48 Hours a Day

Chapter 910: Memory Fragments

Those human-frogfish monsters were scary enough. But compared with the other two monsters on the wall, they were probably as cute as a Mickey Mouse mascot taking photos with tourists in Disneyland. Nellie couldn’t acquire an intuitive understanding when she looked at the wall carvings. Now that she saw the two thrones, she finally gained a better understanding of the size of the creatures that were supposed to sit on the thrones.

Even on the vast seabed, they could definitely be considered giants. Nellie felt like a mouse breaking into a cattery. Fortunately, the owner of the cattery was not home today. Hoping that they would never come back, she even started to worry about Yonaguni Island. Considering that evil of such magnitude lurked beneath the island, it was a miracle that Yonaguni Island remained unharmed for so many years.

But seeing these two thrones was not without good news. Nellie had been worrying about whether there was an exit at the other end of the tunnel, and she could finally breathe a sigh of relief. That was because no matter how wide the crack expanded, the giant creatures would never be able to fit through the entrance or the exit.

So there had to be another exit here. Nellie quickly looked around with her flashlight, and she soon found that exit. Located on the right side of the throne, it happened to be blocked by two stone pillars. Since those pillars were so massive, they could only be found if someone paid close attention to them.

It was a big black hole, enough for an adult sperm whale to swim through. When Nellie stood close to it, she could feel the ocean current. In other words, it must be connected to the outside world. Nellie’s eyes lit up immediately when she saw it. The compressed air in her cylinder was running low, with only less than 30 bar left.

She would never see the sun tomorrow if she failed to find an exit. Before she entered the cave, Nellie looked behind to make sure that no one was in the hall. Zhang Heng, too had also swum out of his hiding spot. However, she did not feel too good about the current circumstance.

Looking at the magnificence of this underwater palace and based on his previous understanding of those monsters, Zhang Heng didn’t think that this place could only have one guard. That being said, they never encountered a second monster while they were on their way out. Either they were lucky enough to come when those monsters were out hunting, or those monsters were hiding at the end of the exit, waiting to ambush them.

Of course, Zhang Heng hoped the former conjecture was what really happened. He did, however, prepare for the latter situation as well, having already taken out Betty’s Shell from his pocket. This was the second game item he had brought with him other than the Filter Lens. Unlike the Filter Lens, Betty’s Shell was designed to be used underwater.

This game item originated from a certain Celtic ancient god in the Black Sail quest. It would consume the user’s anger and summon a storm at sea for fifteen minutes. The power of the storm was directly connected to how angry the user was.

Actually, this game item had become more and more useless to Zhang Heng. It was because his feelings were gradually disappearing. Whether anger or joy, not much of it was left in him. Even the empathy he possessed before was slowly leaving him as well. In the recent quest he completed, Zhang Heng no longer carried the shell with him. This game item was simply an object representing one of his life’s milestones, and he had also had it for more than ten years. Hence, Zhang Heng did not want to sell it for money, hoping that he could make a final use of it this time.

Besides, he had also noticed the two thrones, which gave him a strong sensation of déjà vu. This time, some memory fragments even permeated Zhang Heng’s mind. It seemed this wasn’t the first time he had been here, standing in this palace.

And during that time, the king and queen did not sit on the thrones. Instead, they were crawling at his feet, almost as though they were his most devout believers. The human-frogfish monsters, on the other hand, couldn’t even get close to this hall. Just looking up at the great figure in the center of the hall would plunge them into eternal madness and frenzy.

This was a strange feeling, especially when Zhang Heng found that he was looking down from a higher-up spot. In order not to ruin the palace, he had to lower crouch on his back. From his perspective, the king and the queen looked like a pair of toddlers that had just learned how to walk.

Zhang Heng deliberately looked at the queen a few more times because the latter gave him a stronger sense of familiarity as if he had met her before. This sense of familiarity did not come from the memory fragments but it came from Zhang Heng himself. Before he could delve deeper into the memory, Nellie’s gestures snapped him back to the reality.

Zhang Heng nodded, knowing that there was very little oxygen left in his and Nellie’s cylinders. They had to give it a go no matter what lay in front of them. So next, Nellie went first and Zhang Heng followed behind her. They then dived into the big hole in the wall that symbolized their last hope.

Unlike the narrow tunnel, this tunnel behind the cave was spacious enough. The numbers counting the depth of their location on the dive computer were also rising steadily. After the previous traumatizing moment, their luck seemed to be improving. The hope of getting out of trouble was right in front of them.

Nellie could not help but start to speed up, and the blurry light above their heads became clearer and clearer. After swimming up for a certain distance, the dive computer showed that they were only twelve meters from the surface. Nellie went around a huge coral reef and found the missing Han Lu.

Han Lu wasn’t looking too good. Appeared to be entangled in a discarded fishing net, she couldn’t seem to get rid of it with her own strength. Fortunately for her, her breathing equipment still worked as intended. Just like the other two, she was still alive.

Upon seeing this, Nellie hurriedly swam to Han Lu’s position. She looked at Han Lu’s residual pressure value first, and she found out that there was only less than five bar left. In other words, if they had come a few minutes later, Han Lu might’ve suffocated to death.

So Nellie gestured to comfort Han Lu, and at the same time, began to help the latter untangle the fishing net. However, when she swam to Han Lu’s side, the latter panicked even more and started to struggle desperately. At the same time, she kept tapping Nellie on the shoulder as if she wanted her to turn around.

Nellie turned her head around with some hesitation. Although the oval tunnel exit looked pitted, like a honeycomb, nothing was out of the ordinary. It was quiet and within reach. Nellie knew that as long as she swam for another twelve meters, they would be able to get out of trouble and see the sunlight again.

But the next moment, cruel reality shattered all her beautiful fantasies.

A large number of black shadows charged out of the beehive-like tunnel, like worker bees leaving the hive. They were so many of them that they blocked the sunlight from reaching her, plunging her world into darkness again.