Daqin Zhentiansi

Chapter 702 Whale Fall Nourishes Spirits, Life Never Ends!
Having escaped the thunderstorm area, the fleet finally arrived at the coordinates of the sunken island marked by Yin Jiu You Hun Yin.

However, what we see before us is not the island ruins we imagined.

The seawater here has an eerie dark blue hue, so deep it's almost inky.

No islands were visible on the sea surface; only a vast, endless whirlpool slowly rotated, emanating a terrifying suction force and a thick aura of death.

At the edge of the whirlpool float large swarms of brightly colored but highly poisonous marine fungi, as well as countless strange bony fish that have long lost their intelligence and float and swim only by instinct.

“The sunken island…” Yin Jiuyou narrowed his eyes and said in a low voice, “is below.”

Zhang Yuan's gaze pierced through the layers of water, his voice carrying a hint of solemnity, "Beneath the whirlpool lies the graveyard of giant beasts."

Behemoth.

If he hadn't come in person, Zhang Yuan would never have imagined that such a colossal beast existed in the world.

Zhenhaizhou led the fleet in a cruise around the giant whirlpool.

Using the faint resonance of the Zhenhaiwei token and Yin Jiuyou's keen perception of death energy, they found a dangerous, narrow waterway on the relatively calm side of the whirlpool.

It looked like a gap created by the ribs of some enormous creature!
The fleet reduced its formation, and Zhang Yuan personally stood at the bow of the Zhenhai Ship, using the power of Zhenhai to calm the turbulent currents and guide the fleet carefully into this deadly waterway.

The light suddenly dimmed, with only the ship's spirit lamps casting pale beams of light.

The sight before them made all who witnessed it gasp in horror.

As far as the eye could see, there was an unimaginably vast space.

Huge, decaying, blackened bone pillars covered with thick calcification and coral reefs, like the pillars of a colossal city left behind by ancient gods and demons, pierce straight into the waters above.

Below is an endless abyss of darkness.

In the area illuminated by the ship's lights, one can see huge, twisted vertebrae winding like a mountain range, with collapsed and broken fan-shaped mega-bones scattered on them.

The air was thick with a pungent, rotten smell, while the spiritual energy contained a heavy, decaying stillness and a strange, faint vitality.

The entire fleet seemed to have sailed into the interior of an unimaginably massive prehistoric beast!
This is the sunken island.

A self-contained underwater ecosystem called "Whale Fall" formed by the complete, at least sacred-level, ancient giant Kun corpse!

After the initial shock, danger descended.

Although this giant Kun skeleton ecosystem contains vast resources, it has also nurtured countless terrifying creatures adapted to the environment of death and extreme poison.

"alert!"

"Puff puff!"

An exploration team, which was diving in a specially designed small rune speedboat to collect bone and mineral samples, encountered a swarm of black monsters emerging from the gaps between the skeletons.

These fish have long, slender bodies, but their mouths are covered with spiraling, sucker-like teeth, and their bodies are covered with highly corrosive mucus!

They moved with ghostly speed, ignoring ordinary spiritual energy shields, and frantically rammed and tore at the ship's protective shields! "They're carrion-feeding bone lice! Watch out for their poisonous saliva!"

"Ice Arrow Cover!"

At the same time, on a huge vertebral platform floating near the ship, a team of new soldiers responsible for building temporary outposts encountered poisonous corpse worms that emerged from under the calcified deposits. These worms were the size of giant centipedes, with bizarrely colored patterns on their arthropods and carapaces!
Their colorful poisonous mist can quickly disintegrate metal structures and paralyze nerves, causing more than a dozen soldiers to fall to the ground instantly!

Even more shockingly, several sea-crossing boats located on the edge of the abyss beneath the corpses were silently surrounded by a massive, translucent swarm of soul-devouring jellyfish, resembling dark clouds!
Their enormous canopies, several meters in diameter, extended countless glowing tentacles containing toxins that absorb spiritual energy, intending to envelop and tow the ships!

"Fire Crossbow, focus fire on that giant corpse worm!"

"Antidote powder! Quickly!"

"Spirit Array Division! Clear the poisonous fog! Lock onto the core of the jellyfish swarm!"

"The new army has formed the 'Mountains and Rivers Stabilizing the Seas' formation; let no poisonous creatures get close!"

A fierce battle erupted instantly across the giant Kun's corpse.

In the depths of darkness, an unknown threat lurks.

Soldiers swarmed aboard the warships.

The trials they endured in the East China Sea have enabled these former low-level martial artists to face life and death with equanimity.

On the contrary, many people were now eyeing the surging water monster ahead, wondering what supernatural powers it possessed, and whether it would be a rather unsightly attempt to possess someone's body...

After initially stabilizing the situation, the Spirit Array Division began to play a crucial role.

"This place is both desolate and strangely vibrant. Although the spiritual energy is mixed and stagnant, it contains an incredible amount of primordial yin energy due to the remains of the giant Kun. It needs to be channeled, purified, and revitalized with an array!" The chief of the Spirit Array Division, Zhen Xuan, stood on the back of the Golden Roc, holding a core of lightning-struck wood obtained from the Roc's nest as the array eye.

As soon as he gave the order, thousands of Spirit Array Division cultivators, wielding specially made exploration and array-setting artifacts, busied themselves like worker bees.

They drove Xuan Yin iron stakes into the gaps between the huge ribs, set up spirit-gathering jade discs in the depressions of the collapsed vertebrae, and buried the lightning-struck wood obtained from the Peng Nest, which contained a trace of thunderous life force, deep into the key node as a node hub.

Furthermore, using a secret method to guide the vital energy dissipating from the fleet's spirit furnace, a three-dimensional rune network was constructed.

"Whale fall nourishes life, life goes on! Array activated—!"

With a low shout from Zhen Xuan, the entire massive temporary formation began to operate with a roar in the core skeleton area of ​​the giant Kun!

Complex light patterns spread and lit up on the surface of the huge skeleton like blood vessels, attracting, adsorbing, decomposing and transforming countless micro-dust and decaying substances that were stagnant in the water!
The decaying death energy, the cold and damp aura of the deep sea, the faint primordial yin energy emanating from the giant Kun corpse, and the essence that had been precipitated within the bones for millions of years were forcibly extracted, impurities were stripped away, and the essence was gathered and transformed according to specific rules by the formation!
The nauseating, putrid, and pungent smell in the air was replaced by a refreshing, sweet aroma, a vast and pure energy containing boundless vitality.

A very special kind of primordial energy, existing between life and death, began to condense and flow at the core of the formation!
In the area covered by this primordial energy, the originally aggressive, putrid creatures became restless and agitated, like moss exposed to sunlight, avoiding the area covered by the primordial energy and retreating to the darker areas deeper within the skeleton.

Meanwhile, some spiritual herbs and fungi that had long been propagating in this place and were capable of transforming yin energy seemed to have been blessed with rain after a long drought, becoming visibly more vibrant and translucent!
Under the protection and suppression of the "Whale Fall Spirit Nourishing Array", the efficiency of resource gathering increased by more than tenfold!
Li Yu, the chief craftsman of the Ministry of Works, led his artisans and puppet troops as if they were digging up a divine treasure.

From the skull cavity that resembled a mountain, they chiseled open the hardened lipid layer formed over millions of years, extracting the deep green, strangely fragrant, and massive life essence contained in a single drop of the ancient whale brain jade.

And there's also the flowing, priceless essence of the thousand-year-old whale oil!

(End of this chapter)