Absolute Gate

Chapter 84 Swimming is prohibited
An underwater cave, two hundred meters deep.

Because Onion had discarded all his equipment, he could only swim upstream in the dark.

He was surrounded by deathly silence, and before him lay an impenetrable, thick darkness. He held his breath, feeling suffocated.

Suddenly, he touched something.

"It's a respirator..."

Onion was taken aback. He fumbled around for a bit and found the gas cylinder.

He quickly put it on, inserted the respirator into his mouth, and took a deep breath.

"What great luck! I actually found the equipment I lost before, haha."

Onion was initially happy because of the oxygen, but then she froze.

Because he remembered that when he pretended to be possessed and threw away all the equipment, the gas cylinder sank.

He had been swimming upstream, so how did he manage to retrieve his equipment?
"Did I swim in the wrong direction?"

The onion realized this, and then felt bitter.

"Brother, is this how you felt before you died?"

The onion once again turned its body around underwater.

However, he couldn't see anything. Even when his fighting spirit erupted, it could only shroud his body in a hazy light.

This allowed him to see himself clearly, but that was all; he did not know his relative position to his surroundings.

"I think I rotated it 180 degrees, right? It's facing upwards now, isn't it?"

He swam tentatively for a while, and suddenly, he saw light.

A very faint light, like the only star in the dark night, was above and to his right.

"This should be my spare headlamp that I left 150 meters away, right? It's also a place for people to leave plants."

Onion smiled. Once he found that place, he could contact the Dragon-Subduing Tree and also find the air cylinder on the safety rope to change his oxygen supply.

He quickly swam over, almost at full speed.

But as he got closer, his expression suddenly changed, because he saw the mud... and the skeleton!

"what?"

Onion was horrified; he had actually swum back.

He returned to the abyss, 400 meters below the surface, where the headlamp he had discarded while pretending to be possessed lay quietly amidst the pile of corpses.

This wasn't the one tied to the rope, but the discarded headlamp that silently fell to the bottom.

And he actually followed this light and arrived at the sacrificial pit.

In the dark, the worst thing you can do is blindly turn around, because human senses are very inaccurate. What you think is a 180-degree turn may actually be a completely different turn.

Let alone an underwater environment, even on land, if you turn around blindfolded, the direction will deviate greatly from what you expected.

"If I continue to grope in the dark now, I'll never be able to go back."

Onion stared at the headlamp among the skeletons, gritted his teeth, and fell down to pick it up and put it on.

With light on, the headlamp beams swept across the area, and Onion discovered that the area of ​​corpses was just directly below the entrance to the canyon above. Anything that was going to fall would only land in this area.

His diving watch, video camera, and other items that he left behind are also nearby.

On the inner side of the bottom of the cave, there is a large angled area with a rock ceiling above it, which was not visible before descending. It can only be seen at this depth.

The beam of light shone into the area, and Onion was startled.

There seemed to be something there, vaguely outlined, yet transparent.

He looks familiar. Yes, he looks familiar.

Onion wasn't sure if he was seeing things, but he knew it was dangerous here, so he immediately channeled his fighting spirit and charged upwards.

There's something there, he's sure there's something there.

So he swam while looking back.

Then he discovered that the ripples he created while swimming had spread to that area.

In an instant, just as a spider sensed the vibration of its web, the large mass of water huddled in the corner at the bottom of the cave suddenly jolted.

It moved! It moved!

Like a living thing, it surges and ripples, as if a colossal creature made of water has broken through the waves.

Yes, the water was moving in the water... That's all Onion could say about what he saw.

The two types of water are definitely different things. Even if they are the same color, they give people a clear sense of distinction.

"Oh no!" Onion's heart skipped a beat, and he almost stopped beating.

Because he was way too close to that lump of water.

He tried to run, but it was too late.

So, they're really going to turn this fake situation into a real one? Are they really going to die here?

He gritted his teeth, and instead of retreating, he advanced, diving vertically towards the golden statue.

He didn't know why, but running away was too late, so he could only cling to the statue as a last resort.

"How do I use it? How do I use it?"

His mind was a complete mess, and he pinned his hopes on being able to control this monstrous object, hoping that he might be able to control the monster.

Unfortunately, no, it was as if he had only touched an ordinary piece of gold.

"Whoosh!" The lump of 'living water' hit him.

The onion was completely wrapped up, and his eyes were wide with rage, yet he found no pain and felt no attack.

It felt as if I had been hit by a stream of water.

With a splash, the flowing water left and stagnated in the corner.

Once it stops flowing, it's almost indistinguishable from ordinary water. If I had to say something, it's exceptionally clean.

So when the beam of light shines on it, it will appear as if there is something there. After all, ordinary water is very turbid, and the silt and sand diffract the beam of light. With this comparison, an outline can be seen.

Onion stood frozen in place, clinging to the statue, too afraid to move.

"Is this the monstrous object? I know why it looks familiar... Hmm, I saw it when I pretended to be crazy to scare Perrin!"

Onion's actions were chilling upon closer examination. In fact, when he scared Perrin earlier, he acted as if he had seen something, and it wasn't entirely an act.

He was at the very back, and it seemed like he saw something.

He then pretended to be crazy, was kicked away by Perrin, and slammed against the rock wall, where he also glimpsed something chasing after Perrin and the others.

However, he didn't know what he was seeing, since the other party was transparent and looked exactly like 'water'.

So it's just a feeling of 'I didn't see anything, but it seems like there's something there.'

"Water ripples, when they reach the very bottom, will be sensed by it."

"It was like a spider chasing after something that was disturbing the water flow. I was lying on the rock wall and didn't move, while Perrin was frantically crushing the charging attack, so this thing kept chasing Perrin."

"Perrin's all-out escape was the right move; otherwise, he would have been caught by this 'water spider'."

Onion grew increasingly horrified as he thought about it: "So that means... it was here last night when I came here with the Dragon-Subduing Wood!"

"Hiss, when Jianglongmu and I left with the corpse, this 'water spider' was actually chasing us, but neither of us noticed."

"The reason we didn't realize it until we left was simply because... the Dragon-Subduing Tree was moving too fast." Last night, Wu Zhong dragged him uphill at breakneck speed, so fast that Onion's superhuman body developed decompression sickness, and he lay on the shore convulsing.

Similarly, Perrin ran too fast today.

They found nothing, but were frightened by the pile of bones and decided to retreat quickly, thus escaping the water spiders' pursuit.

Thinking about this, Onion realized that the water spider wasn't very fast.

That's roughly the normal speed of a fish.

The only problem is that its movement trajectory cannot be discerned; only when the beam of light shines on it continuously can a general outline be perceived.

"Did it not hurt me because I was hugging the statue?"

"Or has it already attacked me?"

Onion was lost in thought, his breathing rapid, carbon dioxide accumulating in his respirator, carrying a nauseatingly sweet smell.

He glanced at the remaining gas in the cylinder; it was almost empty.

"I don't want to think about it anymore. I'll escape at full speed. It shouldn't be able to catch me."

Onion looked down at the statue again. Since he had already touched it, he might as well take it with him.

Although it was heavy, weighing 100 kilograms, it was easy to hold in my arms.

At this moment, the gas cylinder was completely exhausted. He took one last deep breath, hugged the golden statue, and pushed off with his feet to swim upwards.

However, with this exertion, he fell flat on his face, his head hitting the mud.

"what?"

Onion was completely stunned. He held his last breath, his heart pounding wildly.

What's wrong? Is the statue too heavy?

His eyes flashed with a fierce light, and his fighting spirit transformed into a fish, forming a manta ray-like phantom around his body, which then swam around with a roar.

This is his specialty; he can swim freely in the sea at an extremely fast speed.

However, this approach failed at this moment.

He kept scurrying about on the ground, rummaging through the ancient skeletons, rummaging through the corpses like a clumsy lame duck, or a stranded fish.

Even if you release the statue, it will still be the same.

The onion's movements stirred up countless sludge particles, plunging the surroundings into darkness. He was out of air and was now relying entirely on his physical strength to hold his breath.

"Oh no, I can't swim anymore."

Onion was filled with despair; he was doomed.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't swim using the buoyancy or reaction force of the water; he could only thrash about on the ground, and the water flow and direction he created were completely inexplicable.

A fish looks the same way it does when it's stranded on land as it does when it's in the water.

This is clearly a characteristic of the monstrous creature, probably infected with an effect that absolutely forbids swimming.

He looked at the water spider again, and sure enough, it remained motionless, even as it thrashed about at the bottom, creating ripples and rapid currents.

That lump of running water was ignored as well.

It was obvious that the opponent had already attacked him, stripping him of his 'swimming' attribute.

Onion remembered exactly how to swim, and his movements were fine, but the water around him just acted erratically, as if the universe was 'not taking his understanding of the physics of swimming seriously'.

"Heh... Brother, so this is how you died?"

Onion looked gloomy and bitter. He finally understood why Ginger had been crawling on the rock wall before he died.

Because in a situation where swimming is absolutely prohibited, the only ways to move underwater are walking and rock climbing.

The ginger must have swum nearby in the darkness, and the ripples startled the water spider.

From Ginger's perspective, he was surrounded by darkness and had no chance of escaping the water spiders' attack, so he suddenly couldn't swim...

He died without ever knowing why. He had been frantically chiseling and climbing for four hours, but all he had done was crawl around in the thick darkness.

"Can not go back."

Onion sighed inwardly, knowing full well that he was doomed to die, so he calmed down and even turned around and shut down the Multiverse.

Since ginger can breathe underwater and hadn't managed to climb out after four hours, there was no point in him trying anymore.

He stopped struggling and lay there in the mud at the bottom of the cave, keeping company with many ancient corpses.

"We agreed that once we finished this mission, we would save up 100 million yuan and retire together to enjoy life."

"I never imagined that you would die in the water, while I... would die because I can't swim."

"Haha, we even waited a month and specifically chose this mission."

The onion was suffocating, waiting to die.

But his physique was too strong, and the pain of suffocation would last at least twenty minutes before he lost consciousness, and more than half an hour before he could really suffocate.

He had considered deliberately choking on water to speed up the process, but after taking a sip, his survival instinct overwhelmed him; a person really can't intentionally choke to death.

The respirator was still in his mouth, but the air cylinder was empty.

The hissing, dry breathing became chaotic, like the gasps of a dying man.

Onions can only experience death slowly, silently suffocating in the darkness.

Darkness is approaching, the true darkness of impending death.

But just a few seconds before he was about to lose consciousness, a bright light suddenly shone down.

"Shh!"

He seemed to see a familiar face, and then a large hand grabbed him and pulled him upstream.

During the journey, his tube was removed and a new gas cylinder was installed. The air was filled with crisp, clean gas, and Onion couldn't help but take a deep breath.

This was like being suffocated by a breath of oxygen; it instantly made me feel refreshed.

By the time Onion came to his senses, he had already reached a depth of two hundred meters.

This is in a side path, surrounded by rock walls.

The person who saved him was Wu Zhong, who stopped and looked at him angrily, then slammed his fist into the rock wall next to the onion head.

It was as if it was saying: What the hell are you doing? Why did you go there?
Onion couldn't speak, he just waved his hands frantically, pointing at the rippling water, looking anxious, signaling him not to smash the wall.

"Shouldn't it not make any ripples?"

Then Wu Zhong saw him point down below, then make a person shape with one hand and a jellyfish shape with the other, and frantically chase after the person.

Wu Zhong understood immediately, then was horrified and quickly pulled him out of the side path.

They went upstream while looking back.

Sure enough, if you focus enough, you can see a pool of living water chasing you when the beam of light sweeps across the target.

"hiss!"

Wu finally saw the strange 'living water' and ran even faster.

He activated the Longevity Technique at full power, and ripples emanated from beneath his feet as his body rose like a cannonball.

……

(End of this chapter)