The sea wind howled, and the waves roared.
Wave after wave of colossal tidal surges crashed forward like savage beasts besieging the island, threatening to swallow it whole.
But Jie Tianran stood at the shoreline, driving the crimson creature to churn through the waves.
Beneath the water's surface, multicolored light flowed and shimmered — like several rainbows hidden beneath the sea.
They were fish. Vast schools of fish in every imaginable color, dazzling to behold.
The crimson creature was hunting those schools.
Since the schools were so numerous and spread over such a wide area, the crimson creature needed only to catch up, open its enormous maw, and swallow enormous swaths of fish in a single gulp.
However, because it was a unique existence, most of the fish could not remain trapped within its body. Even if they were swallowed, they would simply pass through the creature and escape.
Only one type of fish was truly consumed within its belly with no means of escape.
They were golden, translucent fish no longer than a finger.
These fish were few in number and astonishingly fast — several times harder to catch than any other species.
So even though Jie Tianran had already been here for some time, the crimson creature's belly held only a few dozen of those golden fish.
Those golden fish were being slowly broken down and assimilated by a strange power within the creature.
The process was just terribly slow.
"Junior Brother Chu Feng, what do we do?" Wen Xue asked, worry in her voice.
"That scoundrel grandfather of yours is catching those golden fish — catching them and refining them. Even though the refining is slow, those golden fish must be valuable."
"But it can drive that creature to fish. Can your tree catch fish too?"
After all, the crimson beast was a living thing, while a tree was not.
"Of course it can." As Chu Feng spoke, he set the green tree in his hand down.
His hand seals shifted, and the tree rapidly grew, soon transforming into a colossal tree towering ten thousand meters high.
Branches extended outward and swept into the sea.
Then those branches began weaving together, forming an enormous net.
And under Chu Feng's direction, the branch-net was positioned near the crimson creature.
The crimson beast thrashed through the sea, sending schools of fish scattering in every direction. Naturally, massive numbers of those fish poured straight into Chu Feng's net.
Most of the fish could pass through the tree as though it were intangible — but one type would become trapped. The golden fish.
Before long, several golden fish had fallen into the branch-net.
"Wonderful! Junior Brother Chu Feng, beautifully done!" Wen Xue exclaimed with delight.
This way, not only could Chu Feng catch golden fish rapidly, but thanks to the net's enormous coverage, he would inevitably outpace Jie Tianran.
"Hmph." Jie Tianran let out a cold snort but said nothing.
Wen Xue, however, shouted right at him: "Hey, hey, hey! You old perverted fossil, pick up the pace!"
"Tell your little pet to swim faster!"
"What's wrong — too old? Reflexes getting slow?"
"Why is your precious little red pet swimming so sluggishly? You're slowing down my Junior Brother Chu Feng's fishing speed!"
"You really are a useless thing. You might as well just die — you're wasting perfectly good air by staying alive!"
Wen Xue's insults were razor-sharp, punctuated with mocking laughter.
Jie Tianran had experienced a great deal in his lifetime, but having grown accustomed to flattery, hearing someone berate him like this left his expression thoroughly unpleasant.
Yet he did not engage in a war of words with Wen Xue. Instead, he focused all his effort on driving the crimson beast to catch golden fish.
But no matter how large that crimson beast was, its swimming speed beneath the waves was not particularly impressive.
Its fishing rate could not compare to Chu Feng's branch-woven net.
Before long, the number of golden fish in Chu Feng's net surpassed Jie Tianran's haul.
Three hours later, the golden fish collected in the divine tree's net already numbered twice as many as those in the crimson beast's belly.
And it was right then that a massive rift appeared in the center of the island, tearing the very void apart.