Zhou Xuan wanted to investigate this place thoroughly, to figure out why his special ability couldn't detect anything there. Of course, this didn't mean Zhou Xuan was certain that this place was related to the shipwreck and the mysterious fire meteor; he just wanted to understand why his special ability couldn't detect it.
But the first problem we face now is the limit of submarine depth.
Even if Zhou Xuan were to leave the submarine at this depth, he wouldn't be confident he could dive by hand at depths below 1,500 meters. After hesitating for a while, Zhou Xuan suddenly remembered that in his previous diving experiences, those who were with him, such as Fu Ying and Wei Xiaoyu and Wei Xiaoqing, couldn't dive any further after reaching their maximum diving limit. However, when he used his superpower to protect their bodies, the pressure they could withstand increased significantly. Although they couldn't do anything in the deep water as freely as he could, their ability to withstand underwater pressure was almost the same as his.
If it's because of superpowers, then if I use my superpowers to protect this submarine, wouldn't the submarine's ability to withstand pressure be greatly increased?
Once Zhou Xuan had this thought, he couldn't control his impulse any longer. He immediately used his supernatural power to create an energy shield around the entire surface of the submarine, and then said to Mao Feng, "Mao Feng, tell him to dive down further."
Mao Feng froze, his face paling. He quickly said, "Mr. Hu, this is not advisable. If we dive any deeper, the submarine won't be able to withstand the pressure. If even the slightest anomaly occurs, we will all be doomed."
Zhou Xuan said calmly, "Then let me put it this way: if you don't dive down, you're all doomed right now. If you dive down, there's still a chance of survival. Whether you dive or not is up to you."
Mao Feng was stunned, his face turning pale and then green. It seemed that Zhou Xuan was determined to dive down. He had already made himself clear enough. If they dived down any further, the three of them might perish. He couldn't possibly not understand what he meant, but he insisted on diving down. Was he not afraid of death?
Zhou Xuan stared coldly at Mao Feng and the bearded man. Mao Feng felt a chill run down his spine and shivered. He dared not linger any longer and quickly told the bearded man to dive down.
The bearded man had experienced Zhou Xuan's power firsthand; he never wanted to experience that chilling aura again. Now, whether he retreated or advanced, he would die anyway, so he might as well obey his orders and die if necessary, as long as he wasn't killed by his chilling aura. It must be an extremely insidious acupoint striking technique. He had long heard that China had countless mysterious and secret martial arts, and today he had truly witnessed it firsthand.
The bearded man once again maneuvered the submarine, slowly descending to 1,510 meters, 1,520 meters, 1,540 meters, 1,580 meters...
The more the bearded man descended, the stranger it seemed. As the submarine slowly submerged, the instrument panel showed absolutely no indication of pressure failure, which was truly odd.
Could it be that the instruments in the submarine have malfunctioned? In fact, the current depth is not even above 1,500 meters. Judging from the submarine's reaction, it seems to be only a few hundred meters deep.
Since the submarine didn't react negatively to the pressure, the bearded man wasn't too worried. The submarine descended slowly, and everything seemed normal. When it reached a depth of 1700 meters, Zhou Xuan suddenly reached out and stopped it, saying, "Okay, stop."
After the submarine stopped, Zhou Xuan said to Mao Feng, "Turn the submarine around again and then back up five meters."
After instructing the bearded man to do as Zhou Xuan said, Mao Feng looked at Zhou Xuan again, only to find him staring blankly at the submarine's display screen.
Mao Feng and the bearded man were both puzzled. Why would Zhou Xuan be spacing out? What could possibly make him space out?
The two of them couldn't help but turn their gaze to the screen, and upon seeing it, they were both stunned.
The screen displayed a large ship, half wooden and half iron, but it was only recognizable by its shape. The hull was covered with sea creatures, and from the surface alone, it was impossible to tell it was a ship. However, judging from its overall form, it was clearly a shipwreck.
But what's even stranger is that the submarine's radar showed that there was nothing there, and the bottom of the trench was still 800 meters deep. What was going on?
Volume 1, Chapter 477: The Strange Deep-Sea Killer (Part 1)
Chapter 477 The Bizarre Deep-Sea Killer
The three of them carefully observed the object exposed in front of them by the searchlight on the submarine screen. It was stuck diagonally among the rocks in the narrow trench. The entire surface of this large rectangular object was covered with a layer of dark green seaweed or something similar. However, from its shape, it could be seen that it was a shipwreck that had fallen into the trench and was stuck among the rocks.
But what the bearded man and Mao Feng found most puzzling was why the submarine's radar couldn't locate the sunken ship. The searchlights clearly indicated that the bottom was right there, so why did the radar show a depth of 800 meters?
And what just happened was that the diving depth display had reached over 1,700 meters. That must be due to a malfunction in the submarine's instruments. Otherwise, the submarine would never have been able to dive to that depth without any reaction. Everything was perfectly normal except for the instrument display.
The bearded man and the hairy man were filled with doubt and suspicion, but Zhou Xuan thought differently. After seeing the location of the shipwreck with his own eyes, he became even more certain of his guess. There must be something unusual about this place, otherwise it would be impossible for him to not be able to detect the shipwreck and the seabed below with his supernatural abilities. It looked like it was only thirty or forty meters deep, but his supernatural abilities could not detect it. Obviously, there were objects like golden stones or the Nine Dragon Cauldron Nine Star Pearls here, which interfered with his supernatural ability detection.
Mao Feng was stunned for a moment, then overjoyed and couldn't help but dance with his hands. If the space inside the submarine hadn't been so small, he probably would have done somersaults.
Zhou Xuan calmed down and then used his special ability to probe inside the ship, but he was not surprised that his ability still could not probe inside the ship.
Seeing Zhou Xuan and Mao Feng both lost in thought, the bearded man couldn't help but whisper a few words to Mao Feng. But his words were like a bucket of cold water poured over Mao Feng's head, chilling him to the bone.
Because the bearded man had told him that the shipwreck was stuck in such a deep trench, and the rock walls and the terrain above the trench were curved, that even a tugboat of any size couldn't pull it up with steel cables. Furthermore, it was impossible for someone in a diving suit to reach such depths in this area. Therefore, upon hearing this, Mao Feng felt a chill run down his spine.
In this area, even if they discover a shipwreck on a treasure map, they have no way to pull the shipwreck out of the sea or search for items on board.
After a moment of hesitation, Mao Feng said to the bearded man, "There's a robotic arm on the submarine. You'll operate it to grab things off the surface of the ship."
The submarine has two four-meter-long robotic arms that are specifically designed for operation at sea. However, the dexterity of their operation is not like that of real robots, which are only found in science fiction. The robotic arms of this submarine are similar to the operating arms of modern excavators and drilling machines, and can only perform simple and basic operations.
After realizing what was happening, the bearded man immediately steered the submarine closer to the ship and stopped it on the deck. If he were below the ship, it could be dangerous. If he moved the ship, the sinking vessel might loosen and sink further, potentially crushing or colliding with the submarine.
The submarine stopped at an angle, and under the illumination of the searchlight, there was a large hole more than two meters in diameter on the deck near the cabins. It looked like it had been blasted open by a bomb, or like it had been smashed open by a large rock that had fallen from the sky.
However, the hole was pitch black and nothing could be seen inside.
The bearded man manipulated the mechanical arm to poke at the surface of the ship in front of him. Under the light, several sea creatures were startled and floated up to escape.
After being poked around on the surface of the ship a few times, some of the algae layer was peeled away, revealing the wooden hull. When the mechanical arm touched it, some parts crumbled like tofu, while others remained intact.
It's clear that some of the ship's critical load-bearing parts are made of very solid wood. They've been submerged at the bottom of the sea for hundreds of years, yet they haven't rotted much. Other less critical parts, on the other hand, are made of ordinary wood, which, after more than two hundred years, has been thoroughly rotten from being soaked in seawater and would turn to powder at the slightest touch.
This is a cargo ship from two hundred years ago. Although it lacks advanced mechanical devices, the hull itself is very sturdy. The mechanical arm on the submarine can only peel off some things attached to the surface, but it cannot open the bulkheads, and the submarine cannot drive into the ship's cabins.
The bearded man hadn't expected that the instruments couldn't detect it, and that they had actually found a shipwreck down there. At this moment, his feelings towards Zhou Xuan were not only fear and dread, but also a sense of mystery. They were both in a submarine, and he was the one operating the submarine. How did Zhou Xuan discover that there was a shipwreck here?
The mechanical arm gripped the wooden walls of the ship with great force, causing the ship to shake violently. Some of the sea creatures living on the ship were startled and fled. For a moment, the ship looked like a hedgehog with its quills sticking out.
Zhou Xuan suddenly sensed a danger at this moment.
Although his supernatural abilities couldn't detect anything, he had an extremely strong sense of danger. Unable to detect anything, he could only quickly stare at the front of the submarine, shouting loudly, "Move the submarine back a bit, be careful..."
Mao Feng was somewhat stunned, unsure of what was going on, but there seemed to be nothing unusual happening. The sea creatures scattered on the ship's hull posed no danger, and he didn't know what Zhou Xuan was warning him about, nor did he translate for the bearded man.
At that very moment, all three of them clearly saw a creature, as swift as an arrow, suddenly leap out from the large hole in the hull of the submarine, illuminated by the beam of light shining from its front.
The reason it was described as arrow-like was that the object rushing towards their submarine was a long, black, steel-like spike-shaped object with a very sharp tip that gradually widened towards the back. Because it was moving so fast, they couldn't see what it was, but they sensed that it was quite large, at least several meters long.
Zhou Xuan's supernatural ability had been continuously activated. He couldn't detect it at all, but the dangerous aura emanated from it.
The mechanical arm controlled by the bearded man retracted just in time to block the submarine. The swift, arrow-like object pierced the mechanical arm with a sudden thrust. At this moment, the mechanical arm and the entire submarine were no ordinary submarines, because the entire surface of the submarine was enveloped by Zhou Xuan's supernatural power. Under the protection of this power, the steel mechanical arm's defensive capabilities increased many times over. Zhou Xuan's supernatural power included extremely low-temperature ice energy and extremely high-temperature solar flames, so neither freezing at extremely low temperatures nor high temperatures used to refine steel could damage the two mechanical arms.
But at the moment of impact, with a loud "boom," the two steel mechanical arms shattered into countless pieces, and the arrow-shaped object that had struck them bounced back against the ship's hull, smashing through a large section of the ship's wooden planks.