, streaks of deep blue lightning exploded, but these lightning bolts lacked any sense of justice; instead, they were filled with a sinister aura of coldness, greed, and the devouring of all things!
Wherever the lightning passed, it left behind lingering black cracks in space, as if even "existence" itself had been partially eroded.
The sea roared!
Centered on the surface of the sea beneath the dark vortex, a super-eye over a thousand miles in diameter was forming!
The seawater wasn't sinking; rather, it was being forcibly drawn into the sky by some irresistible force, forming billions of waterspouts connecting the sea and the sky!
Each waterspout was a thousand meters thick, with internal water currents rotating at speeds fast enough to shred fine steel. The surface of the waterspouts was covered with a layer of constantly flowing deep blue runes, which writhed like living creatures, radiating a darkness that devoured light.
The temperature didn't plummet, but the light was disappearing at an alarming rate!
Within the vortex's reach, daylight instantly turned to night—not ordinary night, but an absolute darkness that completely swallowed even starlight and moonlight!
Only the ever-swirling, deep blue-black light at the vortex's center became the sole source of light in this area—a "dark light" that sent chills down one's spine.
"Whoosh—hum—"
A low, resonant hum, beyond the limits of human hearing yet directly vibrating the very essence of life, emanated from the deepest part of the ocean.
It wasn't a roar, but rather the life-pulse of billions of cells within an ancient beast awakening from its primordial slumber!
At the center of the pitch-black vortex, seawater, water vapor, spatial fragments, and even the deep blue lightning were frantically pulled, compressed, and condensed by an invisible, devouring force!
A colossal, indescribable phantom of a beast slowly emerged at the center of the vortex.
It was a whale!
Its entire body is a streamlined, deep blue. Its skin is not smooth, but covered with layers upon layers of thick keratin, like the oldest rock strata. Each layer of keratin is naturally engraved with complex, twisted, dark gold patterns. These patterns seem to writhe slowly, as if alive, constantly devouring the surrounding light and energy.
It is over 150 meters long!
The mere sight of its phantom gives one a suffocating sense of oppression, like "a moving mountain"!
Most terrifying is its gigantic mouth—when the phantom slightly opens its mouth, what is revealed is not the baleen of an ordinary whale, but three rows on each side, each row containing over a hundred sharp, white teeth, each like a giant scimitar!
Between the teeth, deep blue devouring energy leaps like arcs of electricity, as if it could even bite and swallow space itself!
Its eyes—a pair of deep blue pupils over ten meters in diameter—are like two entrances to an endless abyss, cold, cruel, and filled with greed and indifference towards all life energy.
Deep within the pupil, countless tiny dark golden vortexes could be faintly seen spinning. Anyone who looked into them would feel their soul, energy, and even their very existence being slowly stripped away and devoured.
The phantom of the giant whale slowly swayed its tail fin. The mere movement of the phantom caused a destructive tsunami thousands of meters high to erupt on the sea below, carrying with it the shredded remains of marine life torn apart by the power of devouring, fragments of reefs, and even chaotic energy overflowing from spatial rifts!
A list, its border woven from churning deep blue seawater and dark gold devouring runes, slowly unfolded before the phantom of the giant whale.
The text on the list, too, was directly imprinted into consciousness in the form of a flow of law-based information:
[Goddess Ranking Eleventh: Demon Emperor]
[Cultivation: 470,000-year-old ferocious beast (comparable to a level 99 Limit Douluo in humans)]
[True Form: Deep Sea Demon Whale (Mutated)]
[Territory: Deep Sea, Demon Whale Domain, Endless Abyss]
[Evaluation: The only surviving emperor of the Deep Sea Demon Whale clan, wife of the deceased Deep Sea Demon Whale King. Born at the bottom of the darkest, most pressured abyss in the deep sea, she was born with the extremely rare 'Dark Devouring' attribute mutation.]
Cold and cruel in nature, harboring deep hostility towards all living beings except its own kind, especially hating human soul masters.
Its hatred and resentment, accumulated over tens of thousands of years, have transformed into a fanatical will to destroy.
Holding a fragmented part of the deep-sea authority, it can command the vast majority of sea soul beasts within a vast ocean.
Its devouring ability has reached the level of laws, capable of absorbing energy, matter, spirit, and even parts of the power of laws for its own use.
[Reward 1: The Deep Sea Demon Whale bloodline undergoes an extreme mutation, evolving into the 'Abyss Devouring Demon Whale'. Its bloodline purity breaks through its shackles, its life essence leaps, and it gains some 'Abyss' characteristics. Its physical strength increases dramatically, and its epidermal keratin layer evolves into the 'Abyss Demon Armor', capable of spontaneously absorbing, deflecting, and annihilating most physical and energy attacks below the god level. Its massive mouth and sharp teeth evolve into 'Devouring Fangs', each tooth forming a miniature devouring vortex, with a 'law stripping' effect when biting, directly dismantling the target's defense, energy structure, and even the essence of its soul skills at the conceptual level.]
The digestive system evolves into the 'Abyssal Furnace,' increasing the efficiency of devouring and converting all things a hundredfold, and ignoring most toxins, curses, and backlash effects.
[Reward Two: Obtain the 'Endless Devouring Domain.' Normally covering a radius of eighty miles, it can expand to four hundred miles at full power! Within the domain, all non-dark, non-water-attribute energy is frantically suppressed, stripped, and devoured, transforming into pure abyssal magical energy to nourish the Demon Emperor. Light dims to near absolute darkness, gravity is abnormal (up to a hundred times stronger than outside), the spatial structure is unstable, and micro-spatial rifts and devouring vortexes are randomly generated. Within the domain, the Demon Emperor can summon 'Phantoms of Deep-Sea Demonic Whales' at will for cluster devouring attacks; can create 'Dark Water Pressure Cages' to imprison and slowly crush enemies; can deploy 'Abyssal Maw Projections' for massive, instantaneous devouring, engulfing mountains, fleets, and even small islands. The domain's ultimate ability, 'Return to the Void,' can briefly open a passage to the darkest abyss of the deep sea, releasing the terrifying pressure and resentment accumulated over billions of years within the abyss, annihilating all matter and spirit within its range.]
(End of chapter)