Ten Thousand Viper Sea.
The deep sea.
The sun shone brightly, but the sea was no longer the lovely, vivid blue of the shallows. Instead, it was a deep blue, almost black.
The surface roared and surged. Its rippling shimmer seemed to rise at random, yet contained immense power.
Endless whale-sized waves stretched to the horizon. Aside from the enormous sea monsters that occasionally darted beneath the surface, not a trace of life could be seen.
Even cultivators piloting flying vessels had no desire to venture into such a desolate stretch of sea.
The seabed.
Dark, gloomy, oppressive.
In the abyss, where neither sun nor moon could reach, a towering, majestic city stood in silence.
The city was impossibly vast, as though it were the dwelling of an ancient giant.
Even a colossal whale capable of raising waves ten thousand feet high would have seemed no larger than an ordinary fish before it.
The city walls were built of pitch-black stone. Silver patterns glimmered faintly across their surface, racing along mysterious paths and casting a pale light over the immediate surroundings.
Yet the seawater, which should have been freezing cold, was now bubbling in strings as though it were boiling.
In many places above the city, the water had warped, as if scorching heat had burned patches of vacuum into it.
Sea folk of every strange shape and size floated through the boiling water. Carried by the currents, they drifted slowly into the distance, vanishing silently into the darkness.
Suddenly, the ten-thousand-jun sea roared into motion!
A bull-like monster, white-headed, with a single eye and a serpent's tail, descended from the surface at a leisurely pace, as though strolling through a courtyard.
Wherever it went, immeasurable seawater vanished with a crash. Brilliant daylight followed close behind, pouring into a deep