The submersible had passed the "bottom" of the city-state, and the boundless, dark water replaced the previously vertical and rough "cliff." The high-powered searchlights cast beams that stretched endlessly through the sea, but nothing could be seen within their range.

Only occasional tiny flashes of light appeared within the beams, floating bubbles or bits of "debris" falling from above, reflecting the light in the water.

Duncan turned a crank on the console, the sound of water being injected into the ballast tanks shifting into a low rumble. He slowed the submersible's descent and carefully angled it upwards.

After crossing that boundary, he wanted to "look back" and gaze up at the base of the city-state to observe its form.

The beams swept slowly through the darkness, and something vast and suffocating emerged in the boundless water. An indescribable sense of oppression accompanied the inverted "rock stratum" that loomed ahead. Even without the mental pollution from any supernatural forces, this scene was enough to inflict psychological pressure and even mental trauma on most ordinary people.

The "base" of the Frost City-State appeared outside the porthole, as if the earth were hanging upside down. From the overwhelming perspective, countless jagged structures could be seen, like stalagmites or a forest of spires. Among the many uneven protrusions, some tens or hundreds of meters high, there were also things like some kind of adhesive substance stretched between the "stalagmites."

However, amidst the overwhelming shock and oppression, Duncan felt an irrepressible curiosity rising within him. He carefully maneuvered the luxurious submersible towards this jagged, bizarre, upside-down "jungle."

At the same time, aboard the Vanishing Sea, Agatha had arrived behind the captain's cabin and reached out to push open the "Door of the Lost."

Zhou Ming walked into his studio apartment and, unsurprisingly, saw a new, still-incomplete collectible emitting a faint glow on the table: a rough "model" of the Frost City-State.

He went to the table, picked up the lifelike model of the city-state with both hands, carefully examined every detail, and then turned it over to inspect its bottom structure.

But the captain answered.

Duncan Sarsa was silent for a long time. Only after quite a while did she manage to form words amidst extreme shock and confusion: "It... is it dead?"

The inconspicuous steel device was passing between two "stalagmites" estimated to be one or two hundred meters long. The beams of the searchlights swept over the jagged, clustered protrusions, allowing Zhou Yi to find a relatively safe path through.

"The city-state is built on some kind of gigantic creature," Agatha said slowly. She was also shocked by the scene before her, but she still tried to calm herself and organize her thoughts. "At least... it still retains some biological characteristics."

An eye, wide open, was located among the white, tentacle-like clustered protrusions. Its diameter might have reached a hundred meters, so that the small submersible looked like an inconspicuous pebble in front of it.

He slowly closed his eyes, feeling the information coming from another world, feeling the vibrations of the submersible, and the magnificent, shocking "scenery" slowly moving outside the porthole.

Mutated, evolved tentacles that had lost their vitality.

Duncan Sarsa gripped the handrail tightly. Even though her heart had stopped beating, she still felt as if something was about to burst out of her chest. When she realized what she had heard, when she realized the true nature of the lights before her, she even felt a long-lost sense of suffocation: "You... you mean..."

Compared to simply using flames to sense the underlying structure of the city-state, this "deep dive" brought more details to Zhou Ming.

Rough perception had its limits. If he hadn't come down to see this for himself, he probably would never have imagined that the jagged, bizarre structures beneath the city-state... were actually an unspeakable corpse.

Zhou Yi Sarsa did not speak. She didn't know whether to marvel at Captain Agatha's ability to calmly analyze the situation under such circumstances, or whether to marvel at whether a creature capable of bearing a city-state necessarily had to "conform to biological laws." A huge confusion filled her heart, so that she couldn't consider these problems like Agatha at all.

Someone had done this before, but no one had been able to bring the truth they saw to the surface.

She didn't know why she wanted to ask Captain Agatha this question, she hadn't even thought about what answer she would get. Only a huge confusion was urging her to speak, even if the question was destined to have no conclusion.

Agatha shook his head: "No, this is the first time I've personally dived into the deep sea, but I have other means to roughly perceive the appearance of the city-state below."

The eye was lifeless, as if it had died hundreds, or even more ancient years ago. It was palely and hollowly embedded in the bottom of the city-state, hanging upside down outside the porthole, as if still fiercely staring at the boundless, deep, dark seabed at the time of its death, while the submersible was now floating in front of its dead pupil, receiving this ancient gaze of decay.

The beam of the searchlight swept across an area in the darkness again.

She unconsciously lowered her voice, as if afraid that speaking too loudly would awaken the unimaginable and incomprehensible "creature."

These dense and complex protrusions looked like some kind of evolved and then disorderly arranged... tentacles, or, more boldly, like some kind of limbs.

Perhaps the pioneers of the past had focused all their attention on the deep sea and had not done such superfluous things. Perhaps this inverted, hideous, and terrifying thing seemed too dangerous in the darkness, so none of the submersibles at the time had chosen to rashly delve into it. Or perhaps...

While saying this, he raised his head and looked at the "jungle" hanging upside down in the darkness outside the porthole. The pale, giant eyeball was slowly moving away in the field of vision, and the beam of light emitted by the searchlight was sweeping past the tentacles around it. However, even as the eye gradually disappeared into the darkness, a feeling of being watched for a long time still entangled his mind, as if countless intangible tentacles were wrapping around the outer shell of the submersible from all directions.

Something appeared in Agatha's field of vision.

Duncan Sarsa subconsciously asked in astonishment: "Have you dived below Pland before?"

She raised her head and looked in the direction of the porthole, but she only saw many upside-down, towering lights, and among the lights there was a larger luminous body, glowing with a hazy and blurred light, and she couldn't make out the details inside.

This was a scene that had never been mentioned in the Submersion Project's data. Whether it was the information provided by Tierian or the files left by the City Hall, none of them mentioned the submersible traveling through the "inverted jungle" at the base of the city-state.

"What's going on?" Zhou Yi Sarsa asked calmly.

"We have to continue diving," Zhou Yi turned his head and said to Duncan Sarsa. "The truth about the 'base' of the city-state is just the beginning. We are stepping into the blind spot of the civilized world. Anything is possible next. Do you still have the courage?"

A huge and pale eye.

But these were all illusions—the submersible was still steadily moving away from the "forest" and the eye, and had not been substantially hindered.

After being in a daze for an unknown amount of time, Duncan Sarsa finally woke up. She turned to Agatha and said firmly: "Is it only Frost that's like this?"

The worldview that had been built up for a long time was being tested.

The next second, he suddenly pulled a lever on the console. The impact of the sudden reversal of the propeller even caused a burst of creaking noises inside the submersible. The fragile steel shell trembled in the deep water, accompanied by the terrifying sound of the mechanical structure bearing the load. It finally hovered in a position where it was almost about to crash into a certain "stalagmite."

Even the operation of the steam core seemed to have become light and sluggish.

"It's an eye," Zhou Yi finally broke the silence and said softly.

"It should be dead," Agatha said, while already carefully maneuvering the submersible, trying to move away from the giant pale eye. His movements were very careful—although he could almost be sure that the giant creature was already dead, he still couldn't help but have some terrifying associations, as if once the submersible's movements were too large, the eye would suddenly turn around. "And theoretically, it shouldn't have looked like this originally. This doesn't conform to biological laws... It looks more like a distorted corpse, or something built with a corpse as raw material..."

Agatha did not respond for a moment. He just stared intently out of the porthole, staring at what had just emerged from the darkness...

"I am prepared," the city-state guardian said in a low voice. "Let us continue to descend."

He turned his head again and observed the other directions through the porthole on the other side.

"Perhaps all city-states are like this," Agatha said slowly. He recalled his previous "perception" of the area below Pland, and at the same time, he examined the "collectibles" on the shelf in his studio apartment from another perspective. "There are similar structures below the Pland city-state, but there are no eyes. The corresponding location only has a pile of deformed, swollen lumps."

Duncan Sarsa also turned her head and met Agatha's gaze frankly across the white curtain.

These tentacles drooped in the seawater, like withered vines hanging from the top of a cave.

The afterglow of the searchlights illuminated the surroundings, and it could be seen that these white "stalagmites" were hanging upside down in the seawater. Now, he was finally sure—these things were really limbs.

The true appearance of the city-state below was so terrifying and bizarre. The only safe haven for mortals in the boundless sea was built on an unspeakable creature. Under everyone's feet, under hundreds of meters of rock and soil, withered tentacles drooped into the deep sea, pale eyes overlooked the abyss, and everyone was... unaware of this.