Chapter 81

After waiting for several more tens of minutes, the progress bar finally reached the end.

[Congratulations to player Qiao Ning for successfully taming her sixth pet, the Spiny Armored Dragon Turtle.]

The moment it was successfully subdued, the giant turtle seemed to be infused with boundless life force. Its eyelids snapped open instantly, its enormous eyes glowing darkly, standing out vividly even in the pitch-black depths of the sea.

Thank you, Master. Pets have a natural affinity and obedience to their owners. Moreover, large tortoises are not particularly aggressive marine predators.

It may look fierce, but it is actually very gentle.

Qiao Ning breathed a sigh of relief when she saw it come back to life. But her relief was short-lived, as she soon felt a pang of anxiety.

Because she could clearly see the pet's condition, which indicated it was hungry and needed to be fed as soon as possible, otherwise the pet was at risk of death.

Thinking of the giant tortoise's enormous appetite, Qiao Ning asked it, "Can you hunt for yourself now?"

The spiny-armored turtle honestly replied, "I'm sorry, master, I'm too weak to move my body; I can only eat by opening my mouth."

Qiao Ning: ...

Because she owns many pets, she has stockpiled a lot of pet food and animal feed, but they are all locked in her storage container.

Even if you made it on the spot, it would be impossible to make a meal for a giant tortoise so quickly.

Qiao Ning could only make pet food while hunting large marine predators. She couldn't defeat the deep-sea monsters, but she could handle the ordinary big ones.

The Spiny Armored Turtle is currently unable to fight, so Qiao Ning and Bing Lin must kill the prey before they can feed it. It's practically like feeding it right to its mouth.

They fed the animals until seven or eight in the morning. Qiao Ning was exhausted from constantly fighting and running back and forth. She and Bing Lin split up to hunt, killing at least a thousand marine creatures, ranging from fish to shrimp and shellfish, totaling several hundred species. This helped to prevent problems in the food chain to some extent.

Although the marine ecosystem is already in a very bad state due to natural disasters...

On the seventh day of the natural disaster, a super-heavy rainstorm brought acid rain with an acid value of 1000, capable of instantly corroding all living things and inanimate objects. Air pollution levels were extremely high, filled with countless highly toxic gases, making it impossible for any life form that needs to breathe to survive. The marine ecosystem was severely damaged; only in the distant deep sea could some dissolved oxygen be found.

The underwater highway continues to descend to a depth of 10,000 meters. In sections where the highway's barriers remain intact, players can breathe and move freely. However, once the barriers are damaged, diving equipment will be required to move freely within a 1,000-kilometer radius.

Invincible bubbles will randomly spawn in the sea near the highway. These bubbles may pass through the highway barrier. Players only need to collect one when it passes through the barrier to freely dive in the deep sea at a depth of 10,000 meters without time limit.

After reading the information about the natural disaster, Qiao Ning gasped. This wasn't just a natural disaster; it was the end of the world!

If this weren't a game-created world of natural disasters, then even with such a harsh environment, some life would still survive. Those prehistoric mass extinctions, each a cataclysmic catastrophe, still saw life survive and thrive.

The ocean is the last hope for all life.

Just like these players, they ultimately had to rely on the ocean to survive this natural disaster.

The spiny-armored dragon turtle was far from full, but after eating some, it regained a lot of strength and was able to hunt on its own.

Qiao Ning witnessed its magnificent hunting scene firsthand. With its huge mouth open, it resembled a deep-sea whirlpool, sucking in all the surrounding marine life and expelling the excess seawater directly.

The large predators that Qiao Ning had hunted were like tiny insects in front of the dragon turtle, swallowed whole without a fight.

The difference in body size is simply too great.

This is the overlord of the deep sea.

Like the Spiny Archangel Turtle, there are many other deep-sea predators in the endless depths of the ocean.

However, they may not be so lucky as to survive this mass extinction.

Because of the large-scale extinction of organisms, the food chain will be broken, and as deep-sea giants that need to eat a lot, their extinction is almost inevitable.

After the dragon turtle finished eating, it became noticeably more active than before, specifically by talking more.

Perhaps it had been weak and spent too long on the seabed, and there were no intelligent creatures to communicate with it, so now that it has a talking owner and other companions, it can't stop talking.

Ice Scale was so incessantly chattering that it seemed ready to fight, and it took a lot of persuasion before Qiao Ning finally calmed it down.

However, the dragon turtle has lived a long time and knows the ocean world very well. In the past, it adhered to the principle of non-aggression and rarely ventured into the territories of other deep-sea giants. Now it's different; it has an owner and can follow its owner everywhere.

It had long wanted to visit its old neighbors, but if they were unfriendly, it would have no choice but to eat them to protect its owner.

With the dragon turtle as her escort, Qiao Ning could simply pass through the areas of those more aggressive deep-sea monsters whenever she couldn't avoid them, since all she had to do was hide the submarine under the dragon turtle's shell.

The dragon turtle hadn't been active for a while and needed to swim freely in the sea. She took Ice Scale with her; if they encountered any danger, it would be safer for both of them to go together and avoid injury. Qiao Ning herself stayed on the highway, protected by the barrier, where most large predators couldn't get in.

Around noon, Qiao Ning summoned the two back. Ice Scale didn't eat much, but Dragon Turtle was quite full and said it needed to sleep to digest.

Qiao Ning simply let it sleep back in its pet pen, which would help it recover its health.

Qiao Ning asked Bing Lin if it wanted to go back to the surface. Bing Lin nodded. Its curiosity far surpassed Qiao Ning's. It had heard its master constantly tell it how dangerous the surface was and that it shouldn't go back without permission. It had long been eager to go up and see for itself. However, it was worried about its master, fearing that if it wasn't there, its master might encounter danger and it wouldn't be able to provide timely support. Even if it used the contract to teleport back instantly, it couldn't guarantee its master wouldn't get hurt.

The intelligent butler autonomously piloted the submarine towards the surface. As it ascended, Qiao Ning began to see the corpses of marine life through the submarine's windows. These corpses were excellent fertilizer, and Qiao Ning had Ice Scale collect them into its spatial storage whenever she encountered them.

After diving for a long time, Qiao Ning finally caught a glimpse of light on the surface of the sea. By then, countless marine carcasses had appeared around her, too many to collect.

The acidity of shallow seawater is not much lower than that of current acid rain, and the durability of the acid-resistant coating deteriorates rapidly, requiring replacement approximately every ten minutes. Otherwise, the submarine would be instantly corroded by the highly acidic seawater.

When the submarine surfaced, Qiao Ning saw the world of acid rain outside through the top hatch. It was beyond description; it was like a waterfall cascading down.

Qiao Ning piloted the submarine forward and soon encountered a huge island. It was the first time she had ever seen an island in this world of natural disasters.

However, before she could even sail her submarine over to investigate, the island was gradually corroded and washed away by the super-strong acid rain.

The whole process didn't even last very long.

Qiao Ning even wondered if she was seeing a mirage.

The surface world is completely unsuitable for any living thing. Staying here would only waste her resources. Having satisfied her curiosity, Qiao Ning decided not to linger and returned to the underwater highway.

Giant bubbles appeared near the highway, large enough to engulf people and cars. Qiao Ning's submarine was much larger, so she needed to find the largest bubble to get inside.

These bubbles are really convenient; they save her from needing an acid-resistant protective film. She collected as many treasure chests as possible before the natural disaster ended.

In the end, more than a thousand gold treasure chests and ninety diamond treasure chests were collected.

Qiao Ning only opened a portion of the treasure chests; the rest were placed in capsules and then stored in Ice Scale's space.

Ice Scale's spatial storage is more useful than her storage items; at least it can prevent resource shortages after the next natural disaster system blocks her storage items.

Qiao Ning opened a diamond treasure chest and found a blueprint called "Air Membrane Blueprint". According to the description, it should be a protective membrane blueprint similar to a diving mask. People can breathe freely inside it and resist external toxic gases.

The duration of the air film varies with the outside air conditions. If the air conditions are poor, the duration will be shorter, with a minimum of 4 hours.

Qiao Ning didn't think much of it, because the sea was indeed filled with poisonous gas at the moment, so it wasn't surprising that an air membrane diagram could be blown up.

This blueprint requires several types of optical film materials, one of which is an acid-resistant optical film. Qiao Ning opened a hundred gold treasure chests and could only barely gather enough materials for 10 sets of air film.

By the time she finished building the air membrane, it was almost evening.

Two hours remain until the disaster ends, and the sea is still surging with towering waves.

An earthquake even struck the underwater world, triggering a massive tsunami.

Faced with the power of nature, all living things, including humans, appear so insignificant.

If Icescale hadn't sensed something was wrong and avoided the tsunami zone, she might have perished at sea, no matter how powerful she was.

Two hours felt like two centuries to Qiao Ning.

Finally, as another wave of tsunami struck, Qiao Ning heard the familiar system notification:

[Congratulations to player Qiao Ning from server 1408 for passing the second stage of the Emperor's Trial. In 10 seconds, player Qiao Ning will be teleported to the third stage of the Emperor's Trial. Once she survives the seventh cycle of natural disasters, she will have the opportunity to leave this large-scale road survival game.]

The teleportation process may cause slight discomfort. Player Qiao Ning, please be prepared: 10, 9, 8, 7...

This time, there wasn't even time for a vacation?