After 24 hours of tense nerves and a brush with death, everyone's bodies were exhausted.
Especially the pink-haired girl, a believer of [prosperity], who had maintained her divinity for so long without eating, her spirit was already overdrawn.
So after everyone rested for a while, they immediately started searching for food.
Zhao Qian suggested searching together to be safe.
But before Su Yida could speak, Cheng Shi firmly rejected the proposal, giving only one reason:
Too inefficient, not enough Time.
Of course, this wasn't the main reason; he was thinking, if everyone was together, how could Su Yida conjure food for Tao Yi?
Whether Tao Yi ate her fill was related to the difficulty of everyone's survival going forward.
Well, to narrow it down, it was related to Cheng Shi's survival difficulty.
After all, she was one of the only three teammates who could potentially help him.
The other two were the Child and Lao Tou.
Currently, this pink-haired girl still seemed quite reliable, both in terms of practicality and trustworthiness.
Since Cheng Shi had indeed saved everyone's life before, his words carried weight.
Zhao Qian adopted his suggestion with a conflicted expression, but still advised everyone not to go far, preferably only searching within sight of each other.
Su Yida glanced at Cheng Shi unintentionally, then jumped straight into the water.
As expected, not long after, the food He brought back was the most "bountiful".
Edible tree trunks found by chance, "bread" fruits that took a lot of effort to peel open, unexpectedly discovered unknown bird eggs...
Cheng Shi "stared" at these things He couldn't see, feeling tired just thinking about it.
He wondered how many brain cells this fellow traveler had used to make his story sound real.
Had He been hiding underwater for the past two hours just to come up with excuses?
Wasn't He tired?
As for himself, since He couldn't eat these good things, He would eat what He was used to.
The surface of the sea was littered with the carcasses of unknown giant beasts; except for the Void Maw Swallowing Whale's body, which was hard to approach due to the Void's pulling force, other bodies were easy to obtain, and slicing off a couple of pieces of meat from the wound could fill one's stomach.
It wasn't that the others hadn't thought of this easiest-to-obtain food, it was just the taste of the giant beast meat after being roasted...
How to put it, it was hard to describe.
The texture was like shit, and the taste was even more so.
Eating one bite and spitting out two, not only did it not replenish energy, but it also cost some stomach acid, a total loss.
But Cheng Shi had no choice.
And He wasn't picky.
Seeing Him swallow it bite by bite, the others' brows furrowed more intricately than the wrinkles of the Cordillera mountain range.
His strange eating habits once again sparked discussion among the crowd. Su Yida even sat down in front of Him with the food He had found and discussed the essence of taste and the true meaning of gourmet food with Him.
"Why aren't you eating what I brought back? Don't you like it?"
That dog thing, He licks Tao Yi's boots when talking to her, but He talks to me with sarcasm.
Cheng Shi said speechlessly, "To suppress the [divinity] of the God within my body, I cannot indulge too much in gluttony."
Su Yida's eyes darted around, thinking this reason seemed plausible.
"What does it feel like to have the [divinity] sealed inside your body? Can you feel His gaze?"
"If I don't think about it, I don't feel anything, but if I keep thinking about it, it's no better than eating this stuff."
"Oh, I see."
Su Yida suddenly felt a little nauseous. He put down the food in his hand and fell Silent, but after a while, He asked again:
"I'm a little curious, that moment underwater earlier..."
Finally!
Although Cheng Shi's action inside the giant beast's belly was hidden, the commotion was frightening, and everyone might have had questions about it long ago.
However, everyone has secrets, and since Cheng Shi saved everyone, as long as He didn't willingly speak up, normal people wouldn't pry.
But curiosity is human nature, and when Su Yida asked this question, everyone else's hands stopped moving, and even the chewing sounds became much quieter.
"Oh, you mean that? It was a kind of instantaneous Thunder item. I don't know its name. It was given to us as compensation by the [God Chosen] as a Trial product of [prosperity]."
So that's it!
Everyone's doubts were resolved, and they began to replenish their energy again.
Su Yida didn't ask for details and decisively changed the subject; He wasn't interested in those things.
Cheng Shi chatted with Him intermittently, knowing that He had an ulterior motive and wasn't trying to inquire about his hobbies, but rather the [divinity] within Him.
Coincidentally, both of them were Tai Chi masters. You push and I counter; they chatted for almost an hour and didn't get anything substantial out of it.
Cheng Shi was annoyed by Su Yida's talkativeness, and Su Yida was frustrated by Cheng Shi's unyielding nature.
This Priest is far more cunning than He imagined!
There is definitely a big secret hidden in His body!
...
Leisurely Time is a rare spectacle in the [annihilation] Trial.
But the Players couldn't fully enjoy it.
While trying their best to relax and recover, they were also constantly monitoring the surrounding changes with trepidation, fearing that disaster would strike in the next second.
This kind of emotion is the most exhausting.
Just as the Players' tense nerves had been rubbing against each other for a long Time, something shocking happened.
The water actually receded!
"This is...?"
Zhao Qian put his hand into the water, feeling the water level drop, his face filled with doubt.
"What, is there a problem?"
"Hmm, this water... seems to be draining a bit too fast."
Standing on the surface of the water, with nothing else around except the sea, they naturally didn't feel how fast the water level was dropping.
But Zhao Qian's perception was very keen. He felt that the pressure waves underwater seemed to be gradually increasing.
This pressure didn't come from the seawater, but from somewhere at the bottom of the sea.
"Be careful, for such a huge amount of seawater to drop at this speed, there must be a problem with the land at the bottom of the sea, very likely a fissure!
Regardless, retreating to land as the water recedes is foreseeable. Everyone collect materials and make some preparations.
Also, watch out for earthquakes and tsunamis!"
Gao Yu immediately added:
"If it's land and sea changes, be careful of the possibility of primitive volcanic eruptions on land. It's best to make large shields and boots first. Everyone find things, and I'll make them!"
Everyone immediately took action, bringing over all visible malleable materials in their sight for Gao Yu to hammer into shields and equipment.
However, within these few dozen minutes that the Players were acting, the speed of the sea level drop increased even further!
Even floating on the surface of the sea, they felt a subtle sense of falling.
What kind of seabed fissure could swallow so much water?
Cheng Shi subconsciously furrowed his brows.
"Child, I think we should try something else?"
"Like what?"
"Can you handle a helicopter?"
"?"
As soon as the words fell, the ground beneath everyone's feet changed again.
The slightly swirling raft suddenly shook violently.
This Time, the water surface could no longer be considered dropping; the water beneath their feet seemed to be instantly drained, and in the blink of an eye, the Players went from floating on the water to being suspended in the air.
However, without external force, how can an object be suspended in the air?
The answer is obviously it cannot.
Thus, to everyone's shock, the descent began!
As the seawater receded, everything that belonged to the sea began to fall, and the feeling of weightlessness directly and brutally filled everyone's heads.
The distant seabed seemed to have become a terrifying abyss, indiscriminately waiting for the fall of all Existence!
"Fuck, I knew it!"
...