The submersible had passed the "bottom" of the city-state. The endless, dark water replaced the previously vertical and rough "cliff face." The high-powered searchlights cast their beams into the sea, stretching into infinity, but nothing could be seen within their range.

Only occasionally did tiny flashes of light appear within the beams, reflections of floating bubbles or debris falling from the upper layers.

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

Having crossed the boundary, he wanted to "look back" and observe the shape of the city-state's base.

The light beams swept slowly through the darkness, revealing something vast and suffocating in the boundless water. An indescribable sense of oppression accompanied the upside-down "rock strata"—even without any supernatural mental pollution, this scene was enough to inflict psychological pressure, even trauma, on most ordinary people.

The "base" of Frost City-State appeared outside the porthole, like the earth inverted. From this overwhelming, crushing perspective, countless jagged structures could be seen, like stalagmites or forests of spires. Among the uneven, towering protrusions, some kind of adhesive-like substance stretched between the "stalagmites."

Yet amidst the overwhelming shock and oppression, Duncan felt an irrepressible curiosity. He cautiously maneuvered the crude submersible, heading towards the strange, inverted "jungle."

At the same time, on the Vanishing Sea, Duncan had arrived before the captain's cabin and reached out to push open the "Door of the Vanishers."

Zhou Ming entered his apartment and, unsurprisingly, saw the new collectible sitting on the table, emitting a faint glow—a fully formed, exquisite "model" of Frost City-State.

He went to the table, picked up the lifelike model, carefully examining every detail before turning it over to inspect its bottom structure.

The dense, complex protrusions looked like some kind of degenerated and chaotically arranged... tentacles, or, to be bolder, like limbs.

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

He slowly closed his eyes, feeling the information transmitted from another world, the vibrations of the submersible, and the grand, awe-inspiring "scenery" slowly moving past the porthole.

The inconspicuous steel device was passing between two "stalagmites" estimated to be one or two hundred meters long. The searchlight beams swept across the distant, jagged protrusions, allowing Duncan to find a relatively safe path.

This was a sight not mentioned in the Deep Dive Project files—neither the information provided by Tirian nor the records left by the city hall mentioned the submersible traveling through the "inverted jungle" at the base of the city-state.

Perhaps the early pioneers had focused all their attention on the deep sea, not bothering with such superfluous exploration. Perhaps this inverted, terrifying sight seemed too dangerous in the darkness, so none of the original submersibles chose to venture deeper. Or perhaps...

Someone had done so, but no one could bring the truth they saw back to the surface.

The beam of the searchlight swept across another area in the darkness.

Something appeared in Duncan's field of vision.

The next second, he abruptly pulled a lever on the console. The sudden reversal of the propeller even caused a series of creaking noises inside the submersible. The fragile steel shell trembled in the deep water, and with the terrible sounds of the mechanical structure bearing the load, it finally hovered in a position almost about to collide with a nearby "stalagmite."

"What happened?" Agatha asked慌忙.

She looked up towards the porthole but only saw many inverted, towering glimmers, and within those glimmers, a larger luminous body emitted a hazy glow, its internal details indistinguishable.

Duncan did not respond for a moment. He just stared intently outside the porthole, at what had just emerged from the darkness...

A huge, pale eye.

A single eye, wide open, located between the black protrusions that resembled a forest of tentacles. Its diameter might have reached a hundred meters, so that the small submersible was like an inconspicuous pebble in front of it.

The eye was lifeless, as if it had died thousands of years ago, or even in more ancient times. It was pale and empty, embedded in the bottom of the city-state, inverted outside the porthole, as if even in its death throes, it was still calmly gazing at the boundless, deep, dark seabed below. And the submersible was now hovering in front of its dead pupil, receiving this ancient, decaying gaze.

"It's an eye," Duncan finally broke the silence, speaking softly.

He turned his head again, looking through the other porthole, observing other directions.

The afterglow of the searchlight illuminated the surroundings, revealing the black "stalagmites" hanging upside down in the seawater. Now, he could finally confirm it—these things were indeed limbs.

Mutated, degenerated, and lifeless tentacles.

These tentacles hung down in the sea, like withered vines hanging from the top of a cave.

Agatha gripped the handrail tightly. Although 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 glimmer she was seeing, she even felt a long-lost sense of suffocation: "You... you mean..."

"The city-state is built on some kind of huge creature," Duncan said slowly. He was equally shocked by the sight before him but still tried to calm down, organizing his thoughts. "At least... it still retains some of the creature's characteristics."

Agatha remained silent for a long time. After a long while, she finally managed to form words amidst extreme shock and confusion: "Is it... dead?"

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

"It should be dead," Duncan said, as he cautiously maneuvered the submersible, slowly moving away from the huge, pale eye. He was very careful—although he was almost certain that the huge creature was dead, he could not help but have some terrifying associations, as if the eye would suddenly turn if the submersible moved too much. "And theoretically, it shouldn't look like this originally. It doesn't conform to biological rules... It looks more like a twisted corpse, or something built from a corpse..."

Agatha did not speak. She did not know whether to marvel at Captain Duncan's ability to calmly analyze the situation or to marvel at whether a creature capable of bearing a city-state even needed to "conform to biological rules." Great confusion and astonishment filled her heart, so that she could not consider these questions as calmly as usual.

The worldview she had built up over a long period of time was being tested.

The true appearance of the city-state's underside was so terrifying and bizarre. The only stable shelter for mortals in the boundless sea was built on an indescribable creature. Beneath everyone's feet, at the bottom of thousands of meters of rock and soil, withered tentacles hung into the deep sea, and pale eyes overlooked the abyss. And everyone was completely ignorant of this...

After being in a daze for who knows how long, Agatha finally woke up. She turned to Duncan, hesitating to speak: "Is Frost the only one like this?"

She didn't know why she was asking Captain Duncan this question, she didn't even think about what answer she would get—just a huge confusion urged her to open her mouth, even if this question was destined to have no conclusion.

But the captain answered.

"Perhaps all city-states are like this," Duncan said slowly. He recalled his "perception" of the area below Pland, and in another perspective, he was also examining the "collectible" on the shelf in his apartment. "There are similar structures below Pland City-State—but no eyes. The corresponding position is just a pile of deformed, swollen masses."

Agatha subconsciously asked in astonishment: "You dived below Pland?"

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

As he spoke, he looked up at the "jungle" hanging upside down in the darkness outside the porthole.

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 under the city-state... were actually indescribable corpses.

The pale, giant eyeball was slowly receding from view. The beam of the searchlight was sweeping past the tentacles around it. Yet even as the eye gradually disappeared into the darkness, a feeling of being watched for a long time still lingered in his mind, as if countless invisible tentacles were wrapping around the hull of the submersible from all directions.

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

But these were all illusions—the submersible still steadily moved away from the "forest" and the eye, without encountering any substantial obstacles.

"We will continue to descend," Duncan turned his head and said to Agatha. "The truth about the 'base' of the city-state is just the beginning. We are entering the blind spot of the civilized world's vision. Anything can happen next—do you still have the courage?"

Agatha also turned her head, and through the black cloth, she met Duncan's gaze calmly.

"I am prepared," the city-state guardian said in a calm tone. "We continue to descend."

(End of this chapter)