Strong winds began appearing over the sea, and the weakness of their small boat quickly became apparent.
Against the raging wind and surging waves, their forward progress slowed.
On the other hand, no more birds appeared in the sky, and only occasionally would enormous monsters break the surface of the sea.
The boat, barely large enough to carry several people, rocked violently on the ocean, as if it might be swallowed into the depths by a single massive wave at any moment.
No one on board rested, because none of them knew what was waiting ahead.
When sunlight appeared on the horizon, the storm vanished with it. Bathed in the sunlight, everyone on the ship felt as though they had just survived another lifetime.
However, one glance at Ging's calm expression was enough to know that what they had just experienced was probably nothing more than a minor scene.
That made sense.
After all, forget the Dark Continent—they were still about three weeks away even from the New Continent.
A scene like this might only be an appetizer in these waters.
Ging's calmness seemed almost contagious. Soon, the ship returned to a peaceful, composed atmosphere.
Not far away, dolphins surfaced one after another, traveling in groups as if playing together.
Huge whales also emerged in the distance, spraying magnificent pillars of water toward the sky. Rainbows appeared as the water fell, making the scene breathtakingly beautiful.
Ronin and the others were immersed in the scenery, but beneath the ship, a massive shadow gradually appeared in the seawater.
"Careful!"
Ging was the first to react.
But by the time Ging gave the warning, Ronin had already lowered his gaze.
Through his En, he sensed something approaching them. There was no time to carefully judge what exactly it was, but from the way it came into contact with his En, he could tell that the thing was absolutely enormous.
Ronin immediately used ninjutsu.
Ultra-Light-Weight Rock Technique.
The ship that had been sailing on the sea a second ago rose into the air the next. Almost at the same time, the shadow beneath the water surfaced.
It was not a head.
It was a sturdy back ridge like a mountain of swords. Only when looking down from above could one truly feel the shock of its size.
Ronin had seen something like it in movies and television before.
It was a Godzilla-like existence.
However, its size was probably a little smaller than the Godzilla from those films, and the life energy it emitted did not make Ronin feel any real threat.
In other words, this was simply a giant beast surfacing from the sea without any malice.
The colossal beast swam leisurely across the ocean, not even sparing the floating ship a glance. But a shadow suddenly covered the vessel from above.
It was an enormous creature with a wingspan of over thirty meters. It looked somewhat like an eagle, but its size was completely abnormal.
Suddenly, a whistle sounded from the ship.
Before the giant eagle swooping down could get close, it let out a sharp cry. Its diving motion abruptly changed, and in an instant, it abandoned the ship and clawed toward the leisurely giant beast below instead.
The ship almost brushed past the giant eagle's body. In that moment, Ronin could even clearly see every feather on the eagle's body.
"We haven't even reached the Dark Continent yet. How are the creatures here already this huge?" Ronin shouted in surprise.
In his understanding, the giant creatures of the Dark Continent were probably similar to Earth's Carboniferous period.
That kind of environment would mainly feature enormous insects, mixed with some physically powerful, massive dinosaurs.
But from the look of things now, this did not seem to have much to do with oxygen concentration at all.
After all, to test his guess, Ronin had installed oxygen concentration detectors on every ship.
The oxygen concentration in this unexplored sea area was indeed slightly higher than on the normal continent, but it still did not reach the levels of the Carboniferous period.
Otherwise, Ronin really would have wanted to test a Great Fireball Technique the moment the giant eagle swooped down.
Now, however, before the giant eagle attacked, all he could do was prepare to take out Fun Fun Cloth and leave with everyone and the ship.
Fortunately, Ronin had no idea how Ging had done it, but a single whistle from him had actually made the giant eagle change direction.
Still, after the giant eagle descended, the sea was no longer calm.
That Godzilla-like monster was not something the giant eagle could simply grab and lift away. Its sharp talons could only leave bloody claw marks across the monster's sword-like back ridge.
The pain caused by that attack made the previously relaxed monster turn and bite toward the giant eagle.
Unfortunately, the giant eagle was far more agile in the air. When it failed to grab the monster with one strike, it had already pulled itself higher.
The monster lunged into empty air, and its raised head smashed heavily back into the sea.
Waves splashed up. The giant eagle cried out in the sky, then flew away without looking back.
"It's a sound-based Emitter ability," Ging explained, seeing the curious looks from Ronin and the others. "My technique is still a bit lacking. If the person I copied this from used the whistle, that giant eagle might have become our mount for the rest of the journey."
"Impressive," Ronin said sincerely.
Ging smiled and said nothing more.
Below them, after thrashing around on the sea for a while, the giant beast also sank back into the ocean.
Ronin canceled the Ultra-Light-Weight Rock Technique and lowered the ship back onto the water.
However, during the rest of the voyage, situations like this began appearing more and more frequently. Sometimes the creatures held no malice. Other times, they attacked purely with the intent to hunt.
Ronin suddenly remembered the Sea-Prism Stone from One Piece. Supposedly, if one attached that material to the bottom of a ship, sea creatures would mistake the vessel for one of their own and would not actively attack it.
Ronin modified that idea somewhat, then went to Ging.
"If we record your whistle, it doesn't need to be particularly strong, just a repelling type of sound. If Nen is added to it, could it disperse most ferocious beasts?" Ronin proposed.
Ging thought for a moment.
"The key and most troublesome part is figuring out how to continuously add Nen to the sound as it spreads. I can't guard that thing forever."
"That's easy. I can create clones."
As Ronin spoke, he formed a cross-shaped hand seal and used the Shadow Clone Technique.
Ging's eyes lit up.
"That could work."
With that, the two began tinkering.
Overall, it was not actually that difficult. In Ronin and Ging's understanding, this was more like creating a sonar detector.
Except this sonar also had the effect of driving away approaching monsters.
The whole process went very smoothly. In just over an hour, the two created what they considered the most suitable loudspeaker for repelling monsters.
In particular, the speaker's effective range would not be too large. That way, it would not randomly affect monsters that had no interest in the ship to begin with.
After the loudspeaker was sunk into the water, a shadow clone continuously infused Nen into it through the connected cable, allowing the speaker to begin working underwater.
During the voyage that followed, the threats from the ocean began to decrease. As for threats from the sky, Ging could easily resolve them.
This made the journey much easier, giving everyone more time to admire the many strange and wondrous sights of this unexplored sea.
~~~
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