Chapter 714 - 309: Crest of the Reversing Waves! The Star Illuminated by All! (Part 4)

Besides, surfers who dare to pull moves like this usually do them on the whitewater near shore, because after a move like that, it’s hard to get back onto the wave face. Most advanced surfers either land their 180-degree air behind the wave, or just slam straight into the soup.

The wave Li Younan was on now was that tall—if he wiped out, it would be extremely dangerous.

Every eye was locked on Li Younan: was he going to eat it?

The moment that thought appeared, the falling Li Younan controlled the rail of his board like the blade of an ice skate biting into the ice, cutting through the flow and nesting back into the surging wave.

"Whew!"

Then Li Younan threw a few more carving cutbacks. He wasn’t trying to show off with those moves; it was just that unstable currents kept lifting and shifting his body.

But in the eyes of the spectators, it was a completely different story. It looked like deliberate flexing, as if Li Younan had total command over the water, over his own body.

His movements were incredibly smooth; every time he dropped back onto the wave there was almost no flaw at all, as if under his feet wasn’t a nearly ten-meter monster, but a one-meter little wave.

As the swell pushed forward, the wave picked up more and more speed, and the wall behind Li Younan stacked higher, higher, and higher again.

Without realizing it, Li Younan had drifted down toward the mid-bottom of the wave. He glanced back: water racing upward from below had already formed a nearly vertical slope seven or eight meters high behind him.

Li Younan lifted his head toward the lip of the wave. The water kept surging up and accelerating until, at some critical point, it suddenly shattered, flipping from green to white, and the breaking lip pitched over his head.

A perfect hollow tube formed!

From the spectators’ point of view, though, it was a completely different scene.

In their eyes, the monster wave suddenly accelerated, the lip exploded, and swallowed Li Younan whole.

Even after devouring him, the wave kept roaring forward, even faster than before.

Anyone who’d read that primary school textbook about watching the tide would instantly connect this scene to that passage...

The tide drew nearer, like tens of thousands of white warhorses charging side by side, thundering forward in a mighty rush; the sound was like mountains collapsing and earth cracking, as if the ground itself were shaking to the roar!

Everyone who witnessed this couldn’t help but cry out in shock.

They were all stunned, wondering, what kind of state was that guy in right now?

Was he dragged down into the trough or still driving forward inside the foam?

Jenny couldn’t help but give the drone pilot next to her a kick: "Hey, hurry up and fly your drone to the side to check it out!"

That kick left the poor pilot feeling a bit wronged as he worked the controls, flying the drone along the wave’s edge. It almost got smacked by the lip.

As for Li Younan, he was of course safer than safe at this moment.

What he saw before his eyes was an incredibly beautiful, awe-inspiring scene.

The backward-flowing water streamed upward along his sides.

Inside the wave, it felt nothing like the danger it showed outside. Instead, the crystal-clear water refracted sunlight from the flank, like a gleaming wall of liquid.

The crest above him arched into a dome, sunlight piercing the semi-transparent wall of the wave.

Li Younan couldn’t resist reaching out to gently touch the backward-flowing water; his fingers drew white spray along the water tunnel.

He fell into a kind of empty, lucid state.

In that instant his mind flooded with all sorts of beautiful things.

Nature is just... so fucking awesome!

But the roaring in his ears dragged him back to reality; he knew it was time to get out.

He dropped his weight, sliced the board into the wave face, and picked up speed toward the exit of the water tunnel.

The wave moved faster and faster. Li Younan felt this wondrous tunnel about to collapse; the surf boomed around his ears, muffled thunder laced with the fine crackle of bursting bubbles.

And just as the foamy dome finally couldn’t hold, crashing down with a roar—

At the last possible second, Li Younan shot out of the hollow tube.

He couldn’t help glancing back; the last of the wave’s power shattered across the surface.

The board under his feet had no more energy to tap, and he wasn’t in the mood to work it anyway. He just let the board’s inertia carry him forward in a slow glide for a stretch, then let his body drop straight into the sea.

With a casual roll he lay back on his board. The water was still rippling; he lifted his head, staring up at the clouds in the sky...

Bliss.

What’s the point of travel, anyway? Heh.

His mind was a jumble, random thoughts bubbling up.

And right now, more than enough drones and cameras were trained on him, perfectly capturing the whole sequence just now.

From the audience’s perspective, that moment was without question overwhelming—the giant wave, carrying unstoppable force, devoured everything; then as the water dispersed, that guy who challenged nature reappeared, escaping perfectly like some super hero walking away from an explosion.

"Cool, so damn cool!"

They were Americans who worshipped individual heroism; there was no doubt that today, Li Younan was the Hero of the entire beach, and every gaze rightly converged on him.

Jenny couldn’t help asking, "Did you get it? Did you get it?"

The pilot bobbed his head over and over: "Got it, got it!"

Some of the other spectators were streaming live, some were shooting video. They kept replaying that scene, reliving it as they let out all kinds of yells and roars, like they were venting emotions on Li Younan’s behalf.

For a moment, Li Younan suddenly froze, because his Starlight Value started spiking like crazy.

[Starlight Value +1000]

[Starlight Value +10000]

[Starlight Value +8000]

[...]

By the time the jetski rider pulled up beside him, Li Younan still hadn’t processed it. Only when he was hauled up did the system chime in with a pleasant notification:

[Current Starlight Value 5,000,000/5,000,000. Check-in task complete!]

[Skill acquired: Gun Mastery]