Volume 2: Shenzhou Academy & The Battle of Venice
The sea wind howled in ragged shrieks through the barren mangrove thickets, carrying the rancid, greasy stench of ancient decaying swamp sludge.
Across the western marsh basin of Huanglu Island, the murky gray water began to bubble and churn violently. Clusters of noxious gas pockets ruptured across the surface, disgorging a hazy, pale vapor that carried an acrid, throat-scorching tang. The reeds flattened against the muck, shuddering under subterranean tremors pulsing from deep within the mire.
BOOM... RUMBLE!
The eerie stillness was ripped to shreds by dozens of guttural, subterranean roars, like massive millstones grinding together at the bottom of a dry well.
From beneath the suffocating mire, rugged, charcoal-red ridges breached the surface. Layer upon layer of barbed, spiked carapace plates rose into view, slick with thick, hydrophobic mucus. One, three, ten... then more than thirty colossal silhouettes parted the stagnant water in unison. Each spanned over five meters in length, their short, muscular limbs clawing deep into the muck while broad, flattened tails thrashed with savage force, churning up murky swells that surged waist-high.
Crimson-Armored Crocodile Fiends! Brutal reptilian horrors that reigned supreme over the mangrove wetlands of Huanglu Island, renowned throughout wilderness hunter circles as living armored tanks!