As the light flooded in, the highly sensitive Shen Lingxue suddenly woke up, sitting up abruptly on the bed. The blanket slid off, but since she had been sleeping fully clothed, there was no risk of exposing herself.
At most, due to sleeping, her collar was more disheveled and exposed than before, revealing most of her delicate, fair collarbone. Unfortunately, Zhao Hao was asleep at the time and didn't get to see the collarbone he had been longing to see.
"Who's there!"
Shen Lingxue couldn't make out Fang Xiu's face in the flashlight's glow.
"It's me." Fang Xiu replied calmly.
" When did you come into my room!" Shen Lingxue's expression seemed grim.
"Look around before you speak."
Fang Xiu waved the flashlight, illuminating the black river water around them.
After Shen Lingxue saw everything clearly, her expression changed drastically.
"This is the Black Water River!? What's going on? Has something strange appeared?"
Her urgent voice woke up Zhao Hao and the fat man.
The two were sleeping on the same bed at the time. They jolted awake, and upon seeing their surroundings, they were so scared they nearly fell into the water.
"Ah! Where are we? Why are we suddenly in the river when we were sleeping comfortably in bed? This doesn't make any sense at all!" The Fat Man's face was deathly pale as he clung tightly to Zhao Hao, as if he were clinging to a lifeline.
"Fatso, don't move around! With your weight, the bed will tip over!" Zhao Hao was also terrified and clung tightly to the fat man.
Ignoring the two embracing each other, Fang Xiu calmly surveyed the surroundings. He keenly noticed that the bed was slowly moving.
And the direction of movement was straight toward the center of the Black Water River.
He shone his flashlight toward the center of the Black Water River and faintly saw a deep, dark vortex, like the gaping maw of an abyss, ready to swallow them all.
Fang Xiu saw the vortex, and the others naturally saw it too, their faces turning pale as they imagined all sorts of terrible possibilities.
"That vortex is going to swallow us! Let's run!"
"Run? Where to? I can't swim."
"It's okay, I can."
"You're no help. Maybe the monster is underwater. If you go in now, you'll never come back up."
Watching Zhao Hao and the fat man argue back and forth, Shen Lingxue felt her head spinning.
She snorted coldly, "Shut up. Everyone stay out of the water. Use your hands to paddle!"
So Zhao Hao and the others immediately began paddling, but Fang Xiu did not. He simply observed quietly.
In his view, paddling with one's hands was a foolish idea. A mysterious entity capable of silently transferring everyone to the Black Water River would never allow them to escape by paddling.
He wondered whether they had been silently transferred by the strange force, or if the place they had been staying in wasn't actually Black Water Village, but the Black Water River itself.
Soon, the panicked voice of the fat man rang out.
"It's... it's not working! We've been paddling for ages, but we haven't moved at all! It's like... like there's something underwater pulling the bed!"
Upon hearing this, everyone's expressions changed slightly. Looking at the pitch-black river water beneath the bed, a strange fear welled up in their hearts, similar to deep-sea phobia.
In the depths of the sea, there is no light, only endless black water.
"Not only is it not moving, but it's actually accelerating toward the whirlpool in the river's center," Shen Lingxue said solemnly.
"We must not approach the whirlpool; otherwise, our bed will be sucked into it. Once we're in the water, our combat capabilities will be greatly reduced. This mysterious entity has the ability to control the river, and the river is its domain.
Under these circumstances, we are certain to lose!
Moreover, as the highest combat power in the team, my ability is fire. Once in the water, I will be severely restricted and may only be able to protect myself, unable to protect you all."
Shen Lingxue's analysis nearly scared Zhao Hao and the Fat Man senseless.
Zhao Hao instinctively turned his gaze toward Fang Xiu.
"What should we do, Xiu?"
After all, it was by following Fang Xiu's orders that he had survived the Qing Shan Mental Hospital and become a Spirit Tamer.
Fang Xiu calmly scanned the receding shore, eventually fixing his gaze on a relatively sturdy tree.
He opened the backpack on the bed, which contained pre-prepared tools such as rope, a shovel, and a pistol.
He took out the rope and shovel, connected the two, and then threw them forcefully.
The shovel, trailing the rope, traced a graceful arc and landed precisely on the tree trunk, wedged between the branches.
As a Spirit Tamer, his control over his abilities had reached an extremely precise level. What would require extensive training for an ordinary person, he could now accomplish with ease.
"Everyone grab my bed."
At Fang Xiu's command, everyone's faces lit up with joy, and they hurried toward Fang Xiu's bed. Fortunately, the distance was not far, and the rope helped.
Everyone quickly gathered together.
Then Fang Xiu began to exert force, pulling on the rope with all his might. Under the counterforce, everyone finally began to move toward the shore.
Shen Lingxue watched Fang Xiu's back as he pulled the rope, a hint of surprise flashing in her eyes.
She realized that her team wasn't entirely made up of useless people like Zhao Hao, who could only shout and couldn't help at all.
Fang Xiu's calmness surprised her. Not everyone could make accurate judgments in dangerous situations; most people would panic.
One meter, two meters, three meters...
The group was getting farther and farther from the whirlpool in the middle of the river.
But then something strange happened.
The whirlpool slowly disappeared.
Shen Lingxue, who had been observing the surroundings to prevent accidents, immediately noticed this.
"The whirlpool is gone."
Gone?
Fang Xiu's heart skipped a beat. If the whirlpool was created by the strange entity, then the whirlpool was likely where the entity was located.
But now that the whirlpool was gone, what did that mean?
It meant the strange entity wasn't at the whirlpool—it had come to them!
Just as he had this thought, everyone suddenly felt their bodies sinking.
To be precise, it was the bed that was sinking!
Shen Lingxue's face turned pale instantly: "This strange entity is pulling the bed!"
She quickly shone her flashlight into the water, but the black river water seemed to swallow the light, making it impossible to see anything clearly.
They could only vaguely make out what seemed to be black hair darker than the river water moving in the water.
Shen Lingxue's fair hands flipped suddenly, and a bright, scorching flame appeared in her hands.
Boom!
She flung the flame fiercely into the river.
Sizzle, sizzle.....
The river water boiled instantly, releasing countless streams of scorching steam.
However, the bed continued to sink, already more than halfway submerged, on the verge of being completely submerged.
Shen Lingxue's expression grew grim to the extreme. If she couldn't harm this strange creature on the water's surface, what chance did she have of surviving once she entered the water?
Was she destined to die here today?
She refused to accept her fate and continued to summon one flame after another, relentlessly bombarding the water.
But the eerie figure seemed incredibly agile, and with the cover of night, it remained unfazed by her attacks.
Besides wasting a vast amount of spiritual energy, it served no purpose.
Ultimately, the bed sank completely.
Everyone fell into the water.
The moment they entered the water, an icy coldness that penetrated to the bone spread throughout their bodies. Fortunately, they were all spirit masters; if they were ordinary people, they would have frozen stiff and been unable to move in an instant.
"Help... gulp gulp... I can't... gulp gulp... swim!"
The fat man struggled frantically in the water, swallowing several mouthfuls of icy river water, feeling as though his internal organs were about to freeze solid.
Zhao Hao acted quickly and rushed to save him. However, rescuing someone who has fallen into the water is a dangerous task, especially when it comes to saving a fat man.
In his panic, the fat man clung tightly to Zhao Hao, and the immense force made it impossible for Zhao Hao to maintain his buoyancy.
Both of them sank deeply into the water, constantly choking on water.
Just then, a loud thud!
Fang Xiu struck the obese man's neck with a single blow, knocking him unconscious. Zhao Hao finally managed to lift his head out of the water.
"Damn it! This damn fatso almost killed me!"
Zhao Hao gasped for breath, his other hand supporting the obese man.
The unconscious fat man was relatively easy to manage, though he weighed three hundred pounds, his large volume also gave him significant buoyancy.
"Something's off. Why isn't the weird creature attacking?" Shen Lingxue noticed the oddity.
Even though they were already in the water, the creature hadn't immediately attacked.
Fang Xiu answered her question.
"It's waiting."
"Waiting?"