All of the surrounding dirt was starting to turn into ‘mud’ and was also starting to churn violently as it flowed. The longer Bai Yunfei waited, the faster the mud started to flow downwards. Much to Bai Yunfei’s own surprise, the mud wasn’t the only thing flowing, he was starting to sink down with it!

Even within the barrier, Bai Yunfei felt like a bubble of air deep underwater. With all of the water flowing against him, Bai Yunfei was being battered around with the pressure of all the water on top of him trying to force Bai Yunfei and the barrier downwards!

The motions of the water and everything around Bai Yunfei would’ve sent any lesser person into motion sickness and black out. But after Bai Yunfei managed to recover from his shock, Bai Yunfei transmitted more of his soulforce into the barrier. A pulse of elemental earth was released from the barrier, stopping the water from pushing him down.

Bai Yunfei looked back to the roof with a curious light. Sending the Cataclysmic Seal back up, Bai Yunfei leapt up to try and force his way through the roof!

Before, the roof used to be as hard as stone and break apart when struck. But now that it was soft due to the surrounding liquid, the roof wasn’t exploding apart anymore. Still, Bai Yunfei was able to force his way through somehow!

Without enough strength, the current of the water flow would’ve forced any person to follow the tide. But for Bai Yunfei, who had enough strength, he could go against the ‘current’ and break free.

With Bai Yunfei’s previous act, Bai Yunfei was no longer inhibited by the downward current of the liquids in the tunnel. Like a motor going against the tide, Bai Yunfei was traversing upwards from the tunnel.

Bai Yunfei was paranoid that he’d be attacked again as he swam up the tunnels, but after several minutes of doing so, he had yet to be attacked. Aside from the current trying to force him downwards, Bai Yunfei was in no other danger.

“Is it afraid of us since we cut off one of its more special tentacles?” Bai Yunfei wondered to himself. “Doesn’t matter I guess, it’s best for us if that’s the case. I should be back to the top in this case then? I should be safe from this mysterious soulbeast as long as I make it out from the underground......”

He looked back up at the roof. The water around him was starting to grow lighter in color almost, and the sticky sensation he had been feeling was starting to ebb a bit. It seemed that he was getting closer to the surface.

“It was a surprising trip, but not a dangerous one....”

Bai Yunfei sighed in relief to himself.

But then Xiao Qi chirped in bewilderment, “Wait!! Yunfei! We’re in trouble! We’re....we’re not going anywhere!”

“What?” Bai Yunfei turned his head towards Xiao Qi, unsure if he had heard correctly. “What did you say?”

“The direction! The direction’s not right—we’re not going up, but....”

“Blip....”

Before Xiao Qi could finish his sentence, a strange sound popped off into Bai Yunfei’s ears. The area up ahead suddenly brightened up and the space around him seemed to lighten up. The pressure that previously been around him was now completely gone as well. Before he could fully comprehend the changes that was taking place, another sensation was starting to disseminate through his body....

His center of gravity!

His center of gravity changed, or perhaps it was better to say that the direction of ‘gravity’ had been suddenly altered!

It took only a split-second for him to realize he was suddenly ‘laying’ down on the ground.

The vertical direction that had been so clearly the ‘roof’ was now just horizontal to him to run parallel with his current resting position!

“What’s....what’s going on here?”

Bai Yunfei was completely shocked by the turn of events and took a moment before he was able to ‘rise’ to his feet.

Somehow, the changes that was taking place through the earth in the tunnel had done something: it managed to change the direction of gravity!

The initial torrent of liquid that previously swept Bai Yunfei up had disorientated him. Him reorientating himself by standing ‘upright’ was actually right, since the direction of gravity had changed then. Misguided by this new change in direction, Bai Yunfei traveled in the wrong direction of the tunnel to reach the center of it all without ever once being the wiser to it since he had never experienced such a thing before. Never did Bai Yunfei realize he was facing the wrong direction.

The direction he thought was ‘up’ was in fact the opposite direction of going down.

He thought he was getting close to the surface, but in reality, Bai Yunfei had been traveling in the opposite direction for a very long time.

This was a first for Bai Yunfei, he had never heard of such a thing happening before.

He had been tricked by the enemy’s plan! As surprised as he was, Bai Yunfei forced himself to calm down and held his barrier up. His soulsense was already gathering around the area to warn him for anything.

Sweeping around the place, Bai Yunfei realized that he was inside of a body of water!

That was right—he was inside a body of ‘water’. Behind him was a body of turbid mud like the liquid he started from. Another ten meters behind that was something like an invisible barrier that prevented the mud from flowing over. And across that barrier was a body of pure liquid.

But it wasn’t ‘clear water’.

This type of liquid had a definite pigment to it.....a red pigment.

It was like a tremendous lake with liquid a deep dark red....like blood.

“What.....what is this place....?”

Bai Yunfei thought to himself in amazement. His eyes swept across the dark red liquid with his soulsense scanning the place vigilantly.

“Wuuuu.....”

Moments after his soulsense scanned the area, a heavy voice came out from the depths of the water. Then Bai Yunfei felt his soulsense be met with a powerful but murderous aura!

Simultaneously, a blue light started to shine from underneath the waters. The next thing Bai Yunfei knew, ten black shadows shot out from the waters to try and wrap around Bai Yunfei.

Bai Yunfei realized then right there with a start—this was the ‘real body’ of the mysterious soulbeast.

But from the aura he felt from the soulbeast, this was.... A peak late-stage class six soulbeast!! It was as strong as he was!!

Several tentacles as thick as his arm was already started to come for him from every direction by the time Bai Yunfei snapped back to awareness. Kicking against the water, Bai Yunfei propelled him upwards to evade three of the closest tentacles. Another four tentacles followed before he managed to move out of the way fast enough. Circling around in the small area he was in, Bai Yunfei was able to just barely avoid most of the tentacles. But because he was holding onto the little girl still, Bai Yunfei was unable to attack the tentacles. And because Xiao Qi had never been in an ‘underwater’ battle before, Xiao Qi couldn’t think of what to do to fight.

“Bang bang....”

At last, two of the tentacles slammed against the barrier Bai Yunfei had. Like snakes, they wrapped around the barrier with amazing force and started to constrict and pull the barrier deeper into the center of the lake.

“Boom!”

There was a loud explosion from one of the tentacles as a loud spark popped out from it. In the next second, both tentacles exploded with a sizzling sound as a figure in red escaped from the tentacles and came to a stop underwater.

Completely enveloped by a bubble of elemental fire to press back the water, Bai Yunfei stared grimly at the direction ahead while Xiao Qi kept himself in a bubble next to him.

“Wuu.....”

There was another deep grumble as the tentacles writhed in the water. A mountainous thing started to rise from the depths of the water to slowly appear in front of Bai Yunfei’s eyes....