Chapter 342: Inconspicuous Ruins
Every few meters was one such monster on both sides of this abyss-like trench, so many that their numbers were uncountable.
With still an army of men behind him, more and more warriors managed to kill their way out of the sharks’ encirclement and hurried to where Xia Fei was at.
Gritting his teeth, Xia Fei directed himself down toward the trench.
He was floating downward, and it was due to the heavy Bloodthirsty Ice G.o.d that Xia Fei could sink down the trench faster.
“Xia Fei, this could be a mutant variant of eels. Look at the yellow diamond patterns on their bodies; even their fins resemble that of the eels. It’s just that their heads are really too big, probably over twenty meters long. The underwater environment is their territory; what do you plan to do?” Phantom asked.
Xia Fei remarked, “What else can I do? Charge at them, of course!”
With that, Xia Fei exercised Breath Control as he made his approach. The technique was able to suppress his presence on land, and in doing so, beasts and humans alike would be unable to detect him, though he was quite uncertain if it would still work while underwater.
When he was about to reach the edge of this school of eels, Xia Fei sped up, with Celestial Moon gripped tightly in his right hand, ready to attack if the situation called for it.
These extra large eels did not seem to react to Xia Fei’s appearance. Their heads were tucked in their respective caves, ready to shoot out and chomp on their prey. All they sensed from Xia Fei was a flowing water current, which was not at all tempting to these eels, so not one of them glanced over at him even once as he slipped right past them.
Xia Fei could not help but feel his heart beat in trepidation. After all, willingly entering this nest of eels, which numbered in the tens of thousands, was hardly a laughing matter.
The agility and speed that these eels demonstrated deep underwater was by no means something Xia Fei could beat even if he completely unleashed his speed ability. There really was no telling that he would be able to escape if they gave pursuit.
The warriors who were closing in behind Xia Fei were not as fortunate. The moment they entered the abyss-like trench, they were turned into eel food. It would often be a single man who was torn apart by over a hundred of these eels in the blink of an eye, leaving not even his bones behind.
Several of the powerful warriors did their best to put up a fight, managing to kill hundreds of the eels, but that was still far from enough, for there did not seem to be an end to the large eels which were all around them. It was as if they had all formed into large schools which tore away at their prey with great fervor.
Phantom could feel his heart shuddering as he watched the sea water above them slowly be dyed in red. “It’s a good thing that Breath Control could s.h.i.+eld your aura and presence from them, otherwise you might very well end up just like them.”
Xia Fei nodded, speeding up his descent to the bottom of this water abyss.
Over time, the warriors, who had gathered above the trench, realized just how terrifying the school of eels was, and those who were a bit bolder buoyed by the trench as they discussed potential solutions to get past the monsters, while the more timid ones slowly backed up to the surface of the sea.
Time was money. Xia Fei began to use his quickest speed possible the moment he got away from the densest concentration of eels, fanning out his Celestial Moon to create a protective cordon around him. Though it took plenty of effort just to control Celestial Moon underwater, Xia Fei still went ahead and maintained the formation as a safeguard, so the occasional eels which accidentally wandered to his path would be easily dispatched as required.
“We’re about to reach the bottom of this abyssal trench! Xia Fei, can you still hold on?” Phantom asked, feeling excited.
Xia Fei nodded. The immense water pressure had made breathing difficult, but it was a good thing that Xia Fei had spent time daily training, so he did not lack the physical fitness to last throughout this excursion.
Silently, Xia Fei’s two feet touched the sandy seabed. A strange sea worm came burrowing out between his legs, looking quite similar to a centipede.
“According to the direction where that last demonic squall appeared, it should be just up ahead,” Phantom said.
Xia Fei started up the water jet propulsion system and two bursts of water streamed out, propelling him rapidly forward.
After about a few miles, he could see that the trench ahead seemed to abruptly sink lower, much like a crater, and it was in the center of this depression that an underwater city could be found.
The ancient structures he could see were very obviously surrounded by an energy s.h.i.+eld, so seawater could not get through. The streets, houses, and everything inside were still protected since it was clear that the energy system in this city remained operational. Unfortunately, this would not last for much longer. There were already very visible flashes of electric light from this energy s.h.i.+eld surrounding the city; the energy was leaking fast, constantly creating an ear-splitting crackle in reaction to the sea water.
“Oh, my G.o.d. I’ve actually gotten to see a completely intact and operational ancient civilization city with my very two eyes. This is something that any scholar will be over the moon to witness!” Phantom cackled in glee.
Xia Fei squatted and started to examine everything around them carefully.
“An earthquake happened here not too long ago, which was why this originally deeply buried city under the ocean got unearthed. Look over there; there are clear signs of cracks with those rocks, and they’ve only happened recently. We need to hurry up; the earth crust isn’t stable, so there may very well be another quake soon.”
The ancient city was sealed behind the energy s.h.i.+eld, and getting in would prove to be quite a problem.
All of a sudden, Xia Fei realized that there was a crack over by the right wall which led straight to the city. Furthermore, it seemed that someone had already ventured in via this path, for there were obvious traces of footprints left behind on the sandy ground.
“There are four of them: three men and one woman,” Xia Fei said after a quick inspection of the footprints.
He made his way in through the crack and arrived at the central plaza of this ancient city. Xia Fei squatted and continued to find traces of these four suspicious people; it was only prudent for him to be on his guard against people who could very well become his enemies in such a place.
The water that kept seeping out beneath his feet reminded Xia Fei that the city was already losing air pressure. Once the energy s.h.i.+eld weakened some more, a bracing amount of seawater would surely come pouring through that crack the earthquake created and into the ancient city.
From the footprints, Xia Fei could tell that these four people were not together as a team. They had split off into two pairs and headed in separate directions. Xia Fei gave it some thought and decided to avoid any unnecessary confrontation; he planned to investigate this ancient city first before deciding whether to take care of the four interlopers who had come before him or not.
From the outside looking in, these ancient ruins should be a once functional city, where the buildings sought practicality over extravagance. The residential area had plenty of apartment buildings; it was very likely that this used to be a mining colony in ancient times, and the people living here were deep-sea miners.
Xia Fei opened a door to one such building, and though there was no one living there, the automated cleaning system had kept the place tidy. In fact, not even a speck of dust could be seen on the metal floor as if it had just been mopped.
“That’s a video communication system of the ancient civilization.” Phantom pointed to a milky white square box on the front desk.
Xia Fei hurried over and stored the box into his spatial ring.
“The video communication system had plenty of functions in the ancient era. The entire apartment’s electronics, including the household robots and their communication device, could be voice-controlled through this small square box. Though it doesn’t have any practical value, it can be sold for quite a bit out there,” Phantom happily said.
There were treasures everywhere in ancient ruins.
It did not take long for Xia Fei to fill up his spatial ring with all sorts of ancient relics, ranging from an automatic water purifier to a simple household drone with a ma.s.sage function.
“These are all ancient remnants that money can’t buy,” Xia Fei ecstatically remarked.
All of a sudden, a loud noise could be heard coming from above.
Xia Fei hastily exited the room he was in and looked out. It turned out that the warriors, who had been racking their brains on how to deal with the school of eels from before, called for a large wars.h.i.+p, which was now bombarding the eels in their caves.
“What a mess! This ancient city is already in a precarious state; what they’re doing will only hasten the collapse of its energy s.h.i.+eld!” Phantom fl.u.s.tered.
Xia Fei knitted his eyebrows together. “There’s no time to waste complaining. Let’s just quickly collect the most valuable items as quickly as we can while the energy s.h.i.+eld’s holding up.”
He looked around these abandoned buildings and a very normal-looking square building caught Xia Fei’s attention.
Technically, the grade of these ancient ruins were not particularly high. Most of the houses here were very rudimental, but the intuition Xia Fei was so proud of was pegging that particular building as special because of its unique geographical location.
With four of the broadest streets in this city all intersecting in this one building, not only was it convenient for traffic, its style was evidently also very unpretentious, making it appear outrageously inconspicuous.
Sometimes, it was not the most extravagantly designed buildings that drew people’s attention; rather, it was those overly nondescript structures that would conversely stand out. Constructing an inconspicuous structure here in such a central location, Xia Fei could not help but feel that there must be something more than met the eye about it.
*Zoom!*
Xia Fei dashed toward it and almost instantaneously appeared in front of the building.
The square building looked like a brick which was laid right by the street. It was unremarkable and st.u.r.dy. There was a door on each of the four sides, with a large northern entrance and smaller doors on the other three sides.
“That door has just been activated by someone.” Xia Fei took note of the gap in one of the doors.
“Could it be that someone arrived here before us?”
“That’s most likely the case. What’s strange is how it seems that they intentionally came running here. There are plenty of perfectly intact buildings, which have remained damaged, along the way, but only this building was secretly activated by them. Plus, it seems that they wanted to cover their tracks. If not for the fact that I’ve got plenty of knowledge regarding the anti-intrusion metal doors of the ancient civilization, I’d most likely be fooled by them as well.”
“Then, what are we waiting for? Let’s get inside and see what’s up,” Phantom said.
Xia Fei pulled out a toolkit from his spatial ring and tried to open this door.
The person who had broken in through this door previously was extremely clumsy, breaking in by directly destroying the sensors, which inadvertently increased the difficulty of Xia Fei’s attempt.
It was a good thing that Xia Fei had studied a lot about ancient civilization facilities, so this bit of complication was not enough to stump him. In a minute’s time, Xia Fei softly whispered, “Open.”
A crisp sound could be heard as that thick metal door slid open automatically.
Meanwhile, the battle over the abyss-like trench was still ongoing, and though there were plenty of eels, they were not able to bite through the tritanium alloy hull of a battles.h.i.+p. Furthermore, this reckless wars.h.i.+p was firing away at the eels, causing the large rock walls on both sides of the abyss-like trench to fall, dropping right down onto the city’s already fragile energy s.h.i.+eld.
Xia Fei darted into the building, and just as the metal door shut, a boulder weighing over a hundred tons came cras.h.i.+ng down on the energy s.h.i.+eld.
A loud crash rang out, then the energy s.h.i.+eld finally gave way and exploded.
This one explosion triggered a series of chain reactions in the abyss-like trench as innumerable rocks fell from either side, burying the yet-to-be-discovered ancient ruins under the rubble.