Chapter 26: The Isle of the Frozen Prison (Part II)

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The white eagle-vulture stretched its beak toward the waterborn hidden in the crack between the rocks, but the narrow opening held it back. It tried reaching in with its talons, yet could not reach him. After several attempts, it grew visibly enraged. It raised its head slightly, and a tremendous force began building within its body.

Waterborn felt that something was wrong.

Sure enough, the creature suddenly opened its mouth and exhaled a stream of freezing air tinged with pale blue. The blast shot straight into the crevice. At once, the already frigid space grew even colder. Frost rapidly coated the stone walls, and whenever it touched his hands or feet, the chill pierced straight to the bone.

Seeing that the attack was effective, the white eagle-vulture exhaled another, even more frigid breath.

A layer of white frost instantly formed over Waterborn’s hair and eyebrows, while the cold made his face ache. Even though he drove his supernatural power through his body for protection, he could still feel his temperature plunging rapidly.

Damn beast! If it breathed on him a few more times, would he not be frozen into an ice sculpture?

This was Waterborn’s first encounter with a creature from another world, and his first true taste of how terrifying that world could be. No wonder people said that traveling to other worlds was a challenge where sudden wealth and deadly danger existed side by side. Few became rich overnight, but plenty died in those worlds, leaving not even bones behind.

This creature was stronger than he was. Struggling against it would only leave him more helpless. He had no weapon, and his offensive techniques were even worse. How could he escape alive? If he continued holding out like this, would he last until someone came to rescue him?

The young man’s thoughts raced.

Just then, the white eagle-vulture exhaled again. As the breath settled over him, Waterborn felt his body hardening and stiffening layer by layer, from the outside inward. Even his blood seemed about to congeal and freeze.

No! I cannot die here! I have only just left the fishing village. I have not yet seen the vast world beyond!

His instinct for survival stirred every ounce of strength within him. Suddenly, his mind became clear and empty, and he instinctively extended his right hand.

A drop of water, so pure that it seemed not to belong to this world, hovered above his palm. He used what little supernatural power remained to control it. It felt as though his thoughts were connected to it, as though it were a part of his own body.

This drop of water...

He suddenly remembered the crystal sphere in his shack, split cleanly in two, and the drop of water that had vanished from within it. He had assumed it had fallen into the dirt on the floor.

Could this be it? Had it not fallen into the earth and disappeared, but instead entered his body?

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Yes. It had to be. The mysterious sensation it gave him after appearing was exactly the same.

Before this, he had not known how extraordinary it was.

Once the drop appeared, the icy force within his body seemed to be drawn toward it. It constantly gathered on its surface, where it was absorbed bit by bit.

The cold continued to be drawn in and absorbed. The chill within Waterborn gradually lessened, and the surrounding temperature began to bottom out before rising again. After a dozen or so seconds, the cold had been completely drawn from his body. His temperature returned to normal, while most of the frost inside the crevice melted into mist and droplets of water.

The white eagle-vulture sensed what had happened. The change was beyond its understanding.

Its savage nature refused to accept defeat. It gathered all its strength and prepared to exhale another blast of freezing air.

Waterborn had no other choice. The drop of water was now his only hope. Driven by some instinct he could not explain, he controlled it with his supernatural power and hurled it toward the wide-open beak of the white eagle-vulture, just as the creature was about to release its breath.

Hopefully it would plug the beast’s mouth.

Sure enough, the droplet shot into the white eagle-vulture’s mouth at tremendous speed. The freezing breath it had gathered, only halfway formed and not yet released, abruptly vanished.

Then the creature let out several terrified, piercing cries. It toppled from the rock and fell onto the stones along the shore, where it rolled and thrashed wildly.

A moment later, its body began visibly shrinking. Its entire frame contracted, and its feathers started falling away. In barely a dozen seconds, every feather had dropped off, revealing a desiccated body like a piece of cured meat left to dry for years.

Its body was now only a quarter of its former size.

It was not merely its size that had changed. All its former might had vanished. It no longer resembled the fierce airborne predator it had been moments earlier.

Waterborn sensed the entire transformation. Astonished and delighted, he leaped out of the crevice.

Ever since the drop of water had entered its beak, the cold within the white eagle-vulture and the power of the magical beast had seeped continuously from its blood and every cell in its body, using its own moisture as a medium. The energy coiled around the droplet, and once the droplet had absorbed all the power contained in that moisture, the remaining water steadily dispersed into the air.

In a mere dozen seconds, the creature’s body had gone from severely dehydrated to utterly devoid of water. Even its blood had solidified. All that remained was a shriveled mass of dry flesh, with its eyeballs sunk deep into their sockets like two crumpled wads of wastepaper.

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It gave a feeble, dry croak. Then it could no longer move at all, and collapsed on the stones, surrendering the last of its life.

Waterborn had an idea. He raised a hand and held it still in the air. The droplet flickered and returned to his palm, where it floated gently. He felt its presence more clearly now, and controlling it with his supernatural power seemed easier than before.

This is a treasure!

He was overjoyed. If he encountered an enemy, he would only need to throw it out, and it could drain away the opponent’s supernatural power and bodily moisture. He would not even need to fight.

He soon realized that he had been getting ahead of himself.

The sensation he received from the droplet told him that after what had just happened, it had not only eaten its fill but had overeaten. For quite some time, it would be unable to consume anything else or unleash that miraculous ability again.

He had no choice but to place it in his left hand. Like a mischievous pet, it wandered constantly across his palm and the back of his hand, never staying still, though it moved slowly. Before long, Waterborn discovered that while he was sensing it, it was also sensing the world around it, as though it possessed a mind of its own.

Books recorded that certain powerful water-aspected supernatural practitioners used extraordinary water as weapons. Such water could take many forms and, under the right conditions, possess considerable power. Some varieties even possessed intelligence.

Could this drop of water given to him by Old Master Yan be the legendary extraordinary water?

He controlled it by using his thoughts to direct his supernatural power, while it could use its own perception to control nearby liquids according to its host’s commands.

Waterborn felt like a child with a new toy and experimented with it again and again.

It seemed to possess a mind of its own, for it returned a particular ability through their connection. By controlling it with his supernatural power, he could influence an equal volume of water within its perceptive range. For example, when Waterborn poured supernatural power into it, it created a certain area of influence. At present, that area was roughly one meter across. Within that range, any volume of water it sensed that contained less energy than itself could be controlled remotely.

Waterborn gave this rather useless ability the name “Water Manipulation.”

As for the drop’s name, he mischievously called it “Water Pig,” taking the name from its enormous appetite. Its tiny body had managed to drain the moisture from such a huge white eagle-vulture. If that was not a pig, then what was?

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