Beyond the thick glass on one side of the narrow Deep Dive Pod:
Rusty chains that could pierce through the sky and boundless abyss within this slanted space.
Like a sleeping dragon curled within the abyss, every iron link was covered in dark red rust, like bones gnawed away by time.
These ancient shackles stretched vertically upward from the bottom of the Black Tide, casting twisted shadows through the ink-thick waters.
Flakes of iron peeling from the chains drifted with the undercurrents, like countless tiny stars falling into eternal night.
Although Su Wen had long known what they represented, when Chie's gaze followed the chains upward, she finally discovered that those structures beyond the laws of physics did not end at the water's surface.
They continued to pierce through the surging Black Tide.
They had even woven themselves into a net within the invisible void.
Higher up, the rusty chains became transparent, like a heavenly ladder stretched out by some force, eventually vanishing into the mist-shrouded heavens.
Compared to Deep Tokyo.
This place—
Perhaps this was the place where Caroline had recently told him about the legacy left behind by the civilization of the deceased, "Utopia-Sephidolos."
It should have been a place where stars glittered.
Yet now it was completely obscured by a prison woven from chains, forming a barrier that not even moonlight could penetrate.
Had the Great Sage ultimately taken the wrong path, or had he reached the future he envisioned?
Su Wen did not yet know the answer. He merely pressed a hand to his chest, then gave a slight nod toward the chains that pierced the heavens and the Black Tide.
Then,
The handsome Scholar heard a metallic hum vibrating from deep within the tide. It was the sound of the chains swaying faintly beneath some