Page 308

Page 308

"Looking at the structure of this city, it is indeed more like the style on land." Chu Zihang nodded.

"Have you ever seen the buildings of underwater creatures?" Caesar teased.

"No, but at least we can be sure that they don't need roads." Chu Zihang said expressionlessly.

"But if this city... let's assume that it is really the Takamagahara in Japanese mythology, then it must have a history of millions of years. Judging from the crustal movements in the past million years, it is impossible for the Eurasian plate to have changed so much that the entire city would sink into the abyss."

Everyone fell silent.

They imagined that some great disaster had befallen this glorious city a million years ago, submerging it and the entire land into the sea, and then Takama-ga-hara was slowly dragged into the depths of the trench by the movement of the earth's crust.

This process is so long that human life and even the life of dragons seem so short in front of it.

But now Takama-ga-hara is very close to the crustal crack, and it is obvious that this is the end of the city’s life. No matter what is buried underneath it, it will eventually be swallowed by the planet, and even the ashes will be burned.

"This will refresh our understanding of dragon history." Caesar said softly, "No one has ever told me that the Age of Gods was actually a million years ago."

The first dragon that appeared in human history, as recorded in the textbooks of Kassel Academy, was 5,100 years ago. A pure-blooded dragon named Menes unified Egypt with a human body and ushered in the era of the Pharaoh's rule.

Some scholars believe that Menes is an ancient dragon created by the Black King. Although it is not a first-generation species like the four great monarchs, it is superior to the second-generation species.

There is also evidence that Menes belonged to an organization that shared power with the kings during the Age of Gods.

Presbyterian Church.

It is hard to imagine that the dragons were able to build such a great city a million years ago. The Ice Sea Fragment records that the dragons once built a copper pillar that reached the sky on the earth, and built a city with the copper pillar as the center. During the heyday of the joint rule of the Black King and the White King, the dragons even built a wide road across the ocean, achieving unprecedented peace, and all kings submitted to the rule of the two kings according to etiquette and law.

Because the remains of cross-sea roads with a width of up to 50 kilometers have never been found, the academic community has always been conservative about the records in these scrolls.

But now I think maybe it’s because time has passed too long and all traces have been erased by time.

"How is that possible? A million years ago, Chu Zihang's ancestor was still a Yuanmou man who didn't even wear pants, and Mr. Caesar Gattuso's ancestor might still be struggling in a remote corner of Africa." Jiude Mai shrugged. "And Takamaga-hara appears in Japanese mythology. Can our history span a million years? You know, the first Japanese came from China and the Korean Peninsula."

"How should I explain that..."

"Word spirits." Jude Mai said coldly, "Someone destroyed Takamagahara and sank it into the trench. The person or thing that used the word spirits did not want anything about the White King to appear in this world."

Caesar and Chu Zihang both felt a chill at the same time.

Compared to Takamagahara's million-year history, it's hard to say whether Shude Mai's guess is friendlier to them.

A word spirit that can destroy Takamagahara can also destroy Chicago or Rome. This thing is no less than a high-yield nuclear bomb explosion.

Could it be Shiva's Karma Dance or Zhulong?

And the one who uses that word spirit... is probably the Black King, right?

It is hard for anyone to say anything when they think of the emperor who, at the end of all mystery, majesty and fear, overlooked the people under the throne and once unleashed his wrath here.

Takama-ga-hara was still endless, and it seemed as if there was no end in sight. It was shrouded in the glow of the long river of lava. Half of the city had sunk into the cracks, but there were still some towering buildings that were like spears used by giants, tempered in the magma without being melted, pointing to the sea.

There were towering copper pillars one after another, just to the southwest of the city, like a forest of steles made up of hundreds or even thousands of copper pillars.

They are so huge and majestic, yet they carry an ancient cruelty.

When they got closer, the Trieste passed over the forest of stele, and Caesar could see clearly what was on it.

He looked at Chu Zihang. Chu Zihang's brows were almost twisted together, and his pair of golden eyes, which had never been extinguished, were flashing with bright golden light and staring at everything below the Trieste.

"The execution pillar, that's the execution pillar in Takama-ga-hara!" Mai Shude said in a low voice.

A lizard skeleton was nailed to the top of each bronze pillar with a long metal nail. The lizard skeleton was huge, with its wings drooping lifelessly. The skull looked like it was cast in bronze. The sunset-like firelight illuminated them, leaving deep shadows in those deep eye sockets.

When the city was still ruled by the White King, dragons that disobeyed her were crucified here.

The dragon has a very strong vitality. Even if all the bones in its body are broken and even if it does not eat or drink, it can still live on the bronze pillar for many years.

They lingered on, and the sound of their wails spread along the dozens-meter-wide sacred road to all directions of the city. All the ministers who had disobeyed the white emperor knelt down in fear and buried their heads in the sand.

"Dragons are indeed a brutal and crazy race. They do not take their own kind seriously. Even if the population base of their tribe is incredibly low, they will still use this cruel punishment to kill hundreds of their companions." Caesar said dimly.

Jiude Mai laughed coldly.

Caesar looked a little angry and embarrassed. He turned around and glared at Jiude Mai with his shirt off and his chest muscles trembling.

"Don't ever think you've seen through the dragon clan." Jiude Mai said. She knocked on the observation window next to her. "Look over there. That thing shouldn't belong to this city, right?"

Hearing her say this, Caesar's eyes turned away.

The thing was hidden in the huge shadow of the torii, southeast of the Trieste, at the edge of the forest of monuments.

This city, which is almost entirely constructed of metal, still exudes an ancient and gorgeous luster after countless years, especially under the light of the lava, it looks like ancient bronze artifacts illuminated by a spotlight.

But that huge thing was not like that. It was vaguely white, regular in shape, and estimated to be more than a hundred meters long.

It is like a mountain with a strange shape rising from the ground, its surface covered with densely packed creepy shells and conchs. Those shells and snails are wriggling on the surface of the building, and from a distance it looks like rust soaked in sea water.

However, Chu Zihang and Caesar's eyesight could easily see the shellfish crawling in and out of the cracks in the building, which looked like dense maggots crawling on the giant's corpse.

There was a very deep shadow behind the thing, extending from its base to several hundred meters away.

"It's a scratch. It seems to have rushed into the city at a very high speed, leaving a huge mark on the rock formation and sliding into this execution ground." Jiude Mai said.

"Do you feel like it's not as hot as before?"

Chu Zihang and Caesar were both stunned. At this moment, they indeed realized that the temperature did not seem to be as hot as before, and it was even a little cold.

"Let's move over there first." Chu Zihang said.

Jiude Mai looked at him strangely and said nothing, but the knife in her hand was clenched silently.

"The power is a bit insufficient. We seem to have entered an undercurrent with a very fast flow, pushing us back." Caesar said as he adjusted the propeller. The old machine made a creepy sound.

It's like countless gears meshing together and running.

"How could there be undercurrents in a place like this?" Chu Zihang frowned.

Encountering undercurrents while deep diving is as common as encountering unstable air currents while flying an airplane.

Uneven temperature distribution in the deep sea will form undercurrents. Marine life is good at using these undercurrents to move at high speeds, but human eyes cannot see them, just like humans cannot see the wind.

Undercurrents can be vertical or horizontal. They are like invisible spider webs in the ocean. Some submersibles will lose contact with the surface if they are entangled in them.

"The temperature outside has dropped to only Celsius... Damn, 9 degrees!" Caesar growled as if he was suddenly awakened.

Chu Zihang seemed to wake up from a dream and immediately went to check the thermometer.

It showed that the temperature outside the submersible suddenly dropped to 5 degrees, while three minutes ago they were still in sea water with a temperature of over 100 degrees Celsius!

Such a temperature difference is too abnormal, unless, unless...

"Professor Schneider told us to be careful of doors. Look at the torii gate that the Trieste just passed by. Does it look like a door?"

Caesar said quietly,

"A...Nibelungen Gate!"

Chapter 366 Divine Sacrifice

In a sense, there is only one person in this temporary small team who has actually entered the Nibelungen. He is neither Master Gattuso who claims to have seen all the scenery in the world nor Miss Ninja whose life experience is a mystery, but the guy who is still holding the ancient alchemical sword with his lips tightly pursed as if he is going to fight with some evil spirit.

"You have mistakenly entered the Land of the Dead and are branded with the mark of the Land of the Dead. Now you still have a chance to return along the same route." Jiude Mai stood up in the narrow watertight cabin, stretching her slender and graceful body, her waist slender and graspable, her legs long and taut.

"We?" Caesar was stunned.

"Look at that thing." Jiude Mai pouted at the strange mountain rising from the ground outside the observation post.

Rather than a mountain, it looked more like some aircraft that had fallen from the sky and was crashing to the ground. However, because it was in the deep sea, it did not explode.

The Trieste was still getting closer and closer to it, and everyone had a vague guess in their hearts that they seemed to have found the huge ship that disappeared from this world like a ghost twenty years ago.

"That really is... the Lenin." Chu Zihang said in a low voice.

Caesar and Mai Jude both turned to look at the large screen on the console. The screen magnified what they saw. Now they could clearly see the steel outlines covered by shells and the red five-pointed star on the bow. White characters could be vaguely seen in the gaps between the shells on the side.

"Lenin".

"Lenin".

One can imagine that many years ago this huge shipwreck broke into this city at an extremely high speed in an almost lying posture, disturbing the tranquility of Takamagahara, smashing the ground, and leaving deep marks on the land of God.

"We can't see any signs of life in any other area of ​​the city, krill, lung snails, or even those plankton that look like sea snow, but the sunken Lenin is covered with these little creatures. They spread the dragon's genes from here to the deeper sea." Jiude Mai said softly.

"The intelligence is correct. The Lenin is the container that holds the embryo. It's just that someone is sacrificing it to this city, this ancient city that is coming to life..."

Caesar shuddered slowly.

His hearing is the sharpest among these people, and even sea water is a natural medium of transmission for the sickle-tailed weasels.

It can even be said that Caesar is the second sonar system of the Trieste.

Even as Jiude Mai said these words, the heart of the city was still pumping powerfully, like the sound of war drums from tens of thousands of years ago ringing in Caesar's ears along with the heavy years.

They were already completely close to the Lenin. Looking down from this direction at this 20-ton behemoth was both spectacular and terrifying.

This thing died alone in the depths of the Japan Trench, accompanied by the ruins of the Kingdom of God, reminding people of the giant bear sleeping in the mountains, surrounded by desolate and barren land.

The shells of countless dead snails were swept upward by the undercurrent on the seabed, and collided with the alloy hull of the Trieste with a crackling sound. A huge sense of palpitations swept through the souls of everyone present at the same time.

Before carrying out this diving mission, Lu Mingfei had found Caesar and Chu Zihang alone and talked about the Lenin and the embryo carried on it.

It was that guy, together with the red-haired priestess Chen Motong who possessed profiling abilities, who used information obtained from the Eight Snake Families to analyze clues about the shipwreck 20 years ago and made this sensational speculation.

The academy also had similar findings, which is why Operation True Red Earth was carried out simultaneously with Operation Abyss.

"This is a strange ecosystem. The embryo that fell into the Japan Trench along with the Lenin provided nutrients to the countless snails and shellfish, and leaked its own genes." Chu Zihang lowered his voice, as if he was afraid of disturbing the ancient dragon in the Lenin whose life or death was unknown, and also seemed afraid of waking up this sleeping ancient city.

"The lung snails mate all the time, and then they eject countless small lung snails from their gill cavities. These small lung snails absorb phosphorus from the lava river and convert it into protein through a series of complex chemical reactions. Fish consume protein by consuming the small lung snails, and Basilosaurus, Megalodon, and giant squid consume enough energy to survive in this sea by hunting fish schools..."

"This is a game of big fish eating small fish, small fish eating shrimp, and the only thing that circulates in this food chain forever and unchangingly is the genes of that ancient dragon." Caesar said, and then he took out a cigar from somewhere and put it in his mouth, frowning.

"What did you think of?" Chu Zihang asked.

"Biological accumulation of heavy metals in the food chain," said Caesar.

Heavy metals, such as lead, mercury and copper, and certain pesticides such as DDT, are not easily decomposed or excreted in organisms. Therefore, they are transmitted along the food chain and accumulated through biological enrichment. This phenomenon is called bioaccumulation, which means that the concentration of harmful substances in organisms gradually increases with the increase of nutritional level.

That is to say, in heavy metal pollution areas, the higher the status of a species in the food chain, the higher the level of heavy metals in their bodies.

For example, the Asian carp in the Great Lakes can grow to nearly one meter in length.

"Yes." Chu Zihang said.

"The genetic advantage of dragons over any other species is overwhelming. Ordinary beasts and even humans cannot completely integrate these powerful gene fragments into themselves, and will eventually only become deformed organs such as tumors, although the contaminated individuals will become stronger and closer to dragons." Caesar said,

"In an area contaminated by dragon blood, the food chain may be overturned, but each individual that obtains the gene fragments will kill each other for some reason that we have not been able to explain so far. This process may last for decades, and eventually all the genes will be enriched in one individual, and it will become... a monster similar to a dragon."