Chapter 252: The City of the Sea Abyss
“Calm down, you two.” Spade K raised his hands, but there was no trace of panic on his face. “Look, I’ve already surrendered and I’m incapable of resisting. Can I…?”
Just before, under the threat of the two individuals, especially Li Wen, he had discarded all his equipment, items, and magical items. Now, he was left with nothing but the clothes covering his body.
Li Wen’s Raven Feather Dagger was pressed against Spade K’s throat, and the cold touch caused the Cult Leader’s Adam’s apple to involuntarily bob. She leaned forward slightly, and from the shadow of her hood, a pair of indifferent yet extremely intimidating eyes were revealed.
“You’re the leader of the Divine Cult of Eternal Blessing?” Her voice was calm to the point of being cold.
“Ahaha, you could say that.” Spade K had a “what are you going to do about it” expression. “But I’d prefer it if people called me ‘Cult Leader’.”
Li Wen wasn’t having it and kicked him to the ground. Moria glanced at her but didn’t intervene.
“Tell me, what’s your real purpose for coming here?” As she spoke, to prevent him from lying, Li Wen casually made a cut on him with the raven feather. Although the wound only broke the skin, it was enough to trigger the fatal pain enchantment on the Raven Feather Dagger.
Spade K immediately yelped in pain, and fine beads of sweat began to form on his forehead. He unconsciously swallowed, quickly opened the game settings, and turned the pain sensitivity to zero. Only then did he stammer, “I just heard there was treasure… the Sunken Ancient City, and such, countless gold and precious treasures…”
“Treasure?” Li Wen’s dagger remained still. She didn’t believe such nonsense. “The Land of Submergence of the Soul Lord is just a treasure hunting ground in your eyes?”
“Soul Lord?” Spade K’s expression flickered for a moment. “What’s that?”
Li Wen’s brow furrowed almost imperceptibly. Spade K’s reaction was beyond her expectation. This Cult Leader of the Divine Cult of Eternal Blessing seemed truly unaware of the Soul Lord.
But how was that possible? The statue of the Twin-tailed Mermaid, which held the remnant souls, existed beneath the church of the Divine Cult of Eternal Blessing. What reason would this Cult Leader have not to have encountered it? Or rather, what reason would the remnant soul of that Soul Lord have to let Spade K go?
Her thoughts were interrupted by a sudden tremor. The entire ship began to shake violently, and everyone on deck lost their footing. Li Wen quickly regained her balance, and in her peripheral vision, she saw Moria also quickly grab onto the ship’s railing.
“What’s going on?” Captain Remington’s roar came from a distance.
No one could answer this question.
A deafening roar drowned out everything. The loud noise didn’t come from the sky or a collision with the hull, but from the unfathomable depths of the seabed. The entire sea surface convulsed violently like a living creature. Both the Adventurer and the Cult of Eternal Blessing’s ships emitted a teeth-grinding groan, as if they were about to disintegrate at any moment.
Immediately after, a scene that defied description in its horror unfolded before everyone’s eyes.
Centering on the two ships, the sea surface within a radius of a kilometer collapsed downwards without any warning.
A terrifying force twisted the ocean, and both ships were firmly gripped by an unimaginable suction force. The surrounding seawater, thick fog, and even light began to collapse madly towards a central point. Everything in sight was spinning and distorting. The gray-white fog was pulled into spiral ribbons and rapidly sucked into the rapidly expanding dark abyss below.
Li Wen tightly gripped the ship’s railing, her body almost suspended by the immense centrifugal force.
She saw Captain Remington roaring on the severely tilted deck, trying to control the rudder. However, the rudder wheel had been broken by his efforts, and it was useless. Fu Qingyan and the others clung tightly to the ship’s structure in terror, letting out silent screams amidst the weightlessness. Moria’s body emitted a faint Glor, as if desperately resisting the suction, but that light seemed so weak in the boundless dark vortex.
The seawater was no longer a force supporting the ships; instead, it became an icy, heavy shackle that tightly wrapped around the hulls, dragging them faster towards the abyss. Under the immense water pressure, the ship bodies emitted unbearable groans and cracking sounds, as if they were about to be completely crushed.
At the center of the vortex, the darkness grew deeper and deeper, like a mouth that devoured everything.
There was no earth-shattering explosion, only the muffled whimpers of matter being crushed and space being distorted. The two ships were like beans thrown into a millstone, completely swallowed by this terrifying vortex with a diameter of over a kilometer. The icy, bone-chilling seawater, with its immense pressure, instantly submerged everything on the deck. Li Wen felt an irresistible force violently impact her chest, her internal organs seemingly displaced. Her vision was instantly covered by absolute darkness and cold, her consciousness abruptly extinguished like a candle in the wind.
*
Darkness, cold, silence.
Li Wen was awakened by a heavy oppressive feeling and piercing cold. Her consciousness struggled to rise from the dark abyss of the seabed like a sunken ship, her lungs burning with pain. She suddenly arched her body and coughed violently, expelling cold, salty seawater from her mouth and nose.
After gasping for a moment, she wiped the water from her face and struggled to open her eyes.
Her vision gradually cleared, and what greeted her eyes was not the dim and deep seabed, nor the expected shattered shipwrecks, nor the Resurrection Point she had set in Port Beren.
She was lying on something cold, hard, and slightly smooth to the touch.
And above her head, was slowly flowing light.
That was not the sky, but the sea surface, an unknown distance above her. Sunlight filtered through layers of undulating seawater, transformed into a strange, fluctuating, ethereal blue halo, like a sky dome constructed from billions of suspended blue gemstones.
Li Wen pushed herself up and looked around.
She found herself in the ruins of a majestic city. As far as she could see were countless collapsed spires, grand but largely ruined archways, and wide streets supported by massive stone pillars. All the buildings were constructed from marble. The architectural style was similar to Port Beren, but distinctly older and heavier, exuding a sense of abandonment from past history.
Most of the city was covered by thick, faintly glowing gray-white sediment, the marks of time and endless seawater. Many buildings had completely dissolved into colossal remains like underwater mountains, covered and entwined by various colorful corals, huge sea anemones, and swaying luminous algae, forming a bizarre yet spectacular symbiotic scene.
Seawater was everywhere. It did not fill the entire space but “floated” in a peculiar manner above or around the city, squeezed and pulled by an indescribable force, like individual, separate bubbles, strange and eerie.
What compressed and separated the seawater in this manner was magic. Or rather, remnants of magic.
Li Wen could feel that the air was filled with an extremely potent, heavy yet exquisitely refined Aether reaction. It permeated every corner of this space; just by breathing, she could feel its presence and influence.
Was this Cape of Submergence? The legendary underwater ruins of Port Beren, the sealing ground of the Soul Lord?
