Heart of the Ocean (14): Jellyfish Rage

The man from the couple hadn’t expected Tan Xiao to be so cold-hearted. He kicked the gate furiously—then suddenly foamed at the mouth, convulsed violently, and collapsed to the ground.  

That’s right. In just those few short days, Tan Xiao had rigged the courtyard with a simple electric fence. Sensing ill intentions, he had activated it without hesitation.  

With the island not only cut off from the internet but also suffering widespread blackouts from the storm, power to Tan Xiao’s area had been cut an hour earlier.  

But several generators in the courtyard were working hard, supplying electricity to the high-voltage fence connected to the metal gate. With limited power, the fence’s effectiveness was naturally diminished.  

Not that Tan Xiao had intended to kill anyone—he just wanted to deliver a warning, so he hadn’t maxed out the voltage.  

“Honey! Honey, are you okay?!”  

The woman pretending to be sick rushed to check on her “husband,” shrieking at the gate: “If you won’t help, fine—but how could you hurt him?! I’ll call the police and have you arrested!”  

Tan Xiao ignored the couple. Earlier, they had claimed they couldn’t call for medical help due to no signal—so how could they suddenly reach the police now?  

He wouldn’t deliberately take lives, but he was no pushover either.  

—  

“He’s cautious. Seems like a tough nut to crack.”  

The other players observing nearby didn’t care about the couple’s fate. With the island descending into chaos, the pair’s usefulness had plummeted. Even if they died, it wouldn’t stir any grief.  

But from that brief exchange, they gleaned two key details: First, this suspected player had a hardened heart and wouldn’t be easily fooled. Second—and most importantly—if he’d secured a high-voltage fence in just days, his courtyard had to be stocked with supplies. He’s worth hitting.  

They’d also noted the broken glass and electric fence. Though the walls were decently high (around 5 meters), their time on the island had been too short for proper fortifications.  

After exchanging glances, the players quickly devised a new plan: “Just smash the gate!”  

Though breaking it meant losing a functional entrance, it was still more efficient than scaling electrified walls.  

Knowing about the fence, the door-breaker donned insulated gloves. The muscular brute roared, his already bulging muscles swelling grotesquely—like Popeye after a spinach binge—multiplying in size.  

With a single devastating punch, his insulated fist blasted through the gate’s lock, leaving a gaping hole. Once the lock was destroyed, the door swung open effortlessly.  

“Brother Xu! We’re in!”

The burly man charged in excitedly, but within a few steps, he tumbled into a trench, letting out a scream.  

The few people behind him reacted a beat slower. When they saw the scene, they gasped in shock—the area near the entrance had been manually dug into a trench, covered only with thin cardboard.  

Tan Xiao had bought a lot of things earlier, and he hadn’t thrown away the packaging boxes. Instead, he had laid them all over the trench. Due to the heavy rain, the cardboard had been thoroughly soaked. To an ordinary person, the cardboard wouldn’t seem suspicious at all—who would guess that beneath it lay a deep trench?  

The cardboard couldn’t bear a person’s weight to begin with. Forget a grown man—even a dog stepping on it would have fallen through. Dry cardboard might have held up a little longer, but after the rain, the soaked material had already softened and lost all its load-bearing capacity. The moment the burly man stepped on it, he lost his balance and plunged straight in.  

Normally, given his exceptional physical abilities, he should have been able to react quickly. But Tan Xiao had set up a linked mechanism near the cardboard—the moment the man stepped through, a triggered device hurled a rock straight at his face. The body instinctively dodges incoming threats, and in his panic, falling into the pit was inevitable.  

The trench wasn’t just a simple ditch—it was filled with shards of glass. After all, the seafood they had been raising at home had long been eaten by Wen Yi, leaving the empty glass tanks useless. So Tan Xiao had smashed them all and scattered the pieces in the trench.  

The sharp glass shards left the man covered in wounds, his screams continuous.  

“Quick, pull him up!”  

The situation was far more troublesome than expected, but unlike the NPCs in the department, the other players couldn’t just stand by and watch.  

While rescuing him, they also had to deal with objects being hurled down from above.  

Tan Xiao and Wen Yi had moved fast—right after closing the door, they had rushed to the third floor and were now lobbing heavy objects at the intruders. As mentioned before, Tan Xiao was incredibly strong, able to lift heavy items with ease, and his aim was precise.  

Dressed in raincoats, he and Wen Yi stood together, mercilessly targeting the intruders’ heads. They threw everything from workout dumbbells weighing dozens of kilograms to makeshift Molotov cocktails made from alcohol and empty glass bottles.  

The in-game store might not have sold firearms, but Tan Xiao was a top student who had taken the college entrance exams multiple times—he had some knowledge of chemistry.  

He hadn’t been sure if anyone would attack the guesthouse, but before this group arrived, he had done everything he could to fortify the place.  

The objects they threw were large, and the targets were big too. Among the eight players, each had their own unique talents, but not all of them had the agility of international mercenaries.  

Some relied on tools, others on quick wits. Without the right equipment, several of them were struck by the rapid, relentless attacks. They had to dodge flying objects while also putting out fires.  

Seeing this scene, the young couple who had been watching earlier didn’t dare charge forward now. The woman grabbed her husband and quickly backed away, afraid of getting caught in the chaos.  

The leader of the group, Brother Xu, was the most skilled among the players. While others struggled to avoid the sudden attacks, he dodged them effortlessly.

### “To Defeat the Enemy, First Capture Their Leader”  

The same principle applied to this fight. Ignoring the other players in the guild, the man deftly avoided the chaotic traps and charged straight toward the two young men in bright raincoats on the third floor.  

Today’s situation differed slightly from what the NPC resident had described— instead of one man and a dog, there were two men and a dog. But for him, an extra person changed nothing.  

The agile man didn’t even bother rushing into the house. If the outside was littered with traps, the inside would be no different. More importantly, barging in and charging up the stairs would take too long.  

Instead, he used the tree in the yard to launch himself upward, a black-and-red longsword materializing in his hand as he swung toward the two bright “oranges and lemons” (their raincoat-clad figures). He wasn’t just good at slicing fruits in mobile games—he was just as skilled in real life.  

His movements were lightning-fast. What seemed like a series of actions took only seconds—one moment he was on the ground, the next, he was already on the third-floor balcony.  

Originally, he had considered taking the two as prisoners, but now that they had hurt his men, he would simply kill them—no survivors.  

The blade gleamed coldly, radiating killing intent. A weaker person might have been paralyzed by the sheer menace, frozen for several critical seconds.  

If Tan Xiao and Wen Yi had only relied on clever tricks without the speed to match, they would have surely become victims of this merciless strike.  

“Woof! Woof! Woof!”  

Xiao Bai, the loyal dog, shot forward like a cannonball, not caring whether it would be killed. It sank its teeth deep into the man’s thigh.  

(It couldn’t reach the sword-wielding arm—Xiao Bai’s jumping ability had its limits.)  

The blade slashed toward Tan Xiao, who barely managed to yank his lover out of the way in time.  

Though he had survived several game instances, Tan Xiao had no memory of the breaks between them. His physical stats had improved, but his combat skills were still lacking. Objectively speaking, he was no match for this ferocious man—his survival relied entirely on instinct and quick thinking.  

Meanwhile, the other players in the yard, no longer under bombardment, quickly used healing items or skills to patch up their teammates. Furious, they stormed up the stairs, no longer caring about looting—they were determined to kill Tan Xiao.  

After all, once he was dead, all the supplies would be theirs.  

Tan Xiao managed to wound a few of them during the struggle, but as the saying goes, “Two fists are no match for four hands.¹” And he had never been the brute-force type to begin with.  

In a prolonged battle, Tan Xiao was inevitably at a disadvantage. As that razor-sharp blade descended toward him, a single thought flashed through his mind:  

“Am I going to die here today?”  

But the expected pain never came.  

Something transparent suddenly blocked the strike, shielding his vitals completely.  

The furious jellyfish could no longer pretend to be weak. Transforming from human form, Wen Yi expanded into a gigantic jellyfish—so massive that it filled the entire house.  

Every player crammed inside was instantly pushed out by the sudden expansion. Those near windows or doors managed to escape, but the slower ones were crushed into 2D paper-thin cutouts against the walls.  

The jellyfish was enormous, powerful—yet still soft. As Wen Yi grew, he carefully shielded Tan Xiao and even made sure to protect Xiao Bai, the dog.  

With trembling tentacles, he sobbed as he flung the flattened “human pancakes” outside.  

Despite being a terrifying, monstrous entity, he shed “frightened” tears like a pitiful creature:  

“Wahhh! The jellyfish is so scared! My tentacles touched those filthy things… I’m dirty now!”

Notes

1. A Chinese proverb, which means that no matter how strong one’s own ability is, it is difficult to resist the power of the crowd. ↩︎