Chapter 213 Sunken

As a deep-sea creature, Nangong Wuyue's perception abilities were greatly enhanced in the water. As the team approached the bottom of the lake's center, she sensed something unusual in the surrounding environment: an unnatural magnetic field was distributed nearby, making her feel slightly uncomfortable.

Hao Ren didn't feel anything, but he noticed that Doudou, who was swimming beside him, was acting strangely. The little one was swimming forward along a broken line, constantly veering to one side as if drunk. But she was clearly awake, and seemed puzzled herself. She kept adjusting her swimming posture, struggling for a long time before finally righting herself, then quickly stuck to Hao Ren's arm, a hint of fear on her face. She felt that this place was strange, and instinctively sought protection.

"She might have a talent for geomagnetic navigation, and the magnetic field here is affecting her greatly," Nangong Wuyue explained, seeing Doudou's odd behavior. She reassured Hao Ren, "It's okay, this level of magnetic field won't cause physiological damage. At most, it'll make some deep-sea creatures lose their sense of direction. Everyone be careful, there might be something ahead, and it doesn't seem naturally formed."

Hao Ren nodded, confirmed that his shield was charged, and swam ahead of Nangong Wuyue, with Izhaks following beside him, manipulating two balls of demonic fire. Vivian tried to summon her bats, but found that they couldn't swim, so she summoned a cloud of blood around herself as a precaution. Lily watched Vivian leave a trail of blood as she swam and blurted out without thinking, "Your period flow is really..."

And then the two almost started fighting in the water.

The vague shadow ahead became clearer and clearer. Hao Ren judged that he was now approaching the center of the lake. He widened his eyes and kept descending, finally seeing the black lake bottom at the end of the crimson-red field of vision.

This area looked normal. The bottom of the Blood Lake was solid. At least, this area wasn't silt, but black sand and some strange, long stone slabs that had been hardened by the water pressure. Izhaks created a few more flames around the team, further expanding everyone's view. Hao Ren saw that the black lake bottom in front of him rose slightly to form a slope: further ahead should be the base of the island in the center of the lake.

"There's a burnt smell in the water," Lily frowned. "And a strange, sour smell."

Nangong Wuyue used her long sea serpent tail to roll up a long stone slab from the lake bottom, curiously examining it: "This thing seems man-made... Look, one side is particularly smooth, as if it's been polished by something."

These large and small long stone slabs were scattered all over the lake bottom, and there seemed to be more and more of them further ahead, giving the impression that something had exploded in the center of the lake, throwing these fragments out. Hao Ren immediately thought of the underwater light from the night the pearl disappeared two months ago, but he quickly dismissed the possibility: the stone slabs looked like they had been here for a long time. There were no fresh impact marks around them, and some of the stone slabs were covered with a thick layer of aquatic, light-hating organisms. They should have been lying on the lake bottom for a long time.

Hao Ren took the stone slab from Nangong Wuyue and threw it into his dimensional pocket. He had collected a lot of things in this world over the past few days. Basically, he would throw a few samples of anything that might be valuable into his dimensional pocket: "Take it back, and we can study it when we have time."

The sea妖 (yao - translated as Siren) girl nodded. Her long sea serpent tail picked up some more good-looking stone slabs as nimbly as an arm. When she handed them to Hao Ren, she muttered, "So I still think it's better to turn into a giant squid..."

Hao Ren, holding Doudou, glared at Nangong Wuyue: "You turned into a sea serpent and she pulled your tail for a long time. The little one is at a critical stage of establishing normal values. Don't instill strange knowledge into her, okay?"

Nangong Wuyue curled her lips and turned to swim forward.

The team searched forward for a while and finally found suspicious signs on the stone beach at the bottom of the lake.

Large areas of black gravel had been overturned and scattered, revealing the fresh deep-water silt underneath. Huge ravines stretched across the view. These were traces left by shock waves. There seemed to have really been a big explosion ahead, and it had happened recently.

This time, without Lily saying anything, Hao Ren himself smelled an unpleasant odor in the surrounding lake water. Although Nangong Wuyue used her talent to give everyone the "water avoidance" effect, the smell in the lake water could still be smelled for the convenience of exploration. Doudou wrinkled her nose uncomfortably and rubbed her face hard on Hao Ren's sleeve, making a series of unhappy gurgling sounds. Seeing this, Nangong Wuyue had to create a ball of pure water for the little one to swim in.

"There are strange debris floating in the water," Vivian frowned uncomfortably. The strange smell here also made her very upset. She looked up and saw that the sloping lake bottom in front of her had a distinct conical shape. This was a sign that she was about to reach the island in the center of the lake. She glanced around and suddenly saw an uncoordinated black shadow on the side of the conical island base. "There! There seems to be a big guy over there!"

Everyone swam over quickly and was dumbfounded the moment they rounded the conical island base.

Hao Ren muttered to himself subconsciously: "...This is gonna be a big problem!"

On the sloping black lake bottom, a huge behemoth that was out of tune with the surrounding environment was diagonally inserted into the silt. The exposed part was two or three hundred meters long, with a cold, metallic luster of bluish-gray. The shape was roughly a long cylinder, and the tail had several sets of intricately structured metal protrusions and six pairs of unique structures that looked like engines. On the side facing the crowd, there was a terrifying crack: a large area of armor belt seemed to have been directly wiped away by something, leaving a long and narrow crack, revealing the broken metal structure inside. This should be a fatal wound.

Around this behemoth, traces of shock waves could be seen in circles, and there were scattered metal fragments and clumps of strange, water-insoluble gelatinous substances with a turbid green light. These things should have been ejected from that terrifying crack.

The unpleasant odor came from those turbid green gelatinous substances, and the strange magnetic field around it undoubtedly came from the wreckage that crashed here: there should still be something running inside it.

"Wow!" Lily was startled by the scene in front of her. She quickly ran to the huge wreckage and looked at it, then ran back in fright, "What is this, wow!"

"It should be a spaceship," Hao Ren said, nodding. "I've seen it in the study materials. Although the appearance is not quite the same as what is taught in the textbooks, the basic structure is a classic starship shape."

Vivian swam over slowly: "Anyway, it's definitely not something from this world. Let's go take a look."

Everyone came to the wreckage, and everyone was careful, for fear that this thing would explode again or suddenly drift out some toxic substances—those green gelatinous substances looked toxic. This thing had been lying on the bottom of the lake for two months, and now the high temperature had subsided, and it was as cold and silent as a corpse. Hao Ren clung to the edge of the tens-of-meters-long crack and looked inside, and found that the internal space was spacious, and it seemed to be a passage closer to the outer shell.

However, there were many crisscrossing metal stubs and pipes blocking the way inside the crack. They blocked everyone's way like spider webs, and also made the outer shell of the spaceship appear to be broken but still connected. Seeing this situation, Vivian slapped Lily: "Big dog, clear the way."

"Why me?"

"Oh, because you are very powerful."

"Okay, okay," Lily rushed to the crack excitedly: "Leave it to me!"

Hao Ren looked at Vivian with a strange expression: "You understand her better and better."

At this time, Lily was already waving her ice and fire double blades and swimming towards the crack. The two magical claw blades could still be used as usual in the water. On Lily's left was a string of ice chips, and on the right was a string of bubbles. The whole person was like dragging two ribbons, and it seemed that swimming with claw blades was not very convenient. The girl turned her mind and came up with an idea: she swung her tail like a propeller, swimming faster than dog paddling just now!

Hao Ren watched for a long time but couldn't understand how she made her tail turn like that.

Vivian was silent for a while, and finally sighed: "It seems that fighting with submarines back then still taught her something..."