We are on the surface of a vast lake, and a faint white mist rises from the surface of the lake, like a smoke cage and a gauze cover, forming a dreamlike sea of fog above our heads.

A gust of wind whistled overhead, blowing a crack in the sea of fog overhead, and suddenly, in front of our eyes, a magnificent and treacherous scene slowly unfolded......

The sky above us was shining with a translucent blue reflection, as if a huge blue gemstone had been set in the entire sky!

All of us were dumbfounded.

Poche's eyes straightened, staring at the wonder in the sky, and muttered, "Heavenly...... What is that?! ”

Then Poche folded his hands and recited the eight-character mantra and prayed to the Buddha.

The old knife shook his head and said: "Boche, we can escape from nature, it all depends on Aji and his octopus pet to fight hard, you are good, don't thank him first, thank the gods and Buddhas first-when we call the heavens and the earth not to be spiritual, why don't the gods you worship appear when we call the heavens and the earth unspiritual?" ”

I told Lao Dao not to talk nonsense, that is the faith of others, and the faith of others should be respected.

The old knife laughed dryly, turned his head and asked me, "Then again, where are we now?" How could there be such a large piece of glass overhead? I've heard you and Section Chief Shen talk about the theory of 'brain in a jar' before—we're not going to be in a glass envelope now, are we? ”

Before I could answer, Shen Tangzhi interjected: "Jiguang, don't you think the picture in front of you is very familiar?" ”

Shen Tangzhi reminded me suddenly, and when I looked back at the shocking scene around me again, I couldn't help but cry out "ah":

"This ...... Is this ......?"

"That's right, it's the ancient painting." Shen Tangzhi nodded slowly at me.

That's right.

The mist in front of us, the faint mountain peaks in the distance, and above the peaks was a blue sky, except for the absence of the girl with the tattoo on her back in the middle of the air, and the unknown red between the peaks, the scene we saw in front of us was exactly the same as the picture in the ancient scroll!

And after understanding this, I took it a step further and thought about what that blue glass-like object above our heads was.

Above the sky, there was a huge ice that covered the sky!

I said to Shen Tangzhi and the others that the water we are on now is probably a volcanic lake, and there should be many geysers like the ones around us.

When the lava activity in the depths of the earth intensifies, the entire volcanic lake is heated by the lava, producing a huge amount of water vapor, but because it is located in the alpine mountains of the Himalayas, the rising water vapor meets the extremely cold air in mid-air and condenses into ice on the summit of the mountain, and after millions of years, the ice condensed on the summit gradually grows, and finally forms a huge and unbeatable ice, which lies on several peaks......

Except for Shen Tangzhi, everyone else was stunned, with a look like listening to the Arabian Nights, and listened to me finish this brain-opening speculation.

"That's not right...... Old Knife swallowed hard, glanced at the blue translucent substance above the sky, and suddenly thought of a question, "As you said, there is a big ice block in the sky, it should also be white, why does it look blue now?" Is it because the sky is blue? ”

"No, above the ice, there should be a lake...... Or, call it the sea, and that's fine. ”

Old Dao, Tenzin Kawa, and Poche were all furious, and they were surprised in unison: "What?!" ”

I explained that on top of the solid ice, millions of years of rain had accumulated from the sky, as well as melting glacial snow, which had gathered on the ice to form a huge lake, which was ...... It's the sea in the air.

"Wo Cao...... Old Dao's eyes widened, "This is the so-called 'Extreme Sky Sea'?" If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it if it was the king of heaven and Lao Tzu blowing it to me, it was so fucking incredible! ”

Shen Tangzhi turned around and asked Hyde: "Ace, from a scientific point of view, can such an air sea be formed?" ”

Hyde had been bowing his head and thinking hard while we were talking, and when he heard Shen Tangzhi's question, Hyde nodded solemnly: "From a meteorological point of view, under normal circumstances, this is impossible to happen, but I have just carefully reviewed it, and when it comes to the special environment in front of us, it is indeed possible to form a suspended sea in the sky." ”

Hyde said that the temperature in the upper altitude should also conform to the simple law of "higher is colder" - warm water vapor will condense in the high altitude and then fall due to the gravitational pull of the earth, and in the process of falling, as the altitude decreases, the temperature in the surrounding air will gradually rise, and the snow and ice will melt into water, which is the principle of rainfall.

However, this is a very special place – the Himalayas on the top of the earth!

It has a unique alpine climate in the world, and the mountains extend the surface of the earth infinitely into the sky, so that the climate zone in the sky is distorted here, forming a very special "bump".

In this "climatic zone bump", under the troposphere in the sky, an extremely thin (perhaps only a few hundred meters) low-level stratosphere is formed due to the special space blocked by high mountains, and within this low-altitude stratosphere of only a few hundred meters, the temperature and air convection are extremely stable.

The crater lake provides an abundance of water vapour that rises to the lower stratosphere and condenses into ice, which is several hundred meters thick and can be suspended in mid-air thanks to the mountain peaks.

Above the ice, there is the troposphere, in which solid water cannot remain stable, so it accumulates on the ice in liquid form, eventually forming an "ocean".

The old knife didn't scold Hyde anymore this time, but became serious: "According to the ancient scroll, in the sea in the sky, there should be a girl with a tattoo on her back, should we go to find her?" That is, where are we going to heaven next? The question is how to get up? It's impossible for us to fly up with wings on our backs, right? ”

Shen Tangzhi looked into the distance and frowned: "Maybe you can climb up through these peaks......"

"Look over there!" Tenzin Kava suddenly pointed to a place in the distance, but his expression was agitated.

We looked in the direction of his finger, only to see the mist in the air and blown by the mountain wind as thin as cicada wings, in the haze, only to see a black tower faintly exposed on a mountain peak not far away, the tower went straight into the sky, hidden in the light blue of the sky.

Tenzin Kava said excitedly: "That must be the legendary Somol Tower of Babel, as long as you enter the Tower of Babel, you can enter the land of heaven and sea!" ”

"Boom!"

At this moment, the geyser behind us erupted again, and this time it was even more terrifying, and the water column rushed straight into the air, spreading out in the air, forming a splash that fell on us like a torrential rain.

"Damn! It's hot! The old knife was the first to shout.

The temperature of this "rainstorm" was quite high, and it immediately left a red mark on the skin when it came into direct contact with the skin.

"Not good!" It occurred to me that the volcanoes at the bottom of the crater lake were about to erupt!" ”

Shen Tangzhi also suddenly woke up: "The rule of 36 hours? ”

I nodded, "Yes!" Didn't we notice that the fog in the picture of that mysterious scroll came and went? The interval between the cycles is 36 hours, which may refer to the intermittent eruptions of the volcanic lake! ”

I don't need to go on, everyone understands that if the whole volcanic lake erupts, the temperature of the lake can be very high, and it may even boil directly!

The reason why the mutated octopus monster refused to jump down the waterfall with us was because the deep pool at the bottom of the waterfall was connected to the underground crater, and once the volcano began to move, the water in that deep pool would boil, and the octopus monster in it would immediately turn into takoyaki!

Thinking of the mutated octopus monster, I immediately tried to call it out in my mind.

"Lord...... Person. ”

The octopus monster responded to me immediately, but it was very weak, and there was a hint of pain in the induction message I received.

I knew right away that it had suffered no minor injuries as it took us out of the ground.

It didn't take long for the figure of the octopus monster to gradually emerge in the water below us, and Shen Tangzhi was just about to start screaming every day, when he opened his mouth, he said: "It seems to be injured?" ”

The octopus monster was indeed not lightly injured, the milky white translucent skin was full of scars, some of the wounds looked very terrifying, reaching a meter or two long, cracking dozens of centimeters wide, and a pale blue liquid was constantly oozing from it - the color of this blood was the same as the blood of an octopus, and it seemed that it was really a mutated octopus.

Not only that, but the octopus monster also had a few broken tentacles, and the severed limbs were slowly oozing blue blood outward.

"The injuries on its body are probably caused by the erupting geyser and hitting the rock wall when we were taking us out of the ground...... Those severed tentacles may have been bitten off by the opponent during the fight with the giant black ruba snake......"

We were still riding on the mutated octopus monster, and with it as a means of transportation, we moved much faster on the lake.

Shen Tangzhi was originally very afraid of this octopus monster, but after seeing the tragic state of the water monster covered in scaly wounds, not only did he not let out the high-frequency scream that made the eardrum burst, but took out the medical kit from his backpack.

"I still have a large roll of stainless steel sutures from the last experiment, and I can use them now. Here, a few of you guys, help me hold the wound. ”

Shen Tangzhi actually took out the suturing tool, lay on the back of the octopus monster, and began to stitch up the wound on it.

Shen Tangzhi is worthy of being the head of the forensic department, not only the dissection skills, but also the suture surgery, she holds the largest surgical forceps in each hand, the stainless steel sutures and suture needles shining with metallic luster under the rapid operation of the surgical forceps, like a butterfly through the wound skin of the octopus monster, one after another terrible wounds have been sutured.

It only took less than ten minutes, and Shen Tangzhi, with the assistance of the two old knives and Hyde's two assistants, stitched up all the open wounds on the octopus water monster's body.

"That's all I can do for the time being." Shen Tangzhi sterilized the surgical tools and put them back in the medical bag.

"Thank you...... Thank. ”

The octopus monster sent me a telepathic message, and I immediately conveyed it to Shen Tangzhi on its behalf: "It said, thank you. ”

"Oh, it should be." Shen Tangzhi gently stroked the wound of the octopus water monster, "It still hurts, right?" It's good to endure it, to a mutated monster like you, the healing ability should be very good. ”

"Gurgling ......"

The octopus monster spit out a long string of bubbles, as if in response to Shen Tangzhi.

Lao Dao looked at Shen Tangzhi's appearance, shook his head and sighed: "It is also said that there is a phobia of octopuses, and now motherly love is overflowing...... Alas, women, ......"

Shen Tangzhi gave the old knife a roll of his eyes, ignored him, and continued to "pet the octopus".

At this point, we could already clearly see the Tower of Somol Babel towering in the sky.

It towered over the side of a mountain peak, just parallel to the surface of the lake – and as we got closer, we realized that it was already a cliff on the edge of a volcanic lake.

The bottom of the tower has been submerged by the lake, and it looks almost integrated with the cliff, but the wind erosion of the tower is very slight, in short, it gives people a "new" feeling, as if there is some kind of magic that has existed since ancient times, has been protecting this magnificent stone tower, and even time has lost the ability to destroy.

When we looked up, we saw that the top of the stone tower was directly hidden in the clouds and mist in the sky, and it was impossible to see it.

The surface of the solid stone wall is extremely smooth, as if it has been polished all year round, revealing an eerie black glow.

The Tower of Babel has very few windows, the closest one is about three meters above the lake, and the whole tower looks like the legendary "pillars of heaven", towering between the earth and the sky.

I asked the octopus monster to send us to a window in the ancient tower with its tentacles, and we entered the interior of the ancient tower through the window, and in the process, I found that on one side of the cliff, there was a place like a river bay, and a cracked mountain rock collapsed at the mouth of the river, as if to cut off the water and the volcanic lake.

I quickly commanded the octopus monster to climb over the rock and hide in the bay, and through telepathy, I learned that the water temperature in that area of water was really low, which meant that it was indeed a paradise to hide from the eruption of a volcanic lake, and it seemed that the octopus monster did not need to turn into an octopusy.

"Boom—"

At this time, there was a loud roar of ancient beasts in the volcanic lake behind us, and when we looked back, we saw that the surface of the volcanic lake began to roll, and the boiling water vapor carried the hot and humid temperature, almost so that we could not open our eyes.

"Boom! Rumble! Rumble! ”

With a loud explosion, countless huge water columns suddenly gushed out of the lake, like angry water dragons, roaring towards the sky.

Soon, the temperature of the entire volcanic lake reached a very high level, and the abundance of water vapor exceeded our expectations, and our vision immediately turned into a white mist, and we immediately felt like we were in a steamer.

"Hurry up and run up, or we'll all be steamed into hot buns!" The old knife urged us, and he himself had already taken the lead and climbed up the stairs.

We're hurrying to catch up, too.

Although the outside world was shiny, there was only one window every few floors, so it was still dark inside the Somol Babel Tower, and we had to turn on the flashlight.

Along the way, we saw murals on the stone walls of the tower, but it was important to escape, and I could only see a few very abstract figures, very similar to simple geometric shapes, and as we climbed to the higher levels of the tower, the shapes slowly began to become more complicated.