Chapter 479: It’s Overlooking the Ocean Abyss
Chapter 479 – It’s Overlooking the Ocean Abyss
The submersible had already crossed the “bottom” of the city-state, and the boundless dark body of water had replaced the vertical and rough “cliff”, and the column of light struck by the high-powered searchlight extended indefinitely in the seawater, and nothing could be seen within the range of the column of light.
Only occasionally some tiny flashes of light appeared in the light column, which were floating bubbles or some “debris” falling from the upper layers, reflecting the light in the water.
Duncan turned a crank on the console, and the sound of water filling from the direction of the ballast tanks changed to a low rumble as he slowed the submersible’s descent, carefully controlling it to tilt upward at an angle.
After crossing the border, he would look back to see what the base of the city-state looked like.
The pillar of light slowly swept through the darkness, and something so huge that it was suffocating emerged from the boundless body of water, and an indescribable sense of oppression accompanied by the inverted “rock formation” came to the surface – even without any spiritual pollution brought by the transcendental factor, this scene would be enough to make most ordinary people feel the psychological impact of the “rock formation”. Even without any spiritual pollution brought about by the transcendental factors, this scene was enough to cause most ordinary people to feel the heavy pressure on the psychological level, and even traumatized.
The “base” of the Frost City State appeared outside the porthole, as if the earth was hanging upside down, and under the overwhelming crushing perspective, what could be seen were countless jagged structures, like stalagmites, like spires, a large number of staggered heights, dozens of meters and hundreds of meters of raised structures, and what looked like some kind of adhesion across the “stalagmites”, like the “stalagmites”, like the “stalagmites”. between the “stalagmites”.
However, in the face of the shock and depression, Duncan’s heart is more, but the curiosity is difficult to suppress – he cautiously maneuvered this simple diving machine, but toward the jagged and strange inverted “jungle”.
At the same time, on the Lost Country, Duncan reached the captain’s cabin and pushed open the “Lost Country’s Door”.
Zhou Ming walked into his own apartment, and was not surprised to see a new collection of fully-formed “models” of the Frost City State emanating a faint glow on the table.
He came to the table, cupped his hands around the exquisite model of the city-state, carefully observing every detail of it, and then flipped it over, examining its bottom structure.
Those fine and complex bumps, looks like some kind of degradation and then messy arrangement of …… tentacles, or more boldly said – like some kind of limbs.
Compared to simply using the flames to perceive the underlying structure of the city-state, this “deep dive” brought more details to Zhou Ming.
He slowly closed his eyes, feeling the information coming from another world, feeling the vibration of the submersible, as well as the magnificent and shocking “scenery” slowly moving outside the porthole of the submersible.
The unassuming steel device was passing between two “stalagmites” estimated to be a couple of hundred meters long, and the beam of light from the searchlight swept over the jagged, overgrown structures in the distance, allowing Duncan to find a safer path through them.
This was a sight not mentioned in the Subterranean Program – neither the information provided by Tirion nor the files left behind by the City Hall had ever mentioned a submersible traveling through the “inverted jungle” at the base of the city-state.
Perhaps the pioneers were too preoccupied with the depths to do such a thing, or perhaps this inverted hideous thing was too dangerous in the darkness for the first few submersibles to venture into, or perhaps ……
had been done, but no one could bring the truth of what they had seen above the surface.
The beam of the searchlight swept over another area in the darkness.
Something appeared in Duncan’s field of vision.
The next second, he jerked a lever on the console, and the shock of the propeller’s steep reversal caused even the interior of the submersible to creak and rattle as the fragile steel sphere shuddered in the deep water, and with the horrific sound of the mechanics under load, it finally hovered in a position where it was almost ready to hit a nearby stalagmite! It finally hovered in a position where it almost hit a nearby “stalagmite”.
“What happened?” Agatha asked in a panic.
She lifted her head and looked in the direction of the porthole, but all she could see outside was a number of inverted forests of shimmering light, and among the shimmering light was a larger body of light, glowing with a hazy, fuzzy light that made it impossible to discern the details of what its interior looked like.
Duncan, however, did not respond for a moment; he simply stared dead ahead out the porthole, at the ……
huge, pale eyes.
An eye, round and open, located between the black raised structures that were clustered like tentacles, and which might reach a hundred meters in diameter, so that the tiny submersible was like an insignificant stone in front of it.
The eye was lifeless, as if it had died a thousand years ago, or even more, it was pale and empty at the bottom of the city-state, hanging upside down out of the porthole, as if it were dying and still gazing calmly down into the infinite darkness of the sea below, and the submersible was now suspended in front of its dead pupil, receiving the gaze of this ancient demise.
“It’s an eye.” Duncan finally broke the silence and said softly.
He turned his head again and peered in other directions through the porthole on the other side. The afterglow of the searchlight illuminated the black “stalagmites” that hung upside down in the water, and now he was sure – they were really limbs.
It was a mutated, degraded and lifeless tentacle.
These tentacles hanging down in the sea water, like the withered vines hanging down from the top of the cave.
Agatha gripped the handrail hard, even though her heart had stopped beating, she still felt as if something was going to rush out of her chest, and she even felt suffocated after a long time after realizing what she heard and the true nature of those shimmering lights in front of her eyes, “What do you …… you mean ……”
“A city-state, built on some sort of giant creature,” Duncan said slowly, equally caught up in the shock of what he was seeing before him, but still trying to calm down and organize his thoughts, “At least …… there are remnants of some of the creature’s features.”
Agatha was unable to speak for a long time, and it was a long time before she managed to sort out the words in her extreme shock and confusion, “Is it …… dead?”
She unconsciously lowered her voice, as if she was afraid that speaking too loudly would awaken the unimaginable, incomprehensible “creature”.
“Dead, I think,” said Duncan, who had already begun to maneuver the submersible cautiously away from the huge pale eye, with great care – though he was almost certain that the huge creature was dead, he could not help but make some frightening associations, as if he were to dive for it. associations, as if the eye would suddenly turn around if the submersible moved too much, “And theoretically, it wasn’t supposed to look like this, it’s not biologically correct …… It looks more like a twisted corpse, or something constructed out of corpses. something ……”
Agatha didn’t say anything, she didn’t know whether to marvel at Captain Duncan’s ability to calmly analyze the situation, or whether to marvel at the necessity for a creature that could carry a city-state on its back to “conform to the laws of biology” or not – a great confusion of dismay flooded her She was so confused and dismayed that she couldn’t think about it as she normally would have.
Her long-established worldview was being tested.
What really lay beneath the city-state was so ghastly and bizarre, that the only safe haven for mortals in the infinite sea was constructed in the form of unnameable creatures, beneath everyone’s feet, at the bottom of hundreds of meters of rock and soil, withered tentacles hanging down into the depths of the sea, pale pupils of the eyes overlooking the oceanic abyss of which everyone was unaware …….
After being blankly frozen for an unknown amount of time, Agatha finally snapped out of it and turned to Duncan, speaking hesitantly, “Is it only Frost?”
She didn’t know why she was asking Captain Duncan this question, she hadn’t even thought about what answer she would get – it was just that the immense confusion was urging her to speak, even if the question was destined to be inconclusive.
But the Captain answered.
“Perhaps this is true of all the city-states,” said Duncan slowly, recalling the “perception” he had had of Prand below, while, in another view, he was at the same time scrutinizing the “collection” on the shelves of his bachelor’s apartment. “There is a similar structure underneath the city-state of Prand – but there are no eyes, just a bunch of misshapen, swollen lumps.”
Agatha spoke subconsciously in her shock, “You have dived beneath Prenland?”
Duncan shook his head, “No, this is the first time I’ve dived into the depths myself, but I have other means of getting a rough sense of what it looks like below the city-state.”
As he spoke, he raised his head and looked out the porthole at the “jungle” hanging upside down in the darkness.
Rough perception has its limits, if not personally come down to see this glance, I am afraid that he will never think that those jagged and strange structures below the city state …… are actually unnamable corpses.
The huge pale eye was slowly moving away from view, and the column of light from the searchlight was skimming the tentacles around it, yet even as the eye faded into darkness, a feeling as if it had been watched for a long time still nagged at the mind, as if there were countless invisible tentacles wrapping themselves around the shell of the submersible from all sides.
Even the operation of the steam core seemed to become heavy and sluggish.
But these were all illusions – the submersible was still moving smoothly away from the “forest” and the eye, and was not materially impeded.
“We have to keep diving,” Duncan said to Agatha, turning his head, “the truth about the ‘base’ of the city-state is just the beginning, we’re stepping into the blind spot of the civilized world’s vision, and anything can happen next! –Do you still have the courage?”
Agatha turned her head likewise, and met Duncan’s gaze openly through the black cloth.
“I am ready,” the city-state guardian said in a calm tone, “let us continue our dive.”
(End of chapter)