308: Chapter 308 The Upside-Down Sea, Breaking the Formation

Chu Sheng had been diving for who knew how long; the surrounding lake water had shifted from deep blue to pitch black, and then from pitch black to a certain eerie, glowing blue-green.

He halted his movement, suspended in the water, stunned by the sight before him.

Deep within the sea eye was a massive, slanted rock wall.

No, that was not a rock wall; it was an entire wall embedded with precious coral.

Scarlet coral branches resembled burning flames, emerald sea lingzhi mushrooms were layered upon each other, and dark purple crystal clusters glimmered with an eerie light in the darkness.

Starting at the seventh rank, the grade increased the deeper one went.

Chu Sheng even saw a few ninth-rank Ice Marrow Corals, completely transparent like solidified ice crystals, emitting a bone-chilling cold.

If these items were taken outside, every single piece would be enough to make a Spirit Sea Realm Cultivator fight tooth and nail for them.

But Chu Sheng did not reach out.

His gaze passed over those treasures and landed on a spot in the center of the rock wall.

There was an indentation there, like a missing piece of a puzzle.

The Formation eye.

Chu Sheng swam over and reached out to touch the indentation.

It felt ice-cold to the touch, and the edges of the indentation were as smooth as a mirror, as if they had been repeatedly polished by something.

He probed with his Divine Sense and sensed the residual Qi fluctuations within the indentation.

Those fluctuations were ancient and stable, like a bell that had been sleeping for who knew how many years.

Chu Sheng tried to inject a trace of Qi; the indentation lit up for a moment, then quickly dimmed.

He increased his Qi output, and the indentation lit up again, but it remained unstable, like a lamp with a bad connection.

He withdrew his hand and furrowed his brows.

"It requires at least the power of a Magical Artifact to activate this Formation eye," he muttered to himself. "Without a Magical Artifact, it is impossible to break the defense."

He swam a circle along the rock wall and discovered that this wall was only a part of the Formation.

The entire Formation relied on the sea area for hundreds of miles, centered on the sea eye, extending countless fine threads of Qi in all directions like a giant spider web.

Each thread connected to an undersea mountain range or coral reef, turning the entire sea area into a natural cage.

Chu Sheng's expression became grave.

"A Tongxuan Realm Formation."

He whispered, "The Cultivator who set this up was around the Tongxuan Realm. It's not top-tier, but by relying on hundreds of miles of sea, its power far exceeds ordinary Tongxuan Realm Formations."

He pondered for a moment.

"Who set up this Formation?"

He did not know the answer, but his intuition told him that this Formation was not meant to trap ordinary Cultivators.

What it trapped was a certain person, or a certain thing.

Chu Sheng continued to explore the seabed, swimming for dozens of miles along the veins of the Formation.

His Divine Sense extended into the darkness and suddenly touched something.

It was not coral, not a reef, but a skeleton.

He swam over and saw the full appearance of the skeleton.

The skeleton sat cross-legged on a reef, its posture upright, hands resting on its knees, as if it were meditating.

The texture of the bones was fine like jade, the surface shimmering with a warm luster.

Death without decay.

Only the cultivation of the Dao Palace Realm could allow a skeleton to remain intact after thousands of years.

Chu Sheng noticed a ring on the skeleton's finger; the ring had long since lost its luster, and the items inside had been ground to dust by the passage of time.

In front of the skeleton was a stone slab with inscriptions.

Chu Sheng crouched down, wiped the mud and sand off the stone slab, and saw the writing on it.

"This Venerable is Master Kongcheng, Middle Stage Dao Completion, trapped here for three thousand years."

"I exhausted my entire life but failed to break the Formation. This Formation requires a Magical Artifact to be shaken. Although I cultivated to Dao Completion, I lacked a Magical Artifact; what a futile lament."

"If those who come later see this monument, remember well: do not repeat my mistakes. If you do not have a Magical Artifact, commit suicide quickly; do not waste your time here."

Chu Sheng finished reading the words on the stone slab and remained silent for a long time.

He sighed.

Master Kongcheng, Middle Stage Dao Completion, trapped here for three thousand years because he had no Magical Artifact, unable to break the Formation, and died trapped.

Chu Sheng looked down at the zhu xian sword at his waist, then looked at the sea-suppressing cauldron floating in his Dantian.

He had Magical Artifacts, and more than one.

But even he could not guarantee that he would be able to break this Formation.

He returned to the Formation eye, sat cross-legged in the water, and took out the Heavenly Secret Calculation from his Storage Pouch.

He hesitated for a moment, then chose three years of lifespan.

The phantom of a bamboo divination cylinder appeared, shook, and a divination stick jumped out.

A medium stick.

Mixed fortune.

Chu Sheng looked at that stick, feeling neither disappointed nor happy.

A medium stick it is, then.

He had no better choice.

He put away the Heavenly Secret Calculation, took a deep breath, and summoned the four zhu xian swords from his Dantian.

Dark golden Sword Qi flowed around him, illuminating the entire seabed.

He aimed all four swords at the indentation of the Formation eye simultaneously and injected Qi into the blades.

"Break."

The four swords shot out simultaneously, piercing into the indentation of the Formation eye.

The Formation eye vibrated violently, emitting a piercing humming sound.

The entire Formation was trembling, and the seawater in the hundreds of miles of the sea area began to surge.

Chu Sheng thought the Formation eye would shatter and the Formation would break.

But his expectation did not come to pass.

The Formation eye did not shatter, and the Formation did not break.

The seawater began to backflow.

The seawater within a range of hundreds of miles, as if stirred by an invisible giant hand, formed a massive vortex.

Chu Sheng was swept into the vortex, his body spinning uncontrollably.

He gritted his teeth, activated the sea-suppressing cauldron, and a bronze-colored light enveloped him, barely steadying his figure.

He looked up and saw a scene he would never forget for the rest of his life.

The seawater was backflowing.

Countless water columns rose from the sea surface, shooting straight into the sky like countless reversed waterfalls.

At the top of the water columns was the Void Realm.

Not the sky, but the true, pitch-black, empty Void Realm.

The seawater surged into the Void Realm and vanished.

Chu Sheng's pupils constricted sharply.

"Inverted Sea..." His voice was somewhat hoarse.

Inverted Sea.

That was one of the most mysterious phenomena of the Boundless Sea; it was said that when the seawater backflowed, it would open a passage to somewhere.

But no one knew where that passage led.

Because those who had gone there never returned.

Chu Sheng looked at those water columns, then looked at the Void Realm that was being revealed beneath his feet.

He was silent for a moment, then smiled.

There was no fear in his smile, only a kind of desperate determination.

He activated the sea-suppressing cauldron and flew toward one of the water columns.

"Since I'm here, I might as well go and see."

His figure disappeared into the backflowing seawater.

The hundreds of miles of sea area were still surging, the water columns were still backflowing, and the Void Realm was still expanding.