Chapter 82: The Dragon Soldier
With great difficulty through the cracked rock layer, the side has been the east and west of the copper slaves, around the ringing of the huge mantle is still ringing endlessly, I took the opportunity to look down at the water in the coral cave, the turbid volcano rolling endlessly, the water black scales swaying, the two gray ferocious sharks are looking up to the sky staring.
My heart a burst of suspicion, the moon under the water has been scattered, that “shark basil” how to refuse to return to the lair? It wants to eat us? But then raised his head to the sky to see, will have understood the reason, can not help but complained bitterly, through the moon god wood is pointing directly to the gap on the ghost island, at the moment the sea air gradually dissipate, the sea surface perennial accumulation of cloud cover are gone, just at night, the sea stars and moonlight, clear moonlight into the return of the ruins, “Shark Bastard” under the sea looking up at the bright moon, where is willing to return to the underwater cave. Underwater cave.
Just see the water waves together, the whole body black scales of the “mackerel basil” water jumped up on the rickshaw, it is densely covered with ovaries and placenta is full of mucus, as a sucker attached to the tree body in general, but also stupidly climbed up from the water, I secretly cursed a dive dagger to cut off the empty lungs of the oxygen tank, threw it down and smashed it on the” mackerel basil” body. Shark basil”, but how can this stop it in the slightest.
I even urged the fat man on the upper side of the climb up as soon as possible, do not look back down, all have thrown away the oxygen tanks, each with a short knife to water inserted into the tree, full strength to climb to the top of the sacred wood, once here, is being forced to the end of the road, the fat man climbing more and more is weak legs, low down like a glance down, suddenly dizzy, slipped in the wet arrow stone, this is not the same as the water, suddenly fell straight down, I was busy reaching out A grab, but was his downward force and brought out, the two tumbled down the tree ten meters high through the sky God wood.
The top of the sacred tree wide terrain, horizontal inverted long embedded with many arrows, from a distance, shaped like a tree crown, that is a fossil of ancient sea creatures, flat obtuse angle shape, there is close to the shell’s marvelous lines, looks like it is not for the human inlaid, but in the ancient ocean era, this was the bottom of the sea, there are many arrows like the old snail attached to the sea tree in general, the group clusters of clusters climbed on the top of the sacred tree, forming the Today this rare canopy spectacle.
I was dragged by the fat man fell down the sacred wood, in the crowd’s shouts of surprise, I feel the back slammed, just landed on a piece of protruding arrow stone, arrow stone as the old tree umbrella cover, will be a little bit of support, but this kind of fossilized fossil can be a hundred times more hard than the real tree crown, this time straight to the sinews want to fracture, the pain in front of my eyes black, almost fainted.
But more unlucky thing is still in the back, through the sky on the huge wood on the arrow stone, pavilion such as cover, in the top of the r楗木, formed hundreds of natural inclined platform, as if it is a group of colorful clouds into the crown of the ancient pines and cypresses, when the tide of the spectral island was submerged in the sea below the seabed, seawater through the holes straight down, the years of the scouring of the crown, embedded in the wood body of the arrow stone although long dead in which, can still not avoid the pressure of the water under the birth of a number of Ripple cracks, and even some of the arrows have long been broken and fallen.
Fatty and I landed on a piece of arrow stone, not yet climbed up from the tilted stone surface, underneath the arrow stone cracks on the sudden expansion and extension, after a pause, it “click” from the break open, we even with the fossilized stone and continue to fall to the bottom, and straight to hit the broken three or five layers of arrows, only then to stop the momentum.
Fatty’s greatest fear is to fall from the heights, usually filled out that “the might of ten thousand enemies, a thousand zhang Lingyun’s bravado”, have disappeared, tightly embraced my thighs, in the tilted slippery surface of the arrow stone, closed his eyes and shouted: “Commander Hu, for the sake of the party, fast pull brother a hand! !”
I’m not as thick as the fat man’s skin and meat, these few falls have been all over the body bones and joints pain intolerable, and by the fat man holding the thighs, involuntarily and gradually sliding downward, hurriedly grit my teeth and force with a dive dagger inserted into the trunk of the sacred wood, at least it is considered to be the body temporarily fixed, but the leg tendons are fast by the weight of the fat man yanked off, low down to see the seabed of the sharks basked in the sea through a turbid current, climbed the trunk of the tree, without a head! Climbing upwards, just now we smashed a few pieces of rock, are like iron plate steel falling in mid-air, piece by piece inserted into its body, blood gurgle gurgle outward, the nearby seawater are dyed all over.
At this time if you lose your footing and fall down, even if you are lucky not to be swallowed by the shark basil, you will have to fall on the copper slaves that are half submerged by the water, and crash into a brain crash, the ruthlessness of my bones kicked in, ignoring the bone-chilling pain on my body, I used my dagger on the trunk with one hand, and gouged the edge of the arrow stone with the other hand, and made my strength, and dragged the fat man up slowly, as long as I stood up from the slippery stone surface, I could climb back to the god wood.
Although I use my legs to force the fat man to drag up less than half a meter, dive dagger toughness has exceeded the limit, the blade was broken, so that I only reach the arrow stone of the hand to make on the force, the whole body’s force to eat here, those fingers have become numb, see will be out of the hand slipped, ten thousand difficult to return to heaven, had to close their eyes to die.
At this time, my arm was suddenly grabbed by someone, the legs of the force of the fall also suddenly reduced, open your eyes, it was Shirley Yang see us tight, hastily and ancient guess climb down to help, will I and fat man from the arrow on the stone dragged up, underneath the arrow stone can not withstand the weight of the four people, and then was pressed to fracture collapsed, we have climbed back to the tree body before this, so that by chance did not fall down with it.
That piece of arrow stone strange big, its weight is afraid to be able to have hundreds of kilograms, violently fall from a high place, the potential of the heavy less than a thousand are said to be, only to see flat as an arrowhead of the large block of “arrow stone”, from the air rotating and tumbling down, is smashed in the shark basil head, the arrow stops also did not stop, “swish! ” fell into the water, the giant shark’s fish head, was cut off half diagonally, blood sprayed out a few meters high.
At this time the shark basil fish head out of the water, we see the face of the shark basil in the water, only to see it body big more than the old soft-shelled turtle salamander several times, only the long extinct millions of years of ancient slippery teeth of the Canglong, it is possible to be compared with it, all over the placenta of the shark body scales and armor wrapped, the head is like a Feng fish, gills on the gills of several hundred like a beard of the tentacle, up to more than ten meters long, under the body there are dozens of pairs of fins, the cross-born inverted long end of the teeth, like a rattan hooks thorns, the opening and closing time there is a fishy gas punch, and then the fish, and the fish, and the fish is not a fish. When opening and closing, there is fishy gas rushing to the sky.
It followed the surging water flow climbed on the giant wood, was falling arrows cut off half of the head, but did not die immediately, but instead waited for its big as a ball, its quality if the gray crystal fish eyes, looking straight at the dome on the leak down the stars and moonlight, the god of grief crazy extreme, seriously injured, still refused to dive back to the bottom of the water.
There is a big green shark trapped by the turbulence, panic in the direction, actually crashed into the god wood near the shark basil’s probe tentacle grabbed a square, even the head with the tail alive swallowed into the mouth, a moment stirred up the waves in the bloody roll, that shark basil also ignore the blood as a spring, wriggling bloody body, to the fins to help, continue to climb up the god wood, we see this bloody sea monster underneath it devouring sharks do not effort, the heart of fear increased greatly, the shark is not a good idea, the sharks will not be able to go back to the bottom. The fear in our hearts increased greatly, where we still dare to take a closer look, we had no choice but to desperately flee towards the top of the sacred wood where there was no way back.
At this moment, inside the cave-like belly of the whale, the mist from the sea slowly disappeared. The dim firelight suddenly vanished, plunging us into darkness. We could only hear the chaotic, boiling water and the rumbling of cracking mountains, as if the sky were collapsing. The remains of the ancient city around us were not completely submerged. We climbed to the top of the sacred tree’s arrow stone, our muscles and bones feeling like they were going to break. We didn’t dare to move.
The bottom of the sacred tree was bound by countless bronze chains, which held copper slaves. The strong currents caused these chains to break, sending debris flying. Normally, these chains kept the ancient tree, which had stood for billions of years, from breaking. But without them, the tree seemed like it could collapse at any moment.
Duo Ling, who was thin and not as mentally strong as the rest of us, was already in shock and unable to speak or move due to the violent tremors. Suddenly, a loud noise shook the arrow stone she was clinging to, causing her to lose her grip and fall.
Shirley Yang and I saw her falling and immediately reached out to grab her, but the tree was shaking so violently that we missed. Duo Ling fell into the turbulent sea, and the black water only revealed the strange shape of the shark basilisk. There was no sign of Duo Ling. I feared she had been swallowed by the basilisk the moment she hit the water.
Gu Chai saw Duo Ling in trouble and, with bloodshot eyes, wanted to jump into the water to save her. I quickly grabbed his belt, dragging him back. There was no way anyone could survive down there, and going after her would be futile. The sounds of the waves, landslides, and cracking mountains were so deafening that we couldn’t hear each other. I had to forcefully hold Gu Chai down to prevent him from jumping into the water.
A cold wind blew across my face as I looked up to see dozens of sea eyes formed from the condensation of sea vapor in the ruins. Giant streams of water were falling from these sea eyes, creating massive whirlpools. The cracks in the dragon-fire rock layer had turned several sea caves into winding water dragons. Tens of millions of tons of seawater fell, creating a wall of water in the ruins.
The tension from the cracked seabed rock layer caused the highest point in the ruins, the surface of the “Ghost Island,” to split open from the top of the Tianmen Cave. A huge canyon appeared in the sea, with a gap of over a hundred meters between the two sides, pouring down like thunder. Although the ancient “Zhen Gua” mechanism was buried in mystery, it unexpectedly reawakened after thousands of years. The power of the South Dragon shook the waves and the coral spiral sea, covering over a hundred miles. The trigrams symbolized a path to the underworld, suggesting the ancient “shooting the sun and moon” led to the destruction and collapse of the land, and now, thousands of years later, the “return to the ruins” was causing massive changes.
The crack on the sea surface resembled a wound on the sea’s body, about one to two hundred meters deep and seventy to eighty meters wide, with symmetrical contours. The turbulent seawater created a violent scene. We were on top of the sacred wood in the middle of the trench, surrounded by rushing water. The water shook the sky and earth, but above, the sky was surprisingly calm, with a bright moon and twinkling stars resembling fine quicksand spread across the green sky. Looking at the raging sea below and the serene night sky above, we felt as if we were in a dream.
The shark basilisk, struggling in the sea, saw the stars and moon in the sky and desperately clung to the sacred wood. The seawater and underground currents mixed, soon filling the crack leading to the ruins, but the seabed’s ambient flow generated a sea hole several miles in diameter. The sacred wood was sucked into this whirlpool, endlessly pouring into it, resembling a bottomless pit. The “return to the ruins” described in ancient texts finally revealed its true face. Besides the ancient ghost cave, there were indeed other bottomless abysses in the world, and “return to the ruins” was one of them.
The sacred wood under the “return to the ruins” formed a powerful force field, constantly sucking in seawater. The giant wood, hollowed out over thousands of years, created a channel for the soul’s transcendence. In the raging currents, the wooden body fractured layer by layer, and the thousands of copper slaves fixing the wood were swept into the deep sea. The seawater movement created massive waves. We could only look at the ocean from the arrowhead stone on the tree’s crown. The sacred wood, although ancient, couldn’t bridge the gap to the moon; the top was cut off, far beyond our reach. At this moment, we could only hope to escape with wings.
As the cracks on the sea surface gradually disappeared, the ruins’ collapsing sounds drowned underwater. Half of the sacred wood was still partially submerged, surrounded by swirling seawater. We were disheartened, mentally and physically exhausted, lying on the arrowhead stone, waiting for death. Suddenly, the wood shook violently and fell into the sea. The shark basilisk, injured by the arrow stone, tried to climb the wood despite its fatal injuries. The currents and its struggle caused a section of the sacred wood to break off.
The sacred wood, filled with buoyant arrow stones, floated in the chaotic seawater instead of being sucked into the depths. At the same time, the seawater closed in, covering the chaos of the ruins. The shark basilisk, clinging to the broken wood, eventually died from blood loss, its giant eyes staring lifelessly as it floated in the sea.
We survived by sheer luck, thanks to the shark basilisk. We were stunned, unable to believe we had made it out of the ruins. But as we celebrated, the enormous body of the shark basilisk, entangled with a section of the sacred wood, dragged it down into the sea.
The giant wood hadn’t drifted far from the submerged ghost island. The suction force from the ruins formed a faint clockwise vortex on the sea surface. The sacred wood sank quickly, disappearing within moments. A thought flashed through my mind: “How can we leave the coral spiral without a ship? This broken sacred wood is like a floating raft. With it, there is a glimmer of hope to drift out of this devil sea.”
I quickly called the others to help. Grabbing the dragon arc copper knife from Gu Chai, we desperately chopped at the wood entangled with the shark basilisk’s body. Gu Chai, in a daze, muttered incoherently about his dead sister. Despite our sympathy, we couldn’t afford to waste time. The shark basilisk’s massive body and thick scales made it hard to cut, and the broken wood kept sinking in the whirlpool.
Desperate, I realized we had no choice but to jump into the water. Just then, huge reefs rose from the whirlpool, lifting the thick sacred wood and the dead shark basilisk, moving westward with the waves. The stars and moon shone on the sea, but we couldn’t see why the reefs were moving. We stopped our efforts, unsure of what was happening.
Uncle Ming, holding tightly to an arrow stone, shouted that it was the “Dragon Soldier” phenomenon, a rare sea spectacle where whales or turtles gather in groups. This phenomenon indicated the coral spiral in the sea was disappearing, and the “return to the ruins” had driven turtles to float far away. This time, we were lucky to be carried by the floating sacred wood. In the past, I had seen similar scenes, where a ghostly spectacle was created by changes in the sea. Now, thousands of years later, we were witnessing a “Dragon Soldier” phenomenon as turtles migrated.
Uncle Ming urged us to seize the opportunity and chop the dead shark’s body. I felt a deep sense of loss for Ruan Hei and Duo Ling. Exhausted, I sat on the wood, only to find cracks deepening and expanding. I immediately realized the wood would soon disintegrate. Before I could warn the others, the floating sacred wood began to break apart.
As the turtles submerged, the sea was empty. A wave hit, and the sacred wood we floated on was crushed. We fell into the water, grabbing scattered pieces of wood. In the shark-infested South China Sea, even if we avoided the sharks, how long could we survive in the cold seawater?
I activated a small life-saving airbag, floating on the surface. Suddenly, Shirley Yang called out, “Old Hu, look, there’s a boat!” I thought I misheard, but others were shouting excitedly. Among the floating debris of the sacred wood was a complete ancient ship, designed for burial rites. In the surging sea, it was our only hope. We climbed aboard, determined to survive.