Great! I'm surrounded by villains!
Chapter 320 - 239: The Creature from the Lake Bottom

Chapter 320: Chapter 239: The Creature from the Lake Bottom

With a heavy heart, Owl followed Duan Mingyuan into the elevator.

Within a quarter of an hour after he had made his request, a prison guard brought them all the equipment they needed.

Of course, in the guard’s own words, he was "helping a friend" with the delivery, and as to who their trading partner was or whether this mysterious friend was the guard himself, that wasn’t something they could know. To ask further would be impolite.

"This is normal; every prison has such channels. As long as you’re willing to pay, there’s someone who can get you what you want,"

Owl explained.

Such characters are usually dubbed the "know-it-all" among the prisoners and, in fact, have close ties with the prison management.

Moreover, diving suits and lighting equipment are hardly considered dangerous items. Could any prisoner really use such things to jailbreak?

He was quite certain that the prisoner’s manual of Prison Planet did not prohibit inmates from partaking in diving activities.

Duan Mingyuan merely nodded without further comment, but something in his gut felt off.

Until now, Owl’s operations had been proceeding too smoothly.

When they needed to know about the Eisenberg-Adler District, someone brought them intelligence.

When they needed information on D72, someone mentioned the story of the previous rescue team.

When they needed diving and lighting equipment, someone volunteered to deliver the gear.

But in reality, what they were planning was a major violation of prison regulations, a meeting with the most mysterious inmate of the district who also had the second-longest sentence - yet all the objective conditions seemed to be aiding them.

Was this really just the influence of Jiuyue’s small sachet of "Luck"?

Unparalleled fortune had turned a tightly guarded prison into an undefended park.

As he pondered, the elevator doors opened, and the electronic screen displayed the number D72 and the explanation "Black Lake."

The light from the elevator could not reach beyond its confines—Owl’s recently acquired lighting was practically useless against the darkness, which felt like some kind of tangible but intangible substance, filling the entirety of the D72 district.

Thankfully, there was only one path leading to the lakeside cabin within the district.

After walking in the darkness for ten minutes, the two arrived at the location of the cabin, home to three prisoners with sentences of over 800 years. This was also the very edge of the whole D72 district—because just a bit further on lay Black Lake.

No one knew how deep the water was, nor did anyone know what secrets lay beneath it.

Owl said that the last group who tried to uncover this secret had been forever buried beneath it.

Owl politely knocked on the door, but there was no response.

"We shouldn’t disturb them."

Duan Mingyuan sensed three faint life energies inside the cabin, like candles flickering in the wind, ready to extinguish at any moment, not much different from the dying patients in intensive care units of hospitals.

He worried that these three would exhaust their last bit of life energy just getting up to open the door for them and pass away.

"The oxygen tanks will last for 40 minutes. If we go down for 40 minutes and still can’t find any clues, let’s head back the way we came,"

Owl suggested.

Bending down, he groped in the cold lake water with his hand.

The chill of the water was a relief to him—it was normal water to the touch, not some thick, vile fluid.

He admitted to himself that if he had touched slime, he would have immediately aborted the dive and they would all have gone their separate ways.

"You can stay on shore if you want."

Duan Mingyuan could sense that there was indeed something hidden beneath the lake, not just the previous diving champions who had never returned, but also some kind of golden medal coach that had helped them win the championship.

"No, I’m coming with you," she said.

The Owl would never let herself stay on the shore, having come all this way, and miss out on a big scoop.

Duan Mingyuan didn’t stop her. He changed into his equipment at the shore, and then he leapt in.

After that, not only his sight but also his hearing was cut off.

He couldn’t help but admire the previous diving champion team. Without the guidance of Life Energy, a person who jumped into the Black Lake would be completely blind and deaf. If this state lasted too long, they wouldn’t even know where they were, let alone search for someone underneath.

Five minutes into the dive, Duan Mingyuan found the remains of the skin of the previous champion—a diving mask.

This seemed to be the spot where the team had been attacked. The people were gone, only some equipment that had fallen during the attack had been left behind.

The object at the bottom of the Black Lake was getting closer to them. The massive object seemed to have sensed their arrival and was slowly approaching.

Duan Mingyuan thoughtfully reminded the Owl following close behind, "If you have thalassophobia, you might want to keep your eyes shut from now on."

The Owl felt as if these words had directly entered her brain.

This was enough to show that Duan Mingyuan was naturally talented, a born diver. If he joined the Interstellar Diving Group, he would definitely be trained as the future ace.

However, she did not take Duan Mingyuan’s advice.

Everyone has more or less a fear of the deep sea, of gigantic creatures, the difference lies in whether they can overcome that fear or not.

The Owl believed she could, which was a confidence cultivated over years on the battlefield.

But just five seconds later, she realized how terribly wrong she was. In front of this suddenly appeared object, she felt like nothing.

With the appearance of the object, a dark red glow emerged under the lake water.

This glow came from the massive object approaching them, with the intent to allow them to see the attacker before the attack.

The Owl just saw an eye.

She couldn’t tell what kind of creature the eye belonged to because its size was enormous, so huge that just the wide-open eye filled the space at the lake’s bottom.

And after staring into that eye for just a second, the Owl, out of fear, closed her eyes.

Who could have imagined that something like this was hidden beneath the lake in Eisenberg-Adler District D72?

The reason for the disappearance of the previous diving team had been found. The question now was, would they follow in the previous team’s footsteps?

"You never know when to give up, do you?"

The two of them heard a familiar voice underwater, an emotionless mechanical synthesis saying, watching them with that eye and issuing its final warning, "There is nothing you are looking for here, only... Warning, error, error code 1721, signal, interruption, abnormal Life Energy signal detected, executing extermination command."

The mechanical synthesis suddenly became piercing, and a red light flickered under the Black Lake.

Due to some unknown malfunction, the object entered combat mode.

Something else was rapidly approaching them.

In the red light, Duan Mingyuan made out that it was a palm.

The palm was making a crushing gesture, so massive that it seemed like the entire world was pressing down on them.

On the palm, he found the remains of the skin left by the previous champion divers.

The crushed wetsuits and diving equipment revealed the final fate of those people.