Chapter 71: The Chase Ends
When Jiang Feng slightly raised his serpent head, it was about ten meters high. To him, the humans on the ground looked like two-legged ants.
With a slight movement of his serpentine body, he could cover a hundred meters in the blink of an eye.
One moment, people saw the white snake from afar; the next, it had already appeared behind them.
"Ah! Ah!"
Screams of agony continued to ring out.
The police boats weren't large; one could only hold thirty to forty people, with a maximum displacement of only a few dozen tons.
When Jiang Feng pressed his body against a boat, a slight exertion of force was enough to sink it.
However, sinking them was far more troublesome than flipping them over.
Therefore, Jiang Feng basically just flipped them over.
He didn't care whether the people who fell off the boats lived or died; he only wanted to flip the vessels to generate fear.
There were life jackets on the boats, but many people were in such a rush to escape that they didn't have time to put them on.
Many of those who fell from the boats were splashing around in the sea.
[fear points +90]
[fear points +90]
...
The other boats that hadn't been struck by Jiang Feng yet were all fleeing for their lives.
"Quick, faster!"
Tanaka Taro was currently on one of the boats. Just now, they had narrowly escaped the Big White Snake's grasp; their boat had almost been flipped over by it.
Tanaka Taro still had lingering fears; he was actually still in a state of confusion.
His memory was still stuck at searching for the entrance to The Hotel. After entering the bizarre area, he had suddenly been sawn to death by something.
The sensation of something sawing his head open from the middle was still fresh in his memory; he felt a faint pain in his head even now.
A few minutes ago, he had been woken up.
He heard that the Police Chief had brought over a thousand people, and he was just about to go find him to ask for forgiveness and attempt to redeem himself through service.
As a result, he encountered the scene of his colleagues being utterly routed and slaughtered by the Big White Snake.
After witnessing the horror of the Big White Snake with his own eyes, Tanaka Taro no longer had any intention of redeeming himself.
Was this a joke?
If he went up there, there was no other possibility besides being crushed to death by the Big White Snake.
Only a fool would try to redeem themselves now.
So, Tanaka Taro followed a group of people fleeing desperately.
He didn't know what had happened in between—why wasn't he dead? And what was the deal with this Big White Snake?
Was such a terrifying Big White Snake really the same one he had previously planned to lead men against?
This was simply beyond ridiculous.
He must have had incredible luck to survive before.
Tanaka Taro suddenly felt that the profession of a police officer was far too dangerous. If he could make it back alive, he would never work as a policeman again.
There were over a dozen people on the boat.
They were all slumped on the deck, gasping for breath.
Tanaka Taro no longer held his usual majestic air as a superior, and the others didn't treat him with the respect due to an officer either.
Everyone was just a survivor who had narrowly escaped death.
Their boat was already several hundred meters away from the Big White Snake.
But they didn't lower their guard completely. The Big White Snake's terrifying figure, even from hundreds of meters away, seemed to be right before their eyes.
"How can there be such a huge snake? That body is as tall as a ten-story building."
"Thank the Great Goddess Amaterasu for letting us escape."
"Oh no, the Big White Snake is coming after us."
Tanaka Taro's pupils suddenly constricted. He saw that the boats near the dock seemed to have all been sunk by the Big White Snake.
"Quick, drive faster!"
"We're already at full throttle!"
"Great Goddess Amaterasu protect us, I hope the Big White Snake doesn't chase in this direction."
Jiang Feng scanned his surroundings and found that there wasn't a single intact vessel left.
Aside from the people still splashing in the sea, the people on the shore had long since vanished.
Jiang Feng looked at the boats scattering in all directions; he wanted to choose a direction with more boats.
Seeing that the Big White Snake was indeed heading toward their boat, Tanaka Taro let out an angry shout.
"Quick, turn! We can't go this way!"
"But this is the way back to Kumamoto City! If we don't go back to Kumamoto City, where will we go?"
"Go anywhere, just don't go in this direction!"
"What are you doing?"
Seeing that the helmsman didn't seem to intend to listen to him, Tanaka Taro simply rushed over and seized control.
Jiang Feng, who was in pursuit, saw a boat ahead suddenly change direction, and a look of doubt appeared in his serpentine eyes.
However, he soon stopped dwelling on it; a single boat wasn't worth him chasing alone.
He continued to pursue in his original intended direction.
Watching the Big White Snake not chase after them, Tanaka Taro felt a sense of relief; he had gambled correctly.
When he saw the Big White Snake choose their direction to pursue, Tanaka Taro wondered why it was such a coincidence.
Then, he discovered the difference between their direction and the others.
That was, there were more boats.
That was why he had the idea of changing course to avoid the Big White Snake. The final result proved that his decision was very correct.
"Great! The Big White Snake really stopped chasing us!"
"Police Superintendent Tanaka, you're amazing!"
Someone began to flatter Tanaka Taro, including the previous helmsman, who no longer felt any displeasure about having control snatched away.
A smile appeared on Tanaka Taro's face. Being recognized and praised always makes one feel happy.
"But if we don't go back to Kumamoto City, we'll be stranded at sea. We don't have much fuel left."
Just then, an officer poured cold water on the jubilant crowd.
Everyone's smiles instantly froze.
After a long while, someone broke the silence.
"It's fine. At worst, we'll just wait for rescue at sea. It's better than being sent to the bottom of the sea by that Big White Snake to drown."
...
Like Tanaka Taro and his group, quite a few boats chose to change direction.
As long as one observed carefully, it was easy to see the Big White Snake's hunting logic.
In an instant, fewer and fewer boats were heading toward Kumamoto City.
After hunting down a dozen or so boats, Jiang Feng gave up the pursuit.
Firstly, the boats were too scattered; chasing down one boat didn't yield many fear points.
Secondly, the sky had turned dark, and his human-like vision was obstructed, making it hard to see the boats clearly.
And his Thermal Sensing only had a range of two hundred meters, which was far from enough for a pursuit.
Jiang Feng swam back to the island.
During the day, using the Evil Snake Domain for a long time had heavily depleted his spirit.
He hadn't even used the Star Escape Technique during the pursuit just now, for fear of accidentally overdrawing his spirit.
Many police officers remained on the island; some were hiding in corners, while others had ducked into the residents' homes.
When Jiang Feng was chasing those police officers, he hadn't intentionally gone out of his way to destroy the residents' houses.
Firstly, most of the houses were made of reinforced concrete; destroying them would take quite a bit of effort and wasn't worth it.
Secondly, he had been human once after all. He could kill those who provoked him without mercy, but he couldn't bring himself to mindlessly slaughter ordinary people who hadn't provoked him.
[fear points +10]
[fear points +5]
...
The residents and tourists left on the island were still continuously providing single-digit fear points.
Keeping them alive was far more profitable than killing them outright.
Jiang Feng crawled to the center of the island, his serpentine body coiling into a mass like a small mountain.
He buried his head inside his body, and his body automatically began to circulate the Star Art.
He closed his eyes and slowly drifted off to sleep...