Chapter 233: 9. Underwater Ruins (Monthly Ticket Bonus Update)
“Glub, glub”
Fisher, brought back into the ocean by the Siren, tightly gripped the hilt of the Fluid Sword while trying to lower his center of gravity and press his body close against the Siren.
After all, the only link connection between him and this ocean behemoth was the Fluid Sword piercing its body; if he got shaken off and fell into the ocean, it wouldn’t be fun.
After crossing over the Iceberg Queen and entering the water, the injured Siren, disregarding its wounds, dived forward in an attempt to throw off Fisher.
The cold seawater slapped harshly against Fisher’s face, causing him to instinctively exhale and produce countless tiny bubbles from the corners of his mouth.
“Roar!”
Once in the water, the Siren’s enormous size finally had room for action; its wild body movements reached an almost extreme speed.
It moved like a phantom in the water, living up to the name of Sea Monster, but Fisher, riding on its back, was suffering immensely.
The rapidly flowing water slapped against his face like a series of slaps, and no matter how much he tried to lower his head to shield himself, it was futile.
At the same time, the pressure and dullness of breathing underwater were amplified immensely, making it difficult for him to even open his eyes; he could only allow it to take him to an unknown place.
However, Fisher naturally wouldn’t just sit back and do nothing. The next moment, he leaned his body forward a bit, not reaching up to protect his face but instead firmly gripping the Fluid Sword, pushing it deeper into the Siren’s body.
The blade probing downwards seemed to hit a vital point within it, and it seemed to have a good effect.
“Roar”
Because the Siren’s tailing speed decreased sharply the next moment, the water flowing towards him carried a foul odor due to the deepening wound.
“Cough, cough.”
Fisher struggled to open his eyes underwater, but all he could see was the Siren’s back beneath his feet. The surrounding water made the sunlight’s actions clear, yet there were no references to indicate where he was taken.
He looked up; the surface reflecting the blue sky seemed so far away. In just these brief seconds, the Siren had already taken him down about a hundred meters.
He adjusted his breathing underwater, ready to deal with the Siren again, but as soon as he turned his head, he was startled by the twisted humanoid tentacles beside him.
Those skinless humanoid beings, with large eyes devoid of pupils, huddled together, approaching him in a dazed manner, reminiscent of the enslaved souls of legend wanting to kill and enslave Fisher too.
The problem was, he couldn’t let go of the Fluid Sword now. If he instantly got shaken off in the water, he would completely fall into a passive situation.
If things got worse and they took him to a complex underwater cave structure, he might just end up lost and unable to return.
“Ah, ah, ah~”
But the next second, before Fisher could think, the humanoid beings on the tentacles opened their mouths again, their close-spaced ethereal voices suddenly exploding in the water, piercing Fisher’s eardrums.
As he felt his eardrums were about to explode, the Siren seized this moment to twist its body again, wanting to shake off Fisher.
This sudden movement caught Fisher off guard, and he launched upwards in the water, nearly getting thrown off.
Floating in the water, he gritted his teeth, gripping the edge of the black hilt of the Fluid Sword with one hand while the other grasped onto a humanoid tentacle’s head, making it shriek.
“Ah, ah, ah~”
The salty seawater ruthlessly slapped against Fisher’s face again, but the Siren seemed to have learned; it understood it couldn’t just rely on speedy swimming to shake Fisher off. Instead, it maintained a certain speed, letting its tentacles harass Fisher while sending others to pull at his sword.
The humanoid tentacles worked in concert; some raced alongside Fisher to either bite at his flesh or sing in his ears, while others went for the hilt of the Fluid Sword embedded in the Siren’s skin.
Fisher controlled the sharpness of the Fluid Sword, preventing them from getting close; instead, they pried open the wound, expanding it and making it less secure.
“Cough.”
This situation couldn’t go on. Fisher glanced at the tentacles beside him, thought for a moment, then suddenly released his grip on the black hilt.
The violent flow of water pushed the now unanchored Fisher backward a little, and the Siren thought he had lost strength and released the hilt, so it allowed the surrounding tentacles to stop obstructing him, letting him fall freely backwards.
However, the Siren didn’t expect that Fisher could easily control the Fluid Sword. The instant those annoying tentacles left him, he reached out to summon it back.
A sharp stream of mercury suddenly flew back through the countless tentacles. Fisher quickly adjusted his posture underwater and, just as he was about to drift away from the Siren, seized the Fluid Sword and aimed a strike at its tail.
“Buzz!”
“Roar!!”
The sharp blade sliced down along the massive fish tail. It was only when the sword’s blade struck solid bone that the Siren suddenly reacted in pain, immediately letting out a furious roar as its tail smashed against Fisher.
Hit, Fisher grunted and plunged downwards through the darkening water.
That hit was no joke; he was knocked far away, and after descending for several seconds, he unexpectedly collided with a hard object behind him.
He had actually landed in the ocean, but he was still just a few hundred meters from the surface.
Previously, he had been entirely focused on fighting the Siren, not paying attention to the hazy environment around him. Now, having fallen from the Siren, he realized he had been dragged to a cliff in the ocean mountains, about six to seven hundred meters from the surface.
This was also the highest point in that underwater canyon. Just a little further back would lead down to the unfathomable black deep sea.
Standing here in this vast ocean facing the dark unknown, Fisher inevitably felt small, a physiological fear instinctively emerging against the unreachable darkness, a primal instinct that lingered even though he could breathe in the water.
He took a deep breath, not looking down at the fathomless ocean gorge below the cliff. Turning back to survey the surroundings, he found several strange objects behind him that didn’t match the surrounding environment.
He carefully scanned the area and saw several broken stone pillars scattered around him, their edges sharp and with a very ancient style, obviously showing signs of having been polished.
Looking further back, it seemed this was the ruin of some building; many parts that initially composed this structure were half-buried in the sandy sea floor, with only half their bodies exposed, testifying that they once belonged to some civilization.
Every fragment Fisher could see was covered in seaweed and various aquatic shells, leaving him uncertain how long they had remained silent here. He was also not sure which race had built this structure. The only thing he could confirm was that the construction technique used was not very advanced; all materials were simply processed and entirely natural.
This indicated that the race that built these items was still in a very primitive stage, possibly traceable back to the dawn of civilization. The history of civilization’s dawn is quite vague for humans today; it could have been tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years ago?
Or, could this actually be a building constructed by Ocean Subhumans?
Fisher had never seen what buildings constructed by Ocean Subhumans looked like, and could it be that in the ocean there weren’t many resources for processing materials, so they had to use this method to construct?
He carefully studied this small area of submerged ruins and then turned back to scan his surroundings for danger, but the injured Siren seemed to have slipped away somewhere; he didn’t know whether it had escaped after feeling pain.
With the absence of the great sea beast, the surrounding ocean suddenly fell silent. Fisher didn’t quickly rise to the surface but instead carefully observed the details of the scattered ruins, hoping to discover some buried artifacts beneath the yellow sand to deduce which race created these items.
Soon, Fisher noticed that the building parts were widely scattered. There were some by the cliff’s edge, and as he followed those ruins into the cliff, they disappeared for a stretch.
Moving forward, he also encountered similar types of building debris scattered across the ground, as if the entire structure had been struck fatally, causing it to collapse and disassemble.
As he walked, Fisher tightly gripped the Fluid Sword, cautiously studying his surroundings, worried that the Siren might sneak attack again from somewhere.
After walking about a hundred meters from where he had initially fallen off the cliff, guided by the scattered pieces, he finally saw before him a vast area resembling a plaza.
This was a circular space, but only the floor paved with square stone tiles remained; Fisher deduced that the scattered stone pillars he had seen earlier were originally the dome and supporting structures of this plaza, all scattered due to the passage of time.
What truly attracted Fisher’s attention was a stone humanoid object standing in the center of the stone block plaza.
It was a massive stone sculpture, and with the base, its overall height was even greater than that of the intact stone pillars beside it. Yet, at this moment, many of the stone pillars had broken apart, while the stone sculpture still stood resolutely in the middle of the plaza, enduring the test of time.
The sculpture depicted a woman standing still, dressed in a well-fitted robe, her posture elegant, but the details of her form were quite vague; even her fingers were not sculpted distinctly, suggesting that the carving techniques of the time were very crude.
The majority of the large statue’s body was covered in seaweed; however, the part of the face that was not covered was devoid of any facial features, which seemed very fitting.
Her figure was tall, with her head slightly lowered, just gazing at the humans before her.
Any creature standing in front of her seemed so small; yet, her gentle demeanor lacked any coldness of a superior look, instead giving a sense of maternal kindness.
Though there were significant differences in imagery, Fisher, hailing from the Nali human society, recognized at first glance what this statue was depicting.
It was a depiction of an ancient Mother God statue.
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(End of chapter)
