32°20′ North, 64°45′ West, Bermuda Triangle, midsummer.

About two hundred kilometers above the surface of the sea near the Bahamas, a disaster was raging--

The surging seawater was sucked up to thousands of meters high by the fierce winds, connecting with the dark, wave-like cumulonimbus clouds. It was like a sea dragon rising straight into the clouds, twisting and rotating as it moved through the sea. Everywhere it passed was a mess, with countless fish that couldn't escape in time being wrapped up and rolled into the sky, even including a ship with too small tonnage and not enough grip.

Such waterspouts are not uncommon in summer, but it's troublesome when they occur in the Bermuda Triangle, especially when four waterspouts appear in succession...

More than a hundred meters deep underwater, Xia Chuan's hands and feet, submerged in the sea, had already begun to go numb, as if drunk and out of control of the brain, with buzzing sounds in his chest.

Xia Chuan was no stranger to this state. When diving to a certain depth in the sea, this kind of "anesthetic" reaction will occur. And he had more than once, without any breathing apparatus, relying on a single breath, dived to nearly a hundred meters underwater and returned safely.

But this time, his past diving experience was of no help to him at all...

Because the sea area he was in was really too strange.

Just ten minutes ago, he was still safely on a cruise ship. In the blink of an eye, the cruise ship was pushed into this strange area at an extremely fast speed by four waterspouts.

The color of the seawater in this area was obviously darker than the surroundings, gloomy, with an indescribable aura of death. Even the waterspouts raging on the surface strangely bypassed it.

At that time, a blond man had been staying beside Xia Chuan, who was still on the cruise ship. He was Xia Chuan's mission focus this time - an important researcher of Wes Company, Dennis Perry.

He was about the same age as Xia Chuan, and looked quite handsome and energetic. But when the waterspouts appeared, he grabbed Xia Chuan's arm and howled like a pig being slaughtered, as if his screams could be heard eight miles away, almost howling for the whole ship's share.

Xia Chuan was very disgusted. Unable to find anything suitable to block his mouth, he could only look out the window with a cold face and let him shout.

It wasn't until the four sky-reaching water columns finally left the cruise ship and twisted away that the embarrassing guy let Xia Chuan's ears off and sighed, "Thank God they're finally gone!"

Most of the people on the ship, like him, thought they were temporarily safe. Only Xia Chuan, who was close to the window, saw the obvious boundary line between the light and dark circles on the sea surface, and his heart inexplicably thumped.

As if in response to his uneasiness, after only a dozen seconds or so, there was another commotion on the ship, because one after another people found that the seawater had silently submerged the windows in an instant--

After falling into that area, the cruise ship sank straight into the sea, like throwing a stone into a shallow pool, without even making a splash, it just sank like that.

The ship immediately exploded. No one was willing to be trapped inside and sink with the ship, especially since the ship was sinking too fast. As soon as people started to move, the surging seawater had already poured in.

In an instant, no one paid attention to the escape arrangements of the captain and crew anymore. The instinct for survival prompted them to rush towards the exit like crazy.

Xia Chuan picked up Dennis and even pulled out two more people who were stuck.

But when they broke free from the cruise ship, they encountered an even more helpless situation - they couldn't float at all in this strange sea area.

Those who could swim and those that couldn't, like the heavy-tonnage cruise ship, sank straight into the deeper sea. All struggles were in vain, except for increasing the consumption of oxygen, they were of no use.

It was as if the buoyancy of this sea area had been removed by someone...

Xia Chuan had been sinking in such a sea for more than two minutes, which was different from free diving without breathing apparatus.

Free diving at least had a diving suit, but he entered the water in a shirt and trousers, without any preparation, and Dennis, who was almost the same size as him, was still hanging on his right leg. This guy's skills in pulling arms and hugging legs were first-class in terms of agility.

Even with Xia Chuan's experience, he was powerless under such circumstances.

There will always be a time when oxygen is exhausted, but the deep sea seems to be endless...

The feeling of suffocation was worse than death, but his hands and feet were so heavy that he couldn't even struggle to lift them.

In a daze, Xia Chuan saw a large cluster of bubbles gushing towards him from the Shen Lan depths, accompanied by an extremely severe headache, tearing at him until his vision went black, and then he completely lost consciousness.

It is said that before a person dies, all the things and people experienced from childhood to adulthood, remembered and not remembered, will emerge from the depths of the mind and replay life in a very short time.

This statement is probably nonsense.

Xia Chuan had lived for twenty-eight years, not long but not too short either. Even if he had always been cold and didn't get along with people much, and his main activity in the past six or seven years was licking blood on the knife's edge, there should still be some moments worth recalling before his death.

But the fact is just that.

He only dreamed that he was standing on a water surface, swaying, as if his legs were not strong and he couldn't stand steadily no matter what.

The ripples under his feet made people dizzy, and it was easy to lose balance and fall in headfirst if he wasn't careful.

He saw the ripples spreading out in circles, and then one pale face after another slowly surfaced from the depths.

The features of those people appeared distorted and blurred due to the ripples, but the Xia Chuan in the dream always felt that they looked a bit familiar. He narrowed his eyes and leaned closer to the water surface, wanting to see them clearly, but they always disappeared when they were still a short distance from the surface.

This scene appeared over and over again many times.

The closer Xia Chuan got to the water surface, the farther away those faces were, always separated by a layer, and he could never see clearly...

If this is the last scene seen before death, then God is probably deliberately messing with people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, not even letting them die in peace.

The Xia Chuan in the dream finally couldn't help frowning, no longer having the patience to endlessly wait. When the face appeared again, he directly leaned over and reached out to fish in the water.

As a result, his five fingers were entangled by something cold and slippery underwater. That thing had a shockingly powerful force. With a fierce tug, Xia Chuan lost his balance and fell into the water.

In that instant of falling, his heart jolted. He instinctively took a deep breath, inhaling a big mouthful of bitter and salty water, coughing so hard his heart and lungs hurt.

With that cough, the deep, swaying water surface and pale, cold face in the dream completely disappeared. Replacing it was a rustling sound by his ears, gradually changing from fuzzy to clear, accompanied by the buzzing tinnitus brought by the violent coughing, and the drum-like heartbeat, which was quite noisy.

Among it were the sounds of water, wind, the swishing of branches and leaves rubbing, sharp bird calls, and even...something similar to an elephant's trumpeting?!

The more Xia Chuan listened, the more he felt something was off. After coughing for a while, he finally tried to open his eyes.

The dazzling sunlight made his eyes sore and swollen. He couldn't help frowning, raising his still somewhat heavy hand to shield for a while before slowly adapting.

In his eyes was a vast expanse of blue sky without any obstruction. There were a few slightly larger birds circling high above, but they were too far away, only silhouettes could be seen, unable to tell if they were seagulls or something else...

Xia Chuan squinted, staring at those few seabirds in the high distance for a good while. His heart suddenly let out a sigh of relief - it seemed he really had great luck, to still have the chance to open his eyes again in that kind of situation.

The place he was lying on was very hard, with a few protruding edges, making his flesh numb and prickly with pain. It was probably a reef rock near the shore.

Enduring the soreness all over his body, Xia Chuan frowned and wanted to sit up, but felt something heavy pressing on his legs, making half his body almost numb.

Xia Chuan: "..."

Thinking of the previous scene in the sea, he twitched the corner of his mouth and raised his upper body to take a look - sure enough, that guy who had been clinging to him like a life-saving straw since falling into the water was still hanging onto his legs.

Only, his clothes were somehow torn into several strips, crumpled and sticking to his body, with patches of mottled salt stains. Coupled with his posture of hanging on the reef like a dead dog, he simply looked like a piece of salted meat being air-dried, so unsightly one couldn't bear to look a second time.

Xia Chuan was about to pull his legs out from under Dennis when he felt that 6-foot piece of salted meat move. It then hugged his legs and let out an earth-shattering cough, spitting out a mouthful of seawater it had choked on.

Xia Chuan: "..."

He glanced expressionlessly at that small puddle of water and without hesitation pulled back his legs. Salted meat Dennis was flipped over, sprawled spread-eagle on the reef, gasping for air.

The two rested on the reef for a good while before fully recovering.

"Are you okay, Chuan? Weren't we sinking into the deep sea before? How come we're lying here now? Could a rescue team have arrived? Then where are they... This is really strange, is this still the Bermuda?" Dennis started spitting out questions like popcorn as soon as he had energy. He sat up and looked around as he asked, "Why do I feel like...something's not right?"

Xia Chuan's head hurt from his string of questions. He simply ignored all the previous ones and only responded to the last sentence: "Indeed not right."

They didn't know how long they had been drying on this reef. Xia Chuan's shirt was already mostly dry, just like Dennis's, with a few patches of salt stains.

As he answered, he was frowning and rolling up his shirt sleeves to his elbows. He didn't even lift his eyelids, let alone raise his head to scan their surroundings. His tone was also flat, as if he was too lazy to exert any effort, and the timbre a bit cold. In this kind of situation, coupled with the content of his words, it made the hairs on the back of Dennis's neck stand up with a "swish".

He looked in the direction Xia Chuan pointed, and indeed saw that the color of that stretch of seawater was a bit strange, as if some sea beast was lurking about a dozen meters below the surface.

But if all the oddly colored areas were that thing, then it was too...big...

Dennis silently swallowed, rigidly staring at that expanse of sea, not daring to noisily spout anymore, afraid of startling that thing.

But just because he behaved didn't mean the other party would too.

After a few seconds, he watched with his own eyes as that shadow moved, getting deeper and deeper, closer and closer to the surface...

Soon, with a "splash" of water, that behemoth completely surfaced, less than 5 meters away from the reef the two were on.

Dennis's eyes nearly crossed, his whole appearance that of being unable to breathe.

Xia Chuan's face was cold. While staring at that behemoth, he inconspicuously raised his hand and placed it on Dennis's wrist, seeming ready to take action at any time.

He didn't know if it was his misconception or what, but he always felt that sea beast's chilling eyes seemed to hold a strange meaning...

Dennis trembled a bit at his touch. His nearly rolled back eyes finally returned to their normal position and clearly saw the sea beast's appearance.

But with this look, he shuddered again.

Xia Chuan frowned: "...What are you shaking for?"

As a result, he saw Dennis shrink back, stiffen his neck and say to him in an extremely soft voice: "...Why do I feel this sea beast looks a bit like a Plesiosaurus?"

Xia Chuan: "..."

Before he could speak, Dennis dry laughed a couple times to negate himself: "No no no, I must have stayed too long in the lab before, or haven't recovered from nearly drowning. After all, Plesiosaurs are creatures from the Cretaceous period, long extinct along with the dinosaurs. How could they appear here, heh heh heh heh-"

His string of "hehe" hadn't finished yet when a sound similar to an elephant's trumpet came from a distance, the same as what Xia Chuan heard when he was half-awake.

Xia Chuan glanced at the huge creature floating on the sea surface. Seeing that it was temporarily motionless, he looked diagonally behind him in the direction of the "elephant trumpet" - about a hundred meters away from them, the seawater ended, and after a narrow beach, there was a vast and boundless dense forest.

The "elephant trumpet" came from that dense forest, but the forest was too dense. Looking from afar, apart from the wave-like branches and leaves, nothing else could be seen.

The two frowned. Just as they were about to turn their heads back to continue staring at the huge creature in the sea, they saw the trees on the edge of the dense forest shake a few times.

Then, a huge head poked out from the forest, a little taller than many trees. Its appearance was almost no different from the dinosaurs commonly seen in movies and TV shows. If one had to pick a difference, it would probably be that the one in the forest looked even more ferocious and frightening...

Dennis froze like a stuck tape, and after a long time, his neck stiffly turned and he looked at the sea beast in the sea, whose shape and size were very similar to a mosasaurus. After being dazed for a while, he finally rolled his eyes, let out a howl, and completely passed out.

Five meters away, the mosasaurus, which was quietly floating on the sea surface staring at him, silently opened its mouth and stuck out a forked tongue like a snake. The rows of white, sharp teeth could pierce a person through, and it was clear that it was not playing around!

Xia Chuan: "..."