It was unknown just how deep the waters were here. There was no light down here, and visibility was very poor. The only thing that could be seen was the bright burst of elemental energy concentrated in one small area of the space. Since he was concentrating extremely hard at the task at hand, Bai Yunfei's soulsense was only four hundred meters in radius from him. But from that small area of coverage, Bai Yunfei could at least ascertain he was in a very dark red body of water.
There was a gigantic shadow rising from the depths of the water. Now just three hundred meters below the surface of the water, a circular outline of the thing could just barely be seen. A 'ball' about a hundred meters tall was visible now with two red 'slits' on one side of the sphere. As they drew closer, Bai Yunfei felt like they looked like a pair of gigantic red lanterns.
But then when he got a closer look, he realized they weren't 'lanterns', but a pair of furious red eyes!
Following the appearance of the eyes, a blue sheen of light started to emanate from the rest of the body. Thick tentacles sprung from the body one after another to form a network of tentacles.
At last, the mysterious soulbeast had finally revealed itself to Bai Yunfei.
Bai Yunfei felt his mouth drop open at the sight, "This…this really is an octopus!" He exclaimed!
That was right! Floating right in front of him was a gigantic octopus!
Animals known as octopuses are extremely rare in the Tianhun Continent. They existed only in the coastal areas of the continent, which were already quite rare compared to the rest of the continental terrain. Only the 'privileged' members of the empire would even know what one was. Commoners could go their entire lives without ever once knowing what an octopus was. Even Bai Yunfei had only heard about these animals when he arrived in the Capital.
Obviously, the giant 'octopus' right in front of him wasn't the little aquatic type of animal meant to be eaten. This was a soulbeast that was even more powerful than it was rare.
"An aquatic soulbeast…..and with a water affinity. It sounds familiar….what is it called again?"
Bai Yunfei's eyes flickered pensively as he thought about the compendium given to him by his master about the many soulbeasts. There were plenty of things he didn't quite remember due to the sheer contents of it all, and he didn't bother to read up on it after he left the Soulbeast Forest. He felt like he came across a soulbeast like this once before, but he just couldn't put his finger on it.
Aquatic-type soulbeasts were rarer compared to the other soulbeasts, so information on them were a little limited. They had to live in the water and would become weaker if they were taken out of it. In some cases, some soulbeasts couldn't even move. There were only a few large bodies of water in the Soulbeast Forest that could foster marine life, but other than that, aquatic soulbeasts were hard to find.
For example, there was the River Churning Rat 'Xiao Tang' that traveled with Hong Yin. It was a water-type soulbeast but wasn't a 'fish' and didn't have to live in water.
The rarity of an aquatic soulbeast was limited only to the Tianhun Continent, however. It was said that beyond the continent, such as the 'Eternity Ocean' to the south, an endless amount of water-type soulbeasts lived there.
……
"How strange to see a water-type soulbeast like this here….and judging from before, it has a dual affinity with earth. Having two contrasting elements like that is super rare."
Bai Yunfei thought to himself. He stared at the octopus to try and figure out what to do. "Fighting a soulbeast like this in the water is a stupid thing to do. It has an advantage in affinity over mine as well. Good thing I've Xiao Qi here, it shouldn't be a problem to fight it. But aside from the octopus, it still remains to be seen if there's anyone else…."
He wanted to leave this place at first, but now a battle was unavoidable since he was stuck here in the lair. His elemental fire was practically useless in this case, so he had to be careful and move with caution.
"Wu….."
A low grumble came forth from the octopus' 'mouth'. Circles of vibrations passed through the air with such force that it was visible to the naked eye even. Water started to splash everywhere and churn violently so that some of the stones underwater started to swirl through the water, forcing Bai Yunfei to break them apart when they got too close.
"Bang!"
A beam of elemental fire shot out from Bai Yunfei's right hand. It's speed was slower than normal due to it being underwater, but it was still strong enough to break apart a large piece of stone. As they were sent reeling away from Bai Yunfei, a second black object was thrown at Bai Yunfei yet again.
Prepared to send this one scattering away, Bai Yunfei started to gather soulforce to his hand again. But right as he was about to fire it, he paused briefly, a surprised look etching itself onto his face.
This thing being thrown at him wasn't a 'stone', but a….person!
Or actually, it was a 'corpse'!!"
It wasn't a completely intact body either—there were bones sticking out from certain parts of it!
Ceasing his attack in favor to simply dodge it, Bai Yunfei looked back at where the body came from and focused. When his eyes adjusted to the dimness, Bai Yunfei nearly let out a gasp in shock!
There were….so many bodies here!!
As it turned out, all of the black shadows that came 'floating' up with the octopus weren't just giant boulders or botanical life. They were….corpses!
The blue energy radiating from the octopus was getting stronger and stronger. Finally, it reached a point where it was bright enough to illuminate the entire underwater area for Bai Yunfei to see clearly. Underneath the octopus wasn't just dirt, but a layer of corpses!
It was essentially a forest of white bones that covered the entire ground! The upper layers of the bones had a bit of meat to them still, and trails of blood mixing into the water could be seen coming from some parts of the flesh.
That was also when Bai Yunfei realized that when the octopus started to stir, the entire lake became even more concentrated in red light—or black.
'This….this is…."
Bai Yunfei's eyes were wide open now now that he understood what was going on. He knew why the waters was so red now. Furthermore, he also knew why there was such a pungent smell in the area…..
It was blood!!
The waters was mixed completely with blood! And the horrible odor in the air was due to the decomposing bodies in the water!
This was no lake he was in! The lake was more blood than it was water!!
This….this was a body of 'blood'!!
Where the blood was coming from was easy enough to answer when he looked at the amount of bones. And the reason why Formagua was suddenly a ghost city was no longer a mystery. The answer was right there…..
"Bastard!!"
A myriad of emotions flashed across Bai Yunfei's face as all the puzzle pieces started to fit together. Shock, horror, denial, realization, and then…..anger!
This soulbeast had killed off an entire city! An entire city of people!
"Damn you!!!"