Chapter 498 The Trench <TOC> Chapter 500 Cherie's Search
Translator: SumTLMan
Before entering the trench, its width was about a hundred meters, and its length was undefined. Now, Angel had reached the bottom, controlling a light spell and circling the surroundings, finding that the width of the visible bottom was still not large, only about five hundred meters.
As far as he could see, there were only strange native creatures and no fish.
Angel looked around; the trench was long, and he didn’t know which way to go. The current was also somewhat chaotic, and if he didn’t pay attention, he wouldn’t even notice it. Angel paused for a moment and finally followed the faint current, swimming in one direction.
The more he swam, the wider the walls on both sides became. It was like a trapezoid, and Angel was moving from the narrow end to the wider part of the trench.
During this process, Angel encountered many planktonic organisms, as well as many invertebrates and arthropods, with shrimp being the most common. They usually hid in the sediment on the seabed, and were nearly undetectable at first glance. Only when Angel swam past, the water stirred up a large amount of rotting sediment, revealing the densely packed shrimp underneath.
After swimming for about half an hour, Angel found that the oxygen content in the water was increasing.
When Angel saw that the seabed sediment became sparse and the width widened to several kilometers, he finally saw the second man-made structure after entering the Purification Sea.
It was a building of unknown purpose, made of stone. The base was a triangle made of piled stones, with two sides roughly equal, and a height of about twenty meters. At the top of the triangle was a concentric circle, hollow in the center, with two crossed tridents.
“It doesn’t look like a functional building. Or does it have other symbolic meanings?” Angel swam closer and examined it carefully.
The triangle at the bottom was made up of numerous broken stones, while the concentric circle above was made of polished boulders. The tridents inside could be removed.
Angel took out the trident and looked at it. It was similar to the trident of the frogskin monster, both being ordinary objects. The arrowhead was made of fishbone and was quite sharp.
“A weapon rack?” Angel shook his head, thinking that no one would be foolish enough to put a weapon rack outside. Even in primitive tribal civilizations, weapons were the most precious items and were always carried with them.
Angel couldn’t figure it out for a while and simply left it behind, continuing to swim forward.
He swam for several more kilometers and saw at least ten similar structures, all with triangles topped by concentric circles, which made him even more puzzled.
“Or is it a tomb? These weapons were used during their lifetime and were displayed as achievements after death?” Angel stopped again in front of a strange structure and directly used his magic to blast away the broken stones at the bottom.
Inside the broken stones were still more broken stones, not the bones and remains he had imagined.
“Not a tomb, nor a weapon rack. Could it be a totem pole?” Angel remembered that many primitive tribes had their totem poles. They hung the heads of enemies or their tribe members on the totem poles to intimidate outsiders.
As Angel pondered, he arrived at the next structure.
When he saw the concentric dome of the building, with a skull at its apex, his eyes lit up.
It was an unknown beast’s skull, looking neither like a fish nor an amphibian, but rather like a ground-dwelling reptile. With this skull, Angel basically confirmed that this building was a totem pole.
However, since it was a totem pole and had already hung a skull to intimidate outsiders, Angel began to ponder another question… what were these outsiders they were trying to intimidate?
If this building was made by the frogskin monsters, judging from the previous frogskin monster’s strength, it shouldn’t be intimidating the arthropods and invertebrates in the trench, right?
Were they intimidating the skull’s owner? Or was there an even more dangerous enemy in the deep sea?
With doubts, Angel came to a transparent cover outside. This cover had an energy reaction and allowed him to faintly see some of the interior environment, such as the absence of sediment on the ground, which was obviously the result of someone cleaning.
Angel reached out and directly penetrated the cover.
Upon entering, he found that there was no water inside and it was filled with dense oxygen. With various clues, Angel could confirm that some intelligent life had once stayed here.
However, he didn’t see any light.
Activating Boundless Silence, Angel walked towards the interior. After a while, he saw more than a dozen houses built from rubble, and at the same time, he saw the end of the light barrier.
The light barrier didn’t seem large, just covering these dozen houses. These houses were mostly broken, obviously an Abandoned Settlement. However, the damage shouldn’t have been too long ago, as it seemed to have occurred within the past two years based on the traces.
Angel used his mental tendrils to survey the area, and as he suspected, there were no creatures in the houses.
Through his mental tendrils, Angel could see the condition of some houses—empty, with some shell and coral decorations.
Angel walked straight to the central house.
This was a dome-shaped house occupying about ten meters, smaller than the frogskin monster’s fortress he had found earlier, but it was the largest room in the entire abandoned settlement and the one with the least damage.
Angel gently pushed the door open, and immediately several arrows shot out from inside.
Dodging the attack, Angel looked inside. The empty room had arrows because there was a triggered mechanism at the top.
As soon as he stepped in, Angel suddenly moved his ears and turned his head abruptly, looking outside.
It was pitch black.
“Something’s wrong,” Angel frowned. As soon as he entered the room, he heard a sound coming from behind him.
He walked out and controlled the illumination spell, constantly shifting it. However, the range of the illumination was too small, and he didn’t see any suspicious creatures.
“An illusion?” In this cramped and narrow deep-sea trench, suspicions and doubts led to the illusion?
Regardless of whether it was an illusion, Angel still tensed up.
Re-entering the domed house, Angel did not find anything useful in the room. However, he saw a familiar mermaid totem in the pattern on the ceiling… So, this place should be the gathering place of the frogskin monsters, but abandoned.
Angel also found a metal long weapon with exquisite flower carvings. From this weapon, the frogskin monsters seemed to have mastered crafting techniques. But there was no place for crafting here, which meant that this gathering place was not their main base.
Moreover, he saw some textiles made of special materials, which obviously could not appear in the barren deep-sea trench.
As Angel pondered, his ears twitched again, and he heard the sound once more.
He immediately jumped out of the house and observed the surrounding environment, but still did not find anything strange. No, it wasn’t that there were no oddities, but in the absolute darkness, it was not easy for him to find something strange.
Angel circled around the gathering place and decided to leave when he found nothing more. He planned to continue looking down the trench to see if there were more frogskin monster settlements.
However, just as Angel was about to cross the light barrier, two bright green lights suddenly lit up silently behind him and approached him quietly without making any sound.
Angel paused, and as the attack from behind was about to arrive, he stepped on the ground, flipped in the air, and landed behind the attacker.
The opponent was obviously surprised. It made no noise, so how could it have been discovered?
Angel casually threw a Fear Spell at it, causing its body to sway and tremble. He shone the light on it, revealing the appearance of the ambusher.
It was a strange reptilian creature with a long snout and sharp teeth, about five or six meters in size. Its head resembled that of a crocodile or lizard, but its body was streamlined like a marine creature. Its two pairs of fish fins were like palm fans, even larger than its slender body.
Moreover, it was flying in mid-air.
As Angel observed it, suddenly a red light appeared in its green eyes.
Angel’s pupils shrank: “Damn, the Fear Spell has been invalidated!”
The Fear Spell could evoke the most frightening things in one’s heart, and even if a person had a mature mind and saw through the illusion, it would be difficult to invalidate. Only the most foolish enemies, who would become enraged and start going berserk, could easily be invalidated from the Fear Spell.
Apparently, this unknown creature belonged to the latter category.
Its eyes were completely red, indicating it was already berserk.
It roared loudly, and the intense energy shock made Angel momentarily dizzy. Immediately afterward, he was struck in the chest and abdomen, creating a wound.
The taste of fresh blood excited the opponent even more. Its close-combat strength was estimated to reach the peak of the second level, and under the frantic attack, Angel’s physical disadvantage was revealed. Facing a close-combat opponent with extreme speed and attack frequency that made it impossible to release illusions, he could easily become passive.
Angel could only dodge the opponent’s attack through subconscious rolling.
After dodging two or three times in a row, the opponent became unstable in speed and rushed out of the barrier. Angel finally got a little breathing room, took out a Glistening Velvet potion from his bracelet, and drank it in one gulp. At the same time, Angel finally had a chance to recite the Mysterious Soul Whisper.
The water’s reflection from the barrier emitted a faint red light.
The reason Angel was able to detect this strange creature earlier was by seeing a faint green light behind him through the reflection of the barrier. Now, he once again used the reflection of the barrier to determine the opponent’s position.
The opponent was elusive, but ultimately not very intelligent.
After Angel’s soul left his body, his speed far exceeded that of the opponent. Angel teleported several times, arriving at the opponent’s blind spot. As the opponent turned its head to bite, a gravity cannon shot fiercely into its wide-open mouth.
There was a loud boom.
The gravity cannon penetrated its body, causing it to explode from the inside, turning into pieces of flesh that scattered and fell.
Angel took a long breath, and just as he was about to inspect the corpse of the monster, the ground suddenly shook, and a huge humming sound came from the other end of the trench.
Angel looked towards the source of the sound but saw nothing.
All he could see was the endless water flow, constantly surging in reverse.