Iron Bull taucht wieder auf

Kapitel 126

When I entered the first level to get some fresh air, I was enveloped in a red mist, but I didn't feel anything unusual yet, and there was enough oxygen. After a few rapid breaths, I believe my lungs are now full of this unknown substance. I don't know what horrifying consequences might occur, but I'll just leave it be for now.

After becoming seriously ill, my physical strength was reduced to a third of what it used to be, so I simply lay down on the ground and looked down. I didn't have much time to waste. If the glass box fell into the sandpit, it would really require a miracle—I'm not a sea god, and of course I don't have that kind of unimaginable ability.

Just then, I suddenly noticed a rectangular plaque, but I wasn't sure if it was the one embedded in the tower gate, because it was located above the bottom of the sandpit, steadily suspended in mid-air. In the red light, I couldn't see if there were any words engraved on it, but some of the carved parts clearly formed a winding picture.

A tall figure, lying on his back with his bow drawn, pointing upwards at a 45-degree angle—"Hou Yi shooting down the suns?" My first thought upon seeing this image was of China's oldest mythology. The arrow points to ten round holes; if my initial guess is correct, those represent the ten suns in the sky.

"Ten suns appeared in the sky, and Hou Yi shot them down, nine of them were gone but one remained, and the world was at peace"—this myth has become a wonderful story that even preschool children in China can retell.

Below the ten holes are countless smaller round holes; without counting them one by one, one can tell there are hundreds, like a piece of white paper pierced countless times. The arrangement of the holes is very complex; at first glance, it should resemble some kind of blooming plant, with slender branches and leaves, as well as spreading flowers.

"What is this?" His strength was slowly returning, but he had no paper or pen to record this strange shape.

To put it simply, I was searching for Reese in a glass box that had sunk to the bottom of the sea, but to no avail. Instead, I discovered a floating plaque in the underwater space. Could it be the "Plate of the Sea God" that Reese found? If so, where did Reese go? Was she melted away by the red light, leaving only the plaque? If not, did Reese and the plaque disappear at the same time? Did they both travel through time and space, or pass through the transparent glass and sink directly into the deep sea?

The glass floor was still cold, and I could hear Guan Baoling's hurried footsteps as she ran down.

She was so understanding; she was even holding the pen I had left on the top floor.

"What's down there? Can you imagine it?" I asked her, both amused and exasperated, as I quickly traced the shapes I saw on the ground.

"A picture of Hou Yi shooting down the sun? But I know such a thing wouldn't appear on the seabed for no reason. Wind, could it be the 'Poseidon's Plaque' that Resica found? I'm so scared... so scared I wish this were an endless nightmare, at least then I could wake up..."

She moved toward the tower gate, and I think she might take the plunge and step out in an attempt to wake up from this nightmare.

"It wasn't a dream, but—an undeniably real reality." My hands were trembling, and I didn't even know what the point of recording that image was. If this was my end, what difference would it make whether I recorded it or not?

“Hallucination, what we are seeing is all an illusion, right?” Guan Baoling turned around. At this moment, we looked like two workers busy in a darkroom developing film, our bodies bathed in red light.

"It's not an illusion, it's reality. Maybe the next second, when we crash down, you'll understand that this is a nightmare you can't wake up from." I finally finished describing the information on the sign as it was, as if it were a skillfully crafted and realistic paper-cut.

Guan Baoling reached her hand out from the tower door, and suddenly disappeared from the doorway.

I yelled, threw down my pen, and sprang up with all my might, chasing after Guan Baoling. Her diving skills weren't very good; you could tell from the films she'd made. By the time I plunged into the water, she was already floating limply, her black dress billowing in the waves like a graceful seaweed.

The red light was fierce and showed no signs of abating. The glass box was in danger of falling at any moment, but none of that mattered at that moment. I grabbed Guan Baoling's wrist and pulled her into my arms.

"Gurgle..." A string of bubbles emerged from the corner of her mouth, as red as blood.

I paddled with one hand, and we fell back into the tower, landing on the floor at the same time.

"Never give up, okay? For you, I will never give up hope of living; for me, please pull yourself together... pull yourself together..." I shook her arm, shouting hysterically, trying to wake her up while also encouraging myself. As long as we're alive for even a second, we must fight to the very last second. Heaven has given us the right to live, and unless it takes it away, we cannot give up the struggle.

Guan Baoling curled up helplessly; the intense red light had turned us into two weak, powerless red insects.

I felt the tremor, and then the sandpit below suddenly began to expand—"We're falling, hold on tight!" I yelled, rolling to her side and wrapping my right arm around her shoulder.

That's right, we are slowly falling, like a feather drifting in the wind, roughly estimated to be decreasing in speed of about one meter per minute. To put it another way, we are like a balloon filled with a mixture of air and hydrogen, overcoming its own buoyancy and descending at an extremely slow speed.

As the sign drew closer, I could see the holes on it more clearly, but I couldn't tell what metal it was made of.

"Are we going to be buried down here? Are we going to die here?" Guan Baoling completely lost her courage and couldn't even lift her head when she spoke.

I had no time to answer, because the sign had been stuck to the glass floor, and for some reason, I felt it slowly embedding itself into the glass we were standing on. "Oh my god! It can melt the glass, we're doomed! Seawater will flood in—" For a moment, my mind went blank.

Although the strange building inside the glass box has a tower door, at least seawater cannot rush in and is kept out. But now the nameplate has penetrated to the very bottom of the glass box. Once it breaks through, a large amount of ordinary seawater will definitely rush in, and Guan Baoling and I will become like two ants in an upside-down bottle, destined to drown.

The sign was highly corrosive or heat-fusible, and it entered the glass almost effortlessly and at a steady pace. No seawater followed it in, and I didn't even see the gap it left as it pierced the glass.

The nameplate was on the floor, while the glass box was still more than five meters away from the bottom of the sandpit. I could see the neatly divided structure, which looked like some kind of semi-open office space, with paths connecting adjacent spaces.

I also saw stairs. There was no doubt that long, narrow stairs were installed on the outer edge of those huge supports. The empty space in the center of the supports was an almost circular space, making it look more like a huge rocket launch pad.

We were getting closer and closer to the bottom of the sandpit when, finally, with another tremor, the floor beneath our feet made complete contact with the sandpit floor. I could see more clearly now, and without thinking twice, I pulled Guan Baoling over to look. It was certain that, apart from the area connected to the glass box, there was a much larger space below; this was just a small skylight in a giant building.

"What is this? What's down there?" Guan Baoling asked me in a low voice, her voice filled with boundless fear.

I couldn't answer that, but it reminded me of a giant underwater warehouse, though there were no moving objects in sight.

The entire space was shrouded in a strange red light. Staring at it for too long made my eyes ache; I had to close them, rub them vigorously, and then continue looking. Judging by sight, the vertical distance from my feet to the scaffolding was about forty meters. The scaffolding occupied an area of about thirty meters square, arranged in a huge octagonal shape.

"What will happen to us? Will we be buried or fall to the bottom?" Guan Baoling reached out to touch the nameplate on the floor, but I quickly stopped her. The material of the nameplate was uncertain, so it was best not to touch it casually.

We can do nothing but wait and see how fate will unfold.

From the "Tower of the Dead" at Fengge Temple to the glass box sunk to the bottom of the sea, and now landing on the skylight of a giant warehouse, I had no choice in any of these steps. Faced with the vast and mysterious ocean, the power of humanity is so insignificant. I no longer even have time to think about whether I can be saved; instead, I worry about what power we will fall into next, and what kind of monster we will become its test subjects.

I stared intently at the source of the red light. On the surface, it should have been in the center of the scaffolding, but after concentrating my gaze and staring at the source of the red light for a long time, I was able to discover that there was a narrow octagonal opening in the center of the scaffolding. The red light was shooting up from the opening and then spreading to all parts of the area.

"Did you see that hole?" I was a little hesitant to trust my own judgment, since anything seen under such conditions could be biased or erroneous.

Guan Baoling shook her head wearily with her eyes closed: "My eyes hurt so much, don't ask me... they're almost blind..."

That's right, overusing your eyes in such a harsh environment would definitely risk blindness. I also closed my eyes dejectedly and took a break.

Suddenly, I heard a rumbling sound, enormous, all around the glass box. The glass box then began to shake, and the sign on the ground slid towards the tower door. I opened my eyes and, without hesitation, leaped forward, catching it a split second before it entered the water.

The sign felt cool, probably made of metal, and thankfully there was no strange burning sensation.

I breathed a sigh of relief. It's always good to be careful, especially when things are getting worse with each step. The plaque was exactly one meter long and fifty centimeters wide, which should be the so-called "Poseidon's Plaque" that Resica found, but I didn't find those five characters on it, only those strange symbols.

I held the sign in my arms, and judging from its heavy weight, it was a single metal plate three centimeters thick.

"How could it be suspended in mid-air? Is it the force of a blower emanating from the space below, keeping it suspended in the air? But how could it pass through the glass floor and enter the space we are in?"

My confusion grew, and I knew things wouldn't end there; they would only get worse.

Guan Baoling suddenly began to sob softly, then her crying suddenly intensified into a wail that echoed throughout the tower.

I couldn't comfort her; no amount of empty words would work. Our fate would be worse than certain death. If the skylight below opened, the glass box would fall straight in, and who knows when it would return to Earth, or perhaps never have to consider this question again—below it might be either a superpower's underwater laboratory or an alien's mysterious Earth base. In short, we were prey captured by them, and our fate was predictable.

"Feng, we're finished, aren't we..."

How much time has passed? I haven't counted, and I can't count. My stopped watch has become the most useless accessory I own. Guan Baoling's bleak smile is like a sharp blade, cutting cruelly into my heart.

"Perhaps there's still a chance; at least we're still alive." I deliberately spoke in a nonchalant tone. Of course, living like a lab rat is still living, but that kind of zombie-like "living" is meaningless.

"I'm so cold, come and hug me, okay?" She opened her arms, her sleeves dripping water.

I was already soaked through countless times, and faced with the temptation of an embrace, I suddenly took a deep breath, exhaling slowly to clear my mind. Now wasn't the time for a final, desperate embrace; I needed to make one last effort—"I'm going out to check things out. Don't be too discouraged; there's still hope!"

Hugging, kissing, or even doing anything any adult would do is forgivable at this moment; after all, everyone wants to go crazy one last time before they completely lose their future. Death gives everyone a reason and excuse to go crazy.

I longed to indulge myself and revel in Guan Baoling, but then the image of Su Lun flashed through my mind.

"If she were here, would she give up completely? No, as long as she has a breath left, as long as she has a last second to fight, she would do it without hesitation. Big Brother, Scalpel, and any renowned senior in the martial arts world, when faced with adversity, would definitely fight to the end. I, Yang Feng, am the younger brother of 'King of Tomb Raiders' Yang Tian. I cannot disgrace him, I cannot let myself die here..."

I walked toward the tower gate, calmly stepped into the water, and my mood gradually calmed down.

The water was red, but right in front of me, just outside the glass box, it seemed as if countless murky wisps of mist had suddenly risen. I paddled forward a short distance, pressed myself against the cold glass, and looked out at an angle. The sea sand on the ground seemed to have been stirred up, as if a violent explosion had just occurred. The sand had been carried away by the force of the explosion and lingered for a long time.

The Sixth Sea God Plaque

— Chapter 3 — Escape from the Deep Sea —

The chaotic scene might have been clearer if I had swum to the top of the glass box, but my attention was drawn to something below—near the scaffolding, there was a flat platform, about 100 meters square. If I wasn't mistaken, that direction was due east. Countless gears were placed on the platform, some spinning rapidly, some slower, and some seemingly stationary.

"Finally, we can see what's going on! What is that?"

I lay flat on the glass floor, and the gears gradually became clearer in my vision.

There are 128 gears, roughly estimated to be three meters in diameter and one meter thick, but their color is impossible to determine. All the gears are connected by an irregular strip of light, which is very dim, like a fluorescent light tube that is about to go out.

The gears rotated at sequential speeds, with the last few spinning at an astonishing rate, like a spinning chainsaw disc. The slower-rotating ones had clearly visible serrated edges—"Since these things are rotating, there must be a power system involved. Or, if I'm not mistaken, this underground space belongs to an underwater base of some superpower?"

Based on geographical location, it's highly likely to belong to Russia or the former Soviet Union. Could the legendary "undersea tomb" actually be a masterpiece of humankind, with all the myths merely a cover-up for the truth?

We couldn't stay in the red light forever; even if we didn't starve, we'd be driven mad by the overwhelming crimson glow. After circling the base of the tower, I re-entered it.

Guan Baoling had cried all her tears and lay helplessly on the ground, her long, wet hair spread out haphazardly. A girl only stops caring about her beauty when she is completely broken down; she was on the verge of collapse.

I pointed to the gears, looking quite interested: "Look, so many gears, what do they remind you of?"

Guan Baoling shook her head weakly: "My brain is rusted, I can't think of anything, I just want to... go home..."

"Go home? I want to, but is it even possible?" I smiled bitterly to myself.

Three earth-shaking tremors followed in succession. Guan Baoling cried out "Ah!" and threw herself into my arms, trembling with fear.

"What was that sound? I'm so scared... Hold me tight..."

Without her saying anything, I had already tightened my arms around her.

I dared not consider the worst-case scenario, because according to my basic geographical knowledge, it was a precursor to the worst-case scenario of an underwater volcanic eruption. The Japanese archipelago is a place with many volcanoes and earthquakes. Earthquakes are commonplace for islands and continental shelves around the Pacific Ocean. If there is no earthquake for more than fifteen days, it is the most abnormal thing.

We are submerged on the seabed, and earthquakes or lava flows could deliver a devastating blow to this glass box at any time, shattering it or burying it completely on the seabed.

The rumbling sounds continued incessantly, and every second it seemed as if death was drawing ever closer to Guan Baoling and me. At that moment, I even considered entering that mysterious space below for temporary refuge. As long as there was a dry, stable piece of land to stay on, I didn't care whose territory it was; avoiding the threat of death was the most important thing.

Gears are often associated with winches, doors, combination locks, and safes. Take, for example, the three-row combination lock on a suitcase; each gear represents a barrier to the suitcase. So, with 128 gears, would some system use 128 barriers to control it? The permutations and combinations of 128 numbers are astronomical! I don't think humans are foolish enough to use such a complex mechanical gear code to control anything, right?

Guan Baoling's body was trembling incessantly. Our eyes were fixed on the spinning gears, and we realized that the seemingly stationary gears in our vision were not still, but rather, for some reason, they needed to rotate slowly to coordinate with the movements of the other gears.

"Perhaps each gear has its own power drive system, which is why there is such a large speed difference?"

Cracking passwords is the specialty of hacker "Red Flag" Xiaoyan. If he were here, he would definitely understand the secrets of gears better than I do.

Apart from gears, scaffolding, and neatly divided spaces, everything else is blurry and indistinct. Perhaps our eyesight has rapidly deteriorated after prolonged exposure to red light, making it impossible to see anything else.

The vibrations and rumbling continued incessantly, and all I could do was hold Guan Baoling tightly, with no other options.

"Kiss me, wind, kiss me... Let's be happy in the last moments of our lives..." After Guan Baoling regained some strength, she struggled slowly in my arms, her lips touching my cheek. Her eyes remained closed weakly, as if she didn't even have the courage to open them and look out.

I longed to obey her commands and indulge in further madness, but I did nothing, even though from the first moment I saw her, I had yearned to taste those red lips.

“Miss Guan, please calm down. We haven’t… lost all hope yet…” My tone became extremely cold. If I really had the chance to have her, I would rather do it after returning to the ground than in this inexplicable red light.

“We…can’t go back…we can never go back…” Guan Baoling whispered, her arms wrapped around my waist, her lips brushing against my cheek.

Just as I was about to break free from her for the second time, suddenly, all the rapidly spinning gears stopped. The 128 gears stopped neatly, like a machine whose power had been cut off in an instant.

"Look, they've stopped! They've stopped!" I shouted, feeling an even stronger tremor beneath my feet, and then the glass box began to float upwards.

Guan Baoling opened her eyes and looked down, bewildered. We were indeed distancing ourselves from the skylight below, and what was even more delightful was that the brightness of the red light was decreasing. Within seconds, the initially dazzling light source had become softer and then dimmed.

This time I saw it clearly: there was indeed a hole in the middle of the scaffolding, not much larger in diameter than a gear. After the red light disappeared, I realized that the gears were all ochre-red, exactly the same color as the iron oxide in the laboratory. Besides connecting all the gears in an S-shape, the band of light had one end attached to the scaffolding, while the other end extended infinitely, entering somewhere further east.

I really wished I had a telescope to see everything clearly below—within minutes, the glass box rose above the sandpit, and we watched helplessly as the churning sea sand pressed in from all sides, slowly filling the sandpit.

I sighed a dozen times. This mysterious place may never be discovered again, forever buried deep at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Like all the unsolved mysteries on Earth, it will appear and disappear in an instant, leaving behind a fleeting glimpse of horror and countless memories that are both terrifying and thought-provoking.

"What exactly is it? I wonder if there are any records of it in the secret archives of the former Soviet Union?"

The person I most want to contact right now is Xiao Yan. Although he's not interested in the secrets of the former Soviet Union and Russia, he has free access to their secret data systems at any time. If the legendary "undersea tomb" is nothing more than a former Soviet underwater military base, then what about the mysterious gem, "The Wrath of Apollo"? Could it also be just a fantasy fabricated by the literary henchmen of the former Soviet Union?

When I first heard of "Apollo's Wrath," I imagined it possessing the magical power to "boil the oceans and enrage the earth," and I envisioned it as a modern nuclear weapon of unimaginable power. Given the current level of technology on Earth, only nuclear weapons possess such immense power.

Facing reality again, returning to the ground, and contacting Xiaoyan all seem like unattainable goals.