The Record of Unusual Creature

The air bubble slowly rose to the surface of the sea. As the surrounding seawater receded, Hao Ren found himself in an unusually calm water. He looked around and noticed that there was a dark, turtle-shaped isle not far from the left front. There was nothing on the small isle, but the isle was clear, airy, and not shrouded by any fog, as he had thought.

“You called this place The Shrouded Isle?” Lily looked at the black isle with surprise as they slowly approached. “Looks like there is no fog.”

“Look around,” said Shaqira, pointing at the sea around with the tip of her tail. “You see any reference? Even a wave?”

Vivian’s eyes widened. “Nothing at all… This water surface is unbelievably calm, not even a ripple can be seen!”

The entire visible area of the sea was so calm to the point of bizarre. From afar, there was not a single object of reference on the sea. The seawater was calm like a perfectly polished mirror without the slightest wrinkles. Skylight was uniform in any direction, and the sun was in the top centre of the sky as if its position had been precisely calculation. The sunlight shone evenly which added even more bizarreness to this water.

The small black island not far away was the only alien colour between the sea and the sky. Other than that, the entire world seemed to be a monotonous blue and white, and the boundaries between the sky and the sea were vivid. This was undoubtedly not a natural phenomenon.

“Are we still on Earth?” Hao Ren patted on his pocket and said in an almost murmuring voice. The voice of the MDT then rang in his mind. “Checking the coordinates… The current position is still on Earth. Only that there is a layer of something similar to the enchantment that had changed the natural landscape in the area. It has obvious artificially traces of encryption, but we have already entered it once, I have confidence to crack the law of entry into this place.”

“This is the Shrouded Isle. The fog isn’t on the isle but in the entire space,” Sorma swam around them, introducing the only entrance to the world of the sirens. “Only passing through several right nodes that can we see The Shrouded Isle which is right in front of you. Any other route would lead to an everlasting dense fog when approaching this area of water. Even the most advanced ships of humankind will find themselves sailing around in a large circle before they have to double back. Many seafarers are not easily fooled; they have recorded the dense fog in this area, so we have to change the pattern and induced position of the dense fog from time to time. Those explorers are difficult people; we don’t know what makes them so interested to come to knock on our door.”

“Only diving from the shore on the side of The Shrouded Isle can we enter Nasaton. The water body around the isle is the most critical ‘node’ to go to Nasaton,” said Shaqira, who swam over to hold Nangong Wuyue’s hand. “Little sister, remember the current information that have just passed?”

As a siren, Nangong Wuyue was able to sense the ‘route’. She nodded and looked surprised. “I didn’t realize that my hometown was so well hidden… It’s so much more awesome than I’ve thought. No wonder I couldn’t find the City of the Sirens before.”

“Perhaps your mother kept you away from Nasaton was to protect you. But being unable to return to your hometown is also unfortunate,” Sorma had also swum up. “From now on, you can freely go in and out of this place, bring along those of your friends who are here today but not others. Though Nasaton seems to be in trouble now, you’re welcomed home anyway, young sister.”

The three sirens turned and leapt into the water. Their scales glittered in golden light under the sunlight. Lil Pea poked her head out of Hao Ren’s collar and observed the outside world before she jumped down joyously and tried to catch up with the three ‘sisters’. From time to time, the little one jumped out of the water with excitement along the way, like a dolphin twirling in the air and said hello to everyone. “Water! Lots of water! I like this place!”

This vast expanse of sea seemed to have given the little one a sense of familiarity with her hometown. She had been unusually excited since a while ago.

Hao Ren, on the other hand, stepped on the foam and water under his feet following closely behind the three sirens as they slowly approaching the black island. Nangong Sanba looked at the island and seemed to have noticed something that arouse his interest. He raised his hand and said loudly to the sirens in the distance, “Can we go to check out the island?”

“No problem,” Shaqira’s voice was heard from the front. “But don’t stay there for too long!”

They set their foot on the black turtleback island, which was not recorded on any chart, and its shape was not exactly a natural creation as if the whole island was formed as a whole piece of metal device with huge but no-so-deep grooves covered the surface. Lily bent down, touched the black cold ‘floor’, and exclaimed in shock. “It’s warm!”

“There is an energy reaction in the depths of the island,” the voice of the MDT rang in the minds of Hao Ren and others. “It is a part of a giant spherical device that is exposed to the water. The sphere floats in the water and I have found that there are one-hundred thirty-five pipelines connected to the bottom of the sea, which may be a system that interacts with the thermal energy of the seabed. This device itself is the source of the fog enchantment.”

There were also some sparsely distributed artificial things on the black island, which shaped like corals clumping out of the ground, but their surface is glimmering with fluorescence light. Y’lisabet curiously poked one of the ‘corals’ and it immediately emitted a melodious sound of the wind chime.

Then the face of the little girl was burned black and blue.

Y’lisabet was joyous. “This is so fun!”

“I thought sirens would only use magic…” Hao Ren looked at it all in surprise. “I didn’t expect they also made this kind of thing.”

“Why can’t they have automatic facility and magic at the same time?” Vivian asked. “And as a race that hasn’t been disturbed by the outside world has been developing in the deep sea for ten thousand years, how could they not have built something to watch their backyard. After all, they are the earliest civilization of the planet in a sense.”

At this time, a sound of water came from behind them. Shaqira got onto shore and called everyone. “Are you guys ready to dive?”

They took the air bubble and went down the deep sea. During the descent, Hao Ren and others kept their eyes into the direction of The Shrouded Isle and saw what the MDT had described about how the ‘isle’ really looked like underwater. It was a huge sphere, and its part below the waterline was more complicated. Below the centre line of the sphere were many protruding glimmering lights that appear to be dimming with a certain rhythm as if responding to the undersea current. At the bottom of this giant sphere was a large number of black lines like deep-sea cables, which were scattered deep into the water and eventually disappear into the endless darkness.

This was not a technological invention, but a huge magic device—but for the earth’s civilizations, it was no different from advanced alien technology.

When the air bubble submerged down to a certain depth, it changed course and began to move in a direction away from The Shrouded Isle. Hao Ren had noticed some bright light flashed from time to time on the outside. It could be a bioluminescent deep-sea creature, or simply some kind of ‘signpost’ set by the sirens. Lil Pea had found it interesting to wandering outside and was now swimming around the outer wall of the air bubble. From time to time, she would leap in and out of the opening in the water barrier, and Rollie would lay besides the opening guarding carefully. She was responsible for preventing Lil Pea from falling. This cat knew that if she did not take good care of the fish, the fish would not just beat her but also not give her small dried fish for the rest of her life…

“We should be now crossing over to a spatial layer,” Y’zaks suddenly sensed something as he looked up at the dark water wall above him. “I feel something has changed… The magic of the sirens is brilliant; they have made the spatial layer so smooth and almost imperceptible.”

“So people who accidentally stumbled into it could hardly get out of it by themselves. You would have entered into an endless water world before you know it,” said Shaqira who was next to him. “Though we have never provoked anyone by living peacefully in our little kingdom, every year there are still many careless adventurers trespass into here. They would certainly get lost in this layered and invisible deep-sea maze. We’ve sent many sirens to patrol the area and tried our best to help, but inevitably, there will be some unfortunate ones. However, I’ve been away from here for a hundred years, and I don’t know if there have been humans here since then.”

At this time, a flash of light appeared on the front of the air bubble, and Sorma’s voice was heard from the front. “You can now see the wall of Nasaton.”