Chapter 127 - Entering The Ruins

"We're approaching our drop off point." Aarim called out as she controlled the submarine.

Shiro nodded her head in understanding whilst looking out of the window. She could see that there were two other submarines that were approaching the same area.

"Seems like we've got company huh?" Lyrica said with a slight frown.

"Indeed. Hopefully we won't have to fight them for the treasure." Madison chipped in.

"Don't worry about that. There's an unspoken rule between adventurer's that no one is to fight before we enter the ruins. When we do, and we have eyes on the same treasure, only then will we fight." Aarim called out.

"What if they see our appearances though?" Lyrica muttered.

". . ."

". . ."

The four of them looked at each other as realisation dawned on them.

"Oh f*ck." Aarim couldn't help but curse a little.

[Don't worry. I can handle them if things get rough.]

Since she had the dragon scales, she had 3 lives essentially. Even though this was probably not the best place to use the scales, it was still an option.

"Hmm… But we should try to either sneak in ahead of them or after them." Lyrica responded.

"Hey! What did Shiro write? I can't read it from here." Aarim asked as she was curious.

"Shiro just said that she can handle them if things get a little rough." Madsion replied.  

"Heh~… Is that so."

After waiting for a little longer, Shiro could feel the submarine come to a stop.

"We're here." Aarim said whilst standing up. Stretching her body slightly, she led them to the exit hatch.

"On our suits, we all have a tracker that shows us where the submarine is. When we enter the water, I want you to take a moment for your body to get used to the pressure ok?"

Seeing that everyone understood, Aarim smiled before entering the hatch.

*THUNK!

Aarim was sent shooting out of the bottom of the submarine, surprising the group.

Looking at each other for a moment, they shrugged before following behind her.

*THUNK THUNK THUNK!

A crushing pressure assaulted their bodies as Lyrica and Madison tensed up from the pressure.

Shiro on the other hand, only closed her eyes for a moment. It only took a short while before her body adapted to the pressure.

'Thankfully I left Yin back home with Kanae. Otherwise, it would have been such a pain.' Shiro thought to herself in relief.

Moving her body around for a moment to familiarise herself with the underwater environment, Shiro swam towards Lyrica and Madison with astonishing speed.

"Er Shiro, I've just noticed something. How are we going to communicate?" Lyrica asked over the mic as she saw Shiro swim over.

Shiro blinked her eyes for a moment as she realised that it was indeed a problem.

"Why don't we stick with gestures for now?" Madison suggested. She had mostly regained her movements since her physique was a little stronger than average due to the fact that she was a tanker.

"So just the gestures for: follow me, yes and no right?"

"Yeah."

Shiro nodded her head in agreement. She didn't have any objections to following orders since it would be too petty if she wanted to be a leader all the time. Letting someone else take the lead wasn't too bad of an idea. Especially since she had the capabilities to follow every order and even help make up for someone else's mistakes.

Waiting patiently for everyone to get used to the pressure, Shiro glanced around to make sure that they were safe.

A few people had some intention to come over but Shiro would send out her killing intent to scare them off.

However.

There was only a slight problem with that. When she used her killing intent, she would be frozen into an ice cube since her passive decreased her body temperature to a dangerous level.

Even though she looked quite comedic as an ice cube, her killing intent did its job at scaring away the adventurers that were planning to swim towards them.

Once everyone had gotten used to the pressure, they swam towards each other.

"Alright. From now on, I want you to follow me closely since I'll be bringing you to the ruins." Aarim said over the mic.

Swimming down, Aarim led the group towards the ruins.

Slowly, the faint shape of a broken-down building could be seen in the distance. Seaweed and other overgrown foliage on the side of the stone pillars and walls.

"We're approaching the outside walls. For this particular ruin, there are a total of eight entrances. We'll be going to the entrance closest to the bottom." Aarim spoke with a serious tone in her voice.

The closer they got to the ruins, the more dangers were present. Therefore, they had to make sure that their guard was constantly up.

Shiro knew this fact well as she had been on the lookout since the moment they exited the submarine. Thankfully, there had only been a few monsters that swam near their location but were scared off by Shiro's presence.

She didn't know why but could only guess that they had an innate sense of danger towards other monsters.

'Perhaps they're intelligent so they didn't attack us.' Shiro thought to herself.

Naturally, if they were stronger, they would have attacked Shiro without a second thought.

As they approached the ruins, Aarim was a little suspicious about the lack of monsters that were supposed to attack them but eventually dismissed it as luck.

Gesturing with her hand, she led them towards the entrance.

The sheer size of the entrance was rather overwhelming. Not even Shiro's whole body could match up to a single brick that was used to construct the ruin.

The light in their vision slowly faded the further they swam.

Nodding her head, Aarim activated the spotlight that was connected on her shoulder.

"Wow…" Lyrica couldn't help but mutter.

With some light that allowed them to see clearer, they were able to depict the engravings on the walls. Large scale battle art were finely carved into the bricks.

Different monsters from myths and legends could be seen along with what seemed to be human warriors with a powerful aura around their bodies.

"Did you know that theorist guessed that the battle carved into these walls are actual events that may have happened in another world. The world where these ruins came from.

"Remember, don't touch anything and follow me." Aarim reminded as they were approaching the danger zone.

Sensing the slight amounts of nervousness in Aarim's voice, Shiro knew that things were about to get rough. And as she guessed, danger arrived not too long after. The bricks suddenly flipped over to reveal row after rows of crossbows.

Light gathered at the strings which slowly shaped itself into an arrow.

Aarim quickly flicked her wrist and erected several layers of stone walls between them and the crossbows.

*BANG BANG BANG BANG!!

Hearing the loud collisions between the arrows and the stone wall, the party knew that they should move quickly.

Injecting mana into their suits, a torrent of air ejected out of the soles of their feet and propelled them forward.

"I'll protect us from the arrows while we make our way to the first treasure room." Aarim called out, encouraging the party to speed up.

Soon, a forked path could be seen in front of them.

"Left!"

Once they turned left, they could see a bunch of sharks charging towards them.

Shiro swam a little faster and tapped her necklace. A burst of light blinded the sharks which caused them to thrash around in shock.

*KSH KSH KSH!

Three of her swords slashed through the sharks, causing blood to drift through the water.

"Gosh. I wish I had passed the test now." Lyrica pouted a little after seeing the swords in action. Shiro only smiled whilst pressing forward.

With one sword as defence and three swords for attack, she was able to clear a path with ease.

"Ai… what a waste of seafood." Madison sighed as she couldn't help but look at the badly cut fish meat that could have been roasted.

"Madi, you sound like an aunty right now hahaha. One of those that bargains for everything at the markets." Lyrica laughed a little at her comment.

"Tsk, but you have to admit that it's a little wasteful. We can cook those and get some temporary stats you know." Madison rolled her eyes.

"She's right you know." Aarim chuckled whilst defending them from another wave of arrows.

As for Shiro, she only glanced back a little before returning her focus on killing sharks that approached them.

Soon, a giant set of doors could be seen. The door reminded Shiro of the doors to a mutated dungeon. The carvings of the door would shift occasionally, signifying the death of a monster or human.

"Seems like one of the earlier parties are still stuck inside. Let's take this moment to go to the next room while they fight." Aarim suggested since they were strangers. Down here, if you extended a helping hand, they were sure to drag you down to hell in order for them to survive.

There was a unanimous agreement between them since they knew the risks as well.

Pushing open the heavy set of doors, they could see the party of adventurers fighting against a giant squid boss.

However, the boss wasn't alone. A band of electric eels was swimming around the party. Lightning would spark off their bodies occasionally and would either zap another eel or an adventurer.

The adventurer, who had been zapped, would be paralysed for a short moment. If they were unlucky, the boss would target and kill them.

Seeing Shiro's party enter the room, hope filled their eyes as they quickly waved towards them in hopes of getting their help.

However, Shiro kept a cold face on and dragged Lyrica and Madison along with her. She knew that if they stayed for too long, the duo may grow pity for the adventurers.

The party of adventurers panicked when they saw Shiro's group ignore them and press onwards.

Glaring at the girls, they looked at each other before nodding.

Shiro frowned when she felt a burst of evil intent from the group.

'So they want to drag us down with them now that they know we won't help.' Shiro thought coldly.

Shiro made a signal towards Aarim who could somewhat guess what she wanted to do.

"You want me to take the two of them onwards?" Aarim asked just to make sure.

Seeing Shiro nod, Aarim took Lyrica and Madison out of Shiro's hands and swam forward towards the next room.

With her hands free, Shiro gathered mana in both her arms.

Frozen Hell: Frozen Slumber!

Six neon blue magic circles expanded around the room with the adventurers in the middle of the circles.

Seeing that Shiro was using one of her strongest moves, Lyrica and Madison paled slightly since it may affect them due to the water.

"Quick get out of here. Shiro's using her Frozen Slumber skill! The entire place will be frozen!" Madison called out hastily.

Aarim nodded seriously before letting go of the duo. Since they knew of the danger, she wouldn't need to drag them herself.

Glancing back, Shiro smiled when she saw the party swim away.

"Freeze." Shiro muttered coldly before moving her hands towards each other.

*KRRRR!!!!!

Ice chains shot out of the circles as ice spread out from wherever it touched.

The adventurers paled when they saw Shiro use ice magic.

While the chains wrapped around the boss to stop it from moving, a cage of ice was being formed around the area.

Some of the adventurers attempted to break the ice walls with spells and attacks but it didn't work. For those who had used physical forces, their bodies were being frozen at a visible pace.

"This should do." Shiro muttered with a small smile after she saw that the area was frozen pass 50%.

Stopping the spell, she swam towards the rest of the group whilst waiting for her MP to regenerate.

"You didn't freeze them all?" Aarim asked.

Shiro only shook her head. The reason to why she didn't kill was due to the fact that the MP expenditure would be way for huge for her comfort. She needed to save some MP in case they needed to fight a boss later on.

"Well let's forget about that for now. In the next room, everyone will need to solo a mini boss that's scaled to their level before we can head into the first treasure room." Aarim shook her head and started to swim pass the next set of doors.

Once they reached the next room, a magic circle appeared under their body.

"Don't worry, it's only a teleport circle. Once you've past, you'll be teleported back here." Aarim called out before her body was teleported.

Shiro quickly grabbed a life saving tool out of her inventory before gesturing at it.

Lyrica and Madison nodded their head since they knew what Shiro was trying to convey.

"Don't worry Shiro, we know." Lyrica smiled before being teleported. The same went with Madison.

As for Shiro, she soon found herself in front of a giant statue of sorts. The statue was in the shape of a humanoid shark that wielded a trident.

Muscular limbs and gills could be seen on the statues body.

*Crack!

A crack split across the body of the statue as Shiro noticed a few small movements.

Tapping her necklace once more, Shiro grinned as four swords appeared around her and pointed towards the statue.