“He didn’t see it?”
“No way. The island was huge. Anyone who isn’t blind would’ve seen it!”
“Then why didn’t he go ashore? Don’t tell me he actually thinks he’s some kind of expert and wants to hunt other contestants?”
“I’m leaning toward him simply not seeing it.”
“He’s definitely blind. Serves him right. Garbage-planet people don’t deserve to land.”
...
Right at that moment, the system announcement sounded—
[Chaos Planet Dikui contestant 15732 Zhante and Blue Star contestant 1234 Ling Buchen have landed ashore. Congratulations on officially entering <Top Talent Show>!]
The barrage froze.
A moment later, shocked comments exploded—
“A Chaos Planet contestant landing because of luck I can understand, but another garbage-planet contestant?!”
“Blue Star? From the same garbage planet as 2333?”
“Holy shit, why?! I’m going to watch!”
...
Large numbers of viewers immediately left He Yu’s livestream.
Even the people of Blue Star were shocked. The name “Ling Buchen” carried influence on Blue Star, but from a competition standpoint, Blue Star viewers had never been optimistic about him either.
Compared to former special forces soldier Bo Jingshan, a singer and an obscure D-list celebrity were both considered far too weak.
Yet unexpectedly—
He Yu’s livestream had remained hanging between the First and Second Rings, becoming Blue Star’s first contestant to discover an island.
Meanwhile, the silent and unnoticed Ling Buchen had become Blue Star’s first contestant to actually land ashore!
He Yu heard the announcement.
Not a single trace of emotion appeared on his face.
He simply continued hooking strings of dried fish with yarn, basking under the sun while directing the giant fish forward.
—The weather was wonderful.
—And one’s mindset should stay wonderful too.
Some viewers still remained in He Yu’s livestream.
They were curious whether He Yu had actually seen the island, and even more curious about what exactly he intended to do.
So they watched.
And watched.
Only to see He Yu calmly take out <Basic Principles of Combat Power Development> again and begin reading seriously.
Barrage comments: “???”
Three days later.
The preliminary stage was the phase of searching for islands.
It was the stage with the highest elimination count.
And also the cruelest stage.
Especially in this year’s <Top Talent Show>, where the organizers had broken tradition and invited so many “garbage planets” to participate.
Wasn’t that simply to make death more entertaining?
For contestants from weak planets with underdeveloped technology, terrifying sea monsters like giant fish were not what they feared most.
What they feared most...
Was encountering other contestants.
If they encountered giant fish and similar monsters, there was only one outcome—
Being eaten.
But if they encountered other contestants, the outcome could become unimaginably horrifying.
—After all, no one knew what those people might do.
Especially contestants from main planets who hunted specifically for pleasure.
A team from a main planet sailed across the sea in a boat and encountered a small squad composed entirely of garbage-planet contestants.
Unlike the well-equipped main-planet team, the garbage-planet squad looked miserable. Nearly everyone was injured, and their “boat” consisted only of several pieces of wood crudely tied together into a raft.
The contrast between their raft and the main-planet inflatable boat was painfully obvious.
The instant they saw the boat, the garbage-planet squad’s expressions changed drastically.
They immediately moved aside, giving way to the boat, pale-faced as they prayed they had not encountered hunters.
However—
The boat did not continue in its original direction.
Instead, it headed directly toward the raft.
The garbage-planet squad’s faces became even paler.
“Garbage-planet people?”
At the front of the boat stood a one-eyed man. Narrowing his single eye, he looked down arrogantly at the nervous people aboard the raft.
No one on the raft dared speak.
The one-eyed man became impatient.
“Answer me.”
The leader of the raft team swallowed nervously before cautiously replying:
“We’re from Tuyu Planet.”
The one-eyed man sneered.
“Tuyu Planet? Never heard of it. Another newly added garbage planet this year, huh?”
The people on the raft trembled slightly, unable to answer.
The one-eyed man looked them over, and suddenly his expression turned cold.
“Garbage-planet people should all die.”
The moment those words fell, he violently drew his long blade and slashed downward.
“BOOM—”
The raft shattered apart.
The leading man had one arm chopped off instantly, blood flooding the surrounding seawater and attracting swarms of tiny carnivorous fish.
“AAAAAAAHHHHH—!!”
The man screamed miserably.
“Hahahaha!”
The people aboard the inflatable boat burst into loud laughter.
“These garbage-planet people are ridiculously weak. One slash each, zero challenge at all. Tsk tsk.”
Someone on the boat mocked.
The one-eyed man sneered.
“If people like this dare enter the competition, then obviously they’re just here for me to kill for fun.”
After speaking, he raised his blade and slowly directed the boat forward.
He was not in a hurry to kill them.
He enjoyed the fear of garbage-planet people.
And he knew the more terrified and hysterical they became, the more the audience would enjoy it.
Step by step, he approached them.
The people floating in the water wore expressions of absolute despair.
Just as his blade rose once more—
From the distance, the sound of enormous crashing waves suddenly erupted.
The one-eyed man and his teammates’ expressions changed drastically as they looked toward the source of the sound in horror.
—It was the disturbance caused by a preliminary-stage miniboss giant fish approaching.
Sure enough, several seconds later, the enormous silhouette appeared before them.
This giant fish was larger than every giant fish they had ever seen before.
It moved like the wind itself.
Its streamlined body stirred towering waves as it swam, the blue skin exposed above the water dazzling beneath the sunlight, reflecting a sharp, dangerous brilliance.
In the blink of an eye, it was already before them.
Its cold eyes and terrifying fish maw filled everyone with instinctive fear.
This time—
The despair belonged to the one-eyed man’s group.
This was the largest and fastest giant fish they had ever encountered.
One look at it was enough to make them understand—
Escape was impossible.
The one-eyed man seemed to lose his voice.
Opening his mouth silently, he mouthed:
“Run—”
The instant he spoke, he and the person beside him immediately shoved everyone behind them into the sea without hesitation.
With less weight aboard, the inflatable boat instantly surged forward.
Hope flashed through the one-eyed man’s eyes.
He could escape, right?
There were still the people they had pushed into the water.
There were garbage-planet people too.
Giant fish loved eating humans.
Compared to chasing after them, wouldn’t it stay behind and eat the larger number of people still in the water?
After the boat sped away some distance, the one-eyed man looked back.
The giant fish had already reached the garbage-planet contestants, still leaving some distance between itself and him.
The one-eyed man grinned widely.
“I escaped! I actually escaped! Hahaha—”
His laughter abruptly stopped.
Behind him, the giant fish charged recklessly forward. The massive waves it created overturned the garbage-planet contestants and the shattered raft, but it did not stop to eat them.
Instead, it maintained the same terrifying speed and continued forward.
—Straight toward the direction the one-eyed man and his companion had fled.
Their inflatable boat had gained some distance.
But in front of the giant fish, that distance meant absolutely nothing.
The giant fish grew closer and closer.
Close enough that the one-eyed man finally noticed—
There was actually a person standing atop the giant fish’s head!
—The giant fish was being controlled by a human?!
No time remained to think.
The one-eyed man screamed in terror:
“Quick! Dodge!”
The inflatable boat forcefully twisted sideways, nearly throwing its passengers off, but the sudden turn allowed them to move out of the giant fish’s path.
The giant fish had not eaten those people.
So it probably would not eat them either... right?
The one-eyed man felt uneasy.
The giant fish reached their side.
Then its enormous body swept past them, carrying tremendous waves in its wake.
The one-eyed man let out a long breath.
Then—
“BANG—!”
The giant fish’s tail suddenly whipped upward and smashed toward them.
With only a single strike, the inflatable boat exploded apart and everyone aboard was killed instantly!
Blood dyed the surrounding waters red.
And the final image remaining in the one-eyed man’s vision—
Was the figure atop the giant fish calmly glancing at them with cold indifference before smoothly pulling back the knife he had just stabbed into the giant fish’s head.
The movement was fluid and practiced.
The coldness in his eyes treated them as though they were beneath notice.
The one-eyed man and his companion died.
The boat shattered.
Meanwhile, the one-eyed man’s surviving teammates floated numbly in the water, staring blankly at the giant fish...
And at the departing figure “controlling” it.
Under the sunlight, the giant fish’s massive body towered over the sea, its larger-than-normal frame terrifying to behold.
And atop its head, that slender figure burned itself deeply into everyone’s memories.
One of the one-eyed man’s teammates muttered blankly:
“Who the fuck is that? He can actually control a giant fish?!”
The Tuyu Planet contestants, who had already prepared themselves for death, were equally stunned.
Someone murmured:
“How... how could a giant fish not eat people?”
According to the preliminary-stage settings, giant fish especially loved eating humans.
A giant fish passing by without eating anyone—
This was the first time such a thing had ever happened.
The man whose severed arm had just been bandaged looked pale as he said:
“It’s because of the person on its back. That giant fish is being controlled!”
The others’ eyes widened even more.
Someone whispered:
“So strong... he can actually control a giant fish and make it suppress its instincts...”
“Is he some main-planet expert?”
The one-armed man shook his head.
“Probably not. Main-planet contestants wouldn’t kill the one-eyed group and spare us. Black hair, black eyes, not from Mechanical Planet either. I’ve never seen him before...”
“Whoever he is, he’s insanely strong. Definitely a top-tier expert. His combat power rating must be incredibly high, right?”
[Barrage comments: ...... ]
At that moment, someone in their team suddenly said:
“Forget about that expert for now. What do we do about these people in front of us?”
His gaze landed on the survivors floating in the water, his eyes vicious.
The strongest members of the main-planet team had been the two people who just died.
Now all that remained before them were contestants without a boat, whose combat power had drastically decreased in the water...
And those people had just tried to torture and kill them.
The one-armed man covered his wound and gritted his teeth.
“Kill them!”
The surviving teammates of the one-eyed man instantly turned pale.
—Their positions had reversed in an instant.
He Yu’s livestream.
“Holy shit holy shit! I came from the one-eyed guy’s livestream. That was insane! He can actually control a giant fish?!”
The moment that comment appeared, the livestream fell into eerie silence.
A moment later, the comments exploded—
“Idiot, can’t you read the stream info?! This is garbage-planet He Yu! He Yu with combat power only 5!!”
“Oh wait, no. It’s 8 now.”
“There are actually people who still don’t know about garbage-planet contestant 2333 He Yu?”
“He absolutely cannot control the giant fish!”
“Can someone analyze why the giant fish suddenly attacked the one-eyed guy?”
“Because of He Yu! When they passed the one-eyed group, He Yu stabbed the giant fish once. The giant fish got irritated and wiped out every nearby living thing. You must be new here. This kind of operation is already normal for He Yu!”
“Seriously. Tons of people have already died like this recently. I almost feel bad for them.”
...
Three days ago, when He Yu refused to land on the island, viewers still were not certain whether he had actually seen it.
During these past three days, he had ridden the giant fish around causing chaos everywhere.
The number of people who had died at his hands—
No, died at the giant fish’s hands—
Had already become considerable.
Especially hunters who targeted garbage-planet contestants.
Every single one who encountered He Yu ended up dead.
The situation left viewers utterly stunned and countless others grinding their teeth in frustration.
There were many people cursing He Yu lately.
But there were even more watching him.
His livestream had become like a permanent resident in the ninth and tenth positions of the First Ring viewing area, constantly hanging there.
The newly arrived viewers listened to the explanations before asking—
“Then why doesn’t the He Yu Giant Fish eat people anymore?”
Barrage comments:
“Who the hell knows? This giant fish has become weird as hell. Recently He Yu somehow got it addicted to eating giant fish meat. Not only did it get fatter by a whole size, it actually stopped eating people. It’s honestly ridiculous.”
He Yu raised an eyebrow almost imperceptibly.
Actually, he had always thought giant fish preferring humans over other minibosses made no sense.
Just think about the giant fish’s body size.
Then think about the size of humans.
Putting everything else aside, merely catching a single human probably burned more calories than the human provided.
Sure enough, after feeding it enough miniboss meat and opening the door to a whole new world...
It no longer cared about eating humans.
Eating humans was simply—
A waste of time.
The giant fish had fallen in love with miniboss meat.
Of course, its favorite remained giant fish meat.
It had become stronger and healthier from eating so much of it, its movements becoming increasingly agile.
Life was wonderful.
The giant fish happily sped across the sea.
He Yu sat calmly atop it.
At that moment, someone else asked—
“I haven’t watched He Yu’s stream in three days and I’m too lazy to check the replay. How did his combat power become 8? And what’s this three-point tool? Did he seriously fail to get any good equipment over the past three days?”
The barrage fell into strange silence once again.
A moment later, one lonely comment floated past—
“For everyone else it’s pretty useless, but for the current He Yu... it’s so fucking useful. Cheap as hell but insanely effective! Fuck, I don’t even dare think about it!”
The newcomer looked confused.
“So what exactly is it?”
On-screen, the rapidly moving He Yu Giant Fish suddenly stopped.
Ahead of them, a gigantic shark was currently hunting prey.
Barrage comments:
“You’re about to find out exactly how that cheap-ass equipment works!!”
Barrage comments:
“Friendly reminder—don’t get angry later!”