Toyokawa Shoko doesn't want to become a witch

Page 599

The Tale of Transcendence: Stars and Us: Chapter 805 - Marching Towards the Abyss

"The structure of the seabed is linear, and the whole thing is like a huge assembly line." Mu explained the structure of the city to Xiangzi as they walked. "However, the further you go, the deeper the elevation becomes. The deepest part is 10,000 meters."

“No wonder they put the supercausality there—wait a minute.” Xiangzi stopped mid-sentence. “There’s a sound ahead.”

Xiangzi picked up his shotgun, tiptoed, and walked step by step toward the direction from which the sound came.

To conserve her magic, she reverted to her old setup from long ago: a pistol, shotgun shells, and some pre-prepared explosives, such as fragmentation grenades or incendiary grenades.

Most lone monsters can be dealt with using a long spear. A single shot of 20mm shotgun shell can destroy most of their body tissue, so even if it doesn't kill them, it will still—

Bang!

Twenty lead bullets tore the monster in half, its head with two legs stuck in it and another head growing out of its crotch. Xiangzi walked over and fired two more shots at each of the two heads.

Gunshots echoed through the cold corridor.

"Why are there so few monsters down there? We only found two lone ones after walking so far."

“They gathered elsewhere,” Mu said. “The broadcast caused a great deal of panic, and everyone flocked to the area near the port, and then…”

"I understand."

They gathered at the port waiting to escape, but eventually all of them turned into monsters at the port.

When these people descended from the land to the seabed, they probably thought they had found a place to settle down, but who knew it would turn out like this.

Xiangzi pushed open the valve in the corridor and stopped on the platform at the end.

Ahead of her was a long, sloping corridor; she estimated she would have to go down via a transport platform. Xiangzi walked to the control panel of the transport platform, pulled the switch, and the massive platform began to slowly slide downwards.

Xiangzi held the gun and focused his attention on his surroundings.

The platforms used in these activities are generally not very secure, as they make a lot of noise and are in a relatively enclosed environment, making them easy targets for sneak attacks.

Sure enough, after a while, she heard the monster's roar, accompanied by faint human voices, as if calling to her.

Xiangzi shook his head, trying to shake the voice out of his head.

"Mu, stay behind me." She shielded Mu behind her and aimed her gun at the darkness in front of her.

The wobbly monsters fell from the ceiling, some landed on the deck, and some fell into the external gears and were crushed.

Xiangzi pointed his gun at the monster that crawled out of the darkness and pulled the trigger.

=========================================================== ===

Bang-!

Meow Dream grabbed a monster's head and slammed it hard onto the ground. The sheer force of the blow caused the monster's skull to explode like a watermelon.

Even without their heads, these monsters can still move. To them, the head is just a part of the body. It takes enough damage to the entire body to make them lose their vitality.

So Miaomeng stomped her feet a few more times, until the guy was completely still, before disgustedly removing her feet.

"Why are there these guys on the way back?"

“Maybe it was always like this,” Hailing said. “Maybe it’s because we didn’t take this route before. This shouldn’t be the way back to the guesthouse. Where are we going?”

“That iron ball at the guesthouse doesn’t have a lever; it’s fully automatic, you’ve forgotten?” Miao Meng rolled her eyes. “We need to find a way to manually control it; we need to find some modification tools.”

“When I was in the lower city, I saw people drive their own control submarines into the port, so they must have modified their submarines to be manual, or they might even have manual submarines. Let’s go find one of those now.”

As Miaomeng spoke, she pushed open the valve of the water corridor.

Upon entering the corridor, three sides are surrounded by glass walls that offer a clear view of Haiti. In the past, the lights would have been bright enough to illuminate Haiti completely, but now, the outside is deathly still.

"I'll do whatever you say." Hai Ling crossed her arms. "I hope the road isn't too far, otherwise there will be too many variables."

“Even if it’s far, we have to go.” Miao Meng shrugged.

Suddenly, she stopped, squinted, and stared at a certain spot on the glass wall.

Hailing almost bumped into her, but when she stepped to the side, she noticed Miaomeng's strange expression.

"What did you see?"

“That should be the City Hall, a magnificent, iconic building of the entire underwater city,” Miao Meng pointed to a spot. “It should have been the City Hall, but now, I can’t see what it is.”

Hailing looked in the direction her finger was pointing.

In the deep sea where there was little light, she could only see a blurry black shadow.

“I can’t see clearly either,” Hailing said. “Could it be that there’s a power outage and we can’t see anything?”

"Maybe, but I don't remember it being that bulky. But maybe it's just too blurry." Miaomeng shook her head, suppressing the uneasy feeling. "Forget it! What does that have to do with me? It's not my house!"

She patted her cheeks to clear her head.

"We're almost there, let's hurry."

================================================== ==

"finally reached."

Xiangzi loaded his gun with bullets and finally breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the transport platform stop.

Before her lay no fewer than twenty monsters of various appearances. Some had four legs, some had six legs, some had three or four heads, and some simply had more than a dozen arms surrounding a head, resembling a flower. They all looked extremely mentally disturbing.

Fortunately, it only reaches the level of mental pollution and has not yet reached a point where it is difficult to deal with.

"Beyond this door is the hospital. Go through the hospital and walk down a bit further," Mu reminded them. "We've already bypassed the port area with the most monsters."

"A hospital? That doesn't sound good." Xiangzi swallowed hard. "How's the situation inside...?"

Hospitals don't give people a good feeling in general, let alone in this kind of environment.

Just hearing it gives one a very bad feeling.

“I don’t know.” Mu shook his head. “Let’s get through as soon as possible, Xiang.”

"I know without you telling me." Xiangzi picked up his gun, took a deep breath, and walked into the corridor leading to the hospital.

For some reason, the corridor leading to the hospital had two different entrances. He didn't know if it was a fork in the road or what. Xiangzi stood in front of the door, puzzled by the two tightly closed valves.

"Mu, should we go left or right?"

“This… is actually the same passage,” Mu said. “One side is the monitoring room, and the other side is the security checkpoint, but now, both sides should be locked.”

"Then what to do."

"There is a way to unlock it, but you need to turn on the switches on both sides at the same time." Mu's tone sounded somewhat helpless.

"What kind of design is this?!" Xiangzi raised his eyebrows. "Is it for two people to travel together?!"

"Hey, forget it."

She was too lazy to even complain about the mechanisms here.

Xiangzi walked to the card reader on the right and took out his black card.

"Two people need to open the door together, and after passing through the corridor, two people also need to open the passage at the end, right?" Xiangzi said with a frown.

Mu nodded, walked to the valve on the left, and took out a black card as well.

“After the situation became chaotic, these passes became easier to obtain,” Mu explained, seemingly sensing Xiangzi’s puzzled look.

“I didn’t ask.” Xiangzi shook his head. “How about it? I’ll count to three, two, one.”

"Ah."

"Then, three, two... one."

drop.

The valve's rotating handle opened automatically, revealing the view behind the door to the two people.

On one side was the security checkpoint, and on the other side was the normal passage. It was only natural that the normal passage was packed with people.

Xiangzi stared wide-eyed at the densely packed, stitched-together monsters along the path he was about to take, then turned his head to look at Mu's direction.

The security checkpoint was completely empty; there wasn't a soul in sight.

Mu gave her an apologetic smile.

“I can change it too,” Mu said.

"No need," Xiangzi said, forcing a smile.

squeak-

After a while, when no one passed by, the valve began to slowly close.

"Sigh." Xiangzi rubbed his forehead, feeling a headache coming on, and slipped into the corridor before the valve closed.

The two corridors were right next to each other, with a large glass window in the middle that allowed them to see each other. Xiangzi could clearly see that Mu's side only had a simple security checkpoint and no enemies, while Mu could also clearly see that Xiangzi's side was crowded with all sorts of weird monsters.

With a blank expression, Mu used silk thread to draw several large characters in the air, which read "Xiang, keep going!" When she noticed Xiangzi looking over, she even waved the characters in a very professional manner, making Xiangzi feel extremely embarrassed.

"Xiang, it'll be fine." Mu clenched his fist and encouraged her.

Xiangzi couldn't hear Mu's voice, but she could tell from his lip movements. She sighed again and looked directly at the monster closest to her.

The guy finally noticed him and lunged at Xiangzi, brandishing his crippled limbs.

=====================

In the deep sea, a small fish, separated from its school, was swimming around when it spotted a light. Light is the rarest thing in the deep sea, and without hesitation, the fish swam towards it.

However, just as it swam to the location of the light spot, what awaited it was not a warm, glowing object, but a gaping, blood-red maw.

With a slurp, the anglerfish swallowed the wandering little fish whole.

After the deep-sea fish, which used light as bait, finished eating its prey, it noticed that there seemed to be another light in another place besides itself.

The light was much brighter and more attractive to the fish than the bait above their heads.

And it's still slowly getting bigger.

It's getting bigger and bigger.

By the time the anglerfish was enveloped in the most intense light it had ever seen, it was too late to escape.

With a "thud," the little fish crashed into the glass of the searchlight.

"Miaomengzi, did you bump into a fish again?" Hailing asked after hearing the faint sound of the impact.

"A blind spot, I thought it was a speed bump." Miaomeng pouted. "Why don't you contact the insurance company and talk to them about compensation?"

“Are you kidding me?” Hailing said. “Where am I supposed to find insurance in such deep water?”

"Hey, you picked up the conversation so well, I don't know how to continue." Miaomeng rolled her eyes. "Look, the port is just ahead, we're almost there."

Miaomeng pointed to a cylindrical object illuminated by a searchlight. A rectangular slot was cut out at the bottom of the cylinder, through which the submersible could enter the room.

Miaomeng piloted the spherical submersible into the port, found a slot specifically for spherical submersibles, and crashed into it.

With a clang, the diving ball clicked into the slot, and then the machine started up on its own, taking them to the surface.

"Are we here already? Where do we go to meet Xiangzi?" Hailing asked.

"The vault storing the super-causal information is behind the hospital area, locked by a very thick security door. If Xiangzi wants to go there, it will definitely take her a lot of time to open the security door. If we go there to find her, we'll probably run into her." Miaomeng looked at the surface of the water and heard the indistinct roar. She twitched the corner of her mouth. "However, the journey will probably be tough."

The diving ball rose above the water surface.

Before Miaomeng could say anything, a hand slapped against the glass of the diving ball.

Thump, thump, thump, thump.

The monsters outside were pounding on the glass of the diving sphere, their faces, a jumble of expressions, still bearing the marks of despair and fanaticism.

"Looks like we still can't escape the encirclement, Hai Zi." Miao Meng gripped the doorknob, turned around, and looked at Hai Ling. "Are you ready?"

Hailing drew her knife and slung it over her shoulder.

"You see when I'm not ready."

"Then three..."

click!

Just as the number three was pronounced, Meow Dream pulled the switch to open the door, and the monster that had been waiting outside finally found its chance and crawled into the diving ball.

Hailing sighed, shook her head, and then gripped the knife hilt tightly.

"Next time, please count down in a more serious way, Meow Dream."

Guided by the blade, the black blood transformed into a sharp spiral, piercing out of the diving sphere and swaggering into the harbor.