Xiao Jianren stuck out his chest and proudly said, “My boss has been through all kinds of troublesome situations! How can this shallow pool trouble him at all?”
“The Blackwater Pool definitely isn’t shallow,” Zhang Zitong corrected him. “Still, I doubt he’ll find anything. Our men already searched several times underwater, so if there were any clues, they would have already found them a long time ago.”
“That’s hard to say…” Xiao Jianren began, but even though he was speaking up for his own leader right now, he didn’t have much confidence. He had already followed this case for a long time, but he hadn’t found any clues at all. If not for the fact that a Golden Token Envoy drowning to death was too strange, he would already have come to the conclusion that this was just an accident too.
…
Meanwhile, Zu An used his Blue Mallard ability to form a water bubble around him, then searched all around the Blackwater Pool.
There was actually quite a large variety of plants and fish inside, but there was nothing wrong. It didn’t seem as if there were any evil spirits present. The only thing worth noting was that the water was especially cold. However, it was normal for such deep pools to be a bit cold, especially seeing as it was still the middle of the night.
Zu An looked all around him but didn’t see anything strange. As such, he continued down for close to a hundred meters. However, his brows inadvertently furrowed. Wasn’t this pool a bit too deep? For normal cultivators, unless they were of the water element, such a depth would already be really difficult for them.
He went down for more than a hundred meters again, then finally arrived at the very bottom. There was no longer any light present at all. He took out a luminescent pearl, and by borrowing the dim light, he discovered that there was silt all around, but no plant life. Occasionally, some animal remains lay strewn in the silt. The area was full of a deathly still sensation. It seemed quite normal for it to look that way, though.
After looking around a bit, Zu An didn’t notice anything strange, so he decided to return to the surface. He remembered that he had seen similar kinds of underwater worlds in documentaries before. He hadn’t expected to be able to personally experience one in this world.
When he remembered the contents of those documentaries, however, his expression suddenly froze. He immediately stopped, staring at the pool floor. He finally realized what was wrong. In those documentaries, there had always been creatures even in the depths of the ocean. There were all kinds of strange and grotesquely-shaped fish, bone-eating critters, and other sorts of life. This pool was barely a few hundred meters deep, and yet not even the slightest bit of life was present. It wasn’t normal at all!
Thus, Zu An returned to the pool’s bottom. He reached out his hand and pressed against the dirt, releasing his aura to investigate the surroundings. His expression suddenly changed. There was still more space underneath the surface! Rather than the bottom of a pond, it looked more like a cover created using a profound formation.
Suddenly, a large hand reached out from the soil, grabbing at his neck. Its skin was a greenish-gray color with veins bulging from it, and it was surrounded by death energy. It was shaped like a human hand, but it was definitely not. Why would a human hand have scales all over it?
Zu An jumped in surprise. He quickly dodged backward, causing the hand to miss. However, it didn’t give up and continued to reach out. Zu An’s expression grew cold, and a glint flickered amid the dark water, severing the greenish-gray hand. The arm’s owner seemed alarmed, instantly returning underground.
Zu An frowned. He looked at the severed hand, but didn’t see any blood flow out. Instead, it turned into greenish-black smoke, dissipating completely. He exclaimed in surprise, “Hm?”
Suddenly, more than ten hands suddenly reached out, grabbing toward Zu An from all directions. He didn’t have anywhere to evade! Just a single mistake and he would be completely smothered by the interweaving hands!
If I can’t dodge, then I won’t!
A streak of sword radiance sliced outward, its incredible power hacking the thick and sturdy arms into several pieces. A miserable scream emerged from underground. The voice was extremely sharp and even seemed to have something of a stinging effect on one’s mind.
However, Zu An’s mind was extremely stable, so he naturally didn’t feel fear. He didn’t hesitate and rushed straight up before thrusting his sword downward. With the help of Blue Mallard, his mobility underwater wasn’t affected at all. As his longsword traveled downward, a wave of blue runes appeared on the surface of the pool’s bottom. The formation that had been arranged was clearly coming into effect. However, it broke apart under the Tai’e Sword’s power almost instantly.
The silt before Zu An disappeared, replaced with empty space. This was clearly the true bottom of the pool.
“Great immortal, please spare me, please!” a creature begged in a low and small voice, kneeling and repeatedly hitting the ground. It knew it had no choice. Judging from the previous interaction, it already knew it was definitely no match for Zu An. Furthermore, it didn’t have any idea why that sword had such a terrifying aura, as if the blade could instantly destroy it at any time.
Zu An was a bit surprised. He had seen so many thick and solid hands that he expected there to be some kind of massive creature living there. He hadn’t expected it to be so small. Most importantly, its appearance was way too strange. Its mouth resembled a sharp bird’s beak, and its body was as skinny as a monkey's. There was something resembling a tortoiseshell on its back too. It looked a lot like the legendary Japanese creature known as a Kappa.
“What kind of a creature are you?” Zu An directly asked.
“I’m just a little turtle from this Blackwater Pool. I want nothing more than a life detached from worldly affairs. A few centuries ago, I stumbled upon a fortuitous encounter and gained consciousness. That was how I began to cultivate in this pool,” the monster respectfully replied.
“Turtle?” Zu An repeated in surprise. He had already been in this world for a long time, so he knew that the Fiend races were different from monsters. The Fiend races had more noble bloodlines. If nothing strange happened, they would naturally be able to take human form.
Meanwhile, monster bloodlines were different. They were no different from ordinary plants and animals. However, some of them developed consciousness through certain opportunities and coincidences; after a long period of cultivation, there was a chance for them to gain humanoid forms too. The Fiend races weren’t the same as those monsters. In their opinion, such monsters were just lower-level creatures, even though many evolved monsters weren’t weak at all.
Furthermore, monsters usually retained their animal instincts. High-level beasts tended to be just as intelligent as humans; however, these monsters were usually extremely proud of what they were and what they looked like, so they found it disdainful to take human form.
Zu An asked coldly, “So, all of those mysteries of Blackwater Pool were because of you? Just how many people have you harmed over the years?!”
When it saw Zu An’s expression grow fierce, the turtle was so scared it began to shudder all over. It protested, “Great immortal has misunderstood! I’ve already turned over a new leaf! I’ve only cultivated earnestly in the past century and haven’t eaten anyone in that time!”
The source of this content is n/ov/elb/in[./]net’
“So you’re admitting that you ate people before?” Zu An retorted coldly.
“I didn’t, I didn’t!” the turtle cried, constantly waving its hands. “It was just that those people had bad motives and wanted to hurt me, and ended up losing their lives as a result. I felt that it would be a waste to let them go either way, which was why… But I definitely, absolutely never had the intention of proactively harming them!”
“Would a monster like you really be so kind?” Zu An replied, naturally not believing a single thing it said.
“I’m telling the truth! I wanted to become the deity of this Blackwater Pool, so why would I recklessly become some murderous evil being?” the turtle monster quickly explained.
“A water deity?” Zu An repeated, a bit stunned. He felt that things were getting weirder and weirder. At the moment, however, he was more concerned about something else. He asked, “Roughly a month ago, someone dressed similarly to me fell into this Blackwater Pool. Do you have any memory of that?”
“I do! I do!” the turtle monster hurriedly replied with a nod.
“Why did he drown here? Was it because of you?” Zu An asked sternly.
“Ah! He was already dead when he fell into the water, I think?” the turtle monster said with a dumbfounded expression.
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