However, just as that thought flashed through his mind, the murky waters began to swirl with a terrible speed. Like a hole had been drilled into the bottom of the pool, a massive maelstrom formed, and the water surged with tremendous force toward that point.
The vortex swept away everything floating within the inky depths, including Xuanmin. The force of its suction was akin to being shackled with a thousand tons of weight. No one could resist it.
So, being soaked to pulp was the good ending. The bad ending was getting torn to pieces, Jiang Shining thought in despair as he was dragged into the swirling current.
Those in human bodies, like Lu Nianqi and Xuanmin, also experienced the strain. Each of their joints was nearly pushed to its limit. If the whirlpool intensified further, their bones would crack and dislocate.
An uncanny, clear roar accompanied the massive waves of the whirlpool. The sheer might and fury behind it would strike awe into anyone’s heart. Jiang Shining thought it almost felt as if they were not in a sealed, pitch-dark tomb, but rather out in the vast and boundless seas, witnessing…
A waterspout!
Jiang Shining couldn’t actually see anything as his world churned around him, and the vortex’s scale was confined to the pool, yet that word flashed through his mind regardless. A waterspout, the legendary phenomenon caused by dragons drawing in the waters of the sea. He’d never seen one in reality, only glimpsed it a few times in the pages of his books, but he couldn’t help but think of it.
Before those nonsensical thoughts could go anywhere, he was sucked into the depths of the whirlpool.
Crack!
One crisp sound later, Jiang Shining’s vision went dark, and he lost consciousness.
The echo of thundering waves lingered for a long time, resonating throughout the vast tomb and droning on and on. Finally, after a long while, they receded, and the tomb fell back into a deathly silence.
On the stone ceiling, the seven luminous pearls of the Big Dipper still emitted their feeble glow, faintly radiating over the area above the former pool. The once-unfathomable black waters had been completely drained, leaving nothing in their wake. In mere moments, the depths had been sucked dry, and the narrow stone platforms that connected both sides had shattered into haphazard piles of rubble strewn at the bottom of the hollow. The layer of mud at the bottom was now heaped in the corners, as if someone had impatiently swept it aside.
With the soft mud removed, the stone tiles lining the bottom were revealed. One section of the tiles had been shattered, exposing black soil. Nestled within that soil was a shining golden marble, quivering gently. Strewn around the marble were several unconscious people, their complexions ashen: Xuanmin and the others.
A moment later, the golden marble gurgled, then spat out a mouthful of water, breaking the deathly silence within the tomb. An eerie sigh swiftly followed right after.
“Haaah.” Xue Xian curled up inside the marble and released a long breath. He felt like he was about to explode. While he’d been thrashing around at the pool bottom, his consciousness had been one big muddle. He’d only vaguely sensed that he’d shattered some stone tiles and smashed something within the black soil, then pulled it into the marble. In that moment, he experienced an immense sense of satisfaction, as if he’d had finally taken a bite of something he’d long yearned for. That burning desire, too, was temporarily suppressed.
However, there was one unfortunate thing—while the golden marble had been absorbing the object in the soil, he’d really overdone it and sucked up all the water in the pool as well. Now he was bloated to the point of discomfort.
This was a real nuisance. The water hadn’t entered his stomach; it’d been absorbed by the marble. So, shouldn’t the marble have shattered? Why was he full to the point of bursting instead? It made no sense!
As he rolled back and forth in frustration, Xuanmin—lying unconscious at the bottom of the pool—twitched his fingers, then suddenly opened his eyes.
For some reason, his eyes looked cautious and oddly uncertain when he opened them, as if he had forgotten where he was, who was with him, and what he was doing. He stared at the Big Dipper in the ceiling above him, then abruptly sat up.
Xue Xian heard his movements and struggled to roll out of the black soil, clattering along the bottom of the pool before coming to a stop next to Xuanmin. “Excuse me, bald donkey. Have you any talismans to help with digestion? I’ll accept elixirs too.”
He looked up at Xuanmin, waiting for his reply. However, Xuanmin only stared at him for a moment. “Where did this evil spirit come from? Why are you hiding inside a marble?”
What kind of nonsense is this? Xue Xian wondered. He stopped rolling and turned stiff as a stone egg as he stared at Xuanmin in disbelief. “Are you joking?”
At the shock from Xuanmin’s words, the bloated feeling vanished, like Xue Xian had successfully digested all the water in an instant. He paused in surprise, then circled around Xuanmin twice, scrutinizing him. Had he drowned and ended up possessed by a ghost?
After a beat, he stopped to study Xuanmin’s profile, his gaze fixed on the man’s neck. The light in the tomb was dim, and while that might have hindered an ordinary person, Xue Xian could see many details clearly.
“What’s that thing on your neck?” he asked.
At some unknown time, it seemed like Xuanmin had developed a strange mark on the side of his neck that resembled a bird’s eye view of a spider. Xue Xian recalled that Xuanmin did have a small mole on his neck, but it had looked nothing like this.
Xuanmin frowned at the question and touched the side of his neck. When his fingers brushed over that spot, the spider seemed to dissolve beneath the warmth of his fingers, retracting its legs and transforming back into a simple mole.
Xue Xian realized that the so-called spider was the result of thin blood vessels extending from the mole, which resembled the delicate legs of an arachnid.
As the blood vessels vanished, Xuanmin frowned and closed his eyes, pinching the space between his brows like he was dizzy. He remained in that position, motionless. Xue Xian was reminded of the events at Guiyun Hall. At that time, Xuanmin had also suffered from a spate of dizziness when he went to meditate in his chair. For a long time, he’d sat there without moving.
Xue Xian rolled around Xuanmin a couple more times, but found nothing unusual beyond that small mole. “Just what kind of illness is this?” Xue Xian had never seen anything like it before.
After a long while, Xuanmin stirred again. He shifted his fingers to his temples and rubbed them before scowling as he forced his eyes open.