Frozen
Frozen
The waves of riptide began to gather from all directions, which appeared odd, as it was different from normal water activities. Sea temperature fell rapidly, which again was an odd phenomenon. The siren queen raised her head in alarm. Scales below her cheeks glimmered in pale-blue light. She said, "I have sensed something out there... something's awakening... A consciousness is watching us!"
Hao Ren quickly picked up the radio. "MDT! Something's wrong here. What can you see?"
There was interference in the radio. "The sea is changing shape... two streams of cold air are forming in the north and south poles concurrently. The sea is behaving weirdly. Something's on your way! Get the hell out of there quickly!" the MDT told.
Hao Ren had noticed that as well. It was a freezing current coming out of nowhere, freezing the water body on its path in just the blink of an eye. Now the freezing riptide was just a few hundred meters away from them!
"Get the hell out of here!" Hao Ren shouted. He was forced to abandon the engineering ship and grabbed Shaqira who was next to him and rushed back up to the surface. "MDT, send us out now!"
There was still a strong interference in the radio as the MDT replied. "...I can't! Coordinates misaliged! The Wall of Reality hasn't completely restored yet. Teleportation is interrupted!"
"Dang it…" Hao Ren looked back over his shoulder. "Give me a solution! There's a minus-200-degree ice storm up on our tail. The water pressure is going to crush my shield!"
"Keep going. Get out of the sea. Once you're away from the collapse point of the Wall of Reality, I'll be able to send you out," said the MDT quickly. "Move as fast as you could. The water surface has begun to freeze up. Something's not right!"
"Dang you! Of course nothing's right here!" scoffed Hao Ren as he, Y'zaks and the three sirens rushed up to the surface as quickly as they could. Behind them was a bizarre swath of ice half a kilometre in width. The invisible freezing current could crush steel into metallic powder in an instant. Soon, Hao Ren quickly realized that the worst had yet to come: in fact, the entire ocean would be frozen.
As icicle formed in the water, sharp ice crystals crushed on their shields and enchantments like a bullet rain. At the same time, as the water pressure rose, they felt the water was dragging them down despite the fact that they were actually rising. Hao Ren suddenly felt a strong sense of drowning; it was the first he experienced the so-colled deep-sea phobia.
"We almost lose control of the water!" Shaqira warned. A thin layer of ice crystals covered her tail and she was struggling to keep the water enchantment. Hao Ren and Y'zaks' lives were on the hands of the three sirens when they were underwater, and now they had slowed down significantly. "Something much stronger is in control of the sea... it doesn't listen to our command anymore!"
Y'zaks roared and burst into flame as magma and molten iron erupted from his body. The heat instantly melted a large area of ice. The next moment, he became a huge lava monster. Using his dark-green Demonic Barrier, he was covering the water enchantment of the sirens. This reduced the pressure on the sirens.
Y'zaks turned his head around and said to the siren queen in a loud voice, "Bring us back up to the surface; I'll handle the water pressure and the cold."
As the entire ocean froze, the great demon could only keep a limit body of water above freezing point. The ice all round them had blocked their escape route. Looking up, under the illumination of Y'zaks demonic flame, Hao Ren saw glacier forming in the water. Thinking of what the MDT had said just now, the reality sank in.
The entire planet of Io was rapidly freezing up!
As unbelievable as it was, Hao Ren believed that the planet (or some ancient consciousness on the planet) had awakened. It was trying to trap the intruders. The glaciers that contained a powerful energy were not a natural phenomenon; this powerful force would not allow the intruders to escape!
Hao Ren took out his gun from the dimensional pocket. However, he quickly realized that the radiation produced by the gun would contaminate the entire water body and even poison the sirens and the demon. So he had to make do with the Graviton Grenades. He threw the grenades out at the glacier and shouted into the radio. "Can't you send us out yet?"
"In a bit!" The voice of the MDT sounded as hurried. "Something slows down the Wall of Reality's recovery. Now the noise from the friction between both worlds prevents me from locating your position. We're talking about the natural forces of two universes! Give me a minute!"
Huge ice shards crushed on their shields. Sorma and Shaqira screamed in fear; they had completely lost control of the water.
The scales on the siren queen glimmered with light. She used her powerful magic trying to regain control of the water from the sea. She succeeded. But they could not afford to stop; stopping even for just a few seconds would mean death.
"Hurry up!" Hao Ren struggled to clear a way. He yelled into the radio. "I think I'll be frozen with the three fish in a few minutes! Only Y'zaks is free from ice, for now!"
An even more powerful freezing current and riptide were crushing the Demonic Barrier. It was the powerful forces of the ocean of Io, which was powerful enough to flatten any mountains on the surface. Fighting against the forces of nature was futile, even for person as powerful as Y'zaks. His Demonic Barrier began to dim.
The great demon's rumbling voice was heard from behind Hao Ren. "I can feel that the ocean is filled with anger, hatred and resentment... the negative energy feels very familiar and shouldn't be here!"
Hao Ren blasted open an underwater glacier and cleared a narrow passage they could squeeze through, barely. "What did you just say?" he asked.
"I said the negative energy is very familiar to me!" Y'zaks said very loudly. "This is a grievous spirit! The ocean is full of the screams of the grievous spirit! I've heard it countless times in the spirit furnace in Serathon!"
Hao Ren froze for a moment followed by shock. "Is there really such a powerful grievous spirit in the world?"
"So I said it shouldn't be here!" said Y'zaks loudly.
Just when Hao Ren was about to ask again, deafening boom was heard from the above. The loud noise had everyone rooted to the spot.
"Boom—"
The loud booms were reverberating in the frozen sea, as if hammer pounded on a solid ice, which they were located inside. The sound almost gave the illusion that the world was tumbling down.
The ice was closing in on them; they could see no more escape route. Even the power of the sirens could do nothing in this environment. But as the pounding sound continued, the thick ice above them appeared to crack.
"Boom—"
Another boom later, Hao Ren began to see a vague flash of light above the thick ice layer: it was an explosion.
It did not matter why there were explosions; the most important thing was that it had opened up an escape route for them.
Hao Ren threw out two Graviton Grenades into the gap between two underwater glaciers and blew open a passage. Before the gap closed again, they rushed through it. "Everyone! Keep up with me!" Hao Ren said.
Finally, after passing through the glaciers, the interference caused by the collapse of the Wall of Reality declined. A bright light flashed before their eyes, the next second they knew it , they had already left the planet of the frozen hell.