The Great Merchant in the Cataclysm

Chapter 124: The Overlord Underwater

After Zhang Mu plunged into the river, the fatigue on his whole body seems to set free all at once as he fell into a deep slumber, lost to the world. On the other hand, the turbulent of the river kept pounding on his injury, causing the cut to change into a milky color.

With another stream of the water pounded onto Zhang Mu’s bare arm and he sobered up immediately as he felt a stabbing pain on his arm.

Hearing the quiet rumble of waves crashing, that was the moment he realized where he was. Zhang Mu forced himself to maintain a steady balance of his body using his already sore muscles underwater. But things were not as easy as he thought, as he had overdrawn his energy and the fact that he was losing too much blood. Currently, Zhang Mu’s body was one that he could not control anymore.

The air in his lungs was depleted completely, but the desire to survive overcomes Zhang Mu’s deep fatigue. He did not know where he found the strength on his body as his right arm, which was completely fine, began to swipe up. After that, he did not care if his leg would cramp as Zhang Mu use his legs to paddle himself. After much struggles, he finally broke through the surface of the river.

When he came out from the surface to pump out all the air he kept on his lungs, he was dragged down by the big wave again, without giving him time to draw a few mouthfuls of oxygen. With the raging waves, Zhang Mu did not know which direction he was going now.

Under the water, the impact he received was lesser. Hence, Zhang Mu tried his best to open his eye and swam towards the direction of the shore based on his memory. Despite that, the process was not successful. Whenever he tried to swim forward, there would always be a stream of water disturbing his position on the water from a different direction, crushing all his effort completely.

All of a sudden, the river current calmed down in an instant. Zhang Mu could hardly hear the roars of the waves anymore. He recovered mentally as he quickly adjusted his direction and headed towards the shore.

However, the silence seems to last for a long time, causing him to feel uneasy.

The river current could not change by itself all of a sudden. So there would only be one possibility, a powerful water-type mutated animal must be heading towards him now.

The alarm on Zhang Mu’s mind was ringing in an instant. Did this river truly have such a powerful mutated animal?

It made no sense though. To have the ability to control such a rapid current, the mutated animal must be the third rank at the minimum. However, with this place being close to Shan Xi city, how could there be any mutated animal with such rank?

Furthermore, how could it be that the Shan Xi city’s strongest evolver did not take action against the mutated animal with such ranking?

Apart from this, Zhang Mu could not think of any other reason. Right now, he could only take advantage of the situation instead of guessing the reason why the river around him had calm down.

While he was struggling to swim, he would look around his surrounding from time to time to see what was coming too, which affects his condition. If there was any third-ranked water-type mutated animal, he would give up his struggles then. Even if he was perfectly fine at this moment, he did not have the resources to fight against a third-ranked mutated animal that was at its comfort zone.

The warning signs in Zhang Mu’s heart was growing more and more. Due to the calm water, it no longer drifted up sands anymore. Therefore, Zhang Mu’s vision gradually widened up. He could see clearly that the mud on the other side of the shore was just a dozen meters away. His heart leaped with joy as he raised his speed even more.

However, because the river had become clearer, Zhang Mu finally took notice the black mass on his right side at this moment. When he saw what was it precisely, he could not help himself but to curse out loud, causing him to gulp down a few mouthfuls of water as well.

That portion of black mass, was a swarm of piranha!

The swarm of piranha was actually a second-ranked water-type creature at the top of the food chain. They did not have the intelligence that a second-ranked mutated animal should have. But because of that, they were extremely ferocious. They would form into a swarm to conquer certain parts of the water while sweeping clean the territory there. Even a normal third-ranked human evolver wished that they would not encounter such a crazy group of piranha underwater, that would adopt any means for food.

Seeing them, Zhang Mu’s heart sank a little. If they were a third-ranked water-type creature, they might give him a quick death. But with the situation now…

No wonder they could control the river current in this area. Even though they were a second-ranked mutated animal, but with them forming as a team that had no competition within themselves, they were able to fuse their power together to make it happen. That was also the reason why even a third-ranked mutated animal was unwilling to stay on their territory too.

This was so troublesome. But at the same time, it also explained why they were able to live close to Shan Xi city. High ranked evolver disdain to deal with such a swarm of mutated animal, therefore even a third-ranked evolver would also be reluctant to spend their effort to deal with this.

Zhang Mu had gone to Shan Xi city various time, but he had never heard of such matter before. But at least now he finally understood why there were no people near the river. Only when the river was slightly calm, people would then cross it.

Zhang Mu looked bitterly at his left arm where his flesh had turned outward. He finally figured out why was there a swarm of piranhas beside him.

They must have smelled the blood flowing out from him. As they were sensitive to the scent of blood, they were able to track the smell of blood coming from several kilometers away and then trailed it all the way here.

Right now the piranha was only a dozen meters away behind Zhang Mu. For them, the water was a place for them to come and go freely. Hence, this sort of distance away from Zhang Mu was nothing to them. With just a blink of an eye, they could devour Zhang Mu until there was nothing left.

Remembering the previous experience with the silver minks, Zhang Mu did not dare to make a single move. Furthermore, if he showed any signs of fear, the piranhas that were a little hesitant now, would throw themselves on him straight away.

All he could do now was to pray that the river current would move his body slowly towards the shore while he faced them.

This time, it seems that Zhang Mu was lucky as his body began to move bit by bit towards the shore on this slow-moving river, like what he had hoped for.

Zhang Mu chuckled inside his heart. It seems that luck was on his side as he could touch the mud near the shore.

Seeing that Zhang Mu was drifting further away from them, the swarm of piranha could not endure the temptation of the blood anymore. Their fishtail began to sway as a silver-white straight line started to form and head toward the direction of Zhang Mu.

Zhang Mu saw this and immediately turn his body to swim. Fortunately, he was only a meter away from the shore now. But at this moment, he could sense that the water around him was beginning to flow rapidly. That must be the piranha using their power.

With a hand stretched out, he caught it!

The moment he touched the rock, he concentrated on gripping the rock to help him climb out of the river. Just like that, he popped out of the water.

However, before he was totally out of the water, the danger behind him had arrived.