145: Chapter 145 Elevator Towards the Sky

The freight elevator deep within the Seventh Pier suddenly began to ascend. The elevator's floor indicator jumped quickly from -15 upward. Yet, no one felt like it was returning to the surface. With every floor it rose, the sound of the Tide overhead grew heavier, and the Black Sea outside the corridor drew an inch closer. By the time it reached -8, a crack split the ceiling. The seawater did not fall; instead, it pressed down on everyone's heads like an entire inverted wall.

"It is not going up," Space Venerable said, his face pale. "It is sending us into the sea."

As soon as he finished speaking, the elevator doors at the other end of the corridor all opened.

A dozen or so Returners walked out. They were still wearing clothes from different eras—port workers, students, the elderly, and even the warehouse workers who had just gone missing. Each person held a ticket in their hand, wearing an expression of calmness, as if they had just returned from their own front door.

"Move aside," Zhao Ye said. No one moved.

Among the Returners, a young worker saw Tide and suddenly smiled. "Sister Tide, I'm back."

Tide's hand tightened around her walkie-talkie. That was the boy who had been complaining about overtime to the duty officer just last night. She clearly remembered what he had shouted before jumping into the black water, and she was equally certain that his current tone of voice was exactly the same as before.

"What is your name?" Jiaoyue suddenly asked. The young worker paused.

"Zhou Hang."

"What shift are you working tomorrow?"

Zhou Hang opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

Jiaoyue did not ask again. She raised her Tempering Needle, its tip flashing in the light of the Guardian Lamp. The group of Returners immediately lunged forward, as if pushed by something from behind. Lin Zhao's Guardian Lamp screen expanded, the light nearly shattering from the impact.

Zhao Ye's five Fire Nails lit up simultaneously. This time, his Suppression Domain did not just lock one path; it directly pressed the entire corridor back to a horizontal level. Pillars of fire rose from the ground, piercing into the inverted Black Sea like five nails propping up the sky. The concrete beneath Zhao Ye's feet cracked inch by inch, fire patterns crawled from his arms up to his shoulders and back, and fine red marks were burned into the corners of his eyes.

"Take the people and go!" he roared.

Tide gritted her teeth. Without glancing at Zhou Hang a second time, she turned and led Jiaoyue and several nurses toward the real stairs. Space Venerable used his Boundary-Setting Ruler to pin the walls along the way; with every ruler he inserted, the entire building let out a harsh, groaning sound.

Shen Qinghe stood beside Zhao Ye, holding the bronze bell as high as she could. The Illumination Realm expanded for the second time. This time, she did not illuminate the doors or the path. The shadow of the bell pierced through the Black Sea, illuminating the inverted water surface above into countless fine, dense lines. The ends of these lines all landed on the elevators; it turned out that every elevator was a hand extended by the Tide-Reversal Bureau into reality.

"Smash the third and seventh ones," she said.

Zhao Ye didn't even look. With a turn of his Fire Nails, two pillars of fire swept across. The shaft of the third elevator was pierced directly, and the black water rushing out from within recoiled as if scalded. Behind the door of the seventh, however, a soaked page from a register was revealed, densely packed with names. Bai Ya's Patrol Lamp lunged forward, threads of fire wrapping around the corner of the page, forcefully tearing several lines of names from the paper.

Bai Ya let out a muffled groan, and a nosebleed instantly streamed out. "I can only grab this much," he said.

"That is enough," Lu Chen's voice came from the Fire Beacon. The lighthouse Fire Beacon suddenly shone with a blinding light. It was not that the anchor point had been established, but that Lu Chen was using the Fire Beacon to force three not-yet-fully-stable fire lines into the Seventh Pier. The residual fires of Qinghe, Jiangbei, and Linhai echoed across the city, propping up the final fire pillar for Zhao Ye.

But this was still not enough. From the depths of the seawater, the Tide-Reversal Bureau finally emerged. It stepped onto the inverted sea surface, its register flipped to the last page, and its pen tip hovered over the blank space.

"The downward travelers are full," it said. "Will the fire-bearer please verify the Tide."

When the Tide-Reversal Bureau wrote "The downward travelers are full," everyone assumed it would let the elevators continue going down. But the truly terrifying thing was that it made the elevators go up. Dozens of elevators in the Old Port District rose simultaneously, the elevator shafts seemingly sucked in by the inverted Black Sea. Some floors that had originally been on the ground were pulled into the air; what was seen outside the windows was no longer the streets, but the dark, crushing water pressure of the seabed. Residents in the buildings were trapped at the elevator entrances, and some heard their missing loved ones calling them from upstairs.

Half of Tide's dispatch center was flooded. Standing on a table with her shoes full of water, she continued to report evacuation routes one by one using a backup walkie-talkie. "Do not use the pedestrian bridge on West Street; the bridge is currently flipping upward. The white light at the hospital's back entrance is still there; head toward the white light. If anyone sees their loved ones, report the location first; do not chase after them yourself." By the time she finished speaking, her voice was almost gone, yet she still enunciated every word clearly.

When Zhao Ye's Suppression Domain propped up the Seventh Pier, it was effectively holding up the main line for the entire port district. Three of the five fire pillars had bent to their limit, and cracks covered the surfaces of the Fire Nails. Every time the Black Sea pressed down, Zhao Ye's knees sank a little lower. Shen Qinghe could no longer activate the Illumination Realm. After using the bronze bell for the third time, her ears were filled with the sound of the Tide and old names, and she could barely hear Zhao Ye speak. Yet, she could still see the tilt of the fire pillars. She pressed the bronze bell against the floor, using the lightest shadow of the bell to tap near Zhao Ye's feet. One tap meant left. Two taps meant right. Zhao Ye did not need her to explain further. He adjusted the Fire Nails according to the bell's shadows. After the third and seventh elevators were shattered, the remaining main line finally revealed a brittle load-bearing point.

When Space Venerable arrived with the last Boundary-Setting Ruler, his pant legs were soaked through. He looked at that load-bearing point, his face paler than a corpse's. "Behind that wall is the sea."

Zhao Ye asked, "Shall we smash it?"

"If we smash it, we might see the true Sea Gate. It is also possible that the entire building will flip over with it."

Zhao Ye did not move immediately. He looked back at Tide, Jiaoyue, Cao Gui, and Lin Zhao and Chen Jue, who were still leading the evacuation in the Guardian Lamp zone. "Has everyone gotten out?"

Tide checked the list. "There are seven left."

"Then we do not smash it," Zhao Ye said. He pulled out the final Fire Nail and backhanded it into the center of the corridor. The Suppression Domain contracted. It was not to support a larger area, but to press the remaining power into the evacuation route for the seven people. The fire pillars were bent into bows by the Black Sea; the skin on Zhao Ye's right arm cracked inch by inch, and blood dripped down, mixing with the firelight. The seven people ran over one by one. The last one was an elderly person clutching medical records, running very slowly. Only after the elderly person crossed the line of fire did Zhao Ye raise his head. "Now."

Space Venerable inserted the Boundary-Setting Ruler into the wall. Zhao Ye smashed his fist down. There was no building behind the wall. It was an entire Black Sea hanging inverted in the sky.

The Tide-Reversal Bureau stood on the sea surface, its register flipped to the last page. "Will the fire-bearer please verify the Tide."

After the Black Sea was exposed, the wind direction in Linhai changed as well. The wind that had originally blown from the sea toward the city suddenly reversed and poured into the port; even the clothes drying on the residential buildings in the distance were sucked high into the air.

In the hospital, Jiaoyue saw the curtains flapping outward and immediately ordered everyone to push all the hospital beds away from the windows. A patient who had just stabilized heard someone upstairs calling his mother and struggled to run toward the elevator. Jiaoyue blocked him, the wound on her shoulder bursting open again. "My mom is up there!" the patient cried out. "I do not know if your mother is there or not," Jiaoyue said, holding him down. "But you are a patient right now. You must survive first before you can go looking for anyone."

The Guardian Lamp zones in Linhai were bent by the wind one after another. Lin Zhao and Chen Jue, along with their collaborators, added fuel and changed Fire Seals for every lamp. For the first time, Chen Jue voluntarily requested to go to the most dangerous one—not to prove his strength, but because a dozen or so family members who refused to leave were standing next to that lamp. Lin Zhao looked at him. "Can you hold it?" Chen Jue gripped the bronze lamp tightly. "Even if I cannot hold it, I must hold it for now." He placed the lamp on the ground and, together with the family members, blocked the elevator door that had been blown open by the wind.

In the deepest part of the Seventh Pier, Zhao Ye heard this news, and the final crack on the Fire Nail suddenly glowed even redder. He knew there were still people guarding outside. Therefore, he had to smash this wall.