The Invitation

The lake, already eerie, became even more mysterious under the cloak of night. Luo Feng felt an instinctive pressure.

“Hmm, it’s nighttime now, and with the dense fog, visibility is extremely low. I’ll wait until tomorrow morning to properly investigate,” Luo Feng thought calmly. He preferred to wait for daylight rather than blindly venturing in now.

That night, Luo Feng walked along the lake’s edge.

A lake spanning a hundred li would take a long time to circumnavigate, but at Luo Feng’s speed, even while observing his surroundings, he covered more than half the distance in less than an hour. Along the way, Luo Feng found nothing out of the ordinary. He then settled down amidst the tall grass, sitting cross-legged to rest and meditate.

Soon, the night passed.

The next morning, the Sun rose.

Luo Feng stood in the grass, gazing at the lake. The lake ahead was still shrouded in a thick mist, growing denser towards its center. However, the wilderness beyond the lake was completely clear of fog.

“Just as I thought, it’s the same day or night; this lake is always foggy.”

“Daytime visibility is clearly much better than at night.”

Yesterday, even with Luo Feng’s Wargod-level vision, he could only see about a hundred meters. An ordinary person would be lucky to see five meters. Now, with the Sun up, Luo Feng could see roughly 200 meters… but honestly, for a Wargod-tier expert, 200 meters was a distance covered in a blink.

“Time to go in,” he decided. His six-edged Sky-Shuttle hovered before him, and Luo Feng leaped onto it.

Standing on the Sky-Shuttle, he swiftly flew deeper into the lake.

Amidst the swirling fog, the vast lake teemed with lush aquatic plants. Strange cries occasionally echoed, and the water’s surface churned with surging waves. The naked eye couldn’t discern what lurked beneath the waves.

“No wonder it’s a lake spanning a hundred li; there must be countless aquatic monsters here,” Luo Feng thought, secretly alarmed. In the rivers he’d traversed earlier, with their limited width and depth, it was unlikely to encounter truly powerful aquatic monsters, so his underwater journey had been easy. But a large lake like this… it was hard to say.

Aquatic monsters were notoriously difficult to deal with, as the oceans were their domain, giving birth to many bizarre and incredibly powerful creatures. Even Wargods were reluctant to enter the ocean and would not easily venture into such large lakes.

*Whoosh!* Luo Feng flew forward swiftly, the lake’s surface below him constantly churning.

*Screech!* A thick blue electric arc suddenly flared.

*Screech!* A dense network of blue electrical arcs instantly illuminated the sky above the lake. The arcs twisted and shot out like electric snakes. Caught off guard, Luo Feng barely dodged the first arc, only to be struck by the overwhelming, sky-covering barrage of electricity! It wasn’t that Luo Feng’s dodging ability was poor; it was that these electrical arcs twisted and shot out randomly in mid-air, fast and unpredictable!

“Not good,” Luo Feng felt his entire body go numb, his head spinning. His body plummeted directly from mid-air!

Freefall was slow, not matching a Wargod’s agile movements. A twenty-meter fall would still take two seconds.

“Huh?” Luo Feng jolted awake, fully alert. He was now only six or seven meters above the lake’s surface. He heard strange roars, and simultaneously, long, serpentine monsters with green scales shot out from beneath the water. Electrical currents crackled around their scales, and a few even had single horns on their heads. These elongated monsters leaped out of the water, snapping their gaping maws at him!

“Get lost!” Luo Feng roared.

Six streaks of deadly light erupted from Luo Feng’s center, blasting outwards!

*Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!* The six throwing knives instantly sliced through the aquatic monster swarm below, even curving to pierce through numerous creatures. The monsters shrieked in agony, while the surviving serpentine aquatic monsters angrily unleashed electrical arcs, sending electric snakes streaking across the sky.

*Swoosh!* While controlling his throwing knives, Luo Feng quickly ascended by stepping on his Sky-Shuttle. Fortunately, this time the aquatic monsters’ electrical attacks weren’t as coordinated as before, allowing Luo Feng to escape.

“Heavens, I almost bit the dust there.”

Hovering at a height of fifty meters, Luo Feng realized sweat was beading on his forehead and back. He had faced formidable challenges, even clashing head-on with high-level Lord-tier monsters… yet today, he’d nearly met his end here! If he had been even slightly slower to regain consciousness, those monsters would have surely bitten his head off!

“Are these electric eel-type aquatic monsters?”

“Iron-thread Electric Eels.”

“Unicorn Electric Eels.”

He immediately spotted several species of electric eels below. Globally, there were over a hundred species of fish that could discharge electricity, but monsters often lived in groups. Luo Feng was being attacked by a swarm of electric eel-type aquatic monsters. Electric-type monsters had always been a terrifying presence for human warriors.

Powerful electric-type aquatic monsters, especially when attacking in concert, could even instantly stun powerful Wargods. In a stunned state, even a Wargod would likely be devoured! What a senseless way to die!

“Be careful. There are tens of thousands of monster species, and many possess special abilities. One wrong move and you’re done for,” Luo Feng muttered, flying cautiously at a height of fifty meters.

Even while flying, he could hear various strange sounds emanating from the lake. Clearly, the number of aquatic monsters here was astonishing.

*Roar~~~* A terrifying roar exploded in Luo Feng’s ears, and an incredible force instantly acted upon Luo Feng, causing him to involuntarily plummet downwards. “Damn it! There’s an aquatic monster attacking me from below!” Luo Feng desperately controlled his mental force to keep himself afloat.

But his body still slowly descended against his will.

*Whoosh! Whoosh!* A massive whirlpool formed in the lake below, its center a ‘black hole’. Obscured by the white mist, this black hole frantically devoured everything above it. The powerful suction made it impossible for Luo Feng to fly away for a moment. And this was despite Luo Feng’s mental force being nearly at the high-level Wargod tier.

“A big one!” Luo Feng chuckled, looking down.

*Whoosh! Whoosh!* Two SS-tier throwing knives immediately shot down, aiming directly for the giant black hole.

*Hiss! Hiss!* “*Aaaah!*” A piercing shriek, like an infant’s cry, instantly echoed across the sky. The sound was so loud and shrill that Luo Feng instinctively covered his ears. Below, dark red blood mixed with the turbulent water. The ‘black hole’ had completely vanished, and the suction force disappeared.

*Swoosh! Swoosh!* The two throwing knives returned to Luo Feng’s pocket as he hovered in mid-air.

“What a powerful monster. My throwing knives barely pierced its outer flesh before being blocked by its bones,” Luo Feng thought, controlling his knives. He knew that the knives had only lightly wounded the monster.

“It roars normally, but shrieks like an infant when terrified? Possesses incredible suction power? What kind of aquatic monster is this?”

The number of land monster species is merely a fraction of the aquatic monster species in the oceans. Land monsters alone numbered over ten thousand species, so one could imagine the sheer diversity of aquatic monsters. Moreover, warriors mostly operated on land, so Luo Feng, like other warriors, didn’t know much about aquatic monsters, only the common and well-known ones.

“I’ll keep going. I want to see just how strange this lake truly is,” Luo Feng murmured, but at the same time, all six throwing knives hovered around him, and he increased his flight altitude by another thirty meters, reaching eighty meters.

…

Finally, Luo Feng landed on a sandy beach.

“I’ve finally reached this island in the middle of the lake,” Luo Feng said, sweat beading on his nose. He had been startled quite a few times along the way. Besides the most life-threatening mass attack by electric eel-type monsters, he had also witnessed two large aquatic monsters fighting and a hundred-meter-long flood dragon feeding.

In short, the number of powerful aquatic monsters in this lake was unexpectedly high. It was truly bizarre! Logically, a lake spanning a hundred li would be considered extraordinary to have two or three powerful aquatic monsters. Yet, in this lake… just during one flight, Luo Feng had seen seven or eight extremely powerful aquatic monsters. Not to mention the even more formidable ones lurking beneath the water! The density of powerful monsters was too high! It defied common sense!

“Anomalies always hint at something sinister,” Luo Feng said, stepping off the beach and looking at the dense jungle ahead. This island in the middle of the lake was like a primeval forest, with many thick trees and lush vegetation.

“Hmm?” Luo Feng involuntarily began to float higher and higher, looking down at the island. This mysterious island was perpetually shrouded in mist, and the lake surrounding it… contained a vast number of powerful aquatic monsters.

“No, no…” Luo Feng’s expression changed.

“This island, why is this island so quiet?”

Yes, it was quiet! In all his time on the Australian Continent, Luo Feng had never found a place so silent. Even the wilderness teemed with monsters, but this Mist Island… had not a single monster!

No avian monsters, no terrestrial monsters. The entire Mist Island was eerily silent, yet the surrounding lake was filled with an astonishing number of incredibly powerful aquatic monsters.

“There’s something strange about this island.”

“Something’s not right.”

Luo Feng had never felt such a profound sense of unease. For some reason, this island, overly quiet and devoid of any living sounds, filled Luo Feng with an inexplicable dread.

*Whoosh!* Luo Feng landed back on the beach, not venturing deeper into the island.

“This lake is strange, and the island is strange too.” Luo Feng suddenly smiled faintly, reaching out his right hand to press his communication watch. He pressed and held—*beep*! The communication watch activated.

“My communication watch is on, Li Yao… you should be here by now,” Luo Feng murmured softly. Although Li Yao was powerful, being unable to fly, he would likely have to swim across the lake… but with the strength of the aquatic monsters in this lake, even for Li Yao, crossing it alive would be immensely difficult.

…

In a spacious room in Paris Base City.

One of the three people sitting in front of laptops, a handsome Caucasian youth, exclaimed, “Madam, it’s connected! The target’s phone is connected!”

“What?” Wenina, who had been frowning, asked with surprise and delight.

“It’s connected, and the location coordinates have been confirmed,” the handsome Caucasian youth quickly added.

“Immediately forward it to Mr. Li Yao,” Wenina instructed.

“Yes,” the excited youth promptly transmitted the location coordinates to Li Yao, who was in the Australian Continent’s wilderness.