Shen Le drew in a soft, sharp breath.
He had seen enormous whirlpools before. The entrance to the secret realm the Red Wedding Dress had taken him to was a vast whirlpool, one that could even swallow the navy's largest warship.
He had also seen underwater secret realms, whether he reached them by plunging down a waterfall off a cliff and falling into a world of clouds, or by following a rushing waterway into the enormous pool outside the Dragon Palace-
But none of them had inspired the same heartfelt awe as the whirlpool before him, or even fear.
This whirlpool stretched beyond sight. Shen Le leaned over the ship's rail and strained to look outward, but no matter how hard he looked, he could not find its edge.
Both the glow from Xuan Yuan's scales and the light raised at Cloud Kun's bow were exceptionally feeble in these ocean depths, utterly unable to illuminate the waves at the whirlpool's edge.
Even when he extended his mental power to its utmost, he could not reach it-
There was something strange about the composition of these deep waters. The moment his mental power passed beyond the rail, it felt as though it had entered a mire. Every inch forward was a struggle...
No, not a mire. Shen Le had a feeling that the space above this whirlpool was "empty."
There was no water, not a single drop. Clear, translucent light shone up from beneath the whirlpool, its pillar shooting straight toward the sky. The seawater overhead seemed to be held aloft by that pillar of light, suspended high above.
Shen Le even saw a great bird with snowy-white feathers fly swiftly over the whirlpool. With a slight beat of its wings, it skimmed past the hull and shot straight into the