Sam strapped his hammer to his belt reluctantly, and then dove into the water before he could change his mind. It smelled like sulfur, and it was acrid to the extreme, but he could still handle it. However the main threats were the monsters.
As soon as he entered, he could sense something nearby turn towards him, and he quickly readied his fists to fight. His hammer would be next to useless underwater, so it was down to his bare hands.
As he felt something brush by his left leg, he thrust out his hand, spearing it into the rubbery flesh of the monster that was threatening him. He heard a subsonic reverberation in the water as the creature let out an exclamation of pain, and he grinned. It wriggled free, but did not return to bother him. He had reached such a level of strength that his hands were like weapons now, even without any sort of force multiplier like his hammer.
The monster was only the first of many however, and as Sam started to swim out into the main part of the lake, more and more swarmed him as time went one, trying to get through his armor and to the succulent, essence rich prize within. They could sense that he would be a boon for their cultivation as well as he could for them, and as a result, by the time he was about a hundred meters out from the side of the lake, dozens of creatures swarmed around him, trying to get to him. Luckily for Sam, none of them were stronger than early F Rank, and were too weak to get through his armor, let alone his skin, but it was still annoying nonetheless.
Sam picked up the pace, and he outpaced the monsters, swimming at over a hundred miles per hour, even with all of his armor on. With an effective strength that was almost fifty times greater than a normal human, he was able to propel his comparatively light body at truly incredible speeds. It was like he was a balloon, and he was letting out the air, rather than a person swimming across a lake.
In any case, he was virtually untouchable for now, but he was apprehensive about the larger monsters that he had seen earlier. As he passed over some unseen shelf in the lake floor, the smaller monsters disappeared, and he could suddenly feel a vast emptiness beneath him, extending down for hundreds of feet. He had reached the center area of the lake now, and this was where the shadowy leviathans that he had seen earlier lurked.
He swam in silence for a few minutes, but eventually, he felt something emerging from the silty depths of the lake beneath his feet, and rising up towards him. Sam swam faster, but the updraft of water was only coming quicker and quicker. He stopped, and started to channel his power into himself, ready to fight whatever emerged.As it turned out, he didn't even have the chance, as a massive maw closed around his entire body, trapping him.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
A moment later, he was hurtling down a slick tube, towards the monster’s stomach. Sam gritted his teeth and thrust his hammer into the flesh around himself, anchoring him in the throat of the monster. It was pitch black in there, and he quickly extended one hand, illuminating the surrounding area with his mana. The tube was quite large, but small enough to assure him that he was not within some monstrously large creature. It was perhaps the size of a sperm whale or some similar oceanic beast, and Sam knew that he would be able to escape, given the time.
He began to climb back up its throat, using his hammer like a piton, and eventually reached its mouth far above, stepping out into its massive tongue. Rather than simply try to escape however, Sam looked upwards, and then leaped, slamming his hammer into the creature’s hard palate. He would have to kill this monsters, or it would just keep chasing him even if he escaped its grasp.
Sam started to dig into the creature’s skull with his Dao energy and elemental energy, projecting a spike of power upwards as he worked. He could feel the monster start to shake, and its tongue flopped around, likely trying to expel him. However, Sam was made of sterner stuff, and he held on, continuing to dig into the monster’s skull with his hammer.
A few minutes later, he had made a small cavity in the roof of its mouth, and he was able to fit entirely within it, continuing his bloody work. There was barely any blood, which was strange, but he ignored the disparity, and kept moving. His blows came like rain now, as he was using his fists rather than his hammer because of the limited space. Each punch pulverized flesh, bringing him ever closer to the monster's brain.
A few minutes later, Sam finally struck his target, rewarding him with a spray of grayish fluid. The monster around him bucked and shivered, but he could barely feel it, ensconced as he was. Sam cocked back his fist, and pumped his Dao energy into it, causing it to glow with a reddish hue. With a roar, he drove it up into the monster’s brain, sending a shockwave through the jelly-like material that pulped it completely. Essence entered him in a steady wave, granting him two entire levels for his trouble.
Before the monster could begin to sink, Sam hurriedly tore his way free from the cloying flesh and raced out of its mouth, bursting forth in a spray of gore. He emerged into the water, a hundred feet below the surface, and swam upwards, with his powerful strokes propelling him to the surface in a few seconds.
He breached the water, and barely felt the need to breathe, such was his monstrous Resilience. Instead, he kept swimming, until the blood and brain fluid of the monster had been washed off him by the force of his swimming. Sam was free and clear of the monster, but not of the lake itself. Other monsters dwelled in the deep, and Sam swam as quickly as he could to avoid them. At this current pace, he jetted across the lake like a comet, covering vast swathes of its surface with his strokes.