After dusk, raindrops began to fall from the sky, and a strong wind blew from the west, whistling through the countless willows by the roadside.
The water surface also became turbid, with many fish and shrimp surfacing to breathe. Whenever it rained, fish and shrimp would float to the surface for fresh air.
Shen Feng and his group were still pursuing the Dragon King in their small boat. They followed the Grand Canal and arrived at Hongze Lake. Dense reeds grew along the lake shore, bending low in the strong wind.
The tracker showed that the mutated crocodile underwater was slowing down. If they continued the pursuit, it wouldn't be able to escape. The facts proved that animals could never compare to machines. Even a mutated crocodile couldn't escape the pursuit of the small boat.
By midnight, it was pouring rain. The chase was nearing its end. The Dragon King stayed quietly at the bottom of the water, no longer moving in Hongze Lake.
Ke Yiming said nervously, "The Dragon King is about to surface. Prepare for battle. Be careful not to fall into the water, or you'll be eaten!"
Lu Kaiwen heard this and said uneasily, "Never mind being eaten if we fall in, but if it swallows us whole, I'm afraid even the boat would go down its gullet."
Shen Feng watched the water surface and comforted them, "Don't worry. Even if we're swallowed, I can break open its belly and get out! Have a little faith in me. Monkey King liked to get into people's bellies, so why can't I!"
Everyone watched the water surface vigilantly, constantly on guard for the Dragon King's appearance. Even though the Dragon King was exhausted, it was still a colossal creature. Its every move could stir up seas and overturn rivers. They had to deal with such a monster cautiously.
Suddenly, the water surface turned dark. The Dragon King surfaced!
The five of them immediately aimed their guns. As the enormous body appeared on the water, "Bang, bang..." The five of them fired simultaneously. The bullets hit the Dragon King's body, but their effect was not significant. Ordinary crocodiles could be made into wallets because of their tough, wear-resistant hides. Now, the mutated crocodile was seventy meters long, and its outer hide was tens of centimeters thick. If the bullets hit at the wrong angle, they would bounce off.
However, even if the bullets hit the crocodile head-on, they were stuck by the thick keratin layer.
The mutated crocodile suddenly swam towards the small boat, as if to capsize it.
Fortunately, Ke Yiming pulled out a rocket launcher from under the boat. Two subordinates quickly assisted in loading and aiming. "Boom," a shell was fired. The huge recoil caused the small boat to retreat more than a meter.
"Boom," the shell hit the crocodile's back, and a huge fireball erupted. Even though the five of them were still dozens of meters away, they could feel the immense air pressure from a distance.
"Splash..." After being hit by the shell, the crocodile immediately swam underwater. If it hadn't hidden underwater, the crocodile would have let out a scream.
The moment the shell exploded, sharp shrapnel pierced the crocodile's body. Although it was quickly caught by the muscles, the pain had already been transmitted to its brain. The most critical part was the shock wave generated by the explosion, which directly transmitted to the crocodile's internal organs, causing it immense pain.
The mutated crocodile had extremely strong defenses, capable of blocking bullets and shrapnel. However, the shock wave could directly enter its body and attack its internal organs, which the mutated crocodile could not withstand.
Ke Yiming breathed a sigh of relief and said, "As long as the rockets are effective, we still have plenty of shells. We'll be able to shock this crocodile to death!"
However, as soon as Ke Yiming finished speaking, a subordinate discovered a problem and said tremblingly, "The tracker signal shows that the Dragon King is directly below us. It has already swum beneath us!"
Upon hearing this, Shen Feng immediately summoned a gust of wind and flew into the sky on his paraglider.
However, a dark shadow appeared below the small boat. The mutated crocodile raised its head, its long snout moved, and it instantly capsized the small boat on the lake.
The remaining four people fell into the water. Fortunately, they were all wearing life jackets. The four of them floated up from the water and then began to search for the Dragon King.
Shen Feng watched clearly from the sky and shouted, "Run quickly, the Dragon King is coming! It's going to eat you!"
Lu Kaiwen looked down into the water and could only see a bright light in the dark depths. This light was green, which was the Dragon King's eyes!
"Oh my god!" Lu Kaiwen wasn't a good swimmer, but at this moment, he could only unleash his powerful survival instinct. His adrenaline surged, and he paddled his hands and feet rapidly towards the reeds on the shore.
Lu Kaiwen never expected that their small boat would actually be capsized. He wished he had stayed on the larger ship for the chase, as it wouldn't have been so easily overturned.
Ke Yiming was an ability user, but when he saw the mutated crocodile underwater, he still panicked and paddled towards the shore.
"Splash..." A mouth more than ten meters long extended from the water. One of Ke Yiming's subordinates, unable to dodge in time, was swallowed by the crocodile on the spot.
Shen Feng quickly swooped down, and several wind blades attacked the mutated crocodile. There was a clanging sound, and the water surface turned red. Shen Feng's wind blades didn't have much effect. The wind blades cut through the thick armor of the mutated crocodile, but their lethality was greatly reduced, and they didn't cause any real damage to the crocodile.
The wind blade attack only caused superficial wounds and did not seriously injure the crocodile. Although there was a lot of blood in the lake water, it did not harm the crocodile's core.
Ke Yiming swam and shouted to Shen Feng in the sky, "Shen Feng, quickly tie down this thing. Once we get ashore, we'll find a way to support you."
Shen Feng frowned, unsure what to say. Although he seemed safe in the sky, in reality, in the storm, he needed to use his abilities to fly. His stamina was also severely depleted. Moreover, he couldn't attack the Dragon King when it hid in the water, making it impossible to tie it down!
To give the three people in the water time to get ashore, Shen Feng deliberately swooped low over the water, only four or five meters above the surface. As long as the crocodile underwater wanted to attack, it only needed to leap up to reach Shen Feng.
The crocodile underwater saw Shen Feng flying in the sky and immediately became fearful. It couldn't forget this human who had chased it for so long. But after the fear, the crocodile discovered that this human was flying very low, so low that it could bite him at any time!
The mutated crocodile's brain capacity had increased significantly, and its thinking had become more complex. However, a beast was still a beast. No matter how high its intelligence, it couldn't surpass humans. Humans had evolved their brains for millions of years, something that a beast that mutated in a short period couldn't catch up to.
The mutated crocodile immediately lunged out of the water and bit at Shen Feng in the sky. Shen Feng tilted his paraglider to the side, instantly turning in the air and dodging the mutated crocodile's attack.
Next, Shen Feng lowered himself again, appearing over the water surface, and once again used his body to attract the crocodile underwater. The crocodile, with its low intelligence, didn't realize this was a feint. It repeatedly emerged from the water to attack Shen Feng, and each of its attacks was dodged by Shen Feng.
Ten minutes later, Ke Yiming and the other two successfully reached the shore. Their equipment had all fallen into the water. Although the small boat was still floating on the water, it was tilted and unusable.
However, Ke Yiming still had a satellite phone with him. He immediately took it out and dialed, "I'm by Hongze Lake now. Requesting support, requesting support!"
The fastest support they could get at this time would naturally be from Jinling. During the day, Ke Yiming and his group had just passed through Jinling and received supplies.
"What kind of support do you need?" Jinling immediately asked.
Ke Yiming quickly said, "Just send a helicopter, equipped with a few missiles. Preferably with water-burning bombs as well. We've managed to hold off the Dragon King, but all our weapons fell into the water, and we can't inflict effective damage."
Jinling immediately agreed to provide support. Although it was raining heavily, they couldn't afford to worry about that in order to kill the Yangtze Dragon King. "Hold on! Support will arrive within an hour. Please stay in touch at all times!"
Ke Yiming breathed a sigh of relief and sat on the ground, saying, "I never expected that an exhausted crocodile could still capsize our boat. Fortunately, we managed to escape."
Lu Kaiwen shook his head helplessly and said, "What a pity for Old Song. He was eaten by the crocodile. A living person, gone just like that!"
Lu Kaiwen was very sad at this moment. Although they had been searching for and chasing the mutated crocodile on the water for ten days, they had also become familiar with each other during this time. They could even joke with each other. However, at the beginning of the battle, a companion had died in the crocodile's mouth, which Lu Kaiwen hadn't expected.
Ke Yiming looked at Shen Feng, who was still fighting in the distance, and sighed, "Life is always so strange. No one knows when death will come. But this is also our destiny. None of us know when we might sacrifice ourselves."
Ke Yiming had also prepared himself for death early on. It was impossible to live a comfortable life in the apocalypse. Especially since he had joined the Ability Administration early on, it meant he had to rush into many dangerous situations. Before, when he was in the Three Gorges, he didn't feel how terrifying combat was. But after fighting mutated beasts for a while, he understood that true combat wasn't about comparing combat power. Combat power was immeasurable. It was possible that he might die at any moment.
This time, Ke Yiming had escaped death, but he doubted if he would survive the next time.
Shen Feng continued to lure the crocodile underwater, successfully exhausting its remaining strength. Finally, the crocodile swam to the shore and burrowed into the reeds to lie down, no longer responding to Shen Feng's lures.
Originally, Shen Feng couldn't inflict effective damage when the mutated crocodile hid underwater. But now, the mutated crocodile had come to the reeds to rest. The low reeds couldn't conceal its massive body. Shen Feng controlled thousands of wind blades to descend directly, like thousands of arrows falling from the sky, all landing on the mutated crocodile's back.
"Hiss..." The crocodile let out a painful cry, which was the only sound it could make, indicating its immense pain.
A single wind blade could only slightly cut through the crocodile's skin, but thousands of wind blades descending from the sky onto one area instantly became formidable.
In an instant, the mutated crocodile's back became bloody and mangled. The wind blades mixed with the rainwater, tearing a huge wound on the crocodile's back, with white bones faintly visible.
If the attack continued, the mutated crocodile would undoubtedly be pierced by the fierce attack on the spot. Then, no matter how tenacious the mutated crocodile's vitality was, it would perish.
However, the mutated crocodile erupted and crawled violently to the side, dodging the subsequent attacks of the wind blades.
The wind blades continued to fall, hacking off the crocodile's front claws. The crocodile, by paying the price of one limb, managed to evade the fatal attack.
"Damn it, it still got away!" Shen Feng was frustrated. This crocodile was like a centipede that wouldn't die. He thought it was exhausted, but in the end, it still escaped from the reeds, and his thousands of wind blades couldn't kill it.
Shen Feng's body was now soaked by the rain. Lightning and thunder rumbled in the sky. Shen Feng was worried that he might be struck by lightning. If he were struck by lightning, wouldn't he die on the spot?
Fortunately, although there was constant thunder, it never struck Shen Feng's paraglider. This was not a lightning zone.
Half an hour later, a helicopter flew in from the south through the rain. It was also equipped with missiles. Although there were only two, they were enough to kill a mutated crocodile. As long as they hit the vital parts of the crocodile, it would surely be killed.
Although Shen Feng had been flying over the water, he couldn't accurately locate the crocodile underwater. The crocodile, after the battle, was honestly hiding underwater. Unless it needed to breathe, it wouldn't come out at all.
Fortunately, Ke Yiming still had a tracker. The tracker detected the Dragon King's location. It had quietly swum to the west bank of Hongze Lake.
The helicopter received the news and immediately flew towards the west of Hongze Lake, quickly reaching its destination and hovering in the air. The pilot began to search for the crocodile's trace. Once found, two missiles would surely take care of it.
Even a building could be destroyed by one or two missiles, while the mutated crocodile, being a creature of flesh and blood, couldn't withstand such an attack.
Shen Feng landed by Ke Yiming on the shore, folded his paraglider, and slung it over his back. He sighed with relief, "Finally, this chase can end. I'm exhausted from these past few days."
Not long after, rumbling sounds came from the west bank, followed by ground-shaking tremors that felt incredibly strong, as if the world was turning upside down.
Shen Feng heard the sound from a distance and felt the vibration under his feet. He couldn't help but gasp, "Holy crap, is this the power of missiles? It's like an earthquake."
Ke Yiming felt something was wrong and muttered to himself, "Something's not right. Why hasn't the shaking stopped?"
As everyone was feeling confused, the helicopter flew back from a distance and revealed the truth: "The west side of Hongze Lake has collapsed, and the lake water has all surged out of the embankment. The mutated crocodile escaped in the chaos!"