Heart of the Ocean (20): Jellyfish Falling from the Sky

These spirits were extremely vicious. Even though Wen Yi hadn’t actively attacked them, they swarmed him all at once, trying to tear him apart: “Damn intruder, damn intruder! Kill it, kill it!”  

Wen Yi impatiently flung all the spirits away. Although twenty of his tentacles had been severed earlier, the remaining ones were still functional. These leftover tentacles spun like propellers, creating a barrier between him and the spirits.  

He was a committed man—he had to preserve his purity for his lover. Even if these were just dead spirits, he couldn’t let them get too close.  

But the situation took an unexpected turn: the spirits could harm other creatures, yet they could also switch forms at will, making themselves immune to attacks.  

This placed the spirits in a kind of undefeatable Schrödinger’s state—they seemed like invincible mythical beings. Even though the system’s mission didn’t require players to fight the spirits, the task it assigned was no easier.  

This kind of hopeless, certain-death scenario was the only thing worthy of a hell-difficulty mission.  

Thanks to his tentacles’ efforts, Wen Yi’s main body remained uncut by the spirits. However, due to his initial lack of understanding of them, the lighthouse jellyfish that had barely emerged was forced back into the temple by the swarming spirits.  

The spirits dared not enter the temple. The moment Wen Yi crossed the threshold, they retreated rapidly—but they didn’t leave entirely. Instead, they densely surrounded the shrine, their cold, lifeless eyes fixed on him, waiting for the bold lighthouse jellyfish to either starve and emerge or commit some blasphemous act.  

The temple’s interior was off-limits to spirits, but not entirely. If a defiler dared to disrespect the deity’s statue, they would kill the offender. And if the transgression truly angered the god, the culprit might not even need the spirits’ intervention—divine judgment would erase them instantly.  

Wen Yi tentatively extended a single tentacle, only for it to be brutally torn off by the waiting spirits. Though, as a lighthouse jellyfish, he lacked pain receptors, losing a tentacle still meant expending energy. If he wanted to find Tan Xiao, he needed to conserve enough energy to move.  

Meanwhile, Tan Xiao and Xiao Bai were making their way over step by step, while Wen Yi remained locked in a stalemate with the horde of spirits.  

But they were still among the luckier players. When the island collapsed, Wen Yi wasn’t the only one who ended up near a temple—some natives and a few other players were also transported to other shrines.  

Creatures like Wen Yi, who appeared directly inside a temple from the start, numbered fewer than ten. But across all twelve temples, there were around two hundred unlucky souls.  

Most of them were in the areas surrounding the temples—territory guarded by the spirits. The number and ferocity of the spirits varied from shrine to shrine. Some unfortunate souls didn’t even have time to wake up before being gruesomely slaughtered.

Their entire bodies were torn apart, scattering into a bloody rain that fell to the ground. The fresh blood was then completely absorbed by the stones, staining them a reddish-brown. The stones pulsed and bubbled like a boiling cauldron, the froth gradually shrinking until, eventually, the stones returned to their original beige hue—as if nothing had happened at all.  

Only a handful of lucky escapees witnessed this scene, but they could do nothing but stare in horror from a distance, frozen in fear.  

Over the course of nearly ten days, natural disasters and human conflicts had wiped out a third of the native inhabitants—close to a thousand sea-dwelling people—and 104 out of the original 200 players.  

The remaining 96 players were already among the elite of the elite. On the current global rankings, even the weakest among them was placed at 654th, meaning nearly every survivor had a revival item at their disposal.  

But now, revival items were useless. These experienced, powerful players were suddenly no different from the weakest newcomers. In just two short hours since arriving in this new zone, nearly half of the 96 players had fallen, leaving only 60 survivors.  

It was unclear whether the game had designed it this way, but despite nearly 2,000 NPCs and 96 players entering the instance, far more players than natives had landed near the temples.  

Among them, 40 players had the misfortune of being attacked by spirits near the shrines, with a fatality rate of nearly 90%. The surviving 10% weren’t spared due to strength—they simply had the luck of being on the outermost edges of the spirits’ territory, barely escaping their killing range.  

A few others had taken refuge inside the temples, but they were now trapped, stranded in a hopeless situation. Unless some powerful outsider descended from the sky to rescue them, their deaths were only a matter of time.  

Though the spirits were formidable, they wouldn’t easily stray from the temples they guarded. If a player managed to escape the attack zone, the spectral guardians would retreat to their original positions.  

Xu Xu was one such player—both lucky and unlucky. He had landed near a temple but just at the edge of the danger zone, allowing him to narrowly escape the spirits’ pursuit. He quickly observed their attack patterns.  

These temples were clearly key to the main mission. Entering one would likely yield crucial clues. But after assessing his own strength, he realized there was no way he could defeat the spirits alone—surviving their onslaught was hard enough.  

And unlike Tan Xiao, when he was dragged into this place, his inventory had been filled with system items and weapons, not food. Though the main mission didn’t impose a time limit, experience told him that the longer he stayed in the instance, the lower his chances of success.  

Even if his body could endure, his mind might not. More importantly, his stomach wouldn’t. The area was nothing but stone—no living creatures, no food. Deep-sea fish swam overhead, but they were out of reach. He couldn’t fly, and hunting them was far from easy.  

Unless he climbed the temple pillars to the top—but the moment he tried, the spirits would attack. He’d be dead before he could even catch a fish.

If he didn’t have enough food, he’d just take it from others. Xu Xu wasn’t the only player around—many others were stranded in the same predicament. While NPCs couldn’t loot a player’s inventory upon killing them, in an instance where player-versus-player combat was unrestricted, slain players’ belongings could be inherited by their killers.  

Xu Xu licked his dry lips. Rather than letting these players be torn apart by the spirits, it’d be better to make the most of them—let them supply him first. Of course, he didn’t want to make enemies of everyone, so he’d need to find allies.  

While Xu Xu was scouting for potential partners, Wen Yi finally discovered a new escape route thanks to his keen observational skills. But instead of acting immediately, he activated a special ability—Division!  

The immortal jellyfish (Turritopsis dohrnii) was famed for its ability to revert to a younger state and reproduce asexually. As an exceptionally unique specimen, Wen Yi hadn’t lost this trait—he could not only change forms and adjust his size but also split himself apart.  

He took a deep breath, his body inflating like a balloon until—POP!  

The massive jellyfish burst into countless tiny clones, shrinking from five or six meters tall to a mere 0.5 millimeters each.  

“Too crowded, move over!”  

“You’re crushing my tentacles!”  

The miniature jellyfish jostled against each other, some even getting squeezed right out of the temple’s threshold due to sheer numbers.  

Because now, the temple wasn’t home to just one jellyfish—but hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions. Wen Yi hadn’t bothered counting. Every single one was him.  

When the tiny jellyfish emerged near the spirits, the spectral guardians didn’t swarm them like before. Their life force was too faint to detect.  

The spirits’ hollow eyes stared blankly—they didn’t rely on sight but on some otherworldly sense. Normally, even a microscopic jellyfish wouldn’t escape their notice.  

But one was too small. Ten were still insignificant. Only when over a hundred jellyfish wriggled outside did the spirits react.  

Even Wen Yi’s full form struggled against these ghosts—what hope did his fragile miniatures have? A single spirit could crush them effortlessly.  

This meant Wen Yi couldn’t just reassemble outside. Transporting a hundred clones at a time would take forever—their speed didn’t change, but their minuscule size made progress painfully slow.  

Hmm. A backup plan, then. If all else failed, he’d sneak out piece by piece to find his lover.  

Next, Wen Yi launched Phase Two.  

A hundred jellyfish ventured out. Then another hundred. The spirits stirred.  

But when one ghost stomped on a tiny jellyfish—BOOM!  

The clone exploded. Then another. And another.  

Five spirits were obliterated.  

Wen Yi had discovered a critical weakness: the moment spirits attacked, they became vulnerable too. Their invincibility wasn’t absolute—just nearly so.  

But unless the strike was fatal, the spirits would regenerate, fueled by the eerie energy of this land.  

The lost city was vast—far larger than the island. While the sea-dwelling population (including tourists) numbered under ten thousand, the spirits guarding the twelve temples were legion—nearly ten thousand per shrine.  

At this rate, wiping them out would cost Wen Yi over half his strength, maybe more. Not worth it.  

The grudge-holding jellyfish wasn’t afraid of pain—just bad investments. This city was crawling with dangers, and he needed to conserve power to protect Tan Xiao.  

The slow, tedious escape plan it is. No matter what, finding Tan Xiao came first!  

After ten painstaking minutes, 99 jellyfish successfully slipped past the temple’s boundaries. Through trial and error, Wen Yi eventually smuggled out 990 clones—each carrying only a ten-thousandth of his power.  

The spirits’ detection wasn’t based on size but on life-force density.  

His main body issued the command: “Advance! Spread out and find Tan Xiao!”  

As his proficiency improved, each batch took only a minute to escape.  

The transparent jellyfish hopped in all directions, avoiding not just spirits but sharp-eyed players and islanders.  

Meanwhile, Tan Xiao had been trekking south for over three hours when—  

PLOP!  

Something tiny landed on his head.  

The familiar, harmless presence didn’t trigger Xiao Bai’s alarms. Sensing Tan Xiao, nearby jellyfish converged, raining down on him.  

“Found him! Found him at last!”  

Tan Xiao cupped his hands, and the jellyfish tumbled from his hair into his warm palms.  

One. Two. A whole swarm of jellyfish gathered, each no bigger than a pen tip—barely 1% of Wen Yi’s smallest form.  

Staring at the multitude of tiny, familiar jellyfish, Tan Xiao’s pupils shook violently.  

“So many little jellyfish… Did Wen Yi give birth?! Are these… our children?!”