Chapter 973: Under the Deep Sea

After choking on several gulps of water, with a gurgling sound, Xu Xiaoshou finally spat out the Shengdi Longlin that was in his mouth. He then forced himself to calm down and regain his composure.

"I'm in the water..."

He opened his eyes, but everything was blurred and painful. However, the images from his perception made him realize that he hadn't just fallen into some ordinary water—it might be the ocean!

An endless expanse of vast sea stretched out, its depth seemingly bottomless!

"There's no way Ginyin Cliff could have a sea this massive. This must be the work of Shui Gui—perhaps he summoned it himself."

He judged that he had plummeted from a great height and hadn't been injured by the impact on the water's surface. Instead, the water had shattered from the force of his fall, then surged back angrily, pulling him downward relentlessly as he tried to resist.

But it was useless.

Under the Banfa Jie Jie, his Ling Yuan was like a puddle of useless stagnant water. All it could do was ripple weakly; he couldn't control his body to propel himself back to the surface.

"You bastard, you said there was an opportunity, but now you're blasting me straight into the deep sea?" Xu Xiaoshou felt a wave of exasperation.

If he hadn't sensed that Shui Gui had no intention of harming him, he would have activated his Disappearance Technique during the fall. Originally, he had planned to crash through a few trees on the way down, then roll along some large rocks into a dark cave to discover some ultimate secret art.

Yet, none of those schemes worked out.

He had plunged straight into the deep sea beneath Ginyin Cliff!

"If it's not the opportunity I imagined, then it must be somewhere down in this deep sea..." Xu Xiaoshou pondered.

When you first hit the water, there's a sense of weightlessness. Xu Xiaoshou had never swum in his previous life and didn't know how. Naturally, at the moment of impact, he felt the panic of a physiological reaction.

But the Breathing Method allowed him to breathe normally underwater. Moreover, the Conversion technique turned the excess water absorbed through his pores into energy that sustained his life—perhaps oxygen?

Xu Xiaoshou didn't understand the molecular makeup of this world, but once he realized he could survive underwater, he felt a bit more at ease.

"The movement is so sluggish, and my body keeps sinking... This bottom must have more than just a Banfa Jie Jie—maybe a Flight Ban Jie Jie and a Pulling Force Jie Jie as well..."

In a short time, Xu Xiaoshou estimated he had sunk several hundred zhang into the deep sea, but he still hadn't reached the bottom. Even his Wangzuo body was starting to feel the terrifying power of the water pressure. As he descended, the ripples in the water from the pressure were 反震 outward in massive rings, creating a tremendous spectacle that showed just how immense the force was.

"Hmm, I'm not in pain, but if an ordinary Lianling Shi fell in without protection... They might break an arm or leg on impact, and during the descent, a few hundred zhang might be okay, but at a thousand or ten thousand zhang, the pressure would crush them."

"But this isn't a scientific world—it's a Xuan Huan world, and the ones falling are big shots, so they should have protective Lingqi. I wonder if the Banfa Jie Jie would restrict that."

As Xu Xiaoshou's mind wandered, an image of Shou Ye flashed through it.

"He couldn't have died, could he...?"

For some reason, he felt uneasy, because Shou Ye wasn't inherently bad—he just hadn't seen the real world yet and had been deceived.

As someone who had treated him well like a senior, Xu Xiaoshou's kick on Ginyin Cliff was partly to make his act easier afterward and partly a twisted form of protection. Because if they really fought, he couldn't guarantee he wouldn't kill Shou Ye.

But Shou Ye was only at Zhanjie, and with the Banfa Jie Jie's restrictions after the fall, he might actually die in the deep sea.

"Heavens, protect him!"

Xu Xiaoshou had no time to worry about others. Because he realized his body was still sinking—from a hundred zhang, to a thousand, perhaps already ten thousand...

"Under attack, passive value +1."

"Under attack, passive value +1."

The info bar started popping up notifications. Xu Xiaoshou felt his body being squeezed tightly, his eyeballs bulging, and his eardrums on the verge of bursting.

The water pressure was finally threatening him, and it was also granting him passive values. This was exactly what Xu Xiaoshou had anticipated, and from it, he judged that this deep sea was definitely under some artificial influence; otherwise, the system wouldn't generate passive values.

After resisting for a while and gaining a bit from the pressure, just as his body was about to give out and he decided to act, a crisp sound rang out.

"Pop."

Then, a water bubble formed around him, enveloping his body and perfectly shielding him from all the underwater pressure.

"Hah."

Xu Xiaoshou instinctively took a breath and found he could breathe. This water bubble created an environment like being on land, allowing his body a little movement, though only within the confines of the small space inside the bubble.

"Shui Gui's doing? Hmm, the others probably got this water bubble the moment their bodies couldn't handle it, saving their lives. I only got it now because my physical body is so strong. But why protect me with a water bubble?"

Xu Xiaoshou pondered.

Since the deep sea could only be Shui Gui's creation, and everyone on Ginyin Cliff had been blasted into it by him, the appearance of this water bubble couldn't just be for meaningless protection.

As he thought, the info bar jumped.

Xu Xiaoshou sharply noticed that his Qi Hai, which had been like dead water, was slowly losing Ling Yuan. But thanks to passive skills like Everlasting Vitality, Abundant Yuanqi, and Conversion, the loss was quickly replenished.

"The water bubble is siphoning my Ling Yuan? No, it's probably siphoning from everyone who fell in... What's the point?"

Xu Xiaoshou felt he was close to figuring it out.

With his perception as a cheat, even though all Lianling Shi's spiritual senses were sealed by the Banfa Jie Jie, he could clearly see the Ling Yuan being drawn out of the water bubble, flowing downward through the deep sea toward some specific point.

"Terrifying..."

Xu Xiaoshou narrowed his eyes. It was a good thing he had cultivated his physical body, swordsmanship, and other abilities; otherwise, as just a Lianling Shi, he might have become nothing more than a Ling Yuan supplier down here.

The water bubble trapped the body and kept siphoning Ling Yuan. This situation reminded Xu Xiaoshou of that Jiang Clan assassin, still probably serving as a Ling Yuan conduit in the First Floor of Heaven.

"I wonder how he's doing..."

As fellow victims of fate, Xu Xiaoshou felt a strange empathy. He thought this method was too torturous, especially since that assassin likely didn't have passive skills to sustain himself.

"Once I get out, if Jiang Xianruo hasn't replaced him, I'll give him a quick end."

Pushing aside those distractions, Xu Xiaoshou focused back on the bigger picture.

"What exactly is Shui Gui trying to do? Did he use me to lure all the big shots from both sides just to get a massive amount of Ling Yuan? Am I that important... Wait, the real question is, what does he need all that Ling Yuan for?"

Xu Xiaoshou frowned slightly as he pondered these unanswered questions. As the water bubble sank, he began to feel worried—not about his own Ling Yuan loss, since it wasn't affecting him at all—but about the unknown.

"Zhijie Force Field!"

Fearing danger in the deep sea below, Xu Xiaoshou activated his Zhijie Force Field without hesitation, keeping it contained within the water bubble to guard against surprise attacks.

It worked.

The Banfa Jie Jie couldn't block awakening skills, and with this extra layer of protection, Xu Xiaoshou felt a bit more relaxed.

Sinking...

Endless sinking...

Finally, at some point, Xu Xiaoshou spotted another water bubble through his perception, far below him on what might be his left or right.

He kicked hard to the side, and sure enough, the water bubble didn't break. Using the recoil, he steered his bubble toward the other one.

"Captain?"

As he got closer, Xu Xiaoshou made out the blurry face inside—it was Murong Ying, the captain of Wang Chao's team.

"Hey! It's me, the holy slave Xu Xiaoshou!"

Xu Xiaoshou called out loudly, unsure if his voice would carry.

But after shouting, there was no response, and his bubble quickly passed by Murong Ying's.

His own bubble kept sinking...

Murong Ying's bubble, however, had stopped sinking!

In the instant they passed each other, Xu Xiaoshou could see the vague outline in the other bubble: Murong Ying's body was lifeless, floating there. Inside his bubble were many Danping and shattered Lingqi, but none of it had saved him.

"He's dead..."

Xu Xiaoshou's heart sank. Looking at Murong Ying's shriveled corpse, he realized the water bubble's Ling Yuan siphoning could truly drain a Zhanjie practitioner alive!

"He must have been down here too long, used up all his Dan medicine, and couldn't withstand the siphoning anymore—he just gave out! And clearly, the water bubble's purpose is exactly that: once a Lianling Shi can't hold on, it stops sinking because there's no point in going further..."

The fear of the unknown and the threat of death made even Xu Xiaoshou, who was unaffected by the siphoning, truly afraid of what lay in the deep sea.

Shui Gui was no good person. He needed vast amounts of Ling Yuan for some unknown goal, so after blasting everyone off the cliff into the sea, he was using this method to systematically kill them all—this was so like Shui Gui!

Xu Xiaoshou's scalp tingled. He felt like he had become an experimental subject trapped in a deep-sea container. The water bubble was a prison preventing any movement or escape. The invisible line drawing out the Ling Yuan led straight to the gates of hell!

When the time came, even he might not endure it.

The info bar kept popping up.

By now, Xu Xiaoshou noticed that as they sank deeper, the siphoning strength of the water bubble was increasing. His body's various passive skills were barely keeping up with the conversion, maintaining balance. But if that balance broke, he would end up like Murong Ying, dying in agony.

"No! I still have the Disappearance Technique—I can hold out a bit longer..."

Xu Xiaoshou's heart raced, but thinking of his abilities eased him slightly. He really wanted to see what Shui Gui meant by opportunity and risk—perhaps it was at that unknown "gate of hell" far below.

Sinking...

Still endless sinking...

At this point, Xu Xiaoshou had no idea how far he had descended. His perception couldn't see the surface anymore, only the vast sea.

Time passed.

Eventually, his perception detected another line of Ling Yuan. Clearly, it was someone still alive, enduring the same fate, waiting powerlessly for death.

"Over there!"

Xu Xiaoshou kicked again, using the recoil to approach. Soon, he reached the side of another water bubble. It was still sinking, but more slowly, which probably meant the person's life was nearly spent.

"Shou Ye, senior?"

As he drew near, Xu Xiaoshou finally recognized the blurry figure inside—it was the red-robed Shou Ye, the one he had kicked off the cliff.

"Xu Xiaoshou?"

A voice finally came from the deep sea. In the other bubble, Shou Ye looked haggard, his body withered, his eyes bulging in surprise as he stared over.

They could communicate... Xu Xiaoshou felt the vibrations through the bubble wall and realized it allowed for that function. While kicking to control his bubble's descent and stay parallel with Shou Ye's, he excitedly asked, "Shou Ye, senior, you're not dead yet?"

Shou Ye: "..."

"Under curse, passive value +1."

Now that their bubbles were level, Xu Xiaoshou saw that Shou Ye's was filled with many Danping and Lingqi. But Shou Ye himself was in terrible shape, his aura utterly depleted, like a flower about to wilt.

"I'm... not far from death..." As they sank together, Shou Ye sighed heavily, no longer confrontational, but resigned.

Down here in the deep sea, their positions seemed irrelevant. They were back to how they were when they first met in the White Grotto—able to talk openly, sharing thoughts and dreams.

Xu Xiaoshou fell silent, watching Shou Ye's state, feeling a sudden sorrow without knowing why.

"Xu Xiaoshou..."

In his bubble, Shou Ye noticed Xu Xiaoshou's vibrant condition and said with a wry smile, "I knew it—in the same situation, you'd fare better than most, because you're always facing these trials. Perhaps, without anyone knowing, you've grown from a delicate sapling in a greenhouse to something that can withstand the storms outside."

Maybe from talking too much, Shou Ye coughed heavily afterward.

"Under praise, passive value +1."

Xu Xiaoshou felt even more downcast and whispered, "I'm sorry I kicked you up there, but it was necessary..."

Shou Ye's face stiffened.

"Under curse, passive value +1."

After a long pause, he shook his head and sighed again, gazing into the endless depths below: "It doesn't matter anymore. This might be my burial ground... Our paths diverged, I don't blame you."

Author's Note: Well, brothers, I'm back. Please visit: wap.shuquge.