Ch. 192 - Cultivating meat lumps - part 3
After the medium-sized meat chunk was collected, its corpse completely vanished.
By the time Yang Yi returned, Suna was already directing the skeletal arms to retrieve the sea salt.
Using sea salt to attack meat chunks didn’t result in much loss.
Only a small portion of the sea salt was actually consumed; most of it could be recovered.
If they didn’t frequently fight meat chunks in the sea, the stock of sea salt aboard the Nightmare Star could last a very long time.
Yang Yi didn’t just stand by and wait while the skeletal arms worked. Instead, he started fishing again.
Fishing took time, after all. By the time something bit, the cleanup would probably be nearly done.
Fifteen minutes later, Yang Yi reeled in a neat, round meat ball, slightly larger than a basketball.
The salt in the box had already been recovered, and the bottom was filled with a thick layer of white seawater, about twenty centimetres deep.
It was too difficult to retrieve every grain of salt, so adding some white seawater helped neutralise any leftover salt. That way, the newly caught meat chunk wouldn’t be overly stimulated.
Yang Yi skillfully controlled the fishing rod and cut the line at just the right spot, dropping the meat ball into the iron box.
For convenience, he placed it close to the platform so it would be easy to pour something on the meat chunk later.
This time, what they were going to add was the Gourmet Devourer’s stomach.
Suna opened the glass jar she’d prepared earlier and poured out the mutilated stomach, which landed directly on the meat ball.
But there was no struggle.
The stomach merged into the meat ball immediately upon contact. Then the meat ball sprouted limbs and split open horizontally, beginning to gulp down the surrounding white seawater.
“What the hell is this?” Yang Yi raised his brows, silently thankful he hadn’t tossed the stomach into the fully-grown meat chunk earlier. Otherwise, he’d be facing a much larger unknown creature now.
While the thing was drinking seawater, Yang Yi poured a heap of sea salt on it, but nothing happened.
The little creature continued to drink the seawater, even consuming the salt along with it. Its body grew rapidly, ballooning in size within seconds.
Regular sea salt couldn’t harm it at all, in fact, it seemed to digest and absorb it!
“This thing is a Gourmet Devourer!” Yang Yi instantly realised and pulled out his flintlock gun and the Flame Serpent Fang.
The creature resembled the Gourmet Devourer he’d encountered before: able to eat almost anything, and digest almost anything.
The difference was, this one had undergone a complete transformation, it no longer had a head or any vital weak points.
Its body probably contained only a single stomach, and no other organs. Unless it was torn apart or had its stomach removed, it couldn’t be killed!
It must not be allowed to leave this box!
Yang Yi fired immediately. The roaring flintlock shot struck the meatball creature with full force, blasting it apart.
The impact was so powerful it broke through the bottom of the box, leaving a dent in the bone deck beneath.
But the Gourmet Devourer wasn’t dead.
One-third of its scattered flesh reformed into a new Gourmet Devourer, rapidly regenerating by absorbing seawater.
Before Yang Yi could fire a second shot, Suna released an Arrow of Salt, striking the creature directly and turning it completely to salt, only withered scraps of flesh remained, no longer moving.
The Arrow of Salt was extremely effective against this type of creature.
The salt elemental it created had no target to attack. It raised its head to look at Yang Yi and Suna and attempted to strike, but with no climbing ability, it was trapped in the iron box, unable to reach them.
Soon, the salt elemental began to shrink as the seawater beneath it dried up, leaving behind only a layer of sugar.
Yang Yi dumped a large barrel of seawater into the box, finally dissolving it completely.
The crisis was resolved.
Yang Yi wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.
Although the Gourmet Devourer had been easily defeated, its potential threat still left him shaken.
If that creature had truly escaped into the white ocean and started devouring the nearly endless white sugar water...
What would it have become?
It might have grown into something even more terrifying than the Rotwhale.
Because this thing wasn’t afraid of sea salt!
Maybe the Salt Wedge could kill such a monster, but Yang Yi didn’t have one.
If it came down to a life-or-death battle, the only option he could think of was setting it on fire; he had no other way to destroy a Gourmet Devourer in the sea.
Yang Yi turned to Suna with a serious expression.
She, too, realised just how dangerous the situation had been. Her gaze flickered, avoiding his eyes.
“If we’re going to run this kind of experiment again, we’ll need a cage made entirely of steel.