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Novel: [The Primordial Law]
Volume 1: [Nether Realm of the Dead]
Chapter 6: [Falling into the Mysterious Realm]
(6th of Volume 1)
Translator: [Shadow Knight AK]
Editor: [Shadow Knight AK]
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The Dao Ancestor's Tai Chi Fish had originally been missing one of its eyes, leaving a bean-sized hole.
But when Li Weiyi pulled it out from under his collar again, the hole had vanished, and both eyes were now present.
One eye emitted a cyan glow, while the other radiated a crimson radiance, both shining brilliantly like condensed starlight.
"Whoosh!"
"Whoosh!"
The cyan and crimson light wove together like shimmering silk.
From a distance, the two colored glows coalesced into a massive Tai Chi grinding wheel, tens of kilometers in diameter, slowly rotating across the boundless ice plains.
"It truly is the Dao Ancestor's Tai Chi Fish's missing eye... It's just as I suspected... Just as I suspected..."
Zhao Meng had long harbored this suspicion, but witnessing the divine phenomenon unfold before his eyes still shook his soul.
He knelt reverently, bowing in awe and devotion.
Li Weiyi tilted his head back, observing the cyan and crimson light. His pupils reflected the colors, and he exclaimed in disbelief, "Within these radiant glows, I can see profound Daoist scriptures and Buddhist sutras flying! Senior Brother, do you see them too?"
Zhao Meng saw no Daoist scriptures or Buddhist sutras. Instead, he was horrified to discover that the ice beneath him and Li Weiyi was cracking and collapsing, plunging them rapidly into the Arctic Ocean, thousands of meters deep.
Earlier, the Nine Infants had shattered the ice cap in this area.
As it fled, the ice cap collapsed.
The frigid seawater instantly engulfed Li Weiyi and Zhao Meng, dragging them toward the suffocating depths of the abyss.
In the distance, the deformed and shattered research vessel slowly capsized and sank beneath the waves.
"Splash!"
Despite being submerged, Li Weiyi was astonished to find the surrounding water glowing with azure and crimson light, as clear and luminous as an eternally burning divine lamp.
Even more bizarrely, he heard the distinct flapping of canvas sails in the wind and the deep, creaking sounds of a swaying mast.
Suddenly, an overwhelming, invisible field of energy surged around Li Weiyi.
This force frantically pulled at everything nearby - Zhao Meng, the bear-like creature, the seawater, the collapsing ice cap, and even the sinking research vessel in the distance - all were swept up by the field's power.
"Whoosh-"
From his arm to his torso, Li Weiyi's entire body rapidly shrank in concentric circles...
The sensation was like freefalling from a great height, like weightlessness.
But a hundred times more unbearable than weightlessness.
The Dao Ancestor's Tai Chi Fish, which he wore around his neck, slowly floated up until it was level with his eyes, mysterious and unfathomable.
Submerged in the icy seawater, Li Weiyi entered a tranquil yet bizarre state, his vision far surpassing its normal limits.
He clearly saw that the newly acquired pale red eye of the Dao Ancestor's Tai Chi Fish was patterned with intricate lines resembling mountains and rivers, as if an entire planet were displayed before him. He had only witnessed such a sight once before, when observing the moon through a telescope in high school.
Even more astonishing was what followed.
A bronze ship, no larger than a grain of rice, emerged from the pale red planet, its sails unfurling under the glow of Immortal Radiance and the shroud of Nether Mist.
"Whoosh!"
Li Weiyi's body abruptly shrank again, accompanied by weightlessness and dizziness.
When his vision returned, the bronze ship, previously the size of a grain of rice, had grown to the size of his palm, now hovering right before his eyes.
"Whoosh!"
Weightlessness and dizziness returned.
The Bronze Ship shrank to the size of a fishing boat, its bizarre features - the mast and sails, the phoenix corpse and serpent skeleton, the tomb-sea stele forest - appearing to Li Weiyi's eyes like meticulously crafted works of art, each detail etching itself into his mind.
Where did this Bronze Ship come from?
Why was it constantly growing larger?
No...
It wasn't the Bronze Ship that was growing larger; it was Li Weiyi who was shrinking, spiraling inward, becoming smaller and smaller with each revolution.
Li Weiyi no longer knew how to describe his feelings, unable to distinguish between reality and illusion, science and myth.
Could this be... a hallucination brought on by his near-death experience after falling into the Arctic Ocean?
Above the Arctic Ocean, a satellite was recording an anomaly that would soon shock the world.
Centered around the Long Ji research vessel, the seawater and ice cap within a radius of dozens of kilometers were being pulled and devoured by a strange force, vanishing rapidly into nothingness.
The shattered research vessel, along with the colossal beast Nine Infants, which had fled over ten kilometers away, were all drawn into the vortex.
They weren't truly disappearing into thin air.
Rather, under the influence of the Bronze Ship's field, they were falling into the microscopic world.
.....
The numbing cold, the suffocating sensation of being submerged in seawater, seemed to last for days, yet also felt like an instant.
With a thud, Li Weiyi crashed heavily onto an unknown surface.
The relentless weightlessness, the dizziness, the excessive blood loss, and the brutal impact left Li Weiyi, despite his superhuman physique, disoriented and his vision darkening.
Fortunately, the air had noticeably cushioned his fall.
And the ground wasn't hard.
"Such soft soil... Where am I?"
Li Weiyi had fallen face-up, creating a nearly foot-deep human-shaped crater. Every inch of his body ached, rendering him immobile and unaware that he had crashed onto a seven- or eight-meter-tall gray-white burial mound.
The Bronze Ship, ancient and majestic, seemed otherworldly, like a fallen mountain of the gods.
Its masts rose from the deck like divine pillars reaching for the heavens.
The canvas sails, billowing like storm clouds in the Nether Mist, stretched taut against the wind, exuding an awe-inspiring grandeur.
The deck, vast and eerie, was dotted with stone steles weighing tens of thousands of kilograms each, interspersed with countless towering burial mounds, creating an overwhelming sense of desolation and solitude.
Li Weiyi crashed onto one of the burial mounds.
The piled earth was grayish-white, resembling either bone ash or lime, yet it was remarkably sticky, a characteristic of soil.
His back, the back of his head, and his left arm - torn by the bear-like creature - throbbed with excruciating pain. His entire body felt weak and numb, so drained he couldn't even bring himself to blink.
"Wait... I'm still alive."
The moment this thought surfaced, Li Weiyi's eyes snapped open. He found himself beneath a low-hanging sky thick with dense, swirling Netherclouds, an utterly bewildering sight.
'How did I survive falling into the Arctic Ocean?'
He remembered hallucinating as he died, seeing flashes of azure light and crimson radiance, witnessing the Dao Ancestor's Tai Chi Fish's eyes transform into celestial bodies, and glimpsing a Bronze Ship setting sail...
Just as these memories surfaced, Li Weiyi saw the Long Ji research vessel plummeting from the dark Netherclouds above.
The massive ship tumbled through the air, shedding debris and human figures accompanied by piercing screams and desperate cries.
As the vessel descended, its fall gradually slowed. The Immortal Radiance and Nether Mist enveloping the Bronze Ship were dissolving the research vessel's gravitational pull.
"Boom!"
The research vessel crashed nearby, its metal groaning and shattering.
The entire Bronze Ship shuddered violently, the tremors resonating deep within Li Weiyi's heart.
His scalp tingled with numbness as his mind flooded with absurdity and dread. He struggled to rise, but his efforts proved futile.
The piercing wails of infants echoed across the heavens and earth, sharp and deafening.
From the thick Nethercloud above, the Nine Infants plummeted - a colossal, 200-meter-long serpentine creature covered in scales, its torso resembling that of a massive bull, all nine heads shrieking in unison.
What chilled Li Weiyi to the bone was that he was in the Nine Infants' descent path.
Even with some unknown mystical force cushioning the impact, he would surely be crushed to dust.
As the Nine Infants fell, its eyes shifted from terror to elation upon spotting the Bronze Ship below. Its wails transformed into joyous laughter, as if it had awaited this moment for countless ages.
"Whoosh!"
A golden claw, larger than the Nine Infants itself, suddenly tore through the Nethercloud and seized the creature.
The claw gleamed like molten gold, radiating metallic strength and sharpness. With effortless precision, it pierced through the Nine Infants' body.
Behind the Nethercloud, a colossal shadow emerged, radiating a boundless, earth-shattering aura. It resembled a behemoth capable of traversing the universe.
Yet, upon spotting the Bronze Ship below, it flapped its wings in trepidation and vanished into the endless, murky chaos.
"This... where am I? Am I even alive?"
Li Weiyi, overwhelmed by shock and confusion, gradually lost consciousness.
Blood seeped continuously from the wound on his arm, mingling with the grayish-white grave soil.
Strangely, the blood began to trickle along the soil, accelerating its flow into the grave.
"Weiyi! Weiyi..."
Zhao Meng's urgent voice echoed through the dense Nether Mist of the graveyard as he frantically searched.
Soon, he discovered Li Weiyi atop a grave mound and pulled him from the humanoid-shaped pit.
The grave soil in the pit was completely devoid of bloodstains, leaving only Li Weiyi's face as pale as paper.
After Zhao Meng carried Li Weiyi away,
a string of bone wind chimes hanging from the tombstone swayed in the wind, their crisp, melodious tones adding an eerie charm to the terrifyingly silent night.
...
Li Weiyi felt as though he had been in a deep slumber for years. His weary consciousness, like wisps of drifting silk, gradually returned.
He heard the sound of waves and felt a cool breeze on his face.
Slowly, he opened his eyes.
His vision, initially blurred, gradually sharpened.
"Finally awake! I thought you wouldn't make it," Qi Shanshan said with a faint smile, her voice tinged with surprise.
She then turned and walked toward the door.
Though Li Weiyi only saw her graceful white-clad back, he recognized her as Doctor Qi, who had accompanied the expedition.
"He's awake, but still very weak..." Doctor Qi's voice drifted in from outside, her words indistinct as she spoke to someone.
Li Weiyi surveyed his surroundings.
The hospital bed beneath him appeared to have been salvaged from the research vessel.
The room itself was a makeshift shelter constructed from fragments of the ship, resembling a spacious iron shed. Scraps of discarded materials lay scattered on the floor, yet to be cleared away.
A blood bag hung from a wooden pole, the needle inserted into his right arm, transfusing blood.
Inside the iron shed, six other patients lay injured: some with broken legs, others paralyzed, and one still unconscious.
Through the makeshift tent flap, Li Weiyi could see the bronze ship's bulwark just a few meters away.
The thick layer of copper rust gave it both an ancient grandeur and the desolate air of something abandoned for centuries.
He heard the rhythmic crashing of waves and felt the faint vibrations as they struck the ship's hull.
The wind, having leaped over the bronze bulwark, blew in through the tent flap.
"So, what I experienced before... it wasn't a hallucination? It was all real?" Li Weiyi murmured.
"Of course it's real. We've likely fallen into a completely unknown ocean world - hmm... most likely within the microscopic realm," Cai Yutong's cool voice preceded her into the tent.
She entered with Qi Shanshan, who was wearing a white doctor's coat.
Both women were strikingly tall and elegant.
Li Weiyi's heart skipped a beat: "The microscopic realm? What does that mean?"
"I don't fully understand it myself. It's what the leaders have been saying. Something about Buddha's Relic, microscopes, and bronze ships. They seem to have known some of the details all along."
Cai Yutong remained as cold and aloof as ever.
She placed her fingers on Li Weiyi's forehead and nodded in satisfaction: "Good, the fever's gone down. It wasn't for nothing that I had my blood drawn for three days to transfuse into you."
Qi Shanshan immediately burst her bubble, teasing with a playful grin, "Oh, so you're already taking credit? I knew you were up to no good when you donated blood."
Qi Shanshan and Cai Yutong had been roommates during their undergraduate years in the Department of Chemistry, both dazzling and ambitious "heaven-blessed daughters" of the department.
When their relationship was good, they were as close as sisters. When it wasn't, they were locked in a silent, competitive rivalry.
Later, one pursued graduate studies in medicine while the other continued to delve deeper into chemistry. With the competition gone, their bond grew even stronger.
It was Qi Shanshan who had learned about the Arctic Scientific Expedition from Cai Yutong. As her "best friend," she "ordered" Cai Yutong to recommend her to the expedition leaders.
Practical and adept at seizing opportunities, Qi Shanshan proactively sought ways to advance her career.
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END OF CHAPTER
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