"It seems to be completely blocked..." KIKI furrowed her eyebrows and immediately looked at Lin Xian, decisively saying, "I’ll go down and move it!"

"Let me do it. My body can withstand that kind of water pressure." Gedi from Ryan’s side stepped up at this moment, "I should be able to handle this." 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

"Wait a moment."

Lin Xian’s eyes flickered, "A large number of Abnormal Body corpses are sinking now; we can’t be sure it’s really safe yet. Let me explore a bit more."

Lin Xian immediately released more drones to start spreading out and searching around the giant corpse. Several Deep Diving Devices headed towards the sea cliff, and as soon as they approached, Lin Xian’s control device began to transmit some peculiar sounds. The sounds, mixed with the noise of water pressure, started to become increasingly dense, eerily unsettling.

"Sounds like the noise of an Insect Tide?" KIKI said, but as soon as she finished speaking, she witnessed an incredibly horrifying scene.

The situation at the seabed was very complex. Ocean currents stirred up sediment, and some unknown fibrous material floated in the water, completely obscuring the vision of the Deep Diving Device. Visibility was no more than ten centimeters; looking down one couldn’t even see their own feet. Yet the sea cliff appeared oddly calm, as if someone had cast a spell to hold the seawater still within the cliff.

The instant the Deep Diving Device’s lights turned on, everyone was stunned by the image on the display!

Both sides of the cliff were full of pits and hollows, like cheese filled with various-sized holes. Each hole harbored a coiled monster. Outside the holes, numerous anomalous dark red tentacles clung, covered with deep-sea maggots, and just one glance would make your scalp tingle. As the light shone downward, just less than five centimeters below the Deep Diving Device, it turned into an entire ocean of deep-sea maggots!

"Looks like we were wrong, there’s quite a few more here..." Vanessa said.

"These things don’t seem like they’ve just arrived; they probably aren’t the kind that can release the Dark Mark." Lin Xian observed gravely, then looked up at the distant, flickering black floating island on the sea, "They seem more like they’ve been released by that hive."

Thump, thump, thump...

A sequence of eerie knocking suddenly echoed.

Lin Xian fixed his gaze and saw that the deep-sea maggots had somehow crawled onto the Deep Diving Device, opening their hideous mouthparts, constantly gnawing on the metallic components of the device.

At that moment, the screen suddenly dimmed. Lin Xian immediately controlled the Deep Diving Device to look up, and a giant anglerfish had somehow appeared above it in the sea. This giant anglerfish was covered with various eerie tentacles.

The tentacles were long, swaying like seaweed with the currents, but everyone present knew this was definitely a Special Level anomaly!

Suddenly, the giant anglerfish opened its large mouth, a terrifying maw with several rings of metal-sharp teeth. In the blink of an eye, it swallowed all the Deep Diving Devices probing the sea cliff into its maw.

Sizzle...

The image on Lin Xian’s display twisted and distorted, eventually freezing inside the giant anglerfish’s enormous stomach. As green stomach acid dripped down, the Deep Diving Device instantly dissolved, breaking the connection completely.

Watching this scene, the atmosphere suddenly grew tense. If a person had gone down to explore and been eaten, it wouldn’t have been the worst thing. The greatest fear was being marked again, which would stir this sea area into chaos once more.

"Phew..."

Lin Xian exhaled deeply, spoke with a heavy voice, "There are too many monsters in this nearby sea area. Didn’t expect them to come back so soon; it seems... we’ll have to abandon this energy leak plan."

As soon as Lin Xian said this, everyone, including the Hawk Sea Group, wore complex expressions, fully aware of the current plight. At this moment, Azir stepped forward and spoke.

"Then we’re out of time. Instead of waiting for that device to go completely out of control and for Galan Volcano to erupt, we’d better take a risk and charge out now while it’s daylight!"

"Daylight? After what just happened, does it matter whether it’s day or night?" Gedi’s tone was very grave.

"Then what do we do, are we just going to stay here and wait for death?" Azir said helplessly.

Ryan raised a hand to quiet Azir, then looked at Lin Xian.

"Lin, what do you think?"

Lin Xian was at a loss, his mind racing. If there was no better solution, Azir’s suggestion of taking a risk was the only option. But even if they charged ahead, beyond the danger of Sea Rock Island, he’d have to find a landing point along the fractured ocean track without satellite positioning—that’s a problem too.

Thinking it over, Lin Xian decided to return first to the city-region Infinity for further discussion.

Just then, a violent sonic boom echoed from the distant storm clouds, everyone instantly raised their gaze vigilantly. As the sound drew closer in the cloud buzz, just when everyone thought it was some monster appearing, a long-familiar voice came through Lin Xian’s headset.

[This is Viola, descending over the Chasan Island sea area.]

The moment Lin Xian heard this, his eyes lit up, and he couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief, telling the others, "Don’t worry, it’s my people."

Whoosh!

As soon as he said this, the deafening sound of piercing through the air began to roar continuously. From high above, a streak of rocket fire suddenly broke through the clouds, followed by a swarm of drones like a bee colony.

Bang!

With the sound of an impact on the ground, Viola, radiating residual heat, emerged from the dust, deactivating her flight kit. She confidently approached Lin Xian, standing tall.