Dragon Raja 4; Chapter 26: Journey to the End of the World (26)

Dragon Raja 4

“Mr. Chu, I must remind you, no matter how experienced a diving expert you are, polar diving is completely different from diving to see coral in Tahiti,” Seal Paw said in his broken English while checking the zippers on the dry suits. They were facing near-freezing waters, where common wetsuits were useless. Even the strongest divers in wetsuits would succumb to hypothermia in just ten minutes, but dry suits would provide much better insulation, though even then, they would only offer about thirty minutes of activity time. Seal Paw was the best diving expert on the Yamal and the most seasoned polar survival specialist, and he felt it necessary to make things clear to Chu Zihang.

Chu Zihang listened quietly until Seal Paw finished speaking, then patted him on the shoulder:

“Your only job is to keep your eyes on my back. If I pull the rope hard, you immediately cut it and return to the surface as fast as you can.”

He walked to the edge of the ice crevice wearing his flippers, put on his mask, and then flipped into the water, light and agile like a mackerel returning to the sea. Before he entered the water, Sasha’s crew had already thrown a rope-attached iron anchor into the sea. The anchor, weighted with lead, didn’t manage to hook the seabed and simply hung suspended in the water. The rope passed through the buckles around their waists, and they followed it down into the depths of the ocean. The red-tinted seawater was only at the surface; after diving three to four meters, the water began to clear up. The beam from their dive lights could penetrate two to three meters of water, and Seal Paw followed behind as Chu Zihang had instructed. At first, he thought he was leading the way, but once in the water, he had to admit he was merely trailing behind this Chinese man, perhaps even becoming a burden.

The underwater scene was breathtaking. Tens of thousands of Arctic cod and gray trout formed spiraling schools that ascended and descended. They moved to the shallows to breathe in the oxygen-rich water and to the depths in search of food. This phenomenon is common in the ocean; some North Sea fishing grounds have high yields because ocean currents bring up organic matter accumulated on the seafloor, feeding large schools of fish, which in turn feed powerful predators. The calls of giant whales echoed around them. The whales were hunting nearby, and judging by the sounds, there were several different pods.

Seal Paw quickly began to feel short of breath—Chu Zihang was diving too fast. But there was no choice; they couldn’t last long in these low temperatures and needed to conserve enough oxygen for their return to the surface. The depth gauge showed they had reached 150 meters, which was quite a dangerous depth for scuba diving. The world record for scuba diving is just over 300 meters, and that’s in warm, safe waters with dedicated rescue teams.

So far, all they had seen was a carnival of fish, nothing unusual.

The navigator had strongly opposed this dive, arguing it would yield no results. North of Cape Morris Jesup, there are no places in the Arctic Ocean with depths less than 1,000 meters. Even human deep-diving limits wouldn’t allow observation of the seabed.

Chu Zihang felt his stamina waning. He couldn’t afford to lose control in the deep sea, so he had placed two bloodline-suppressing pills under his tongue before the dive.

The rope wasn’t long enough either. If they went any further down, they would soon reach the anchor.

He pulled out a flare from his waist, snapped it hard, and the flare emitted a dazzling light, falling downward with a trail of sparks. The water was clear, which would give them an additional few dozen meters of depth to explore.

Chu Zihang kept his eyes on the area below, while Seal Paw, above him, used the last moments to admire the scenery. Under the flare’s illumination, the reflection of the fish resembled flowing auroras. The whales’ calls were deep and distant, and the world seemed ethereal and vast, evoking a time when the Earth had no humans. This sea already harbored a tremendous life force, with species battling and mutating to determine the strongest ruler of the planet… Just then, Seal Paw suddenly saw a long piece of plastic sheeting twisting and dancing in front of him. He cursed under his breath. Inuit people regard the Arctic Ocean as a pure home, but human creations had begun to pollute these waters.

Suddenly, Chu Zihang felt the rope being tugged hard from above—a warning from Seal Paw. But from the force of the pull, he could sense Seal Paw’s anxiety. Chu Zihang immediately ascended and soon encountered Seal Paw holding the plastic sheeting. Seal Paw had already turned off his headlamp, leaving only a faint fluorescent light source. He brought the plastic sheet close to the light source on his diving suit. What looked like “plastic sheeting” had faint patterns flowing on it, like a splendid cloud tapestry.

It wasn’t plastic at all but a shed skin from some kind of creature. Judging by the size of the skin, the creature was about seven or eight meters long, with densely packed scales on its body. Chu Zihang and Seal Paw couldn’t speak to each other, but Chu Zihang could see the color drain from Seal Paw’s face. The Inuit obviously revered ancient legends, which is why he had knelt and prayed by the ice crevice. Could there really be a gateway to another world beneath the sea, and had a dangerous creature already come through that cave into the human realm?

If so, it was likely lurking in the shadows, watching them. They couldn’t sense its presence, but the whales had. At some point, the chorus of whale songs had fallen silent.

Chu Zihang turned off his dive light and tore off the fluorescent markers on his suit, quietly considering his next move. He had been to the ancient dragon embryo hatchery in the Japan Trench and had experience dealing with large marine animals.

The creature was swimming around them at high speed, perhaps asserting its claim over these two prey. It was long but not enormous, seeming able to slip through gaps in the water without creating significant currents. However, to say it wasn’t huge is only relative to the whales; compared to humans, it was still a giant. With Chu Zihang’s bloodline, he might have been able to confront the creature head-on in his prime, but his body was now severely damaged. Each use of the King’s Blaze or Blood Rage was like drinking a new dose of poison. He needed to think of a clever approach.

The creature moved too quickly. Even if they swam at top speed, it would be like crawling in front of it. If Chu Zihang were alone, he could consider detonating King’s Blaze underwater. King’s Blaze would instantly vaporize a portion of the water, causing a steam explosion that could propel him a certain distance. But Seal Paw’s body clearly couldn’t withstand that kind of impact. Chu Zihang felt the rope in his hand and had an idea. He slowly reeled in the rope, and moments later, the heavy iron anchor reached his hand. The anchor had a diameter of about two feet, with sharp barbs on all sides, and a dozen heavy lead weights hung from the shank to ensure its weight would keep the rope taut in the water. Chu Zihang removed the lead weights one by one and hung them around his and Seal Paw’s waists—each carrying over a hundred kilograms. If they didn’t grip the rope tightly, they would immediately plummet to the seafloor.

Chu Zihang took the claw knife from Sea Lion Paw’s waist and cut his own wrist, letting the blood seep into the seawater. Most carnivorous creatures are extremely sensitive to the smell of blood, or rather, there is a bloodthirsty gene hidden deep in their DNA. He did this to provoke the creature into attacking them, in the hope of tricking it into swallowing the iron anchor. If they were to let go of the rope now, they would be pulled into the depths of the ocean by the weights. Sasha, on the ice surface, would notice the rope being pulled tight from below and start retrieving it, dragging the creature out of the water. Once they unhooked the weights from their waists, they could rise layer by layer and reach the surface.

At that moment, Chu Zihang suddenly felt dizzy. A loud noise came from all directions, especially from the ocean floor. His vision blurred, and he could only make out massive dust columns rising from the seabed. The columns twisted excitedly, hiding wriggling mouths. They were singing a hymn that Chu Zihang couldn’t understand, except for one name that echoed in his ears—Jörmungandr! Jörmungandr! Jörmungandr!

His blood had awakened something deep on the ocean floor. They were cheering, as if a soul was about to descend into their embrace.

Chu Zihang could no longer hold onto the rope and plummeted straight into the deep sea, weighed down by the lead weights. His vision grew darker. In his last moment of consciousness, he saw a huge mouth descending from above, filled with layers of teeth that spread open like flowers made of white bones. He suddenly understood what he had seen earlier in the light of the burning stick. The ocean floor had an orderly and subtle fractal pattern, like an infinitely large flower blooming in circles. The further out the structure went, the more complex it became, and the flower’s center was a pitch-black hole.

Sasha had just lit a cigarette when the copper bell tied to the rope rang loudly, signaling trouble below.

Sasha spit out his cigarette and rushed over with Orev to the rope, pulling it back with all their might. The crew members quickly joined in. The other end of the rope was incredibly heavy—not because it was hooked on something heavy, but because some powerful creature was fighting them.

Sasha and the crew heaved and hauled whatever it was out of the water. At that moment, everyone was stunned. They felt as if they had pulled a dragon out of hell.

The creature’s body was dark green, stretching seven to eight meters long, covered with thick scales and spines on its back. What should have been gills on either side had broad membrane wings attached to them, now angrily flared, showing its rage. It looked like a cross between an anaconda and a sea serpent, but anacondas are giant snakes from tropical rainforests in the south, and sea serpents could never grow this big. The most chilling part was its mouth; from its jaws down its throat, it had ring upon ring of teeth forming a high-speed feeding machine. The rope had gone into this mouth, which meant the creature had accidentally swallowed the iron anchor.

“Open fire! Open fire! Open fire!” Sasha shouted.

The crew, all armed, either with reliable AK-47s or advanced PP-19 Bizon submachine guns, maintained their calm as they spread out and began shooting. Bullets splattered blood from the serpent’s body, but some were deflected by its tough scales. The creature swept its upper body across the ice, knocking down a few crew members. Ignoring the other crew members who were still shooting, it immediately began devouring the fallen, as if eating was all that mattered. Its mouth, while efficient at grinding food, couldn’t sever the sturdy rope, which several crew members held tightly to prevent it from retreating back into the sea. Initially, it struggled, but then it began to crawl up onto the ice shelf, revealing thick but short hind limbs that seemed like remnants of evolution.

“Why the hell aren’t you firing? What are you drawing?” Sasha yelled at Orev.