Sea of Corpses

"Young Master, what should we do next?"

Snake Lance looked up at the Starry Sky above, realizing that day and night here seemed to be reversed compared to the outside world, and became even more vigilant. "Find the passage to the lower levels?"

"Let's try the Ascension Curse first."

Qian Renxue flew upwards and found that she was not dizzy at all. Just as she thought it was because her body was stronger than that of ordinary Soul Master, she saw She Long frown slightly.

"Are you under the influence of a curse?"

"Yes, young master."

Despite his reluctance to admit it, Snake Lance faithfully reported his condition, "I am experiencing mild dizziness. It doesn't affect my combat ability, but it will continue whenever I move upwards... This is truly a strange place."

[It seems this place was indeed left behind by the First Generation Angel God, which is why I was unaffected, while the others, even Titled Douluo, were unable to avoid it.]

Qian Renxue made a decision and said to the Snake Lance, "Let's go, continue downwards!"

"Yes!"

The two, one after the other, headed towards the central area of the first floor.

After the two left, a Gray-White Figure with four arms descended from the sky, sniffed the air, and quickly followed them...

···

At the same time.

Zhou Qing and his group have already reached the Fourth Layer.

Thump!

Everyone fell into the water and quickly swam towards the circular platform with protruding edges.

After getting ashore, Zhou Qing and the others used their Soul Power to quickly evaporate the water off their bodies. However, Riko and the Rabbit Girl did not understand such delicate Soul Power control techniques and actually planned to change their clothes in front of the five of them.

Rabbit Girl are one thing, but they're covered in hair, so it doesn't matter whether they take their pants off or not.

But Riko is a real girl!

"You guys are so shy."

Riko noticed this and waved to Zhou Qing, Tang San, and Wang Sheng.

Romantina and Xiao Wu stood in front of the three boys who had already turned away.

Is this really necessary?

Zhou Qing retorted, "We're gentlemen!"

Xiao Wu: →_→

Romantina: →_→

"Ahem." Tang San coughed twice and said something fair, "Although Qing Ge can be a bit unreliable at times, he would never peek under these circumstances."

"That's not necessarily true," Romantina said righteously. "This guy used to take advantage of me quite a bit."

"What do you mean I took advantage of you? You were the one who forced it into my mouth!" Zhou Qing glared, quite angry at Romantina's distorted version of the facts.

Who was it that pressed him against her chest back then?

It's her! It's Romantina!

He was always on the defensive!

However, Tang San had already retreated three meters away from Zhou Qing, drawing a clear line between them.

Wang Sheng was the same.

"You two..."

Before Zhou Qing could finish speaking, Riko and the Rabbit Girl had already changed their clothes and walked over.

"Actually, you don't need to be so shy. Explorer are not concerned about formalities, and no one will care if a girl is naked." Riko smiled slightly, her lovely face seemingly capable of healing hearts.

"Never mind."

Ignoring this, Zhou Qing walked to the edge of the platform, looked up at the Waterfall Curtain that enveloped the entire Fourth Layer, and said:

"No wonder Explorer in the past were trapped on this narrow Ring Platform for so long. To collect the floating skeletons of creatures in the Sea of Corpses, they had to rush through two Waterfall, one inside and one outside. If they were not careful, they might rise up."

"If sufficient food and water are not prepared, and the fish in the Sea of Corpses are inedible, then people will either commit suicide or be murdered."

At this moment, the Rabbit Girl looked left and right, her eyes slightly disappointed. "Is Namiki dead? Did the Explorer living inside her also die?"

Without a doubt.

The location where the Rabbit Girl led Zhou Qing and the others to descend was the same place where the mutated Fallen One of Namiki, as she remembered it, was located.

Only--

Namiki has disappeared.

Is the Steel Base guarded?

Seeing the Rabbit Girl's sadness, Zhou Qing didn't ask questions like "Did you remember wrong?" or "How long has it been since you came down?" Instead, he inquired about the personnel in the Fourth Layer Steel Base.

If there are people stationed there, then they will naturally know the situation on the Fourth Layer.

Furthermore, to reach the Fifth Layer, they also need to go to the Steel Base.

"Some."

Riko reported what she knew, "The controller of the Steel Base is called Saundin, which means sunlight. It is said that he has lived for at least two hundred years."

"Saundin? He's not dead yet."

The Rabbit Girl clearly knew this person, but their relationship didn't seem to be very harmonious. "He's a weirdo who wears a mask all the time to cover his real mask, and he likes to study the flesh and blood of Fallen One... When Namiki appeared, he also approached the captain, wanting to obtain the flesh and blood tissue from Namiki, but the captain refused."

At this point, the Rabbit Girl stopped abruptly, feeling that Namiki's disappearance might be related to Saundin, and that she had to go and inquire about it.

How do we get to the center of the Sea of Corpses?

Upon arriving at the Fourth Layer again, looking through the Water Curtain Waterfall at the undulating ocean filled with the skeletons of all sorts of creatures, the Rabbit Girl felt a lingering fear.

The creatures in this ocean are secondary; what's truly terrifying is that, over time, the Explorer, unable to bear the pain of the Ascension Curse, are forced to abandon their basic human decency and begin to prey on their fellow explorers in order to survive.

"Can ships for people only be built using floating objects on this Sea of Corpses?" Zhou Qing asked the Rabbit Girl.

"Yes, only ships built using the skeletons of these creatures can avoid being attacked by the creatures beneath the Sea of Corpses. Anything else, whether it's a ship made of Iron Skin or wood, will attract their attention, be devoured, and then turned into fragments and sunk to the bottom of the sea."

The Rabbit Girl truthfully told us, "So, don't even think about using other ships; we can only make use of the materials already available on the Sea of Corpses."

Tang San squatted down, scooped up a handful of seawater with his hand, a flash of purple light appeared in his eyes, but he couldn't see anything. He then poured it out and put a finger in his mouth.

After spitting out a "Pah!", he said, "Although it has a salty taste, it is different from real seawater. It has various fishy smells mixed in, like a kind of nutrient solution that can be used to irrigate plants. However, it can also be eaten by people, but it doesn't taste very good."

For the past three years, Tang San has spent his holidays in Holy Soul Village researching various agricultural product planting, irrigation, and fertilization methods, and he has become quite an authority on these topics.

Thus, the liquid in this Sea of Corpses is likely something harmless to humans but highly beneficial to plant growth.

Considering the two layers of Water Curtain Waterfall between the Third Layer and Fourth Layer, one flowing upwards and the other downwards, Zhou Qing suspected that the Fourth Layer might be a composting space, and that the liquid, rich in nutrients that can support plant growth, could be circulated through this Waterfall Curtain -like flow.

The creatures in this Sea of Corpses are very likely the cleaners who decompose substances that are difficult for the ocean itself to dissolve...