Chapter 346: That is the aura of death

This is the Linghai Forbidden Ground.

There is an abyss beneath the Linghai Forbidden Ground, which is not surprising, but why is there actually a tower inside the abyss?

Judging only by the tower tip I can see, the tower's scale is not large; layers of iron chains coil around the tip, and between the chains float brightly colored talisman papers, thick and dense—clearly, this tower is suppressed beneath the abyss.

The Soul-guiding Lamp is being sucked, tilting downward toward the tower tip.

No, to be precise, what is being sucked is Liu Mu's internal elixir.

I instinctively flailed my limbs, struggling to turn my body and swim in the opposite direction.

I won't be so foolish as to rush forward out of curiosity to investigate.

That's courting death!

I need to find Liu Junyan first; his control underwater is far stronger than mine.

I can't even be sure now whether Liu Junyan knows there is such a tower down here.

I was sucked out of the twelve-layer tower, rushed into the Linghai Forbidden Ground, and have been soaking in the water ever since, unable to tell direction; I kept thinking I was pulled horizontally in.

That's why I felt this abyss was another direction away from the Dragon Transformation Cauldron.

When I turned around and looked all around, I realized I was wrong.

This place is not far off horizontally; it is deep beneath the Dragon Transformation Cauldron.

The surrounding water is pitch black; I see no reference points, nor any living creatures.

This is an entire barrier.

Perhaps because of the Soul-guiding Lamp, or perhaps because of Liu Mu's internal elixir—whatever the reason, I actually pierced the barrier, entered this mysterious space, and glimpsed the deepest secret of the Linghai Forbidden Ground.

And Liu Junyan should have been blocked outside by this barrier, forcibly separating us.

I kept swimming upward by feel.

Although I couldn't tell direction, I knew that swimming upward opposite the tower tip was definitely correct.

I also believed Liu Junyan must be above, thinking of ways to break the barrier to rescue me.

Of course, since they dragged me in, they will certainly not let me go easily.

I swam for a while and realized I seemed to stay in the same spot, not moving.

I was exhausted to the point of gasping, my lungs could barely hold, feeling like they'd burst, and my body stalled in the water.

The next second, my body began to fall uncontrollably downward.

A strong suction pulled me continuously back down toward the tower tip; no matter how I struggled, it was useless.

What made it even harder to bear was that, as my body neared the tower tip, it began to spin around the tower shaft.

I was like being sucked into a huge whirlpool, constantly rotating with the water flow.

The spinning made my brain oxygen-deprived, my stomach churned, and I felt like vomiting.

At first I panicked and struggled; after a few seconds, I went limp.

Since I'd come this far, I could only go with the flow, conserve energy, and wait for another chance to act.

I kept a firm grip on the Soul-guiding Lamp, totally relaxed my body, and let the force rotate and sink me.

I saw the tower tip again.

This time it was very close, and my body was sinking while rotating, so from the tip downward I could almost see the tower's exterior from all angles, a full 360-degree view with no blind spots.

As I had guessed, the tower shaft is not as large or as tall as the twelve-layer tower we saw before.

Even because the shaft is bound with iron chains, and the chains are covered with talisman papers, I can't tell how many layers the tower has.

Just before reaching the bottom, I felt the surrounding seawater temperature suddenly drop extremely low, as if it were about to freeze.

When I looked down, I was utterly shocked.

I couldn't see the tower base because it was buried under a pile of grim white bones.

Those white bones were simply stacked there, layer upon layer, and the vast majority of the bones were actually intact.

But among those bones… I could tell some were human bones, and compared to the huge bones of the surrounding giant creatures, they appeared tiny and insignificant.

I saw that in some of the larger bones, many had one or two horns on their heads, some horns forked, some not…

Nine iron chains were driven into the bones beneath, firmly locking the entire tower in place.

I lifted my head again and looked upward.

The murky black water filled this abyss, and I couldn't see the end at a glance.

This immediately reminded me of the Li Qingying family's "Carp Leaping Dragon Gate" incident.

Among these skeletons, it's very likely that some belong to those fellows.

And another part belongs to Linghai itself… the failed Carp Leaping Dragon Gate, the White Dragon sacrifice, and the creatures that originally lived in this waters.

They died miserably here; their soul essence, vital spirits, and even internal elixirs all became nutrients feeding the entity suppressed within the tower.

Only a wisp of resentful qi remains, constantly condensing in this seabed; who knows when it will accumulate and erupt into a great disaster.

My foot lightly landed on a huge bone.

Before I could steady myself, that bone twitched, startling me to swim upward a few strokes; I wondered if the bone had been submerged too long, corroded by seawater, and would fall apart at a touch.

In fact, it did not.

Not only did it not fall apart, it raised its skull, and in the eye sockets the size of an adult man's fist flashed a ghostly green light.

Under my gaze, an even more horrifying scene appeared.

It suddenly moved, lunging straight toward the tower shaft.

The tremendous impact made the tower shaft tremble continuously; my body was also pushed back by the waves, and from inside the tower came a thunderous roar.

That was a dragon's roar.

When I barely steadied my posture and looked again, I only felt my scalp tingle, every pore on my body stand on end, as if I'd just had a nightmare.

I saw that at the spot just struck, the talisman papers on the tower shaft were all destroyed.

Chunks of flesh surged out from the gap, continuously covering the bones. Before long, that pallid skeletal remains turned into a huge…… blood dragon!

The blood dragon flicked its tail, turned, and faced me.

From the blood dragon's tail, dense white scales crept up toward its head.

In less than a minute, this thing before me shifted from a skeleton to a blood dragon, and then transformed into a white dragon!

The white dragon arched its upper body, its huge head lunging at me with pressure.

Back when I was hunted and cornered, driven to the cliff behind Azure Paulownia Mountain, the white dragon was what I faced.

I could never forget this chilling, yin-like aura.

Just meeting his eyes was enough to make my guts burst, the pressure……

That was the aura of death!

So he was hiding here!

So this is how he evolved.

No, no!

It's not like that.

I was completely confused, my thoughts tangled, unable under these circumstances and pressure to truly sort out my ideas and deductions.

But none of that matters now.

What matters is…… escape!