World's Apocalypse Magician 17 Chapter 17: Underwater World I

Underwater. Everything was quite dark.

After a several minutes of continuously ferrying out of the sea the non-esper personnel, everyone headed deeper into the trench. They left the non-esper personnel with a few water and air espers to transport them back to land, the nearest being the Philippines.

With the skill activated, I could still breathe and calmly check the situation. Everyone seemed to survive the initial collapse. The next point to look out for is whether those that targeted the submarine were still targeting them, or find out the reason of the abnormal increase in pressure.

I checked the skill description once again.

[Cutaneous Respiration, lvl 10

Allows the target's pores to open up and connect to internal structure to absorb and filter air from the outside. Past level 7, gain +4 Air affinity per level, max 20 points.

Lasts for a maximum of 24 hours.

Cooldown: 12 hours, 30 seconds.

Note: The skill can be used on any target.]

As we had reached the half-way point of the trench, what surprised us was that there was a glowing light source below, around 500 to 1000 meters away. Using my eyesight, I was surprised to see a well-lit cave present in the deep waters. Even the three water-based espers beside me, my roommates, were surprised to see the glowing source from such a distance.

What caused the glow in the first place? After all, this was deep into the Marianas Trench, and any normal marine animal wouldn't emit such light. At the same time, the light was constant and was not s.h.i.+fting its position, indicating it was stationary. It was impossible for it to be a mutated angler fish, since according to my system map, there were no mutated beasts within 5 kilometers of my position, which was quite weird.

What could that be? I wondered.

I headed deeper into the trench and came closer and closer to the glowing cave that could be seen around 800 meters away, based on the system map. The others simply followed my lead. Of course, the other espers had diverged into the different areas of the trench, so currently, my party was the only one in the vicinity of 1 kilometer in radius.

After all, with the recent changes in the earth's crust, the trench itself became wider than before, reaching 100 kilometers wide and 4000 kilometers long. If we all moved as one big party, it would take us months to completely survey the area.

With that in mind, we were split into 30 groups of 4 people, and my roommates in the submarine decided to go with me, as they had already seen my abilities, thus giving them a sense of security for this mission.

As I headed closer to the source of light, the area surrounding us gradually changed, being filled with aquatic plants that supposedly, should not be able to survive in such a depth. I took note of this and continued heading downwards, where I saw an cave-like structure appear, and the light seems to be coming from the cave.

The cave itself looked normal, but if one would observe clearly, there was a thin membrane present covering the entirety of the entrance, and I immediately recognized it.

It was similar to my [Water Barrier] skill, but it kept out water from coming into the cave. The light source coming from the cave was actually not that bright, but due to the barrier, the light refracted and began to turned brighter and brighter for anyone viewing the cave from the outside.

I signalled the other 3 espers to stay around the area as I explored the cave. After all, I wouldn't be able to protect them completely if there were hidden traps or enemies inside the cave. It was a blessing my roommates can understand English, and I didn't have to spend skill points for the 5th-tier Air support skill, Translation.

Could it be an esper who was inside the cave, I thought to myself. Immediately, I activated my basic skills, such as [Water Defense], [Water Barrier], [Air Barrier] and [Air Defense].

All elemental barriers had the same characteristic, meaning they could only absorb a certain amount of damage as well as negate specific elemental attacks, but the greatest benefit is that they can be used simultaneously, effectively stacking each other, as well as creating a multi-elemental defensive barrier.

It made me think to combine these skills together, hoping to get a multi-elemental barrier without the manual casting of each type of elemental barrier, but decided against it for now given that usually, one elemental-type barrier was enough given that I could basically tank a lot of damage. I could just imagine the explosion of the multi-elemental barrier, probably expressing itself greater than the default 1000 damage per barrier that explodes.

After setting up my defenses, I immediately set forth and entered the barrier separating the cave from the outside water.

Upon entering, the sight surprised me, as what I saw seemed to come out from fairy tales.

It was an underground city. No, really. An underground city in underwater. There was not a hint of seawater present in the area, and there were even trees, small lakes present, even.