Chapter 174: Wagering with Life

Mu Qingying's small pink lips pursed and relaxed repeatedly, like a young girl playfully pouting. Her face was flushed a dark red from the strain, and it took a long while before she finally broke free from the binding.

With a soft pop, her mouth opened.

"Su Mu!" she yelled. She seemed genuinely angry, addressing him by his full name. She was about to unleash a tirade when her expression shifted, turning utterly solemn.

"Five hundred meters southwest," she said urgently. "A large group of people is rushing over. They triggered my plants. Whatever plan you have, use it now, or we're really going to die here!"

Su Mu smiled faintly. "Miss Mu seems to have a very deep obsession with living. Between following me out to sea and right now, I can tell you aren't someone who clings to life and fears death. You must have something very important to do, which is why you refuse to die."

The sound of footsteps in the forest drew closer. Mu Qing grew frantic. "Is this the time to talk about that? Who would want to die if they could live!"

"Haha..." Su Mu's smile grew even more radiant. "What a coincidence. I want to die."

Mu Qing froze. Before she could process what he meant, she watched him walk step by step toward the ocean.

The cold, dark seawater submerged Su Mu's calves. Tiny waves continuously slapped against him, but he ignored them, wading deeper into the sea step by step.

"What are you doing?!" Mu Qing was dying of anxiety. "Are you trying to escape into the sea? It's useless! The ocean is the territory of the sea god's familiar. If you can't deal with it on land, what good will going into the water do?"

Su Mu didn't stop. His gentle voice echoed back from the water. "To die in the sea, of course. Don't forget, the souls of all the drowned belong to the Sea God. Who knows, maybe the Sea God will take a liking to me and make me a sea god's familiar?"

Mu Qing stared at him, dumbfounded. She could only think that Su Mu was a complete lunatic. What kind of plan was this?

"I will return in five minutes. Please wait patiently for five minutes, Miss Mu. Of course, if I don't come back, you can use the poison sac hidden in your back molar to kill yourself."

Mu Qing's heart pounded violently, her usual composure utterly shattered. She didn't know what Su Mu was trying to do, nor did she understand how he knew she had hidden poison. But the one thing she knew right now was... she had no choice but to trust him.

On her own, there was absolutely no way she could defeat the entire Sea Kingdom. If Su Mu truly didn't return after five minutes, she would bite the poison sac and end her own life.

She knew exactly what awaited her if she fell into the hands of those animals.

Gradually, Su Mu's body vanished completely into the dark ocean. Emptying all the oxygen from his lungs, he swam deeper and deeper into the sea.

It wasn't long before the suffocating tightness of holding his breath struck him. A sickly, dark red flush spread across his pale face, yet he continued to dive further down.

He hadn't lied. He entered the ocean this time simply to drown himself. This was the countermeasure he had devised on his very first day in the Sea Kingdom.

To him, the real threat had never been the Sea Kingdom or the sea god's familiar, but the Celestial Sovereign of Longevity residing in his soul like a ticking time bomb!

As long as he didn't purge the Celestial Sovereign of Longevity's Divinity, killing the sea god's familiar would be useless.

When he came into contact with the sea god's familiar earlier, the Sea God Divinity on its body had indeed slowed the Celestial Sovereign of Longevity's invasion. However, the usable Sea God Divinity on the sea god's familiar was simply too weak. Even if he killed the sea god's familiar, it would only buy him a few more days at most.

Therefore, from the very beginning, he had locked his sights on the Sea God. This ocean was an extension of the Sea God's power, and the souls of all the drowned belonged to the Sea God.

His plan was to drown himself in the sea so that the Sea God would claim his soul. And then came the brilliant part—his soul had long been viewed by the Celestial Sovereign of Longevity as its own prized possession...

The moment he thought about two deities coming to blows over his soul, Su Mu couldn't help feeling the urge to laugh. Interesting! Truly interesting!

There was no denying that this was a massive gamble. A massive gamble with his life on the line.

But he loved such thrilling stakes. He loved the sensation of manipulating deities with a mortal body.

Didn't the Celestial Sovereign of Longevity want his soul? He would just place it right into the Sea God's hands. Let him come take it, if he had the ability!

As for the sea god's familiar, Hu Jie? Sorry, but he had never taken him seriously.

Carrying these insane thoughts, Su Mu's consciousness began to blur. His senses dulled, and the entire world seemed to fall dead silent. The intense suffocation brought a tearing pain to his lungs, as if they were about to explode.

He could only feel himself continuously sinking, sinking... endlessly.

On the shore.

Mu Qing was already surrounded by Hu Jie and his arriving men. The heavily injured Yang Dongqing and Lu Dongliang were being dragged by Pang Yang like dead dogs, their bodies leaving two long trails of blood on the ground.

Because both of them were transcendents, Pang Yang wasn't worried about accidentally killing them, so he dragged them along simply out of convenience.

"Miss Mu, where did Su Mu go?" Hu Jie narrowed his eyes, his tone sinister.

Mu Qing suppressed the panic in her heart and said calmly, "I don't know."

Hu Jie sneered. "It seems Su Mu treated all of you as abandoned pawns and ran off by himself. A wise choice. If it were me facing the siege of an entire nation, I would surely run away too."

Mu Qing's heart tightened. She was also somewhat suspicious that Su Mu had really fled. Otherwise, why would a perfectly healthy person commit suicide in the ocean?

She had her doubts, but someone else did not.

"Haha... He wouldn't run." A faint laugh suddenly rang out.

Hu Jie frowned and turned his head. The one laughing was Yang Dongqing. Perhaps jolted by being dragged across the ground, the kid had actually woken up.

"Kid, it seems you and Su Mu have a pretty good relationship. You're actually still fantasizing that he'll come save you?"

"Save me? Hahaha..." The bloodstained Yang Dongqing laughed even louder. He was practically tearing up, as if he had just heard a hilarious joke.

"What are you laughing at!" Cold light flashed in Hu Jie's eyes.

"I'm laughing because you people still don't understand that lunatic. I said he wouldn't run not because he's worried about me and plans to come back and save me, but because... he's a madman! He wouldn't run away. How could he possibly run away?

"Having a whole country as his enemy—he would never miss out on something so interesting. I'm guessing he's hiding right in the middle of your group right now. He might even be watching you and laughing."

The slightly unhinged words spilling from Yang Dongqing's mouth, combined with his blood-covered face, gave off a hair-raising vibe.

This chilling sensation grew even more pronounced when they considered the real possibility that Su Mu was mixed into the crowd, quietly watching them like a ghost.

For a moment, the ocean breeze by the shore seemed to grow even colder.