High in the distant sky, the sun goddess Sol riding her sun chariot stepped on the white clouds, hurriedly driving across the sky. The valiant figure of this beautiful goddess could be vaguely seen even above the sea.
In this era where gods and humans coexisted, the boundary between deities and mortals was far from being so unattainable. The gods also frequently visited the human world, so all of this seemed very natural.
But on the dark sea surface, Meng, who had already eaten his fill, had no interest in this at all, appearing lazy as he floated on the waves.
"It had to be said that the physique of the Midgard Serpent was indeed very special. It could grow rapidly without eating anything, completely violating the law of conservation of mass and energy.
From the time Meng felt hungry until now, less than the time it takes to drink a cup of tea had passed, yet he had already become extremely large, a full twenty meters long, with a body as thick as a tree trunk. His growth rate was almost comparable to Jack's beanstalk from the English fairy tale, which grew to the sky overnight."
Indeed, according to legend, after Jormungandr was thrown into the bottomless abyss, because his body was too huge, he directly occupied the bottomless abyss surrounding the human world, biting his own tail, encircling the entire human realm, but also because of this, he was suppressed and unable to move.
Compared to his later growth, Meng's current growth was nothing.
However, as his body grew larger, it made Meng even hungrier. Unfortunately, because he was a nearly divine giant serpent, he couldn't possibly starve to death. In the end, this giant snake was almost driven mad with hunger, his two red eyes glowing with starvation, looking like two big red lanterns.
And when he caught the scent of humans from that lost leather raft, the giant snake, who had completely lost his mind from hunger, didn't even care about anything else and directly opened his mouth wide, swallowing the entire raft whole into his stomach.
At this moment, except for a few pieces of wooden oar debris remaining on the sea surface, there was almost no trace left of the raft's existence.
But also because of this, the giant snake, who hadn't eaten anything since birth, experienced for the first time the feeling of having a full stomach, even to the point of having to float on the sea, drifting with the waves, slowly digesting the food in his belly.
Satisfaction.
Happiness.
Relying on his hazy human memories, this giant snake managed to find these two words he wasn't too familiar with from his mind.
According to his memories from when he was human, these two words seemed to be very wonderful things. So, the giant snake, feeling full for the first time, quickly came to a conclusion.
"Being full = Satisfaction = Happiness."
After all, no matter how unscientific it was, even if gods existed, expecting a simple-minded snake to ponder what happiness is would still be a bit difficult. Even in mythology, Jormungandr was never known for his intelligence. Except for occasionally displaying a bit of humanity and vague human memories, giving the giant snake some human thinking patterns and occasionally revealing a bit of human nature, this giant snake was just a normal snake with an IQ below 50, a veritable idiot, under normal circumstances.
"Right, what did I just eat?"
It wasn't until he had been lazily floating for a long time that the slow-reacting giant snake thought to consider what he had just eaten.
In that state of being so hungry that he had completely lost his mind, in Meng's memory, he only remembered seeming to smell the delicious aroma of something, then seeming to see something, and directly pouncing on it without hesitation, not even clearly seeing what it looked like.
So, in fact, he didn't even know what he had just eaten.
On this point, Karl and old Buzz, whose souls had just arrived in the realm of the dead, could only be stunned and bitterly smile.
However, although his brain wasn't very useful, Meng still developed a deep sense of fear towards that frenzied state of hunger he had experienced before.
That state of being so famished that his mind was filled with nothing but "eat, eat, eat, eat, eat..." and going crazy, he never wanted to experience again.
Therefore, in order to avoid being hungry again, this giant snake decided to do something for the first time in his life:
"Find a place where I can eat my fill!"
Then, flicking out his long forked tongue, relying on his keen sense of taste, Meng quickly detected a faint fishy smell in front of him.
So, he very straightforwardly swam in that direction.
...
Meng didn't know how long he had been swimming, only knowing that the sun above his head had set and risen, set and risen again... continuing for six cycles.
The seawater around him gradually changed from that dark color to a blue hue, slowly showing signs of life. The huge waves and storms often encountered in the dark sea also disappeared.
At first, it was just some white sturgeon, whitefish, and small fish like squid and octopus appearing. Later, the species gradually became more abundant, with all kinds of big fish and bizarre creatures, leaving Meng's mouth busy as he ate non-stop.
But according to Meng's vague human memories, the ocean didn't seem to be like this. This clear demarcation of marine zones was really beyond his previous common sense.
He naturally wouldn't know that the deep sea was the territory of Aegir, the god of the deep sea, while the coastal waters belonged to Njord, the god of summer, the coast, and also the god of ports.
Njord belonged to the Vanir tribe, subordinate to Odin, while Aegir was an ancient deity who had existed since the birth of the world.
This old god with a not-so-good temper had always been lukewarm towards the god-king Odin, and he and Njord had always minded their own business, having nothing to do with each other. Under the influence of the divine powers between the two, it naturally formed this wondrous scene.
However, let alone the giant snake whose IQ was currently less than 50, even if his intelligence had been intact, he probably wouldn't have been able to figure out why. After pondering for a moment, the giant snake very straightforwardly gave up thinking and chose to have a hearty meal.
Thus, these innocent fish suffered.
The fish, who at most were usually caught by some Norse fishermen, had never seen such a brutal hunter before. Wherever the giant snake passed, almost nothing survived.
Whether it was palm-sized flatfish, arm-thick sturgeon, squid, or even seabirds that were too close to the sea surface... they could be suddenly attacked by the giant snake at any time and directly swallowed into its stomach.
And this giant snake, who only cared about eating its fill and was not picky at all, ate very comfortably because of this.
However, the giant snake didn't know at this time that on an island dozens of miles away, something related to him was happening...