Chapter 78: Expelled
Sun, waves, and a pristine beach.
Lu Yunxi lounged on a beach chair, wearing dark sunglasses and a sleek bikini. Beside her, a handsome blonde boy squeezed sunscreen into his palms, offering her a bright, dazzling smile. “Sister, shall I apply your sunscreen now?”
“Go ahead,” she murmured, giving the refreshing youth a slight nod. “Put a little extra on my back.”
Before the boy could step closer, a massive basin of freezing water crashed down on her head.
She jolted violently.
Splash—
Lu Yunxi snapped her eyes open. Her gaze met a breathtaking, mysterious aquatic world.
So it was all a dream?
She floated in a daze for a moment before the reality of her environment set in. This wasn’t a sun-drenched beach. She was entirely submerged in the ocean!
Beside her, Shen San gripped her arm with one hand while desperately paddling toward the surface with the other. All around them, vivid coral reefs thrived, colorful schools of small fish darted by, and translucent jellyfish drifted through the currents. It was an ethereal, mesmerizing sight.
When a jellyfish slowly drifted toward her hand, she instinctively pulled away.
Sensing her sudden movement, Shen San turned his head. Seeing that she was finally awake, a look of profound relief and surprise washed over his face. “Master, cough… glub… splutter…”
Water rushed into his mouth. His eyes rolled back, and his limbs went slack as he began to sink toward the pitch-black ocean floor.
Lu Yunxi instantly activated her protective barrier, erecting a transparent, bubble-shaped shield that forcefully displaced the seawater and marine life. Inside the pocket of air, Shen San doubled over, coughing violently to expel the water from his lungs before collapsing onto the floor of the shield.
“Master, thank goodness you woke up!” he gasped. He didn’t possess a spatial navigation or survival skill like hers. If she had remained unconscious even a few seconds longer, they would have drowned at the bottom of the sea.
Yunxi nodded. She stared out into the endless, watery blue and asked seriously, “Shen San, do you have any idea where we are?”
“I… I don’t know. I only woke up a few moments before you did.”
Her expression darkened. This was a critical predicament. While a few high-tier scholars on each continent possessed records of neighboring lands, she had never encountered a single merchant selling a comprehensive global map. The only charts available to the public were localized to individual continents; no one had ever successfully mapped the layout of the boundless oceans.
If they had made a standard landfall on a new continent, navigating wouldn’t be an issue. But being stranded in the middle of the open ocean was no different from being lost in the shifting sands of the desert—they were simply wandering a boundless, featureless void. The only advantage was that the temperature here didn’t wildly fluctuate.
“Let’s break the surface first,” she said, feeling a wave of claustrophobia striking her at the bottom of the sea.
“Right, Master,” Shen San replied, though his voice sounded vacant. He was staring fixedly at something right behind her.
Yunxi followed his gaze. A juvenile shark was aggressively gnawing at the edge of her translucent barrier. It was small compared to a fully mature apex predator, but it was still larger than either of them. As its teeth scraped against the barrier, it exuded a distinctly hostile aura.
Shen San steadied his breathing, his hand slowly drifting toward the hilt of his heavy broadsword.
She calmly reached out and pressed his hand down. “Don’t stress. My barrier is at the Master tier. Forget a single juvenile shark—even if a hundred of them swarmed us simultaneously, they couldn’t scratch this shield.”
Hearing her absolute certainty, Shen San immediately let go of his sword. With his master’s assurance, he wouldn’t have panicked even if a leviathan loomed behind him. His trust in her was absolute. Who could blame him when his mentor was this powerful?
Lu Yunxi ignored the persistent shark trailing their pocket of air and focused her internal energy, steering the protective bubble steadily toward the surface. “We should try to harvest some fish along the way. The raw provisions in my inventory are running low…”
Before she could finish her sentence, the calm blue of the ocean violently fractured.
The water began to churn, erupting into a wall of surging undercurrents. Trapped within the massive, roaring waves, visibility dropped to zero, and they lost all sense of direction. Left with no alternative, Yunxi stopped fighting the current and allowed the bubble to sway helplessly with the turbulent tide.
After what felt like an eternity, the violent motion subsided, and the world fell completely still.
She blinked her eyes open, only to be met by absolute, suffocating darkness.
Am I blind?
A sudden spike of panic gripped her. She subconsciously shifted her hands and feet to orient herself, but her limbs brushed against something remarkably soft and yielding.
“Mm…” a deep, muffled groan rumbled right beside her ear.
Yunxi called out tentatively, “Shen San? Are you there?”
“Master, it’s me,” a slightly raspy voice answered from beneath her.
Confused, she asked, “Are you injured?”
As she spoke, she rapidly accessed her spatial inventory and pulled out a torch. The sudden spark of fire cast a narrow halo of light across their immediate surroundings.
Looking down, she finally realized she was sitting directly on top of Shen San. She cleared her throat, quickly scrambled off him, and reached down to pull him to his feet. No wonder she hadn’t felt the impact of their landing; she had used her own apprentice as a cushion.
Shen San stood up with a wry grin, rolling his shoulders and stretching his limbs. He had forced his body to remain rigid to protect her during the fall, leaving him completely numb and sore.
“Master, where on earth are we?” He tilted his neck from side to side, warming up his muscles as he inspected the dark perimeter.
Lu Yunxi had no answers for him.
The two of them held their respective light sources aloft, cautiously exploring the narrow, damp confines of the space.
“Are there subterranean caves at the bottom of the sea?”
“Or did the tide wash us into a coastal cavern?”
Peering at the dark, cramped rock-like walls around them, the two offered their best hypotheses.
“Let’s eat something to restore our stamina first,” Yunxi suggested, pulling a basic steamed bun from her backpack. It was a default item she had originally stockpiled purely for its low-tier health and mana recovery properties, but given their current situation, she didn’t care about the taste. As long as it filled her stomach, it would suffice.
The two sat cross-legged within the bubble, chewing their rations while discussing their next steps.
Mid-bite, Shen San’s eyes suddenly widened to the size of saucers. He pointed a trembling finger past her shoulder. “Master, look!”
Yunxi whirled around. A thick, corrosive fluid was suddenly seeping from the cracks of the narrow cave wall. A few stray small fish and shrimp swimming near the pool were instantly submerged by the rising liquid; within seconds, they dissolved entirely, leaving not even a trace of bone behind.
Her pupils contracted in horror. “Oh no… We haven’t landed in a cave at all. We’re inside the stomach of a colossal sea beast!” In simpler terms, they had been swallowed whole.
Shen San’s expression shifted from confusion to grim reality.
The two retreated to the absolute center of the protective shield, watching various ocean debris dissolve in the pooling gastric acid. The atmosphere inside the bubble became distinctly uncomfortable.
“Master, can your barrier withstand this acid? Should I break out and try to slay this monster from the inside?” Shen San asked, flexing his knuckles as he prepared for combat.
“Don’t do anything reckless. The creature that swallowed us is a Grandmaster-tier entity,” Lu Yunxi said, lowering her gaze as she quietly finished her bun. “The barrier will easily hold against the digestive fluids, but as for escaping… we’ll likely have to wait to be expelled.”
Hearing the word “Grandmaster,” Shen San froze. A Grandmaster-level entity meant the monster was at least Level 90 or above. Had the server developers actually introduced a boss of that caliber into the world matrix this early in the game?
However, knowing that her shield could neutralize the threat of the stomach acid eased his mind. “What do you mean by ‘expelled’? Can we not force our way out? It’s fine, Master. I will focus entirely on grinding my combat stats. Once my level scales high enough, I’ll slay this beast and get us out of here,” he offered optimistically.
Having finished her food, Yunxi leveled a flat, unblinking look at him, then glanced down at the remaining bun clutched in his hand. “I’m not saying we’re trapped permanently. I’m saying we are about to exit this creature via its digestive tract. Along with the feces.”
Shen San choked violently, his face flushing a dark, mortified red. He stared at the bun in his hand for a fraction of a second before silently packing it away into his inventory.
Yunxi silently materialized two additional layers of protective shields, overlapping them tightly to ensure that no foul odors could penetrate their bubble when the time came.
With their preparations complete, the two sat in quiet meditation, braced for their undignified exit from the monster’s belly.
The climax arrived significantly faster than they anticipated.
The cavernous stomach walls violently contracted, and a sudden, massive torrent of fluid surged through the chamber.
“Master, brace yourself!” Shen San roared, lunging forward to pull her into a protective hold, shielding her head with his arm.
Their layered bubble was instantly swept into the rushing tide, violently spinning and bouncing through the dark abyss as they were propelled toward an unknown destination.
