Over the past few days of flying, the compass on the map has slowly been shifting its direction until it now points directly down with no deviation in any other direction. Assuming this the Gravity Root, somewhere beneath us is an underwater cavern in the hadal zone. As Lia brings us down to the surface of the water, I begin to feel the presence of a Root, and while I can't determine the type of Root it is, based on the location, it should be either a Water Root or the Gravity Root.
Jumping off of Lia's back, I transform into my Dragon form and reveal my full size for the first time in a while. Aurelia then begins to create barriers on my back for Hakase and the others who aren't immune to my corrosion to safely step onto my back.
"Everyone's ready and we can dive whenever," Aurelia says as she closes the barrier around them.
"Ok, then I'll just head straight down for now," I say as I bring us down into the depths of the ocean.
Much like my first experience down here, the further we go the darker it gets until eventually there is no visible light. Although this isn't actually a problem for Lia, Wanjing, and I as we can see perfectly fine in environments like this. Aurelia can also still see to an extent, but not nearly as well as the three of us can. But I'm able to remedy this as I create light around us to allow Hakase and the others to see our surroundings.
The light naturally attracts a variety of sea creatures, but most of them keep their distance after noticing me and after watching me instantly kill anything that got too close. Meanwhile, everyone else has been admiring the varied creatures, most of which haven't been documented, which caught the attention of Lia and Aurelia. The four from Shengdi on the other hand had already been anticipating new discoveries and wanted to try and catch and experiment on some of the deep sea creatures, although Wanjing was more interested in how the fish tastes.
But the initial excitement can only last so long as everyone but me begins to feel the strong pressure of the deep forcing itself on their bodies. For a while, Aurelia's barrier had kept them comfortable to an extent, but as we enter the deeper parts of the abyssal zone, the pressure is starting to be a bit much for Aurelia's barrier to handle.
"So this is the deep sea pressure you mentioned. It's certainly... a difficult problem to solve, but I think we have something that might be able to remedy this," Gyosu says.
"I think... Boshi might... be able to... do something... about this..." Hakase says.
"Yeah, give me a moment, I think I might be able to reinforce this barrier with something I put together a while back," Boshi says as she begins going through her storage rings.
Unlike Hakase, who is both slow to move and much more unorganised, Boshi finds whatever it was she has been looking after just a couple of minutes as she takes out some strange contraption. At first glance, it appears to look like some kind of generator, having a thick circular base that stretches up like a tower with a blue orb at the top.
"Aurelia, can you put the same energy your using to maintain the barrier into this? By doing so we can enhance the output and effectively increase the stability and strength of your barrier," Boshi explains.
Following her instructions, Aurelia begins to direct her energy into Boshi's machine, causing the golden-tinted translucent barrier to thicken while everyone on this inside visibly relaxes as the pressure is seemingly gone or reduced.
"I have more of these, so if we need to reinforce the barrier again I can bring some more out," Boshi says.
"If everything is ok back there, then I'm going to keep moving deeper," I say.
Keeping with the momentum, after an hour, we arrive at the trenches of the hadal zone. According to Serabane, there should be an entrance to a cavern here that hides the Gravity Root.
After I brighten the place up a bit more and tell everyone else to keep an eye out for anything that could be an entrance, I realise that I've actually been here before as we approach the seafloor and I see some familiar footprints as well as the bones of the Hadal Dragon, which instantly inspire curiosity from Lia, Aurelia, and Boshi.
"*Sigh* my Inspection attempts keep on failing..." Lia says.
"Don't worry, I've succeeded, this is the remains of something called a Hadal Dragon. As for those footsteps, I can't see anything about them, but the Hadal Dragon is supposedly the strongest of the Aquatic Dragons, a Tier 10 monster. But as we know, with the exception of you and Cordelia, the Dragon species as a whole is extinct," Aurelia says, "but from the looks of it, Cordelia seems to know a bit more," she continues.
Hearing her, everyone else turns their attention towards me, seeking an answer to their curiosity as I say, "if you mean how the Dragons went extinct, then I do know a bit. They're related to the footprints we've seen here. It was that monster that single-handedly killed all the True Dragons. How familiar are you with a group of monsters called Heralds?"
"I don't know much, but I do recall that Gaoh mentioned something about them when the two of you spoke," Lia says.
"I know a bit more, they should be a group of four powerful monsters that the Eight Sacred Beast stand against. Currently, there are only two that are known, the Primordial Jaw, Cipactli, and the Land Ravager, Azi Dahaka, who has just recently appeared in the last decade," Aurelia explains.
"That's pretty much right, I was actually near the site when Azi Dahaka completed its evolution. But the one responsible for the Dragon's demise was the monster who is currently in the process of evolving into one of the Heralds, the Bane of Man, Catoblepas. As for why it did this, probably because of the System Quest required to evolve into a Herald," I explain.
"How do you know what the System Quest for it even is, Teacher?" Wanjing asks.
"It should be because Cory is actually one of the candidates of the last remaining Herald. If I recall, she should actually be relatively close to meeting all the requirements for her to evolve into the Star Eater, Ouroboros," Lia says.
"Yeah, but according to the deal I made with the Bear, I won't be going for it and I'm much closer to evolving into a Cosmic Spirit Dragon, especially if I can get my hands on the Gravity Root. So less talking and more searching!"