"Bad, the monster's speed is too fast." Dean took two steps back and abandoned the idea of leaving through the channel. If he dove now, he would be killed by the underwater monster halfway through the plaza pool. With his current fatigued condition, he might not even be able to kill the monster on the land, not to mention in the water.
"Damn it!"
The look on his face turned ugly when he saw the underwater monster rushing for about 500 meters in a blink of an eye. No longer hesitating, he grabbed a few pieces of potassium nitrate, and crushed them into powder with his numb and tireless left hand and threw them into the water.
Because it was in powder form, the sinking speed of the potassium nitrate was slow, but the heat absorption characteristic was fast and effective.
Water vapor raised from the water surface, and the water gradually turned white until it finally froze.
He retreated to the innermost part of the ice barrier and stared closely at the monster that was now 300 meters away, praying that its perception ability was ordinary and would not detect their location. Otherwise, with the size of this monster, it only needed to hit the ground beneath them several times to knock the ground down and drop them into the water, and the collapsed concretes that piled up above them would also collapse down on them.
The monster's huge body was like a white shark, but instead of a fin on the back, dozens of ferocious spikes protruding along the spine like a crocodile. At this moment, the monster was following the blood smell, folding its limbs and swaying its body, swimming like a fish. It did not create too much movement on the water, seemed to be very good at manipulating the water.
Dean lay prone and kept his head down on the ground, preventing the monster from seeing him from under the water.
Shortly afterward, the monster closed the distance to ten meters and turned its direction slightly, swaying its tail gently and arriving under the frozen water.
Dean held his breath and tightened his body.
As the monster was passing under the ice, its hideous shadow could be seen through the ice. It swam straight to the distance, seemed to be unaware of the two people above.
Dean was a little relieved and poked his head up to look at the monster. It seemed that the monster did not find the source of the blood smell and swam to the distance following the current, gradually disappearing from his sight.
"That was close." He sighed with relief and came to the frozen water surface. But when he was about to crush the ice, a red heat source suddenly appeared again in his sight. It was the underwater monster that had just left.
It unexpectedly came back!
A look of panic crossed Dean's face, and he immediately stopped and ran to hide in the innermost part of the ice barrier again. Lying prone on the ground, his body was shivering from the cold air that was coming from all directions.
The underwater monster slowly swam over, passing under the ice and continuing to swim to the distance, but not too far. It swam around several nearby underground channels, seemed to be looking for the source of the blood smell.
While suppressing his shivering, Dean stared at the monster closely. After a moment, snot ran down his nose, and he subconsciously sniffed it back up, but he unintentionally inhaled the cold air, and it went deep into his lung. He suddenly felt a sharp pain, like a knife stab, in his chest, making him curl up in pain.
"I can't wait any longer. The monster won't leave for a while..." Dean lifted his gaze slowly, looking at the ice barrier next to him. He could only break the ice barrier to get out of here.
When he tried to get up, he suddenly felt that his hands and feet were numb. Looking at them, he found that there was a thin layer of ice covering his left hand, forming strange wavy lines, like fingernail-sized scales.
"Is it another outbreak?" He gritted his teeth and tried to prop himself up using his left hand.
Ka! Ka! Ka!
There was a cracking sound every time his left hand moved, and at the same time, a tearing pain.
He was confused. Feeling this pain, his first reaction was to look at his right hand, and then he noticed that the pain did not come from his right hand, but from his left hand, which shocked him.
"Didn't my left hand lose its sense of pain? How can there be pain now? Is it recovering?"
He tried to move his left hand again, and this time, the pain was clearer. He felt a tearing pain every time his left hand moved, let alone using it to prop himself up.
He gave up using his left hand and tried to use his right hand instead. His right hand was a little stiff but still reacted quickly. He got up difficultly and stood tremblingly. He felt dizzy as if he lost a lot of blood. His wide line of sight now could only see for 50 degrees, and he could only see the things in front of him blurrily. He felt like he was seeing some black shadows swaying in front of him.
"Mustn't fall! Mustn't fall!" he said repeatedly in his heart while panting.
His brain was buzzing. As he lifted his foot up, his body became unbalanced and shaky.
Thud! He fell down on a soft object.
When he looked at it, he saw Haisha's pale face right in front of him, serene, like a cold beauty. He could even feel her breath on his face.
He turned his head difficultly and took a look at the tight ice barriers around him. His heart was bitter, and a sad thought appeared in his mind.
"Is this ice cave a cemetery I built for myself?"
The chill had spread throughout his body, and he could not exert the slightest strength, even his shivering had stopped. He could only feel the chill was gradually invading his whole body — passing into his heart, spreading along his throat, and even rushing into his brain.
This intense chill made him feel that death was slowly coming for him.
What came to his mind when death was standing in front of him?
At this moment, the last thing he had in his mind was unwillingness.
He thought of many faces — Hailey, the Monastery's elder, the Wing Family's youth, the unseen Giant Wall master... One after another appeared in his mind and evoked his killing intent.
In addition to this hatred, the ideals he had planned also could no longer be realized.
These two were mixed together and made his heart full of unwillingness!
This also made him realize that the first thing he had in his mind was not the unwillingness that he had not realized his ideals, but the unwillingness that he had not killed the people he hated!
He thought about the first time he became a Hunter. At that time, he still thought about his parents and elder sister first when he was in a life and death crisis. But now, he was more concerned about his hatred and unrealized ideals.
Perhaps he had changed unknowingly.
Was this what people called growth?