Amidst the churning, surging water, a colossal entity, far larger than the previous fish monster, suddenly rose from beneath Li Hai's feet.

It carried an immense force of unknown tons and waves of rich salty odor, swiftly blasting him upwards from below, rumbling towards the surface of the lake.

Instantly, thousands of tons of surrounding lake water and turbid mud were churned into rolling currents by this abruptly appearing giant, engulfing the area and making this part of the lakebed incredibly chaotic.

And in the short time this chaos erupted, the giant had already propelled Li Hai upwards for hundreds of feet.

Li Hai, being forcefully pushed upwards through the heavy lake water, finally clearly saw the giant's full appearance during this time.

The opponent… was actually a massive vessel, entirely black and covered in iron armor, ten feet wide and dozens of feet long, with its surface, like the back of a Surinam toad, covered in countless large and small, dense eyes and arms.

Li Hai was currently being fiercely pushed by the bow of this black warship, cleaving through the lake and cutting through waves, rapidly surging towards the lake surface.

“Hahahaha, I never expected it…”

Under the fierce impact of myriad currents, Li Hai looked at the black ship, which was now very close, and laughed, “You, the Salt God, are actually a ship.”

That’s right, relying on his primal instincts and various clues, he instantly recognized the ship’s identity.

It was the Li Lake Salt God.

Character Name: Salt God

Rank: Spirit Monster → Green Rank

Skills: “Abnormal Monster Life Source”, “Bronze Head Iron Arm”, “Explosive Salt Heavy Cannon”

Attribute Entries: 【Strong Soul Level 3】, 【Physical Strength Level 3】, 【Iron Body Level 3】, 【Self-Healing Level 1】

Strongest Shard: None

“Spirit Monster… and a so-called Green Rank.”

Li Hai sneered, “Who would have thought that the Salt God is actually a ship that became a Spirit Monster.”

While sneering, he learned all the skills of this ship Spirit.

However, he did not upgrade any of them, keeping them all at zero Rank.

The reason for this was that Li Hai currently did not want to turn into a broken ship, unless it transformed into a Liaoning aircraft carrier or a Type 055 destroyer.

Getting sidetracked, just as the Salt God was rapidly pushing Li Hai towards the surface of Li Lake, Li Hai’s figure suddenly blurred, abruptly turning into an indistinct, ethereal ghostly entity.

Instantly, the ship Spirit passed right through Li Hai’s illusory ghost body, leaving it to speed upwards alone.

At this moment, Li Hai transformed back into his human form, and with a shake of the twin whips in his hands, he suddenly shot towards the Li Lake Salt God, which was rapidly moving upwards.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!—

Leaving a long trail of rolling bubbles, Li Hai pushed off the lake water, covering dozens to hundreds of feet in a second, and grabbed the Salt God, the ship Spirit’s, pointed stern.

Then, using his steel whip as a pickaxe, enduring the downward torrent strong enough to break steel plates and hard wood, he worked both hands, chiseling a hole after another, and climbed all the way from the stern to the mid-section of the hull.

Upon reaching this point, Li Hai, now excited, simply put away one steel whip, used his left hand to pierce the deck and stabilize himself, while his right hand continued to wield the whip, channeling surging power, striking the surrounding hull within his sight, blow after blow.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Dull thuds echoed, and flashes of light erupted.

Each time Li Hai struck with his whip, while creating clusters of deep-water bubbles and fleeting bright flashes, he would smash a part of the Salt God’s hull structure, sending arms and eyeballs flying, and gushing out large streams of foul-smelling, briny black liquid.

Thus, in just a few seconds, the entire Salt God’s hull began to tremble violently, like an epileptic fit, and it started to crash around in the lake with Li Hai on it.

Clearly, it was in pain from the beating.

At the same time, the slender arms on both sides of the Salt God’s hull frantically attacked Li Hai, who was clinging to its ‘back’, trying to pull him off.

But these arms, as strong as steel, were fragile and clumsy like stiff dead wood in front of Li Hai’s steel whip, which danced and swayed like a flexible snake, easily smashing a large number of them.

Perhaps also exasperated by the beating, the Salt God finally couldn't hold back and unleashed its ultimate move.

Click, click, click~

With a series of dull mechanical sounds, a row of grayish-white cannons rapidly protruded from the bow of the ship, a dozen feet in front of Li Hai, and upon appearing, they all rotated 180 degrees, indiscriminately firing a barrage towards Li Hai’s position.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Facing the fierce cannon fire head-on, Li Hai’s whip shadows flashed wildly, and in an instant, he brandished hundreds of thousands of blood-red streaks, enveloping himself entirely.

Subsequently, the incoming cannonballs collided head-on with these whip shadows and blood-red streaks.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Immediately, large areas of the underwater lake were blasted into chaos by the Salt God, with raging currents surging, and all passing small fish and shrimp suffered greatly, dying without a trace.

But Li Hai, facing this continuous bombardment, was completely unharmed.

“All this noise is useless.”

Amidst the chaotic currents, he sneered and suddenly transformed from human to ghost, exploding into thousands of twisted fingers that shot towards the bow cannon array, while also sending more fingers rapidly drilling into the hull through the various holes and cracks below.

Soon, the Salt God, as if possessed, stopped swimming wildly and instead trembled and rolled violently in place.

This was a normal phenomenon caused by Li Hai drilling around inside its body and causing destruction; it would calm down once it was tortured to death.

As expected, after only a dozen seconds, the Salt God, which had been struggling intensely, suddenly stiffened and stopped moving.

The Salt God, dead.

And at the exact moment this ship Spirit died, a Strongest Shard appeared on Li Hai’s personal interface.

At the same time, the Salt God’s massive metal body slowly disintegrated, revealing Li Hai, who had returned to his human form, as well as various miscellaneous items and a large number of corpses inside.

Upon closer inspection, these grayish, shriveled corpses were shockingly those of children, thoroughly preserved in salt, numbering forty to fifty.

Clearly, these child corpses were the sacrifices offered by Yu Family Village over the years.

“Forty-eight child corpses, exactly six years’ worth. But why didn’t the Salt God eat the child corpses, but instead preserved them in salt? Also…”

Li Hai examined the child corpses, a perplexed expression on his face, “If the Salt God doesn’t eat the sacrifices but merely collects them, then where did the child corpses from six years ago go? And what is it collecting these for?”

Questions piled up.

Then he looked at the various miscellaneous items slowly sinking around them: money, silver, swords, shoes, hats, crossbows, iron chests, bronze mirrors… a motley collection.

“Hmm? Strange aura.”

Suddenly, Li Hai’s eyes flashed, and he shifted his gaze to the crossbow, iron chest, and bronze mirror among these miscellaneous items.

From the bow and the mirror, his Level 3 Intuition could clearly sense a very mysterious magical aura.

So these two must be extraordinary Magical Artifacts.

As for the square iron chest, although Li Hai didn’t sense any magical traces, he felt an extremely profound ancient charm.

And this kind of ancient charm, he had only encountered on the ancient stele in the underground Cave of Yupan Mountain.