novelraw Chapter 199: The Earth Vein's Fork
Chapter 199: The Earth Vein's Fork
As the apex predator of this subterranean river, the Subterranean Giant Eel possessed primitive combat instincts.
It could sense that these few little bugs encased in black "hard shells" before it, though they had somehow, in a way it couldn't comprehend, become immune to its lightning, that didn't prevent it from using the most direct method to send them, along with that tiny raft, into its stomach.
A roar erupted from that colossal maw. This roar wasn't produced by vocal cord vibrations, but by the churning of water caused by its massive body, making it sound muffled yet oppressive.
Following it came the head, larger than a steam locomotive boiler, crashing towards the minuscule kayak with kinetic energy capable of shattering city walls.
This was a frustrating battle. From the beginning until now, they had been unable to mount an effective counterattack.
Although the team had temporarily become immune to the steel-melting electric current attacks through advance preparation and teamwork.
Faced with the physical assault launched by the UMA's body itself, they were like leaves swept into a hurricane on this precarious little kayak, utterly powerless to fight back.
"Hard to port!"
Lin Jie, who had been in charge of steering, shouted.
He plunged his paddle into the river water, trying to change the little boat's course before the giant head rammed them.William also let out a furious roar at the same moment.
Using the spare paddle as a makeshift pole, he braced it desperately against the side of the charging giant eel's head, trying to use his insignificant strength to buy the boat some buffer space.
"Boom!"
A deafening explosion of sound erupted within the underground river channel.
Despite Lin Jie and William's quick and effective response, the disparity in size and power between the two sides was far too great.
The small, highly resilient rubber boat was tossed into the air by the immense impact force, then smashed down into the river water several meters away, sending up a huge spray.
"Cough... cough, cough..."
Lin Jie felt as if his internal organs had been shattered by the impact, blood uncontrollably surging up his throat.
Struggling, he lifted his head from the icy river water, finding the entire world spinning violently.
Fortunately, the rubber coats they wore had trapped air inside upon hitting the water, forming temporary air pockets that prevented them from immediately sinking to the riverbed.
But the situation remained extremely precarious!
The murky river water was bone-chillingly cold, and the swift current tugged violently at their bodies, trying to drag them towards the darkness full of unknown dangers.
Julian, having choked on several mouthfuls of river water, was coughing violently, on the verge of losing consciousness on the spot.
"Grab the rope!"
At this critical moment, William's booming shout became everyone's anchor.
Relying on his exceptional physical strength and willpower, he stabilized himself in the torrent, then threw the safety rope tied around his waist before boarding with all his might towards Lin Jie and Julian, who were closest to him.
After a chaotic, desperate life-and-death struggle, the group, having narrowly escaped disaster, managed to clamber back onto the battered, lopsided but still floating wreck of a kayak.
After its successful strike, the Subterranean Giant Eel gave them no chance to catch their breath.
Its hill-like body submerged back into the pitch-black river water, leaving only a trail of churning bubbles.
Then, an intense sense of crisis emanated from the abyss beneath their feet.
"Something's wrong..." Ethan wiped the river water from his face, his eyes filled with confusion and wariness. "The electricity... it's all gone."
Yes, the electricity was gone.
Those electric arcs that had been leaping between the bronze statues along the riverbanks earlier had, at some point, completely vanished.
The entire river channel returned to its initial deathly silence.
Far from bringing the group any sense of relief, this instead cast an even more ominous shadow over their hearts.
"It's going to attack us from below!" William wiped water from his face and shouted a warning. "It's going to drag us down!"
Just as he predicted.
The water flow beneath them began to rotate in an abnormal manner, forming a massive, downward-pulling whirlpool.
The giant eel's churning and ramming made the kayak, on the verge of falling apart, groan under the strain.
The four team members were like fruit tossed into a blender, only able to cling to the edges of the small boat as they drifted with the whirlpool's current, at any moment at risk of being capsized and plunged into the dangerous darkness of the underground river.
"We must... find a way... to stabilize the boat!" Ethan's breathing was ragged. He tried to shoot at the massive dark shadow underwater with his revolver, but the bullets lost their kinetic energy upon entering the water, unable to inflict effective damage on the thick-skinned behemoth.
At this final moment, as the ark carrying all their lives was about to be torn apart, as everyone was about to be consumed by the vortex, that shadow which had remained hidden underwater, audible but unseen, suddenly changed its attack direction!
It no longer fixated on toying with these "bugs" using the massive whirlpool.
The over-ten-meter-long black shadow was seen abandoning its entanglement with the kayak, swiftly approaching the nearest dim bronze serpent statue on the left bank of the river channel.
A sulfuric smell began wafting from that direction, and the air became dry and sticky again.
This abnormal action instantly captured Lin Jie's attention.
His gaze locked onto the giant eel's movements and the base of the bronze statue it was approaching.
During the earlier Electromagnetic Cage crisis, all his attention had been focused on the upper halves of the statues and the arcs of electricity leaping between them.
However, now, observing these "giants" from a new, water-level, upward-looking perspective, he noticed a detail he had previously overlooked.
He discovered that those bronze statues were not placed haphazardly along the riverbanks.
Their bases were all inserted deep into specific ore veins on both banks, veins that, under the weak glow of the carbide lamp, shimmered with a faint metallic luster, in a precise and purposefully special manner.
The direction and distribution of those earth veins were perfectly integrated with the jagged rock walls lining the riverbanks, as if they had been created from the very beginning to serve as "sockets" for these bronze statues.
Lin Jie finally understood why that Subterranean Giant Eel could release such immense and sustained electrical energy.
It turned out its body was like a movable "super capacitor."
Each time it discharged the electrical energy stored within its body, it had to reconnect to the "earth vein charging stations" hidden along the riverbanks to draw geomagnetic energy and recharge itself.
And that intense, minutes-long "ineffective discharge" earlier had already depleted its internal "energy reserves."
That's why it was making this strange move, and why static electricity would reappear as it neared the bronze statue.
Having figured all this out, Lin Jie turned his head and shouted to William and Ethan beside him:
"It's hungry, it needs to draw electrical energy!"
"Look at those bronze statues and the mineral veins underground." He pointed at the faintly glowing rock strata in the darkness, explaining frantically with a metaphor most fitting for the era's understanding, "Those aren't decorations, they're its 'dining plates'!"
"It just released all its thunder and lightning, now its body is empty, it must go back to 'feed'!"
The faint electric arcs gradually reappearing on the bronze statues confirmed Lin Jie's thoughts.
"We can't let it succeed."
"William, Ethan! Give me all the metal things on you that can conduct electricity. Knives, daggers, grappling hooks, bullets, and your belt buckles!"
"Since we can't stop it from feeding, then we'll contaminate its 'dining plates'!"