Chapter 221 - Twisted

Shen Lian observed the underwater palace and did some thinking.

He waved and a ray of light struck ahead. The underwater palace was indeed under some sort of prohibition spell. It diverged from Shen Lian's ray of light.

Shen Lian frowned, he was just testing the waters but realized that the underwater palace was as rigid as an impregnable fortress.

It was built using an unconventional power which was similar but different from what he had learned.

The wonders of Xuanmen has endless of possibilities. The cultivation of the Qi and the spirit itself could generate unimaginable, incredible powers. But this underwater palace's arrangements of unconventional power was not anything supernatural. The entire structure was as solid as the strongest rock ever, the Jinggang rock. Unless one possessed enormous mana and breaks it directly, one would not be able to find any flaws with it.

Even Shen Lian could not detect the flow and changes of the spiritual vigor.

Thirty minutes later, the sound of tremor could be heard outside of the underwater palace. Shen Lian had used all his tricks to trigger the space to shake to the extent that it was almost destroyed and Shen Lian could feel a dash of scorching hot air.

Shen Lian was surprised. Apparently, this space was not an unconventional dimension but highly possibly in a magma.

If that was the case, it made perfect sense that the power of the pond and underwater palace came from the magma chambers in the core of the earth.

What sort of power had such ability to turn the magma chambers into something for personal use?

Shen Lian pondered the fact that he had mastered the Primordial Spirit and became a land immortal but yet he would not have such majestic supernatural powers to perform such a thing.

Shen Lian could not tell what was hiding beneath the sealed underwater palace.

He retreated from the small trail which had dull and undistinguishable writings at the side of the trail. Shen Lian than realized that he could not recall any single word despite having a photographic memory.

Shen Lian stopped walking and focused on memorizing a simple character that was on the trail. When each stroke of the character started to appear in his mind, he could feel a powerful force crushing on his body, flesh, and blood.

At the very last passageway, the concentration level of Qi vitality started to pierce through his body maniacally and it made Shen Lian felt like he was in the darkness of outer space. He noticed a star that was gradually lighted but it did not last long. He felt a sudden sharp pain and that snapped him back to reality.

That was because his body has reached a critical point and it automatically activated the self-defense mechanism.

Shen Lian did not force himself to continue trying. It was not that his mana and spirit were not strong enough but his body was too weak to recall the characters. His body could not endure the burden of visualizing those words.

There were one hundred and eight characters scattered on both sides of the walls of the passageway.

In a split second, Shen Lian counted a number of the characters and entered the stone room where the pond was located at. He kicked General Tusk and melted the ice that covered it.

The narwhal still could breathe without water but its mobility was not as agile as it was.

It lifted its head to look at Shen Lian and spoke to him with telepathy, "What do you want?"

Shen Lian smiled and answered, "Don't you have anything to say to me?"

General Tusk shook his tusk and looked confused.

Shen Lian held his hand out, Ice Light emerged like a sword gleam and condensed into a faint blue Xuan Ice. The icicle was extremely sharp.

In slow speed, Shen Lian pointed the tip of the Xuan Ice towards the eyeball of General Tusk, it was so scared that it shut its eyes tight. Shen Liam's calm voice echoed in its mind, "If you have nothing to tell me, I'd like to see if this Xuan Ice could poke through your eyes or even pierce through your skull."

General Tusk panicked, "This is indeed the underwater palace of the Black Water King. I am not his General, he has never used demon soldiers nor demon generals. I am just a small demon from a nearby area. In fact, this is my first time here."

Shen Lian smiled, "Then how would you know this is the Black Water Residence?"

The narwhal timidly sent its thoughts, "There was a person like you who came here and referred to this place as the Black Water Residence and the Black Water King addressed that person as Daoist Xuanming."

Shen Lian gazed at it coldly and that sent chills down to its spine. That was a lot more uncomfortable than being frozen by the Xuanming Qi of Devilry.

With a weak voice, it responded, "That's all I know."

Shen Lian asked, "How long have you been alive?"

The narwhal replied, "I don't know."

Shen Lian figured out that it would be hard to tell time underwater because you could not see the changes in the position of the stars, and it would not be able to tell years like a normal human would do."

Thus he changed his question, "How many times have you fed since you last saw that Daoist Xuanming?"

Daoist Xuanming was the creator of the Ice Light and three thousand years have passed since its inception. Shen Lian did not use any other probing methods but asked directly how many times has the narwhal eaten since then. From there he could more or less determine if it was telling the truth.

The narwhal replied, "I have not been eating"

Shen Lian asked, "What do you mean earlier when you said that trespassers who entered the Black Water Residence will be killed?"

The narwhal shook his head, "Those were the words of the Black Water King."

Shen Lian inspected its words and it was somewhat similar to what it said when he just arrived. It was just that the narwhal did not mention about the Black Water King when he said 'trespassers would be killed'. Clearly, it was trying to be a donkey in a lion's skin.

It seemed like the Black Water King's majesty was deeply rooted in it.

Shen Lian asked, "Then how would you know that this Qi of devilry is the Xuanming Qi of Devilry?"

The narwhal answered, "Because the Daoist Xuanming said so. He came to seek for the Xuanming Qi of Devilry but the King was reluctant and they ended up fighting. The Daoist released some sort of ray similar to yours and it landed on me. After that, I woke up to look for food but could not find any.

Shen Lian was able to make sense of the situation. Back then, perhaps Daoist Xuanming cultivated the Ice Light for this Xuanming Qi of Devilry. He came all the way here but it was the territory of a demon king. The demon king refused to hand it over and they both started fighting. A ray of light struck the narwhal and as a result, it was frozen, and was able to only break the ice after a long period of time.

The only thing was that the Black Water King and Daoist Xuanming were no longer here and nobody knew who won and who lost the fight.

Daoist Xuanming must have been an immortal Zhenren back then to be able to travel down so deep in the ocean.

And this Black Water King who had the guts to reject Daoist Xuanming must have been a demon king who was more powerful than a land immortal. But the oddness of the underwater palace and the strange text characters along the passageway was beyond the level of a land immortal.

Furthermore, the narwhal mentioned that the Black Water King did not have any demon soldiers nor demon generals, and it had yet entered the underwater palace. Could it be that the Black Water King wanted to hide a secret inside?

These were all wild guesses and considering that Shen Lian could not crack the Underwater Palace, plus the oddness of the characters along the passageway, he decided to not rush into further attempts. The purpose of this trip was to master the Ice Light. It was not good to be greedy and he needed to know to take things in moderation.