165: Bury of Gods

Diving headfirst into the 'Lost World' that Tang Ruyi spoke of, the scenery before their eyes shifted instantly.

An endless expanse of ice stretched out before them, boundless and vast. Looking into the distance, the white ice sheet and the cyan sky intertwined, meeting at the horizon.

That's right, the sky here was cyan, and the clouds were cyan as well.

Looking closely, it seemed as if fish were swimming within the clouds, appearing and disappearing.

Every breath of air drawn into their nostrils was fresh and cold, reaching straight into their lungs and snapping their minds to attention.

On the ice sheet sat a small icebreaker. Tang Ruyi stood at the stern, holding her alloy Tang sword, standing straight as she watched Xu Jingzhe.

She was as upright as a pine.

Xu Jingzhe and Ye Ran followed, and the icebreaker set sail, breaking through the thick white ice sheet with a crunching sound.

The speed was not slow, covering two hundred li per hour.

Yet in this lost world, there was nothing but ice.

The three of them felt as if they had been abandoned by the outside world, becoming outcasts.

The dull roar of the icebreaker's engine remained a constant companion in their ears, and white icebergs began to appear on both sides, streaked with a pale cyan hue.

The passage of time seemed to have vanished in this space; there was no distinction between day and night. The three stood at the bow, just standing there, not knowing how much time had passed.

Regardless, Xu Jingzhe felt that a long time had passed.

Whether it was one day, two days, or even longer, he did not know.

"Look ahead!"

Ye Ran exclaimed, his voice loud, but filled with obvious surprise and delight.

Xu Jingzhe and Tang Ruyi naturally saw it too; on the distant horizon, countless cyan-green lights flickered like ribbons of green silk hanging down, swaying with the wind, their colors constantly shifting.

It was an aurora, draped across the sky, flowing silently and releasing the ultimate beauty and magnificence.

Tang Ruyi remained expressionless, raising her right hand. At some unknown point, a high-end custom watch had appeared on her right wrist. Inside the dial, the silver hands made of alloy were trembling violently.

"The elements under the aurora are extremely chaotic; we should not be far from the location of the Ritual Arts," she said.

Xu Jingzhe turned his head to look at her; the cyan light illuminated her profile, as beautiful as if polished by the hand of God, the fine hairs on her face glowing with a faint green tint, visible in clear detail.

Two days before they arrived, Tang Ruyi had told him about the Ritual Arts.

It felt like... a shamanistic dance, requiring both drawing talismans and chanting incantations to summon the deceased ancient heroes to fight for oneself. Those heroes were all famous figures from the textbooks of Blue Star, such as Chiyou, Gonggong, Houyi, Kuiba, and so on.

Any one of them was a force capable of holding off ten thousand enemies single-handedly.

After passing through the aurora, Xu Jingzhe noticed that the ice surface was no longer ice; it had become water, with large amounts of floating ice drifting on the cyan surface.

The sound of the icebreaker's engine died away, and Tang Ruyi pointed to the water ahead and said, "We've arrived."

An upside-down... village, exceptionally clear.

It was underwater, not submerged, but hanging upside down beneath the water.

It was as if the cyan-green lake surface was the foundation, and this village had been deliberately built beneath the lake.

"What kind of scientific principle is this?" Xu Jingzhe muttered, his voice not loud, but Tang Ruyi could still hear him.

Tang Ruyi turned to look at him and began to take off her clothes, saying as she did so, "The end of science is... theology."

"Many so-called physical phenomena cannot be explained by the knowledge currently stored on Blue Star, because that is simply beyond human capability."

Her inverted triangle upper body, with eight distinct abdominal muscles like marble carvings, was revealed as she pressed her watch.

A set of metal alloy combat armor wrapped around her entire body, up to her head; the eye sockets were transparent, allowing her to observe the underwater world.

"I have been here once before, alone, but I didn't dare go down."

"Tie the rope to me; if I pull it, it means there is danger, and you must drive the icebreaker to pull me up."

Before Xu Jingzhe could speak, Tang Ruyi took her alloy Tang sword and fell backward.

The calm lake surface was shattered, sending out ripples of cyan-green, which were quite beautiful.

The lake surface returned to calm, and Tang Ruyi sank deeper and deeper until she vanished, even though the village was clearly visible right before their eyes.

The thousands of meters of rope were pulled straight; logically, it should have reached the end.

Yet, after waiting for nearly an hour, there was still no movement.

The rope remained straight.

Xu Jingzhe looked at the cyan seawater and the cyan sky, feeling a trace of unease in his heart.

Tang Ruyi's strength went without saying; if there were danger, it was impossible for her not to be able to send any signal, especially since she was wearing the alloy combat armor.

"I'm going down to take a look; you wait for me on the ship." Xu Jingzhe took a deep breath, allowing his lungs to hold as much air as possible.

With a splash, Xu Jingzhe jumped into the water and dived down, following the rope.

In an instant, a feeling of being cut off from the world washed over him, and a cold chill entered his body; he felt as if countless needles as thin as hair were pricking him.

The energy within his body was suppressed, and he could barely use a tenth of it.

Xu Jingzhe finally understood why Tang Ruyi said that if he encountered danger, he should start the icebreaker to pull him up.

He was sinking rapidly, but he couldn't see the inverted village underwater; water surrounded him on all sides. The buoyancy of the water was pushing him upward, and after reaching a certain distance, he felt as if he were floating in the cyan-green water.

Beside his ears, a faint, ancient chanting sound seemed to drift, slowly spreading throughout the entire body of water.

This sound penetrated his body, reaching straight to his soul; even if he blocked his hearing, he could still hear it.

He could not understand the ancient language, but he knew it was summoning something.

The air in his lungs was running low, and the pressure was immense, squeezing his body.

Xu Jingzhe looked at the bottomless lake water and had no choice but to swim upward.

At the final moment when the air in his lungs was exhausted, Xu Jingzhe broke through the surface of the water. The cold, refreshing air rushed into his lungs, and he breathed greedily, gulping in the air.

Opening his eyes, he still saw the cyan sky and the cyan lake. Ribbon-like colorful clouds flowed in the sky, each strip glowing with a mysterious light.

A mysterious beam of light illuminated an isolated island, which was covered in dense, towering trees; at the highest point stood a massive stone pillar reaching into the clouds, and upon the stone pillar, one could faintly see the small village he had spotted on the lake surface.

He... had entered this underwater world?!

Incredible.

He had clearly been swimming upward to return to the icebreaker, yet he had entered it instead; Xu Jingzhe could not fathom how this happened.

When his agitated blood finally calmed down, Xu Jingzhe shivered for no reason; the ancient chanting sound echoed throughout the entire space.

Grand, ancient, and mysterious.

He swam to the shore and walked onto the beach. Not far away stood a cyan stone monument, its upper half broken and missing.

The lower half had three large characters written in a bold, sweeping calligraphy.

The God Burial Grounds.