Twenty-three minutes ago.
“Is that you?!”
Ye Jingqiu spoke in a low voice, raising the short knife in her hand horizontally once more. Her left hand silently dipped into her pocket for the potion, a layer of pale golden powder ghostly winding around the blade.
The figure before her moved through the deep sea with near-perfect ease—Zhong Qing, who had no water element instinct at all.
Zhong Qing said nothing, her brows and eyes still radiating calm gentleness. At first glance, she seemed utterly unchanged from the woman half an hour earlier, the one who had spoken to Ye Jingqiu in soft tones.
If not for the fact that here, fifty meters down in the ocean depths, she breathed freely without any protection.
Zhong Qing had no intention of addressing Ye Jingqiu’s bewilderment. She simply gripped Ye Jingqiu’s shoulder. A gentle yet irresistible force followed, wrapping around her like glue. From nowhere, a thin membrane suddenly enveloped her entire body.
The Hurricane Blade stilled at once. To Ye Jingqiu’s astonishment, she found she could breathe underwater again! Even so, Zhong Qing showed no interest in conversation or reminiscence. She seized Ye Jingqiu’s hand and darted toward the deeper seafloor like a fish.
Ye Jingqiu’s Rampage Value had long been depleted. Now she lacked even the strength to resist, reduced to trailing passively behind Zhong Qing into the pitch-black abyss.
The way ahead was impossibly dark. Alone at such depths, one might well imagine oneself adrift in the true underworld.
A faint scraping sound whispered at her ear. Ye Jingqiu looked up instinctively—and blanched at the sight of the surface far above.
Exotic beasts. Countless aquatic exotic beasts blanketed the sea, surging in joyful leaps toward the human shores. Farther out drifted blood-red shreds and shattered shell casings, gunshots echoing with distant resonance. She could picture the base members’ grim faces as they chambered rounds.
Another beast tide. It had erupted again!
What was going on? Had the plan been moved up? What was happening at Black Point? How deep had A-Xie descended?
“Sister Zhong? Miss Zhong? Ms. Zhong Qing?”
Ye Jingqiu called tentatively, but the woman showed no response. The membrane shielded her yet bound her too; Ye Jingqiu floated like thistledown, wholly at Zhong Qing’s whim.
The depths increased. Ahead yawned a colossal black hole, a crater gouged into the seabed like a fallen meteor. Ye Jingqiu peered inside and felt as if she gazed upon an oil painting rendered in thick, brooding inks.
The void stretched vast as a football field, ringed by roiling magma. The earth’s vein bled scorching red flames. Crimson lava clashed and intertwined with the deep blue seawater, locked in an eerie equilibrium amid this lifeless realm. White steam rose like drifting clouds across the seafloor, wisps aglow with the sea’s singular sunset hues.
Yet it was not the fragile water-fire truce that seized Ye Jingqiu’s attention, but the innumerable beast swarms churning within the pit.
Human-Faced Fish Beasts impaled their fellows on snow-white fangs. Bird-Headed Spinning Turtles greedily tore off mates’ heads to slurp fat and marrow. Twin serpents over a meter long twined in apparent affection—only to seize and strangle one another to death in the next heartbeat.
Myriad more exotic beasts, nameless to her, coiled and surged upward. The black hole pulsed like an endless womb, birthing waves of progeny into the world.
Some hundred meters across, it reared a pillar of beasts like a tower piercing the heavens. Grayish hides formed impenetrable walls, and Ye Jingqiu lacked words for the spectacle. Only grains of dust might rival their number.
“Silver Hall has opened. The exotic beasts dormant these four centuries have waited long enough,” Zhong Qing said at last, turning to Ye Jingqiu. “This is the true beast tide. Half a year ago, the Candle Dragon was roused by force. Fair to say, it died unjustly.”
Ye Jingqiu blinked. “Silver Hall? A heterodimensional space, or some sunken city?”
“Half the former. The creator lacked power to finish it.”
“And she never repaired it afterward?” Ye Jingqiu asked, curious. What a irresponsible builder, leaving behind a half-done ruin!
Zhong Qing turned and fixed her with a steady gaze. Long moments passed before she murmured softly, “Later, she died.”
Died again.
Ah, such tragic endings for them all.
Before Ye Jingqiu could compose an apt expression, Zhong Qing seized her collar and plunged into the beast-choked void, arrowing unerringly for its heart.
The words to halt and survey nearly escaped her lips—but then came the parting of the seas, Moses-like once more. Ye Jingqiu fell silent. As Zhong Qing drew near, every exotic beast bowed its head in unison, ceasing its slaughter to yield a reverent path.
She glided past a Chi Ju in Zhong Qing’s wake, studying its eerie human face. From those scant features, she read “terror and awe.” Its twin fins quivered at frantic speed. Ye Jingqiu’s heart lurched. She thought she understood.
Those fins did not tremble from steam or currents. It feared—this Zhong Qing gliding past so lightly.
“Those humans meant for you to suffer,” came another voice, husky and feminine, “but for friendship’s sake, I’ll let it pass.”
Whose voice?
Ye Jingqiu looked up blankly. Her gaze locked on Zhong Qing—and froze. They had sunk some four thousand meters now, beyond the moon-reflected sun. Darkness reigned absolute.
So Ye Jingqiu had no clue when Zhong Qing had transformed like this!
Those lithe legs—no longer legs. Joints melted soundlessly, reforming in a blink into a resplendent fish tail, skirt-like, supplanting limbs meant for land.
“Her luck has always been good.” Zhong Qing spoke softly. She turned to gaze at the bewildered Ye Jingqiu and suddenly smiled.
“The voice you heard earlier belonged to my sister Chi. A long time ago, some upheaval occurred, and now she and I share a single body.”
Chi.
Ye Jingqiu had her suspicions, but the moment that name appeared, her heart still sank. She stared at Zhong Qing’s face—which still looked human—and struggled to keep her voice steady. “So you’re…”
“Let me reintroduce myself, then. SY-000009 Chimei Wangliang. I’m the smallest of us, the one known by the single character Mei.” Zhong Qing smiled.
“So, A-Xie’s wife, who died five years ago—”
Zhong Qing nodded. “That was me too. My original target was actually her mother. I just never expected A-Xie to fall for me.”
In an instant, Ye Jingqiu recalled the old story Xie Pingzhi had once mentioned. Back then, the Donnersmarck Family’s entire investment in the Project Y had been handled by her mother. Could Zhong Qing’s true aim have been the Project Y itself?!
She was a near-immortal exotic beast. Why would she bother delving into the secrets of some human scheme involving blood exchanges with her kind?
“I’ll say no more. The rest is for you to uncover on your own—things I lack the clearance to reveal. You issued a ban on them yourself.” Zhong Qing turned away once more, resuming her plunge into what seemed an endless void.
That tone… Ye Jingqiu froze for a moment. Tentatively, she asked, “By ‘ban,’ do you mean you knew me before?”
Chi replied to Ye Jingqiu’s question with calm composure. “More precisely, we did.”
Great. Her past history was turning out to be far richer than she’d ever imagined—like that of a model employee!
Ye Jingqiu let out a deep sigh. “If I may be so bold, when exactly did the two of you meet me?”
“I can’t say. As I told you, you placed bans on all these matters. Every decree issued through Word Manifestation carries the weight of the Thirteen Laws. Even if I could defy the contract and speak, the elements themselves would automatically unravel my voice.”
It seemed she really had been something back in the day.
Fine, a true hero doesn’t dwell on past glories. Ye Jingqiu was starting to seriously doubt whether her ID truly listed her age as eighteen. If she’d crossed paths with Chimei, she had to have lived at least a hundred and eighty years!
The kind of veteran where even the Captain might have to call her “big sis.”
Ye Jingqiu scratched the back of her neck to ease her tension. Her past had always been a tangled knot of yarn, and Zhong Qing’s words had just thoroughly unraveled it into chaos.
A long silence stretched between them. They had now descended to roughly five thousand meters beneath the surface. Farther down, a faint silver glow flickered in and out like distant stars. With each sway of Zhong Qing’s mermaid-like tail, that silver light shone ever brighter.
Six thousand meters in the deep sea. They touched bottom.
The seabed stretched out like a silent hell in hues of pale blue—no fish, no seaweed, not even volcanoes or lava. Steep Sea Cliffs loomed overhead, while the flat ocean floor extended endlessly in all directions. Directly below them stood a colossal Silver Hall, vast as a mountain and standing proud upon the six-thousand-meter depths like some divine miracle.
Pale gray aether elements drifted lazily about. The space around the entire palace seemed subtly warped and distorted—sometimes obscuring the roof from view, other times hiding the full structure itself. It was like a veiled pipa player, forever concealing her true form.
The one exception was the palace’s enormous Heaven-Piercing Pillar, blazing with eye-searing light and fully visible in all its glory. As Ye Jingqiu drifted up to the grand entrance, she couldn’t resist reaching out to touch it. Her fingertip sank rhythmically into the patterns, and even after untold ages, the carvings remained crisp and vivid.
The reliefs and array patterns lay boldly exposed. For some reason, Ye Jingqiu found the designs strangely familiar, as if they shared the same hand as those in the Golden Hall. Yet in style and the paths of their elemental flows, they bore an uncanny resemblance to the Kazni Temple back at the Base.
“This is Wangliang’s place of slumber,” Zhong Qing said as they settled onto the even seabed. She turned to face Ye Jingqiu. “It’s also the final destination I brought you here for.”
Ye Jingqiu looked up at her. “But you’re an exotic beast too, and your sister lies sleeping here. I could understand it if you meant to offer me up to her as a sacrifice. So why go out of your way to bring me here alive?”
“Because there’s one thing in this world that only you can do.”
“What?”
“Kill Wangliang.”
