Chapter 81
The wind in the Coral Sea was generally mild, making it a beautiful and ideal vacation spot. However, the premise was that it could only be considered safe near Australia.
Coral polyps grew rampant every year, but the most crucial reason they hadn’t taken over the entire ocean was—terrifying hurricanes!
This greatly impacted the coral reef islands, keeping them to their small areas.
The Coral Sea was the region with the most hurricanes in the southwestern Pacific, from December to April. Despite Xia Yi’s strong memory map abilities, he had never studied meteorological changes, so he didn’t understand why Siren felt uneasy about the high sea temperatures.
Ocean currents triggered weather changes, creating different monsoon climates and rainfall around the world. When sea temperatures were excessively high, atmospheric pressure dropped, creating a super-low pressure area, which was a hurricane.
These pure scientific explanations were beyond the understanding of sea monsters.
They simply felt wary and quickly left areas where the sea temperature was abnormally high for too long, either heading for the deep sea or migrating to temperate and polar zones (like the cautious box jellyfish).
Sea monsters heard humans also had this habit called “summer vacation.”
Why wasn’t it called “sheltering from the storm”?
Humans were really strange.
In reality, hurricanes weren’t deadly for sea monsters. Even at wind force 12, they couldn’t blow away the tonnage of an Abyssal.
What was truly terrifying was the power of the sea, and—
Xia Yi saw the sea begin to surge wildly. When violent winds and waves appeared, looking up from the sea floor, the sea surface resembled the sky—waves tumultuously roiling, like scale-like cloud layers piling thicker and thicker, gradually turning pitch black because the sunlight had vanished.
There was no wind felt in the sea, but it was more pitiful than facing the howling wind directly on land. The water trembled violently; insufficient speed would definitely have one tumbling dizzyingly with the sea floor’s rolling water.
The hurricane’s coverage was extremely wide; as long as swept by the cyclone a little, there was no negotiation about the torrential rain.
Xia Yi keenly felt the Siren’s hand tightly gripping his trembling slightly.
“Stay low, hold tight, don’t let go!”
“Siren?”
In that instant, the massive school of fish dispersed. It was as if an invisible hand tore and ripped the sardines apart from within, swirling into a vortex that swallowed them up. Before Xia Yi could react, the scene before his eyes blurred into remnants, a dizzying sensation overwhelming him.
The Siren clasped his waist tightly, swimming forward at the fastest speed possible. His faint silver fish tails cut sharp trajectories through the surging sea. Sharks and yellowfin tuna were beside them. In times of peril, the meaning of the food chain vanished completely; even wolves and sheep would run madly in one direction, disregarding everything else.
The fastest and fiercest creatures fell behind as a result. One shark, disoriented after colliding with a reef, struggled desperately to maintain balance and reorient itself to escape. But it was too late. Its several-meter-long body was thrown completely out, flipping upwards along with the growing vortex towards the sea surface.
The vortex was mobile. Though not fast, its path was unpredictable. Not to mention that fish lacked the ability to swim while looking back; even if they did, there was no time to carefully observe. They distinguished the direction of the surging sea and struggled against the current to swim out.
The densely packed sardines had already been completely swallowed by the vortex. The small fish were the first to suffer misfortune because they lacked the strength to resist the strong currents.
Xia Yi’s vision darkened, his subconscious instinctively grasping for something.
The first time, he forcibly tore a strand of hair from the Siren. The second time, grabbing the Siren’s shoulder caused the mermaid’s speed to suddenly slow down, which barely alleviated Xia Yi’s extreme dizziness.
He saw the vortex, eerie and elusive, raging on the seabed, swallowing everything in its path—fish, shells, coral reefs, seaweed…
“A waterspout?”
In the South Pacific, areas crossed by hurricanes often spawned waterspouts. With the Siren’s speed, they could certainly escape this dangerous area, even with Xia Yi in tow, thanks to the ability to control the surrounding seawater. However, their speed still couldn’t break free from the suction at the edge of the vortex.
Xia Yi stared at the seawater, attempting to change the direction of the vortex but failing.
He then tried to create a protective whirlpool beside them, but until his vision darkened, the waves only lightly enveloped them. The power of nature always exceeded imagination, akin to having the technology for artificial rain yet lacking something compared to real rainwater.
“There’s more than one!”
The Siren suddenly changed direction.
It was timely.
The goldfish following closely had already plunged in, immediately pulled upwards by the vortex. The sea water was pitch black and terrifying; everywhere were white foam and bubbles, obscuring everything.
Xia Yi’s hands and feet were icy cold; even the fingers clutching the Siren’s shoulder were slightly spasming.
“There’s more than one waterspout?”
Xia Yi struggled to calm himself. He tried to wrap up the seawater again, distinctly feeling two immense forces around him vying for control of the seawater. Even though he managed to bring more seawater to this side, most of it was still being pulled away by those two forces.
He broke into a cold sweat. Just as it began to bead, it vanished into the seawater.
The seawater beside him surged disorderly, unable to form a whirlpool. Xia Yi dared not envelop too much seawater beside them as it would affect the Siren’s speed. Thus, he resorted to desperately parting the seawater ahead.
Initially, things went smoothly. He saw the forces pulling in different directions diminishing. Before Xia Yi could feel relief, he suddenly sensed the seawater ahead parting faster than he could control.
Speed abruptly increased. While the Siren merely felt surprised, Xia Yi couldn’t withstand the sudden loss of control over his abilities.
Unexpectedly, the anticipated resistance didn’t materialize. When the Siren sensed the impending danger and attempted to restrain the speed, two waterspouts from behind converged.
The massive waves generated from their collision closed in, forcing the Siren into the vortex of a third waterspout ahead.
“Xia Yi? Xia Yi?”
The vortex was chaotic, filled with too much debris—dizzy fish, fragments of coral reefs, sea snails…
The Siren struggled to avoid these obstacles, trying to use strength and speed to swim out again. However, Xia Yi’s nose and mouth were bleeding out into the seawater, his body unable to withstand the earlier speed, and his mental energy almost depleted from controlling his abilities. He had no way to escape the vortex with the Siren.
Hugging him tightly, the Siren tried to shield Xia Yi’s back as best as possible, barely maintaining their position on the periphery of the vortex.
But the power of the waterspout was too strong. Moreover, the vortex it formed was pulling seawater towards the sky. Even if the Siren struggled to maintain control, the center of the vortex continued to shift.
The terrifying sound of wind and waves awakened Xia Yi from unconsciousness.
All around him was pitch black, and the turbulent currents had already carved deep scars on both Siren’s and his skin.
“Follow its direction!”
In the critical moment, Xia Yi made an immediate decision.
He was always this type of person—whether it was about emotions or right and wrong, he couldn’t distinguish or understand them. But in a life-threatening situation like this, with absolute reason, he wouldn’t let fear overwhelm him.
He could certainly find the only solution as quickly as possible.
He didn’t let go of the Siren’s hand, urging the Siren to escape alone.
Xia Yi never expected to broach such a melodramatic and helpless topic of parting. In the limited time available, “Let go,” “No, absolutely not,” were lines only found in movies. If there was any time, they should seize the opportunity.
“Follow the direction of the vortex!”
Xia Yi tightly gripped the Siren’s back with his arm. Amidst the tumultuous, sharp wind, they could hear each other’s heartbeats—intense, resonating deeply.
In an instant, they were pulled up by the vortex.
They couldn’t see anything around them clearly, just spinning continuously along with the water sucked up together. Because they abandoned resistance and speed, layers of seawater began to envelop them.
They weren’t worried about colliding with anything; even the violent wind was tearing at the surface layer of seawater and couldn’t directly touch them.
Xia Yi felt particularly dizzy this time; it was a real spin.
A full 360-degree unrestricted crazy rotation could almost make one’s internal organs spill out.
His consciousness became a bit blurry. But even if the seawater was flung out by tremendous centrifugal force, large amounts of fresh water appearing out of nowhere and seawater pulled over could still form a protective layer.
Just when Xia Yi desperately hoped the waterspout would come quickly and disappear even faster, he suddenly felt the radius of rotation increase.
There were two possibilities. Either all three waterspouts converged, increasing in strength. Or, the more unfortunate answer—they had probably left the sea surface, entering the inverted funnel of a waterspout.
“So where are we now?”
“In midair.”
—Mermaids wouldn’t even step ashore willingly.
The water layer passed even faster. Xia Yi blinked laboriously; the vortex’s whirlpool was too fast, everything around was pitch black again. He even began to hallucinate fleeting images below, making Xia Yi’s arms feel stiffer and stiffer, as if his last ounce of strength was about to be exhausted.
“Xia Yi!”
Siren’s voice…
His arm felt extremely heavy, and his finger joints creaked under the unbearable weight. Xia Yi’s hand loosened, but they didn’t plummet. The Siren still clung tightly to him, and in his struggle, deep scars were gouged into the Siren’s shoulder blades.
The feeling of rapid rotation eased afterward, but the howling of the wind clearly grew louder.
Clearly, they were sucked into the eye of a hurricane.
The eye of the hurricane was calm, but the peripheral winds were too strong. Large amounts of seawater were drawn into the low-pressure center. The hurricane would carry these over the coral reef islands, causing a terrible disaster.
“Xia Yi…”
The Siren’s voice seemed incredibly distant. Only Xia Yi’s subconscious, barely awake, continued to try to control the surrounding seawater, gathering them into clusters. They were constantly torn apart by the raging wind and replenished. In the dense, low-pressure hurricane, it was like an endless tug-of-war.
At this moment, Xia Yi’s fuzzy mind wandered.
If Siren let go of him, could they perhaps escape the range of the waterspout?
No, there was no perhaps. The area they were in just now was too shallow.
When the tip of the waterspout touched the sea surface, it could suck up a large amount of seawater and rise straight up. He didn’t know if three waterspouts formed simultaneously on the ocean surface or if they encountered three.
But he hadn’t died from the astronomical radiation after the magnetic field void, nor drowned in seawater, nor been eaten by the ferocious sea monster (Abiseth).
Instead, ever since he boarded the plane to Sanya and arrived here, it had been an irreversible journey!
But what would happen if he stayed on land?
Thinking of that city, as ruined as it was, dark, silent, where the beach was littered with the despair of the dying and injured, Xia Yi sighed inwardly. At that time, he couldn’t even scavenge a crumb of food from the streets.
When dawn arrived, he couldn’t even dispel the dead air in that city. When he walked back to the beach, unexpectedly, he saw the Siren lying half-submerged in the shallow waters on the beach, his silver fish tail and agile body unabashedly exposed to the sunlight. When he saw him, his purple pupils were filled with unmitigated joy.
—Yes, why bother so much?
Being alive, being able to live beside the person you love, how rare a thing it was.
Even if that person was not human…
The Siren anxiously used infrasound continuously to call out, preventing him from losing consciousness completely.
Once Xia Yi’s abilities went out of control, the situation for both of them would be very dangerous. Even if they weren’t torn apart by the violent wind, they would probably crash into something.
They were constantly falling downward now; below was the ocean. They wouldn’t die from the fall, but the impact when they hit the water—
At this moment, the Siren suddenly felt Xia Yi’s limp hand suddenly, as if recovering strength, tightly gripping his shoulder.
“Xia Yi?”
But Xia Yi didn’t wake up; it was just a subconscious action. His fingers tightened slightly, and his body seemed to want to get closer to the Siren. But this action was redundant.
Afraid of separating but not daring to exert too much force, otherwise, Xia Yi’s ultimate cause of death would definitely be excessive bleeding.
This was the first time the Siren hated those sharp nails of his and the strength in his fingers that could tear open fish bellies.
