“Nono, the vacuum tube you have contains one milliliter of the ‘key’s’ blood. Apply it to the lips of the Living Spirit. The high-purity dragon blood will open the entrance for you,” Manstein continued.
Nono pulled out the vacuum tube from her waist and used a syringe to extract a sample.
“Is this old guy still alive?” Lu Mingfei asked.
“Dead. ‘Living Spirit’ is just an alchemical term. His consciousness is long gone,” Nono said.
“But he…” Lu Mingfei’s voice started to tremble. “He bit me!”
Nono quickly looked up. Lu Mingfei’s hand was caught in the Living Spirit’s mouth, looking like it had been bitten. He was struggling to pull it out.
“Don’t move! It’s just stuck. The ‘Living Spirit’ won’t move easily; it’s just a lock, and locks don’t bite people,” Nono said. “Why did you touch it?”
“N-no… it’s not that!” Lu Mingfei said. “It really bit me!”
His face was ashen.
Nono suddenly fell silent. She watched as the bronze face moved, the entire face protruding from the wall, with rust breaking off its surface. Its sharp fangs opened and closed with a loud “crack.”
It really bit Lu Mingfei!
Lu Mingfei felt a pain similar to getting his blood drawn at a hospital, and his diving suit glove had torn open. Countless bubbles were rushing out from the tear, and the pressure inside his diving suit dropped rapidly. He couldn’t speak, only staring wide-eyed at the pressure gauge spinning wildly. He wasn’t the type of expert who could free dive to 100 meters—his lungs were now filled with a mix of helium and oxygen under high pressure. If the pressure in his suit disappeared, the dissolved gases in his blood would rapidly form bubbles.
Can you imagine what it’s like for someone to have their blood vessels filled with bubbles?
This was the most dangerous scenario in diving—gas embolism!
Nono immediately reached out to pull him. Whatever reason the Living Spirit had for biting Lu Mingfei, the most important thing was to get his hand out and seal the tear in his suit before the oxygen completely leaked out.
A deep rumbling noise reverberated directly in her mind, as if someone were chanting ancient incantations in a dark palace.
“Draconic?” Nono’s eyes widened.
The silver vacuum tube slipped from her hand, plunging straight down.
“Damn it!” she shouted.
There were only two samples of the “key’s” blood, and the backup sample was still on the Maniach.
Lu Mingfei was still struggling beside her. Under the searchlight, his teeth were clenched, cheek muscles bulging, and his eyes bloodshot. He was struggling desperately, and it looked like he wouldn’t last long.
“Pull your hand out! Don’t be afraid!” Nono gave up on the blood sample, grabbed Lu Mingfei’s wrist, and pulled with all her strength. “Endure it! Even if your wrist breaks, you have to pull your hand out!”
She had much more underwater experience than Lu Mingfei, and the consequence of continuous leakage could be death. A broken wrist, on the other hand, could be treated once they surfaced.
“It hurts, it hurts!” Lu Mingfei screamed.
Nono ignored him, biting her teeth and bracing against the bronze wall as she pulled Lu Mingfei with all her might. Suddenly, his hand came free. Nono lost her balance and crashed into Lu Mingfei, her first action being to tightly clasp his wrist to stop the oxygen from continuing to leak.
“How are you?” she shook him hard.
“O-oh… I’m okay,” Lu Mingfei said.
Nono froze for a moment. “Okay?”
Lu Mingfei scratched his head. “He… suddenly let go.”
Nono inspected the torn glove of the diving suit in confusion. Lu Mingfei’s injured finger protruded from the tear.
“Ow ow ow! Are you a princess with a pea under your mattress?” Nono suddenly got angry and elbowed Lu Mingfei in the chest.
Lu Mingfei’s finger only had a cut less than a centimeter long, about as deep as a pencil scratch. The Living Spirit’s wolf-like sharp teeth seemed to have bluffed—it stopped as soon as it cut Lu Mingfei’s skin.
“I was being bitten by a dead head, of course I was nervous! I thought it was going to eat me!” Lu Mingfei complained. Once the wrist joint was secured, the pressure inside his suit stabilized, and he felt much better immediately.
While the two of them were busy arguing, neither noticed that the Living Spirit didn’t just “stop biting Lu Mingfei.” Its mouth opened wider and wider. If you hadn’t seen it with your own eyes, you wouldn’t believe that a “person” could open their mouth that wide—unless they had no jawbone and their mouth structure resembled that of a giant snake capable of swallowing an elephant.
Nono turned her head, only to see a gaping dark mouth, as if it were about to… swallow them.
Her vision went black as she instinctively grabbed Lu Mingfei’s wrist, and they were both pulled into the vortex at the same time.
When she opened her eyes again, they were surrounded by air. Nono got up from the ground, looking around.
Before them was a bronze corridor, with countless bronze statues standing on either side. They depicted people dressed in ancient attire—either officials or generals—holding ritual jade tablets. The only difference was that instead of human heads, their long necks extended into snake heads resembling cobras. Comically, some of the snake heads were even wearing hats.
“Whoa, are we dead?” someone next to her said.
“Don’t be stupid. If you were dead, would you still be talking?” Nono reflexively slapped him.
Lu Mingfei rubbed his head. “I’ve never died before, so how would I know if you can talk after dying or not?”