161: Chapter 161 Floating Ship Maze

The air behind the door felt completely different.

The chill of the Sixth Floor had not yet dissipated, but the dampness of the Seventh Floor was already seeping into the seams of their clothes.

Everything around them was pitch black.

In the distance, water rushed, while nearby, the hollow sound of wood colliding echoed.

Lin Ye did not step out immediately.

Zhao Mengmeng stopped inside the threshold, her crossbow, now devoid of arrows, still held steadily.

There was no solid ground ahead.

Outside the door was a broken stone platform, its end severed cleanly.

Below the cliff lay an underground river so wide that its boundaries were invisible.

The river water was pitch black, with grey bubbles churning on the surface.

Thick fog rolled over the water, with visibility less than twenty meters.

The water vapor was mixed with a fishy stench and the sour smell of rotting wood.

Further away, the sounds of sinking ships colliding echoed continuously from within the fog.

Thud. Creak. Splash.

Broken wooden ships floated on the dark river, varying in size.

Some were nothing more than two pieces of driftwood.

Others still retained half a cabin.

Some had tall hulls with broken carved railings; they were likely pleasure boats or storied vessels in the past.

They were tangled together by black iron chains, rotting ropes, and unknown objects beneath the water.

The ships across the entire river surface were intertwined, forming a chaotic floating maze.

There were no fixed paths.

Every ship was swaying, colliding, and could disintegrate at any moment.

Zhao Mengmeng retreated half a step.

"I retract what I said in the last chapter about the fish not welcoming us."

"How so?"

"This is clearly an all-you-can-eat buffet run by the fish."

Lin Ye crouched down and pried a piece of gravel from the edge of the stone platform.

Zhao Mengmeng reached out to stop him slightly: "Testing the water?"

"Yeah."

"I bet there's something in there."

"Definitely."

Lin Ye tossed the gravel out.

The stone fell into the black water by the shore. Splash.

Just as the splash erupted, a massive black shadow flashed beneath the surface.

Splash!

A pale, gaping maw broke through the water.

The thing was seven or eight meters long, with a slender fish body, but its back was covered in everted bone scales, and the sides of its mouth were lined with barb-like bone teeth.

It had no eyes.

Its skull was exposed, and its gills made a grinding sound of bones as they opened and closed.

The giant mouth clamped shut, swallowing both the stone and the water splash.

The black shadow dived back into the fog.

Only a rapidly spreading ripple remained on the water surface.

Zhao Mengmeng scraped her boot sole against the ground.

"We must not fall into the water."

"Yeah."

Lin Ye activated his Left Eye instantly.

His true vision pierced through the fog, distinguishing layers above and below the river surface.

The water below was densely packed with red dots.

Red lights of various sizes were swimming in the black water.

The closest red lights were circling repeatedly beneath the stone platform.

The light screen from his right eye provided basic information. [Bone-Scaled Shark]

Lin Ye didn't look for long.

Beyond the water, he cast his gaze toward the floating ship cluster.

Most of the broken ships were covered in dark red patches.

Some hulls looked intact, but the bottoms were red to the point of blackness, their structures long since rotted through.

Some decks were clean, but dangerous points were hidden in the cabins.

Lin Ye bypassed the ships nearby and locked onto a medium-sized ship forty meters ahead that was half-submerged in the water.

The ship's cabin had collapsed halfway, the mast was broken, and it looked dilapidated.

The mast glowed with a steady green.

The middle section of the hull also had faint green vitality.

There were very few pollution spots.

It could bear weight. It could also serve as a landing spot.

Lin Ye closed his Left Eye, the soreness in his eyes intensifying.

"Forty meters ahead, that ship."

Zhao Mengmeng looked in the direction he pointed.

The fog was very thick, and she could only see a blurry shadow.

"That ship looks the most broken."

"It's stable."

"I'll listen to you; after all, I only judge ships by whether they look pretty or not."

Lin Ye checked the distance.

Ten meters from the stone platform to the nearest driftwood, seven meters from the driftwood to the small boat on the left, and over twenty meters from the small boat to the target ship.

A normal jump was not feasible.

The Dark Weaver had little charge left, but it could still fire short-range anchor points.

The cable of the Wind-Chasing Claw was more intact and could be used for landing point correction.

They had to cross over the dangerous ships in the front in one go.

They couldn't stop on those wood planks with red spots.

Zhao Mengmeng looked at the ships near the shore.

One of the pleasure boat wrecks was very close to the stone platform, with carved railings and a relatively intact deck.

"Can we step on that pretty ship?"

"No."

"It looks sturdier than that ship."

"The prettier they are, the more deceptive they are."

Zhao Mengmeng clicked her tongue: "That applies to a lot of things."

The Great Xia Live Stream was filled with question marks and worry.

[The Seventh Floor is here! Black water and sunken ships, the water is full of monsters!]

[That fish just now was seven or eight meters, right? It even snatched the rock?]

[Brother Eye chose the most broken one again; the foreign internet is definitely going to show off their intelligence again.]

The overseas livestream room indeed popped up with quite a bit of ridicule.

[The Great Xia Challenger is crazy; that ship is half-gone.]

[The pleasure boat nearby is obviously sturdier; has he been scared silly by the fog?]

Zhao Mengmeng crouched on the shore and threw out a piece of frozen meat tendon.

The meat tendon landed on the water surface.

Three red shadows rushed up almost simultaneously.

Water splashed everywhere, white bone maws collided with each other, and bone spurs scraped out a piercing grinding sound.

In a fleeting instant, the meat tendon was torn to shreds, leaving nothing behind.

Zhao Mengmeng gripped the handle of her crossbow.

"There are really quite a few monsters in this water."

"Don't insult hot pot."

"Right, hot pot at least doesn't eat people."

Lin Ye tightened his backpack straps again.

The broken aluminum pot was fastened to the outside of the backpack to prevent it from being blown away during the jump.

The half-section frost-patterned stone box was secured in the innermost shock-proof layer.

The meat soup bone tube was hung in front of his chest, not on the side, to prevent it from falling off during collisions.

Zhao Mengmeng also tightened her pack, aiming the Wind-Chasing Claw at a wooden beam protruding diagonally near the ship.

The two of them were just about to jump.

Rapid footsteps sounded from inside the Sixth Floor door behind them.

Accompanied by cursing in a foreign language.

Zhao Mengmeng turned around immediately, leveling her empty crossbow.

Lin Ye scanned with his peripheral vision.

Three figures rushed out of the frost gate.

Two Challengers from France. One big man from Kangaroo Country.

The clothes of the two from France were shredded by ice blades.

One of them had lost his left ear, with blood frozen on the side of his face.

The other was holding a broken spear, his shoulder heavily bruised.

The big man from Kangaroo Country was very burly, his right arm wrapped in animal hide, holding a bloodstained Bone Spear in his hand.

The big man from Kangaroo Country cursed in English.

The livestream room class representative quickly translated.

[He said, what kind of broken river is this?]

The person from France with the missing left ear stared intensely at the Dark Weaver on Lin Ye's right arm, his expression greedy.

They had no long ropes.

The only hope for crossing the black water was the tool in Lin Ye's hand.

The big man from Kangaroo Country gripped his Bone Spear and approached Lin Ye.

The Challenger from France with the missing ear shouted in broken Great Xia language: "You, tool, give to us!"

Zhao Mengmeng sneered.

"We're at this point, and you've learned how to order dishes?"

The other Challenger from France pointed at the water and then at Zhao Mengmeng, speaking rapidly.

The class representative's translation scrolled across the barrage.

[He said, if you don't pull them over, they'll push Mengmeng into the water!]

The Great Xia Live Stream was in an uproar immediately.

[Screw you! Threatening people the moment you get in?]

[Chased by monsters like dogs, and you have the nerve to rob Brother Eye?]

The big man from Kangaroo Country raised his Bone Spear, getting closer and closer.

"Equipment, give it to me!"

Zhao Mengmeng whispered: "Brother Lin, I don't have arrows, but I can smash his face with the crossbow."

"No need."

Lin Ye completely ignored the approach behind him.

His gaze was fixed only on the ship shadow drifting in the fog.

The water current was changing.

The ship was being pulled by iron chains, turning toward the stone platform.

The broken mast entered the effective area of the Dark Weaver's anchor point.

The window was extremely short. Two seconds.

Lin Ye reached back with his left hand and grabbed Zhao Mengmeng's tactical belt.

Zhao Mengmeng immediately cooperated tacitly, hooking her left arm onto the side ring of Lin Ye's backpack.

The big man from Kangaroo Country thought they were going to resist and thrust his Bone Spear forward.

The two from France lunged forward simultaneously, attempting to block the edge of the stone platform.

Lin Ye raised his right arm.

The Dark Weaver's mechanism let out an extreme high-pitched whine.

Three anchor points grazed past the face of the big man from Kangaroo Country.

They drilled into the thick fog and bit firmly onto the broken mast of the ship forty meters away.

"Let's go."

The retraction engine spun wildly.

The two soared into the air, leaving the three foreign Challengers behind on the shore.