Mecha Star Wars.

Chapter 1408 The Whirlpool Sea

Upon entering the sea area, the Star Shuttle suddenly sank down and crashed onto the sea surface.

"What's going on?" Antonio exclaimed.

Lin Fan recalled the Star Shuttle that had just fallen off the cliff and instantly lost its levitation ability, and made a guess.

"If we can still fly here, wouldn't that be even easier than the scree slopes of the canyon?" She quickly adjusted the direction of her back foot and found that the propulsion engine was still working. She breathed a sigh of relief. "There's still power, and I can still control the direction. The Star Shuttle has become a water ski."

"Yo-ho! Surfing!" Antonio yelled, leaping forward on the undulating waves. "I know this one! Baby, I'm off!"

He was a skilled surfer and adapted to the undulations of the water with almost no effort, skillfully avoiding the whirlpool on one side and taking the lead over Lin Fan.

Lin Fan had never surfed before, but he had seen a lot and was quick to adapt. He quickly found his balance in the water and rushed forward.

Wu Yi and Lin Fan followed behind, two people apart.

She's never surfed before... or rather, most people in H country don't have that kind of experience.

But this girl was bold yet meticulous, and her handling was delicate. The star shuttle clung tightly to the sea surface, like a fallen leaf, rising and falling with the waves.

He didn't seem to have the same rapid leaps forward as Antonio and Lin Fan, as if he lacked motivation.

But when you broaden your perspective and compare it to the surrounding vortexes, you realize that her speed is not slow at all. It's just that she's too stable and silent, making people subconsciously overlook her power.

What's even more impressive is that she seems to have an extremely accurate prediction of the rise and fall of the waves and the range of the eddies, resulting in her journey being completely undisturbed.

Many people in the stands had already noticed this "lucky" contestant. But the Noah crew knew perfectly well that it wasn't him at all.

As a powerful woman second only to Lin Fan, Wu Yi rewrote their stereotypes about magic practitioners.

The journey was fraught with all sorts of difficulties and obstacles: from the external environment and from the other contestants. Everyone, more or less, encountered one or two waves of them. Even Lin Fan and Antonio were not spared.

Only Wu Yi was like she had a cheat code—without her making any move, wherever she went, rocks stopped falling, the wind stopped, the mud stopped churning, and the lava stopped erupting...

She remained calm and composed, forging ahead steadily, making the other contestants, who were overwhelmed and in disarray, seem as if they were from a different world.

Crispy skin?

Ha! You'll have to run into her first!

Merlinnil clung tightly to Wu Yi. He was neither a mage nor a surfer. He relied entirely on the agility he had developed on Xiaoyao Mountain to quickly adapt to his environment.

Behind me, bubbles kept falling into the sea because they hadn't mastered the technique, and were swept away by the ocean currents.

Merlinnil wasn't one to be stubborn or inflexible. Knowing he couldn't handle this challenge—just keeping the star shuttle steady on the waves would take all his energy, how could he possibly discern direction and danger?—he simply followed Wu Yi closely, keeping up with her route.

Well, you know what? It's true, he just happened to be right behind Wu Yi. If it were like at the beginning, where he was third, whether he was behind Antonio or Lin Fan, he would have already been swept away by the tide and triggered the protective bubble.

Of course, Merlinnil wasn't the only smart person.

Sure enough, the player who was originally following behind Merliniel suddenly accelerated and overtook him because he felt he had overestimated the risks due to his smooth journey.

This person's star shuttle was oval-shaped, twice as wide as the official star shuttle, and it demonstrated excellent stability on the sea surface, gliding across in a flash.

The surge of water crashed into Merlinnil once more. Startled, he had no choice but to lower his center of gravity, spread his arms out in front and behind to maintain his balance, and squat down in a lunge position on the Star Shuttle.

Wu Yi noticed the commotion behind him but didn't try to stop him. He simply kept his pace and moved aside.

Seeing this, the overtaking driver thought Wu Yi was letting him pass, so he rushed forward and took Wu Yi's original position.

Before he could even feel happy, a small whirlpool suddenly appeared on the sea ahead. The man had no time to react and watched helplessly as his starship was pulled by gravity into the whirlpool…

As Merlinn carefully passed through the whirlpool, he inevitably caught a glimpse of the newly formed bubbles out of the corner of his eye, and let out a rare soft scoff.

This sea area looks dangerous, but it's basically a struggle against dense turbulent currents coming from different directions.

With Wu Yi's keen observation and predictive abilities, coupled with his skillful control of the Star Shuttle, passing through would not be difficult.

Of course, to race in this environment, you also have to avoid new turbulence that may suddenly appear at any time, which makes the difficulty more than double.

Just like Lin Fan, who is now catching up, and Antonio, who rarely enjoys the lead and is not giving an inch.

They weren't even the first two; there were still quite a few people visible ahead.

Lin Fan couldn't possibly ask Antonio to wait for her; that would be disrespectful to herself, to Antonio, and to any exceptionally fair competition, even if she carried the enormous stakes of the entire Noah ship on her shoulders.

And Antonio? He's never been the kind of person who has a big-picture perspective.

He had been suppressed by Lin Fan for too long. Even though they had a good relationship, could he let go of a rare opportunity to surpass Lin Fan?

There are very few people who can make Antonio bow his head and obey. Under normal circumstances, Antonio would listen to Lin Fan when he speaks.

but now?

Even if Lin Fan did speak, it wouldn't make a difference.

Overwhelmed by excitement, Antonio was ready to charge to the very end without stopping until the world exploded.

What does "friendship first, competition second" mean?

If that's the case, then what's the point of ranking people? What's the point of a competition? Hypocritical!

Antonio roared and jumped on the crests of the waves, as if he were back on Blue Star, actually riding a skateboard and flying on the waves.

Having followed Antonio for so long, Lin Fan has already mastered all of his surfing skills.

She stood firmly on her star shuttle, riding the waves, waiting for an opportunity.

Just when everyone thought that the format of this round was to lose the hovering star shuttle and dodge whirlpools and turbulent currents in the waves, a huge black shadow appeared on the sea ahead and quickly approached the contestants.

"What the hell?!" Antonio frowned, a bad feeling creeping over him.

As they got closer, they could see that it was a huge waterspout.

The powerful suction force ripped the surrounding seawater into walls hundreds of meters high, with white foam churning within the grayish-white vortex's texture. Below, the sucked-in sea surface formed a gigantic, inky-black abyss several kilometers in diameter. The howling wind and crashing sounds, like low-pitched thunder, surged toward them with devastating force.

"Holy crap!" Antonio shouted, "Each one of them would be deadly, let alone two together?"

Despite saying that, he didn't slow down at all; he just kept turning his head left and right, trying to see if the person in front of him had a good solution.

Although the whirlpool was wide, it wasn't wide enough to cover the entire sea surface. A direct confrontation was definitely impossible, and most people's first thought was to go around it from either side.

Pioneers are always more likely to pay the price; before they even reach their destination, robots from who-knows-where appear in the sky again, loudly announcing their arrival.

"The participant has left the race area and is disqualified from the competition."

"Fine! So I guess I have no choice but to go into the whirlpool and get a turn!" Antonio laughed angrily, cursing as he reported the situation to the people behind him.

"Then what should we do?" Wu Yi asked.

They've seen far too many contestants dragged into the vortex, disqualified, and left spinning in circles inside the bubble.

“Since we have to go in, it certainly won’t be like other vortexes.” Lin Fan’s voice was flat as he quickly recalled previous failures and summarized. “It seems that most people who are pulled into the vortex were forcibly ejected from the bubble protection after falling off the star shuttle, right? Is it possible that they triggered the disengagement mechanism that prevents their bodies from completely leaving the star shuttle, rather than simply being pulled into the vortex… If we can stay on the star shuttle, maybe we can use the vortex’s circular pull to go to the other side and find an opportunity to escape… Perhaps this is the ultimate solution to this problem.”

"Want to get involved? I love it!" Antonio laughed heartily, stretching out his arms and shouting in a childish manner.

"I am the man who will conquer the seas and become the Pirate King!"

Yesterday evening, I executed two mosquitoes, but a big-headed fly escaped.

At night, mosquitoes started buzzing around my ear again. After circling a few times, I finally killed them.

I killed two more mosquitoes this evening...

So, what good food do I have at home? Can't we eat at another restaurant?