Chapter 523 The Bottomless Abyss
Aside from Klein, the other sailors' gazes instantly shifted from Nina to Angel, focusing on the face beneath the golden bangs and the area covered by her hands. The meaning in their gazes was obvious.
It was not until the boatswain Nina snorted coldly that everyone reacted. They left Frank with a bang and returned to their posts. Some were wiping the deck, some were pulling the sails, but from time to time there were still glances coming from all directions.
They were obviously more interested in the mysterious and beautiful Angel than the usual Nina.
Seeing everyone disperse, Angel lowered his arm and walked up to Klein generously.
"They say there's a Quaternary ruin on the seabed, and a huge, bottomless well. Nina's going to lead a team down to take a look, and I'm planning to go along."
She explained softly, pointing to the ravine on her chest. The "Rose Necklace" was hanging around her neck, resting on her smooth, close-fitting whale skin corset, emitting a faint dark blue light.
"Wind-loving One," affinity with the ocean... Klein nodded in understanding, but his gaze was firmly fixed on the necklace.
"Why, does it look good?"
Sensing where his gaze was focused, Angel chuckled and questioned.
"Very, cough, cough, normal."
After a brief debate between his inner Hermann and Klein, he maintained the image of a "cold-blooded adventurer" under the control of his pharyngitis and replied calmly.
With a light hum, Angel turned around and followed Nina to the side of the boat, making the final preparations for entering the water. Her exposed skin gradually began to appear illusory scales, reflecting the sunlight and making her look even more dazzling.
Klein averted his gaze with difficulty, regretting not following his true heart. He glanced at Frank, who was holding a glass and drinking "Sea Fish Red Wine" alone. Frank sensed his gaze, quietly leaned over, and said:
"Do you need medicine?"
ah?
At that moment, Klein felt that his crazy personality was about to burst out of his body and devour the inexplicable "toxin expert" in front of him.
"unnecessary."
He replied calmly with a cold face.
"I mean, your cold, or pharyngitis? It works, it can cure anything," Frank insisted. He pulled a small green apple from his pocket, rubbed it on his shirt, and handed it to Klein. "I made this by crossing medicine with fruit. It makes taking medicine a pleasure, not a pain."
So it's this medicine. I hope you can forget my reaction just now, otherwise I'll help you forget it... Klein suddenly realized it. With a stern face, he took the apple, hesitated for a moment, and took a bite.
At the end of his sight, Angel stretched his limbs, followed Nina and several other sailors, jumped lightly, and jumped into the deep blue sea.
————
Diving into the sea, Angel squinted his eyes and stared at Nina in front of him. Led by this experienced "navigator", he swam towards the deep sea at a nearly vertical angle.
At first, she was a little curious about why Nina, who could condense phantom scales on her body, would wear such a shameful tights. However, as the depth increased rapidly, her exposed skin felt a biting cold that even scales could not resist, as well as the gradually increasing water pressure. Only then did she understand the significance of her previous preparations.
Of course, the boatswain Nina also drank an extra whole bottle of Nipos, which was said to be able to be used as a Molotov cocktail. Although she explained that it was for "warming up", Angel always felt that it was okay if he didn't drink it.
Perhaps it had something to do with her Sequence 5 physique… She pondered as she gradually swam towards the depths of the dark and profound ocean. Several of her "sailor" teammates, who were lower in sequence, stopped diving and supported her from above. They could survive briefly underwater, but the water pressure at depths exceeded their limits.
In the cold sea water, only Nina, who was leading the way in front, and Angel, who was following behind, were left. The silhouette of the sailor above their heads and the sunlight above the sea surface quickly dimmed, and there was still an unfathomable abyss below. Angel felt as if she was stagnant in the deep sea. Only the cold sea water and the increasing pressure beside her let her know that time was still passing.
Nina in front suddenly stopped diving, raised her arms, opened her palm with one hand, and pressed her fingers against the palm of the other hand.
She meant to stay where she was... Angel, who had communicated with her before going into the water, quickly understood what she meant, hovered behind her, and put his hand on her shoulder.
Angel's "Ocean Affinity" covered her eyes with a layer of transparent sclera, and her own "Dark Vision" allowed her to see things in the deep sea, so she did not suffer from the "thalassophobia" that many sailors talked about. She looked at Nina and found that she was just taking a short rest to get used to the pressure of the sea water. After a while, she made a gesture to continue diving and took the lead to swim downwards.
"It's been about 10 minutes. If we dive 50 meters per minute, we have reached a depth of 500 meters in the sea..." Angel estimated the time and kept scanning the surroundings, but his dark vision could not penetrate the deep sea water. The deep sea water around him seemed to swallow up all the light and objects.
“Gugu——”
Nina blew out a few bubbles and pointed downwards. Angel looked closely and saw a huge ruin standing on the seabed at the outermost edge of the visual range, which was barely visible.
It is not quite appropriate to call it a relic. This vast "building" has completely collapsed and its original shape cannot be seen. It is covered with thick seabed silt and has a few deep-sea plants of unknown species. Only the protruding roots scattered across the seabed prove its existence and show its scale thousands of years ago.
Angel and Nina swam quickly to the bottom of the sea, approaching the ruins. Instead of separating to increase efficiency, they held hands tightly, avoiding separation in the dark seabed, and explored the ruins together.
It was not until he swam closer that Angel discovered that the metal bars protruding from the mud were all rusted by the sea water. The structure they formed had been twisted under heavy pressure and decayed in the deep sea. They almost broke if bent or crushed if squeezed, but one could still see their scale before being submerged by the sea water. It was probably no less than the "Future" above their heads.
Carefully breaking off two arm-length metal bars as evidence, the two continued to explore the ruins in a circular outward direction. It wasn't long before they found the "bottomless" giant well.
What disappointed Angel greatly was that although the well mouth looked dark and terrifying and bottomless, its diameter was only about two fists, which was not enough to fit even an adult's head in, let alone enter and explore.
She looked at Nina, who also shook her head in disappointment, saying that she was even more helpless given her size.
Perhaps only a newborn baby can enter this "giant" well, and finding a baby born with the ability of a "navigator" is as difficult as turning a tall boatswain into a 50-centimeter-long mini Nina... Angel also spit out a few bubbles in disappointment, and tried to break off a piece of irregularly shaped, fist-sized black hard soil from the side of the wellhead, wrapped it with invisible silk thread on its corroded surface, and launched it out like a slingshot, directly through the "giant" well and into the depths.
Gurgle, gurgle.
Angel waited for a moment, but didn't feel any movement.
The depth of this well is probably no less than the distance between us and the sea surface now... She shook her head, stopped trying, and looked at Nina beside her.
The latter's limbs were floating in the sea, with a trance-like expression on his face and his eyes behind his sclera were full of confusion. He was slowly drifting towards the wellhead.
Angel's heart tightened and he immediately grabbed the other person's shoulders, but he slipped on the whale skin jacket and failed to grab it immediately.
Without hesitation, she quickly reached out to hug Nina, locked her waist tightly, kicked her feet downward, stirred up a cloud of dust on the seabed, and used the reaction force to move away from the narrow and deep wellhead.
Nina seemed to come to her senses at this moment, broke free from Angel's grip, and gestured to indicate that she was fine.
But the two did not dare to stay any longer. They picked up a black stone next to the wellhead and quickly swam upstream.
With the help of "ocean affinity", the two did not need to stop during the ascent, but quickly reunited with the waiting sailors, surfaced, saw the bright sunshine again, and breathed the salty air of sea water.
"Oh, thank you for that," Nina said to Angel, letting out a breath of alcohol-smelling air. "That well seems to have a power that's drawing me closer to it."
"Even if you get close, you won't be able to get in."
Angel joked, watching the "Future" throw down knotted ropes, allowing the sailors to climb onto the deck one by one.
"But I always feel like something bad is going to happen... Don't you feel attracted to it?"
Nina said with some fear.
“Not at all.”
Angel answered honestly, his mind still recalling the strange steel ruins and the narrow yet bottomless "giant" well.
…
"The metal strip should have been made of very strong steel, but after thousands of years of erosion by the sea, its original shape is no longer visible. As for this piece of black mud..."
Admiral of the Stars, Cattleya pushed the thick glasses on her nose, held up the "evidence" Angel had brought back, studied it carefully for a moment, shook her head, and explained to Angel, Klein, and the others beside her.
"I can't tell what caused these marks, and the texture is strange too. It doesn't look like soil or stone... I've never seen such corrosion marks before."
She muttered softly and told Nina to put them in the warehouse.
"Since humans can't enter that well, there's no need for us to rush to explore. I'll return here after I've figured out the secrets of this metal and soil and confirmed that there's something worth the risk."
Since this voyage had a more important mission, she quickly decided not to stay any longer.
Angel had already changed out of her somewhat embarrassing tights and put on her women's shirt, jacket, and trousers again, causing the nearby sailors to look at her in disappointment. Seeing Cattleya preparing to set sail for the Future, she asked unwillingly:
"Madam Captain, what do you think this relic could be?"
"I've never heard of similar buildings in the Fifth Epoch. Furthermore, this sea area wasn't developed until the Feysac Empire won Sonia Island from Loen during the Twenty Years' War... Perhaps they really belong to the Fourth Epoch, as the rumors say."
The Quaternary Age... even the steam engine hadn't been invented yet, and all ships were made of wood. How could there be such a huge steel building?
Questions popped up in Angel's mind. She tried to restore the steel wreckage in her memory, but found that no matter how she built it, it didn't look like a ship. Instead, it looked a bit like the huge trusses of the offshore platforms she had seen in books in her previous life, which had long been abandoned due to oil depletion.
The empires of the Fourth Epoch were able to build ghost ships that traveled through the spirit world. Could it be that they also created similar buildings?
She touched her still damp hair and couldn't help but want to do a magic mirror divination to confirm the origins of the metal and soil, but she found that Nina had already left with them, so she had to give up.
Forget it. I'll wait until Ms. Hermit gets something, then ask her from the Tarot Club... Seeing Klein staring at Nina's receding figure, Angel chuckled and stretched out his fingers, stealthily approaching the soft flesh around his waist.
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