Chapter 4

On the continent.
Inside the Doomsday Laboratory, a group of researchers was holding a meeting in a conference room.
The leading researcher was a young man with brown hair and black-framed glasses, and he was presenting data analysis results to the others.
“Every day, there are earthquakes of various sizes occurring in the ocean.”
One researcher, after looking at the analysis from the brown-haired researcher, felt he was making a big deal out of nothing.

“Mu Ran, this doesn’t mean that sea monsters are coming.”
The young man called Mu Ran replied:
“We found fragments of an egg shell from a certain creature in the nearby seawater.”
The image changed a few times, and under the gaze of the researchers, it restored to a white egg shell.
If Lance were still here, he would definitely recognize it at a glance—wasn’t this his egg shell?
“According to the known data, this is an egg shell of a new type of creature. The good news is that we only found one.”

Mu Ran said, “But the bad news is that the thing in the Nat Trench has awakened and is now near the shallow sea.”

All the researchers couldn’t help but gasp.
In the year 487, the apocalypse struck, and the ocean, which had always allowed humans to do as they pleased, launched an attack on humanity.
The sea monsters in the deep sea awakened from the abyss and declared judgment on humans.
After so many years, the surviving humans had reached a delicate balance with the ocean, and now, they were carefully maintaining this fragile balance.
However, the thing that had awakened in the Nat Trench could easily break this balance.
“Well, since it has awakened, do you know what exactly is in that Nat sea monster?”
A newly promoted researcher asked.

Mu Ran smirked and said:
“Although most of the known sea monsters have evolved from existing marine creatures, the one in the Nat sea monster is different.”
No one knew the true form of the sea monster inside the Nat sea monster.
The research institute had once sent machines to probe, and the only conclusion drawn was that the thing had an unstable shape, a mass of indescribable material.
The only fortunate thing was that the thing spent most of its time in slumber and showed no interest in invading the continent.
“It usually appears in the form of tentacles.”
Mu Ran displayed a huge black hole on the seabed of the shallow sea and said,

“This is the mark it left behind.”
But why did that thing suddenly wake up from the deep sea and come to the shallow sea?
Everyone was puzzled, and the only suggestion was to send personnel to conduct a field investigation to see if they could find any clues.
“I’ve already thought of the candidates for this mission.”

Mu Ran said,
“Let Colonel Wei Yu and his team go.”
Upon hearing this name, everyone was shocked:
“Colonel Wei Yu? Isn’t he… capable of handling this task?”
“Perhaps he is.”
Mu Ran’s response was very cold, “Who knows?”
Hearing this answer, some researchers sighed.
It seemed that some people wanted Colonel Wei Yu to fail.

…

Lance had no idea that his birthplace was being shown to a group of people.
He was currently troubled, trying to figure out how to quickly dig out an escape route under the cover of that mass of tentacles.
He had been digging for a long time.
He had even changed several meat tentacles, but the escape route was still not open.
Yes, that cleanliness-obsessed “octopus” thought Lance liked to eat meat tentacles, so to better feed him, it would throw a fresh, processed meat tentacle into the Coral Bone every day.
What Lance needed to do was to quickly replace the old meat tentacle with the fresh one while the tentacle was away, and then wait for the tentacle to take the old one away.
In short, Lance had not blown his cover.

Sometimes, Lance would maliciously think that since he was being fed a piece of meat tentacle every day, if he had a bigger appetite, would that “octopus” outside cut itself into pieces to feed him after a month?
Suddenly feeling a bit sorry for the tentacle, what to do?
During this time, Lance had been pretending to be obedient.
After spending a long time with the tentacle, Lance realized that this tentacle seemed to be particularly indulgent towards him.

His previous actions had caused some misunderstandings for the tentacle.
In the tentacle’s eyes, didn’t Lance “like” to toss pearls with it?
The next day, the tentacle brought Lance a dozen large pearls, the smallest the size of a fist, and the largest one was purple and as big as a basketball.
To this, Lance could only pretend to be overjoyed, collecting the pearls in front of the tentacle, and then taking out one pearl to “toss pearls” with the tentacle.
In reality, once the tentacle left, Lance sat among a pile of pearls with a sour face, hating once again that this wasn’t land.

If he were still human, he could casually take a pearl ashore and become a millionaire.
Of course, that was just a thought.
After hiding from the tentacle a few times, Lance roughly figured out the tentacle’s activity pattern.
He discovered that every time before the tentacle appeared, there was a certain sign—
When the water above his head darkened a bit, about five minutes later, the tentacle would stretch into the Coral Bone.
And the interval between each visit from the tentacle, based on Lance’s own estimation, should be about a day.

Today, Lance pushed aside the meat tentacle as usual and began to dig into the Coral Bone.
Now, the problem he encountered was exactly the same as last time; the outer layer was harder to dig.
Lance was digging with his hands, and it was particularly strenuous; his one hand was already very sore from yesterday, but he had no intention of resting, still going today.
The narrow hole was almost completely dark, and even though Lance had brought in glowing pearls, he couldn’t see clearly and could only dig into the Coral Bone based on instinct.
“Crack!”
A crisp sound followed by a sharp pain in his fingertip.
Lance froze for a moment, then he smelled the scent of blood.
Could it be…

Lance hurriedly crawled out of the hole he had dug, and with the slightly brighter light outside, he looked and felt tears welling up.
His fingernail had split, and his fingertip was bleeding.
With ten fingers connected to the heart, even if Lance was a tough guy, he couldn’t stand having five nails split.
He cried out in pain, and strangely, the tears flowing from Lance’s eyes turned into pearls as they slid down slowly.
However, right now, Lance didn’t have the heart to watch the tears turn into pearls.
What surprised Lance even more was that the mermaid’s self-healing ability exceeded his imagination; the wound on his fingertip was healing at a visible speed.
Was this a good thing?

For Lance at the moment, it was not a good thing.
His fingernail was misaligned, and the speed of his self-healing was so fast that before Lance could pull out the crooked nail, it had already grown back, pinching the flesh.
This was very painful for Lance.
Lance tried to pull out the crooked nail, but due to his own condition, he couldn’t do it.
So, Lance could only sit there in despair, both hands resting on his fish tail, crying like a child.
Before long, the fine white pearls were scattered all over the sand beside Lance.
And after a short while of crying, the tentacle arrived.
As soon as the tentacle entered the Coral Bone and saw Lance sitting on the sand crying, with small pearls all over the ground, it was immediately startled.
Lance looked up with tear-filled eyes at the tentacle, which was anxiously twisting around, almost tying itself in a knot.

He blinked and couldn’t help but let out a giggle.
This smile finally interrupted his crying.
Seeing that Lance was no longer crying, the tentacle seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, and then slowly approached Lance under his gaze.
Lance glanced at the end of the tentacle, thought for a moment, and showed his injured hand to the end.
He had heard that some marine creatures could grow eyes on their tentacles, so he guessed that the “octopus” in front of him could also “see” his wound.
The tentacle didn’t expect Lance to touch it voluntarily; its entire tentacle stiffened for a moment, and then it slowly used its small tip to touch Lance’s hand.
When the tentacle touched Lance’s fingernail, Lance cried out in pain, and the tentacle understood that Lance’s pain came from there, so it stopped.
Lance:?

He suddenly felt a bit guilty.
Could it be that it thought of something?
Fortunately, the tentacle didn’t hold a grudge; it curled up its tip and tentatively touched Lance’s hand, but as soon as it touched, Lance struggled and let out a hiss.
This made it very difficult for the tentacle to treat him, especially since it really couldn’t perform such delicate actions.

If it wanted to treat Lance’s finger, it had to first pull out the damaged nail.
The tentacle thought the same, but when it tried to pry off Lance’s nail, Lance was too uncooperative.
Lance couldn’t even explain whether his avoidance was due to fear of pain or because he couldn’t stand the tentacle’s touch.
A tug-of-war ensued between the fish and the tentacle, ultimately ending with Lance biting off the tentacle’s tip in frustration.

Tentacle: “……”
Lance spat out the small tip with a “pfft,” then gritted his teeth and swam into the sea anemone.
The pain in his hand was bearable; after all, it was just five split nails.
And the tentacle, which had been bitten for no reason, stood there in a daze for a while, finally twisting as if it was very helpless about Lance’s action.
For the tentacle, Lance’s bite was basically like a tickle, so it didn’t hold it against him.

But…
Why on earth did Lance split his own nails?
The tentacle thought for a moment and then secretly sent out a small, slender tentacle, slowly crawling towards the meat tentacle.
Previously, it had always thought that its little fish had a habit of storing food, so it didn’t pay attention, but now it seemed that its little fish might be doing something it didn’t know about.