The Sunken Ship at the Bottom of the Lake

The water was stagnant, filled with a foul stench. When the glowstone fell, the black, cotton-like flotsam drifting all through the water could be seen clearly.

Soon, the glowstone touched bottom.

The enormous shadow at the bottom of the lake revealed its true form as well.

"This is... a ship?" Tattered canvas clung to wooden posts, hanging limply in the water. The bare mast framework was draped in black sediment, and the faintly visible cabins all pointed to one thing: this was a sunken ship.

Sunken ships were nothing unusual, but one lying at the bottom of this lake was very strange.

This lake was not small, yet Angel had already circled it once and found no outlet to the sea. No tributaries connected it to the ocean beyond, so how had this ship sunk here? Or rather, how had it reached this lake?

Surely no shipwright had inexplicably built a ship by this lake, only to discover afterward that there was no way out and simply sink it in the end.

Just thinking of that possibility made Angel feel foolish.

No shipwright would come to a dead lake to build a ship. Moreover, from the fleeting glimpse he had caught earlier, this vessel appeared to be a cargo ship. A cargo ship's journey lay across boundless oceans; it could never be cooped up in such a tiny lake.

Then how exactly had this ship come here?

Angel decided to descend into the lake and investigate.

The Purification Field activated, screening out the surrounding filth. Angel drifted around the lakebed and confirmed that there were no hidden passages in this lake before returning to the sunken ship.

The wreck lay right in the center of the lake. Looking down from the surface, it had seemed enormous. But upon approaching it