126: Chapter 126 The Dragon Burial Stirs Up Strange Events, Elite Troops Descend to Sea (2)

An incense stick of time later. Outer Port Pier.

Leng Feng had all fifty of the Sword Ray Cavalry deployed onto the water's surface by the side of the Pier.

He stood on the Pier's jetty, holding a list in his hand—the names of ten people were written on it.

As he called out each name, a cavalryman jumped from their mount into the water—standing waist-deep, hands pressed against their sword hilts, looking up at Leng Feng.

The ten cavalrymen lined up in the water—they were all the best swimmers among the Sword Ray Cavalry.

Tied around each person's waist was a Second-Order Water-avoiding Talisman that Su Qingli had just finished drawing—the Array Pattern on the talisman paper was still emitting a faint, moist blue glow.

Lu Changyuan walked onto the Pier. He handed the Formation Plate for the underwater traction array to Leng Feng.

"Three thousand zhang—do not be greedy for merit. If you see the seabed altar, do not approach it. Map out the waterways and the movement of the black fish schools—once you've figured it out, withdraw."

"Understood."

Su Qingli set up a circle of water mirror arrays by the edge of the Pier—six water-viewing mirrors formed a ring, with the viewing angle of each mirror aimed at different depths along the direction of Leng Feng's descent.

The spiritual aura light patterns on the mirror surfaces were much clearer than the small mirror from the Cold Dragon Abyss—the color and brightness of each light pattern corresponded to the changes in Spiritual Pressure underwater.

Green was the seaweed layer, gray was the schools of fish, and dark red was the natural spiritual aura of the deep-sea sediment layer.

Luo Qingcheng looked down from Qixia Peak—she placed her hand on her sword hilt while standing on the stone platform.

The first mirror of the water mirror array captured a trace of extremely faint Geng Metal Sword Intent reflection—her Divine Sense had already extended along the ley lines of Qixia Peak to a depth of three hundred zhang directly below the Abyss Mouth.

Once Leng Feng's team encountered trouble underwater, her Sword Intent could thrust down along the ley lines to three thousand zhang within ten breaths.

But ten breaths—underwater, that was the line between life and death.

Gu He came over from the reef area. He carried his black iron medicine gourd on his back—the three copper rings on the gourd's lid were wrapped with an extra layer of dark green string today.

He stopped behind Su Qingli, placed the medicine gourd on the ground, and pulled two small cloth bags from his bosom.

"Bone-Repelling Paste." He placed the cloth bags on the stone platform next to the water mirror array. "Apply it to exposed skin—the bloodthirsty Bone Fish in the sea will actively avoid it upon smelling this. It lasts for one hour—enough for them to descend from the Abyss Mouth to the entrance of the Dragon Burial Trench and return."

Lu Changyuan glanced at him.

"You made this yourself?"

"I concocted it overnight—it wasn't difficult. The sense of smell of the bloodthirsty Bone Fish is extremely repulsed by the mixture of oxalic acid from rotting bone grass and the digestive fluid of a type of deep-sea beetle."

Gu He slung the medicine gourd onto his back. "My medicine—I don't charge for it. But if they have injuries when they come back up, let me treat them."

"You do it."

Leng Feng tossed the Bone-Repelling Paste into the water—the cloth bags floated in front of the ten cavalrymen, and each person dug out a dollop from the bag and smeared it on their neck and the backs of their hands.

The paste was dark brown and smelled a bit like a mixture of rotting seaweed and rust.

Leng Feng was the last to enter the water. He wrapped the strap on his sword hilt around his wrist once—the sword would not slip from his hand.

When he submerged below the water's surface, the first water-viewing mirror on the Pier captured the signal of him turning around underwater—he held up three fingers toward the surface.

Entering the Abyss Mouth.

On the water-viewing mirror, eleven humanoid light dots dived downward from the edge of the Abyss Mouth along the reef wall.

The light dots formed a shuttle shape—Leng Feng was at the very front, two cavalrymen on either side, four in the middle, and three bringing up the rear.

The shuttle formation sank down into the dimly lit Abyss Mouth underwater—when they sank to two hundred zhang, the humanoid light dots brushed past the light dots of a school of black fish.

The school of black fish swam over from the side, and the fish at the very front was less than five feet away from Leng Feng—but the moment the school encountered the scent of the Bone-Repelling Paste, they suddenly split apart to both sides.

A gap opened in the middle of the school of fish, and the eleven light dots passed through the opening.

"The Bone-Repelling Paste is effective." Su Qingli crouched down in front of the water-viewing mirror and tapped the position where the school of fish had split with her finger. "The fish aren't touching them—but the school is still gathering. The density of the black fish school is even higher than yesterday."

Lu Changyuan watched the water mirror. The eleven light dots had already descended to six hundred zhang—past the depth where the black fish school was densest.

The waters further down were darker, and the spiritual aura light patterns on the water mirror changed from the gray schools of fish to a layer of dark green with varying density.

That was the layer of spiritual aura released by the black turtle egg—the deeper they went, the denser it became.

Nine hundred zhang. Leng Feng's team passed the grotto where the black turtle egg was located—a bright, dark green ball of light flashed on the water-viewing mirror.

The pulsation frequency of the light ball was stable, once every ten breaths. The water ripples near the cracks in the eggshell looked like a circle of fine light threads on the mirror surface—the cracks had not widened.

One thousand two hundred zhang. The light dots began to decelerate. Leng Feng stopped at the very front—from the water mirror, one could see his light dot make a pushing-out gesture, signaling the team to disperse.

The reef wall in this area of the water was covered with honeycomb-like holes—coiled inside each hole was a snake-like deep-sea creature, its body translucent, its internal skeleton emitting a very faint, grayish-white cold light in the darkness.

Leng Feng's Jade Slip recording had a note for this section: 'One thousand two hundred zhang—reef wall snake-like creatures, do not enter the water layer, do not attack actively. There is needle-like black algae in the reef crevices—touching it will pierce the skin and flesh, highly toxic. Avoid.'

Further down. One thousand five hundred zhang.

Leng Feng stopped in this section for a full half-stick of incense time. On the water-viewing mirror, his light dot moved laterally three zhang along the side of the reef wall—stopping in front of a cave sealed by thick ice.

The surface of the ice layer emitted a very faint cyan light under the spiritual aura sensing—several white-blue light dots as thick as fingers shone through from behind the ice. That was the signal of spiritual plants continuing to breathe within the ice layer of extremely high spiritual power concentration.

The Jade Slip noted: 'One thousand five hundred zhang—ice cave. The ice layer is extremely thick, Divine Sense below Golden Core cannot penetrate it. Suspected to be several high-year cold-attribute spiritual plants behind the ice. Not skilled in taking—leave a mark and wait to return.'

After this line of notes was written, Leng Feng's light dot continued to sink.

One thousand eight hundred zhang. The light dots suddenly came to a halt in unison.

On the water-viewing mirror—not far below the eleven light dots, a dense patch of tiny red dots appeared. The number of red dots was immense—thousands of red dots spread out on the mirror surface.

Every red dot swayed slightly on the water mirror, the amplitude of the swaying consistent—they were all turning in the direction of the light dots.

"A school of bloodthirsty Bone Fish. They've run into a large school." Su Qingli pressed her fingers against the edge of the water mirror.

The eleven light dots dispersed simultaneously—changing from a shuttle shape into a larger ring shape.

Leng Feng was at the very front of the ring, his light dot probed forward a small distance—then retreated. The ring formation did not charge downward but began to move laterally—Leng Feng was leading the team to bypass the densest central area of the Bone Fish school.

The red dots of the Bone Fish school chased the light dots for a distance—about two hundred zhang. Then the red dots began to retreat—after the scent of the Bone-Repelling Paste dispersed in the water current, the Bone Fish school was pushed to a certain distance and stopped following.