"With a sea as vast as the Whirlpool Sea, it's understandable that unique landforms might appear," said Leiting after a moment of silence. "I once saw weathered rocky mountains in the Kingdom of Wolfheart that were somewhat similar to these stone pillars, though not as slender."

But there's no wind underwater... Camilla thought, but didn't voice it.

"Wind?" Qiong's voice suddenly echoed in her mind. "There's wind here."

"What did you say?" Camilla asked subconsciously.

"Hmm, wasn't I clear enough?" Leiting coughed twice. "Let me say it again... Before, when I was in Wolfheart—"

"I wasn't asking you, I was asking Qiong!" Camilla interrupted, a little rudely, but in her surprise, she couldn't worry about that. "Qiong seems to be saying... there's wind at the bottom of the sea!"

All the listeners on the deck were stunned.

"Can't feel it, but can hear the sound of wind... Whoosh... Swoosh... Whoosh... Swoosh, can't you hear it?"

That's right, this is a mental connection. If Qiong can hear it, I should be able to as well. Camilla quickly gathered her thoughts, and sure enough, from the bottomless sea beneath Qiong's feet, she could faintly hear the sound of wind, as if air was rushing through a cave.

"I'll go down a bit further," Qiong said. "But I'll need to change my form."

With that, she untied the straps of her skirt, allowing her legs to make intimate contact with the seawater. Cyan scales quickly surged from her ankles, enveloping her legs into a single entity—a fish-shaped tail.

In an instant, Camilla felt as if the resistance and drag in front of her had vanished. With just a single flick of her tail, her body shot far out into the water, even more agile than a fish.

This is Qiong's true form!

The descent speed increased dramatically.

"Two hundred meters, the sound of the wind seems to be getting louder... Still nothing different at the bottom of the water."

"Four hundred meters, it's completely dark all around... But fortunately, Qiong doesn't completely rely on sight. The stone pillars... are still extending downwards, and new pillars are appearing."

"The rope we're using to measure depth is at its end. Can you add a few more sections?"

"Damn, how deep is it now? Six hundred or seven hundred? Even Qiong can't be sure. As for the stone pillars..." At this point, Camilla, who had been simply stating facts, suddenly froze. "No, this... this is impossible..."

"What happened?" Leiting asked quickly.

The steward of the Sleeping Island only felt an indescribable chill rising from her back, suddenly spreading throughout her body. "The pillars, the pillars... are gone!"

"Gone, as in disappeared?" Leiting frowned, looking out at the sea—the surrounding dense reefs were unchanged, and it didn't look like anything was missing.

Camilla held her slightly trembling hands. "There's no seabed... there's nothing... they're suspended in the seawater!"

This statement made everyone gasp.

In Qiong's vision, she could clearly see that several stone pillars had reached their ends, but that didn't mean they had a support point. Instead, they stopped abruptly, as if the ends had been neatly chopped off, leaving only half of them standing silently in the water. It wasn't just the small stone pillars, even the reefs were like this. Huge stone piers stood in the air, with absolutely no support underneath.

This scene was too bizarre, completely beyond reason.

"Suspended? Are you saying the islands are all floating in the water?"

"By the Three Gods, those are all blocks of stone!"

"Woman, are you sure you're not mistaken?"

"Impossible, even if they could float, they couldn't possibly stay still like this—without anchor ropes to hold them in place, just the ocean currents would be enough to slowly push the entire Shadow Islands into the fjord!"

The deck immediately erupted in chaos.

"Everyone, shut up!" Leiting roared, calming everyone down. "Are all the reefs floating?"

"I don't know... they're not all the same length," Camilla murmured. "The newly appearing stone pillars are still extending downwards."

Moreover, Qiong's descent speed had clearly slowed down.

Obviously, although her ability could withstand the pressure of the deep sea, it had its limits.

At this moment, Camilla noticed a strange sight.

Several pillars close to Qiong seemed to be "elongated."

Not the overall length—they were almost like tree trunks, inserted straight into the depths of the seabed, with no end in sight, so there was no point in talking about length. What caught her attention was the detail, the texture of the pillars and the barnacles and other attachments—from a certain point, the former seemed to become more slender, while the latter gradually deviated from a circle to an ellipse. Because there were normal samples within a few meters for comparison, it looked quite out of place.

"Do you want to take a closer look?" Qiong sensed her surprise. "There's definitely something strange there."

"Yes," Camilla cleared her somewhat dry throat. "Be careful."

Qiong slowly swam to the nearest stone pillar, reaching out her hand to touch the strange barnacles. But the next moment, something terrifying happened.

The steward saw with her own eyes that the scaled fingers elongated by several points.

"Huh? What's going on?" She stretched out her hand in confusion and opened it. "Is it my illusion?"

A bad feeling suddenly surged in Camilla's heart.

Just as she was about to notify Leiting to temporarily stop the deep dive, a sea fish swam past below Qiong's eyes.

It was an ordinary silver eel, about an arm's length long, but as it passed the mermaid girl, its body length increased at a speed visible to the naked eye, turning from an eel into a creature similar to a "sea snake" in just under five meters. But this was not the end. Its sinking speed continued to increase. After a few more breaths, the silver eel was suddenly stretched to the limit. The tail was still in sight, but the head had plunged into the boundless darkness, with a length of at least a hundred meters! In the blink of an eye, it disappeared into the deep sea like a stream of light, as if sucked in by something.

Camilla felt her scalp tingle and her hair stand on end!

She couldn't help but shout directly, "Get out of there! The exploration is over, come up immediately!"

Unfortunately, it was too late.

Qiong flicked her tail a few times, but her body didn't move—or rather, the speed at which she was elongated caught up with the speed of ascent. Camilla could clearly see that her fishtail had grown to more than ten meters, but the width had not changed at all, making the scene extremely terrifying.

Qiong's thoughts also became flustered. "What... what's happening to me? Camilla... what should I do?"

"Try harder... don't stop, swim harder! You can do it!" Camilla hissed.

But all her efforts were meaningless. No matter how Qiong swam, her body continued to sink, as if trapped in a quagmire. At this moment, not only her tail, but also her body and hands were undergoing distortion.

As if realizing something, she helplessly stretched out her arms towards the top of her head. "Someone, save me..."

"No!"

Before the words were finished, her vision suddenly sank, then turned pitch black.

Camilla opened her eyes, collapsing weakly to the ground. Sweat dripped from the tip of her nose, falling onto the back of her hand—only then did she realize that her body was covered in cold sweat.

"What exactly happened? Is Qiong in danger?" Leiting walked over and helped her up.

It took Camilla a while to recover from her daze. "I don't know, the mental connection... was severed."