The Empress's First Running Dog

Chapter 664 The Dragon-Slaying Fleet a Thousand Years Ago
"Later, you will capture me, and then I will take you all to sink into the silent sea."

Zhao Du'an jumped off the boat, but instead of diving immediately, he swam forward on the surface of the sea for a while.

Soon, he realized that the surrounding sea was shrouded in a thick fog.

Turning back, the ships led by Zhang Yanyi had already "disappeared" due to the sea fog.

Before them were only Tuoba Weizhi and Jin Jian, who had also followed along.

Both women had tense expressions on their faces. As land-dwelling creatures, they had an instinctive fear of the seabed.

On one hand, Ji Hai had undoubtedly penetrated deep into the domain of the Sea God, and everyone was suppressed.

On the other hand, the underwater environment itself would weaken their combat power. Whether it was the starlight and moonlight that Jin Jian felt or the brute force of Tuoba Weizhi, it would be further suppressed.

"Hehe, don't worry, I'm not unprepared either."

Zhao Du'an noticed the two women's worries, smiled slightly, and flipped his hand, revealing an ancient, dark blue-green seal that slowly rotated in his palm.

Xuan Gui Seal!
"After we go into the water, this magical artifact can help us get rid of the seawater," Zhao Du'an explained.

It was because he possessed this magical artifact that he had the courage to venture into the sea.

Having said that, Zhao Du'an didn't delay any longer and turned around to say:
"Alright, grab me, all of you."

Without hesitation, Tuoba Weizhi stretched out her smooth arms and wrapped them around Zhao Du'an's waist, her face almost pressed against his back.

"...There's no need to hold on so tightly."

Zhao Du'an felt the softness behind him and was initially thrilled, but when he remembered that the other party was the reincarnation of the "Crown Prince of Qi", he immediately lost interest and felt extremely awkward.

"Oh, Master."

The dark-skinned priest seemed to have no sense of shame, and instead grabbed Zhao Du'an's clothes at the lower back with both hands.

Jin Jian followed suit and used his small hands to grab Tuoba Weizhi's cloak.

"They've descended!"

Zhao Du'an, like a train conductor, made a declaration, then, holding the Xuan Turtle Seal, plunged into the Silent Sea.

In the descriptions of the local indigenous people, the bottom of the Silent Sea is a dead and desolate body of water.

However, after Zhao Du'an sank, the first thing he felt was the icy seawater pressing in on him from all directions.

He did not rush to activate the Xuan Turtle Seal, but let his body continue to sink.

I opened my eyes and tried to observe the underwater world, but the light on the seabed was unexpectedly dim, and my field of vision was less than five meters.

As he continued to descend, the surroundings grew increasingly dark, which made Zhao Du'an secretly feel uneasy. In this environment, Jin Jian's magic would be greatly suppressed.

However, just as he was hesitating about whether to surface and replace the crew with Jiyue, a huge suction force suddenly surged from the seabed!

Caught off guard, Zhao Du'an felt as if countless hands were pulling him rapidly into the sea. He was terrified and tried to struggle, but he had no leverage in the water. Without hesitation, he immediately activated the "Mysterious Turtle Seal".

As a flash of lightning streaked across the surface of the Xuan Turtle Seal, a giant "bubble" quickly enveloped him and the two women behind him.

The seawater was squeezed out.

However, even the power of the Xuan Turtle Seal could not withstand that pulling force.

And the light emanating from overhead also dimmed rapidly.

In a daze, Zhao Du'an felt as if he were floating in space, surrounded by silence. He felt as if he had been abandoned by the whole world, and a strong sense of loneliness and oppression welled up in his heart.

Just as he was feeling anxious, the three of them suddenly felt dizzy and disoriented!
Then, Zhao Du'an felt himself begin to "rise" rapidly!
It seems to be accelerating its surfacing!
The darkness overhead began to recede rapidly, replaced by increasingly bright light.

"Has the Xuan Turtle Seal taken effect?" Confused, Zhao Du'an burst out of the water!

-

"Wow!"

The oppressive darkness has vanished!

Fresh air rushed into his lungs, and Zhao Du'an opened his eyes in astonishment to see a vast blue sea and a blue sky in front of him!

There was no gloomy sea fog or rolling thick clouds.

There was no light gray, muddy sea surface either.

He was floating in a vast expanse of azure sea, with a clear, cloudless sky above him. He couldn't see the sun, but even, bright light was shining across the ocean.

And right in front of us, an island arches out from the sea!
"What the hell is this place?!"

Zhao Du'an was taken aback.

A desolate sea?

The Eye of the East China Sea?
A lifeless "underwater world"?
What he saw before him was completely different from the information he had received beforehand.

"No, this can't be the seabed... The celestial phenomena are completely different too."

"Could this be... a hidden space? The true abode of the sea god?"

Zhao Du'an's thoughts raced as he warily surveyed his surroundings, gripping the seal tightly in one hand and a dagger suddenly appearing in the other.

After he sank into the silent sea, he unexpectedly entered such a strange and mysterious sea area!

"Wow!"

At that moment, the seawater beside him churned, and two heads emerged one after the other... no, to be precise, two huge bubbles.

After the bubble rose to the surface, it burst quickly, revealing Tuoba Weizhi with his black hair and black eyes, and Jin Jian with a blank expression, both looking around in bewilderment.

"This is the seabed?!"

The two women were stunned, even forgetting to paddle. In their daze, they lost the support of the bubbles and began to sink.

Zhao Du'an reached out and pulled the two women out of the water, his expression grave.
"How do you feel?"

Tuoba Weizhi paused for a moment, then said, "Very good."

Jin Jian adjusted his glasses, sensed himself, and his expression immediately turned strange:
“Here… my connection with the stars and moon has become intermittent, and my magical power has been greatly affected.”

Zhao Du'an's heart sank. He exhaled and said with a strange expression:
"It seems things have taken a bit unexpectedly."

If I'm not mistaken, we've entered another space existing beneath the sea. Perhaps this is related to the wrathful moon; perhaps this area only opens when the sea god is enraged and fully lucid.

Of course, there is another speculation: he suspects that it is related to the purpose of his trip.

He even vaguely suspected that the changes in the Silent Sea and the emergence of the mysterious sea area were all because of his arrival.

"In any case, let's go to the island and take a look first," Zhao Du'an quickly decided.

Since we're already here... we should explore first, and if all else fails, we can try going back.

The two women followed his lead without question, so Zhao Du'an immediately manipulated the Xuan Turtle Seal, controlling the surrounding seawater to propel the three of them rapidly to the shore.

……

The three sped forward at breakneck speed. There was almost no wind here, and the sea was as calm as a mirror, with hardly any ripples, reflecting the blue sky and presenting a glass-like texture.

The three of them were like a knife, cutting a straight line through the sea, and then rapidly healing after they left.

Zhao Du'an gripped his knife, gazing warily at the island. Suddenly, his expression shifted slightly as he clearly sensed the restlessness of the "Dragon Soul" within his Qi Sea.

It was as if something was drawing the Dragon Soul to the island, and that thing was on the island itself.

This discovery fueled his anticipation and strengthened his conviction that all these strange occurrences were related to the founding emperor. Before long, the three of them reached the shallow waters surrounding the island. The waters were made of white, pebble-like stones, making walking on them easy even barefoot.

There are even some "trees" on the island, but they are not the common tree species on land. Instead, they are similar to tropical beach plants.

Zhao Du'an even saw rows of coconut trees, which made him wonder if he had traveled through time again and arrived in some Southeast Asian country.

"These trees are huge!"

Jin Jian gripped her staff tightly with nervous hands, her trouser legs rolled up to reveal a small section of her fair skin.

The young priestess looked up as she walked through the enormous coconut grove, her eyes filled with awe.

Zhao Du'an also noticed that the trees here were two or three times larger than normal. The trees near the sea were fine, but the further in you went, the bigger the trees became.

The three of them had a strange feeling of having stumbled into a land of giants.

The dark-skinned priestess's face was tense, and she looked wary. The quietness of the place made her feel uneasy.

Well, the only thing this place has in common with the "Silent Sea" is that there are no advanced life forms in either.

"Crack!"

Suddenly, Tuoba Weizhi seemed to step on something, and the crisp cracking sound was extremely abrupt in the quiet environment.

The three of them stopped in their tracks, looked down sharply, and their pupils contracted slightly.

Beneath Tuoba Weizhi's feet was a human hand bone, which she had broken!

The white skeletons were half-buried in the ground and in the crevices of the white stones, and were not conspicuous.

But upon closer inspection, one can piece together the outline of human bones from the scattered remains of limbs and bones.

"These are the bones of a martial artist." Zhao Du'an lowered his head, picked up a bone, examined it, and concluded:

"And they are the bones of people who died a very, very long time ago."

Seeing that the two women were puzzled, he patiently explained:
"Martial artists, due to years of training and honing their bodies, develop bones that differ from ordinary people. For example, they are heavier, and some joints are larger than normal, etc..."

This knowledge was acquired during my studies at the Martial Arts Hall.

"Hey! Money!"

Suddenly, Jin Jian exclaimed in surprise. The young priestess ran a few steps, bent down, and picked up a rusty coin from between the stones on the ground!

The coin was heavily corroded, but it was still clear that it was a standard copper coin.

As the three turned their attention to their feet, they soon discovered that there were many coins scattered across the island.

The vast majority are copper coins, varying in size, style, and seemingly from different eras.

Unfortunately, most of them are severely rusted, causing their value to plummet.

However, this scene spurred Jin Jian into action. The young priestess pushed up her glasses and activated her "treasure hunter" mode, frantically digging for food in the soil like a little radar.

Soon, silver ingots appeared among Jin Jian's prey, and later gold coins appeared as well!

Yes, gold coins!
This discovery stunned Zhao Du'an. He knew that the Great Yu Dynasty hadn't minted gold coins in its six hundred years of history. The most recent gold coins minted were during the Great Qi Dynasty, but even then, they were few in number.

"So, these are coins from the Qi Kingdom? No, there are also some from the Yu Kingdom."

Zhao Du'an removed the rust from the surface of some copper coins that were not severely corroded, and confirmed the period of their origin.

And then, something even more outrageous happened.

As they ventured deeper, Jin Jian began to find pearls, jade, agate, precious and rare materials, weapons... and even magical artifacts...

"I remember the Lord of Red Coral Island once said that intelligent fish in the ocean would collect treasures and bring them to the Silent Sea to worship the sea god... Could it be that these treasures have been accumulated over time?"

Zhao Du'an analyzed the situation calmly.

Then, looking at Jin Jian, who was practically ecstatic with his rear end sticking out and had his waist pockets bulging, he said speechlessly:

"Let's go, this isn't what we're after."

"Oh..." Jin Jian stopped walking reluctantly, but kept looking back every few steps, clearly reluctant to leave.

At this moment, the three entered a huge coral forest.

There were clusters of corals on the island...and they were so colorful that they almost formed a jungle.

This scene was absurd, but the three of them had become numb to the strangeness of the island.

However, when the three of them emerged from the coral reef and saw a huge shipwreck tilted on the ground ahead, they were still stunned.

A huge, ancient, warship-shaped shipwreck lay on the ground.

The ship was dilapidated, but it still retained its appearance from bygone days. Moreover, a large number of human bones, armor, and weapons were found around the warship...

There was even a straight and conspicuous "battle flag"!
The flag was already tattered, leaving only a bare flagpole.

"This is... a warship from the Qi Kingdom?!"

Zhao Du'an paused for a moment, then quickly determined the year and month from these characteristics.

However, he wasn't entirely sure.

Although these armors and warships have typical Qi Kingdom characteristics, they are not the same as the Qi Kingdom weapons seen in Layuan from 600 years ago.

"This seems to be... a ship from an even older era, from the mid-Qi Kingdom period, or even earlier..."

Suddenly, Tuoba Weizhi stared blankly at the sunken ship in front of him and said softly.

Zhao Du'an suddenly looked at this "Crown Prince of Qi".

Tuoba Weizhi clutched his head in pain, while the dark-skinned priestess looked dazed.
"I can't remember clearly, I only have a vague impression of it, but I don't know why I know these things."

She didn't know this knowledge before, but for some reason it appeared in her mind.

Zhao Du'an's heart stirred, guessing that it might be the remnants of the "knowledge" of the Crown Prince of Qi that had surfaced after being stimulated.

He was no stranger to this; when he transmigrated, he also inherited many of the original owner's memories.

“The early Qi Kingdom? That would be warships from around a thousand years ago?” Zhao Du’an was taken aback.

In a thousand years, has the Qi Kingdom ever sent warships out to sea?
What were they fighting for back then?
Looking ahead, there was more than one shipwreck; further away, there were others.

suddenly!

Zhao Du'an remembered what the old Celestial Master had told him before: that there was once a dragon's corpse in the East Sea.

That was the remains of the last known dragon on the entire continent.

The dragon died approximately a thousand years ago.

A startling guess suddenly emerged.

"Could it be... that a thousand years ago, the Qi Kingdom sent a large number of warships to the East China Sea to slay a dragon?!"

"That last dragon, was it killed by the Qi Kingdom?!"

Zhao Du'an was deeply shocked by this conjecture.

-

Typos will be corrected first, then corrected later. Gradually, the global perspective and historical timeline will be added...

(End of this chapter)