Tap, tap, tap, tap!
A beam of light flashed, slicing the dark seawater into fragments. Xia Lun's heart stirred, and he immediately looked behind him.
Carson and Manhunter gripped their paddles tightly. They were trembling, seemingly terrified.
Underwater, none of them could speak directly. Carson pointed down to the left, then shakily drew a finger across his throat.
Xia Lun turned his wrist, and the Short Sword Night Plume appeared in his hand.
He looked where his teammates were pointing. The beam from the lamp on his chest swung with him, piercing the murky darkness and illuminating the space below.
The Collection Facility had capsized, leaving one of its side walls beneath them. Among the furniture piled below, he could make out a glass door. A human face was pressed against the other side!
Gurgle, gurgle...
A few bubbles escaped the face's nostrils, pressed against the glass, then broke into a cloud of tiny bubbles.
Xia Lun took a deep breath and resisted the urge to punch a blast of water through the face. Instead, he pushed off the ceiling above and shot downward.
As he approached the glass door, the face beyond it came into focus. A moment later, several tiny shrimp crawled out of its nostrils, trailing bubbles.
A false alarm.
Xia Lun could not help feeling disappointed. He landed on the glass door and examined the corpse behind it.
A huge wooden cabinet stood behind the corpse. The man appeared to have been trapped there. His face was pale and swollen, and the skin had badly decomposed. He had clearly been dead for a long time.
Strangely, the corpse was curled up, with its wrists and ankles bent at unnatural angles. It looked somewhat like a crab.
Carson and Manhunter reached Xia Lun. Once they realized it