Upon rushing out of the hall, several identical hallways appeared ahead.
"Which one do we take?" Zhao Ya asked.
The Snake Woman carefully discerned for a moment, then pointed to the middle hallway.
"Sir, I’ve only been here once before, but if I remember correctly, it should be the middle one."
"Alright, let’s go then." With that, Zhao Ya stepped towards the left hallway.
"Sir, no, it’s not that one, it’s the middle one," the Snake Woman exclaimed in surprise.
Zhao Ya didn’t turn back.
"I know, but are you coming?"
Without any hesitation, the Snake Woman hurried after him.
Though she didn’t know why Zhao Ya chose the wrong path, she assumed he had his reasons. All she could do was follow closely behind and not fall behind.
Zhao Ya ignored the "appendage" following behind and quickly strode into the hallway.
Contrary to what the Snake Woman thought, Zhao Ya chose this hallway not for any profound reason, but simply because it was well-lit and the air was better than the other damp, dark corridors.
As for whether it was the wrong path...
Zhao Ya was very aware that somewhere in a dim corner, someone was definitely watching all of this in the shadows.
So no matter which path he chose, the result would be the same.
After continuing down this hallway for a while, they encountered several more intersections.
This time, without pausing, Zhao Ya once again turned into the left path.
The Snake Woman followed nervously, fearing some ambush.
But surprisingly, the journey was smooth; not only was there no ambush, there weren’t even any minor guards. The only disruption was the constant intersections.
Zhao Ya’s approach was simple: always take the left path at intersections.
After passing countless intersections, the Snake Woman became numb.
Suddenly.
Zhao Ya stopped walking.
"Sir, what’s the matter?" The Snake Woman quickly stopped and asked with a trembling voice.
Zhao Ya glanced around, then said seriously, "We’ve been here before."
"Oh?" The Snake Woman immediately looked around.
But the intersections and hallways they had passed were so similar that she couldn’t tell any difference.
At this point, Zhao Ya walked over to the wall, gently touching the steel alloy walls which were incredibly hard, speaking as if explaining to the Snake Woman or talking to himself.
"We’ve passed a total of thirty-two intersections. All along, I chose the left path. If this were a straight line, the distance would be at least twelve kilometers, and though this Black Ship is enormous, it’s not that big."
"So earlier, I speculated that although the path looks straight, it actually has a small curve and eventually forms a huge circle."
"Indeed, and now the intersection in front of us should be the seventh we passed before, meaning we circled back to the starting point after twenty-five intersections."
"Based on this calculation, we should have walked around a circle with a circumference of nearly ten kilometers."
"Plus the flesh corridor and hall we initially crossed, we should be here now...."
As Zhao Ya spoke, he continued to trace the wall slowly.
The Snake Woman behind was utterly confused.
At first, she could understand, but gradually, she fell behind Zhao Ya’s pace.
Especially with mentions of circumferences and other terms, she felt utterly baffled.
But she dared not ask, simply standing quietly aside, waiting.
Just then, she felt a dampness on her face and looked up to find water droplets falling from the ceiling.
And in just an instant, the droplets turned into a torrential flow.
The water poured down, quickly accumulating knee-deep and rising rapidly.
The Snake Woman shuddered, "Sir!"
"No need to shout, both exits are already blocked." Zhao Ya’s voice was unmistakably clear as it cut through the sound of the water to reach the Snake Woman’s ears.
"What do we do?" The Snake Woman trembled in fear.
Though she was a modified being of the Wuyou Longevity Palace, for some reason, perhaps to prevent her escape, she hadn’t been endowed with the swimming abilities common in snakes.
Moreover, she had a deep-seated fear of seas or abyssal depths.
Now with both sides blocked and water flooding in, it was like a living water coffin, terrifying her.
As they spoke, the water rose to their chest level.
The Snake Woman gasped heavily as if she could faint any moment. Then with a sobbing tone, she said, "Sir, think of something quickly, or we’ll drown soon."
Compared to her nervousness and panic, Zhao Ya was much calmer.
Standing in the water, he calmly said, "Drown? No, you’re overthinking it. How could they let us die so painlessly?"
Just as he finished speaking, the water surface began to churn, and large ripples appeared beneath.
The Snake Woman nearly passed out in fear.
What appeared as ripples was in fact a massive school of fish.
But these fish all had fierce fangs, with gleaming red eyes; they were the aquatic fierce beasts, Bone-eating Fish, reared by the Wuyou Longevity Palace.
A single one of these beasts wasn’t very dangerous.
The danger lay in their numbers; they moved in masses of hundreds or thousands.
With numbers forming a certain scale, their destructive power multiplied geometrically.
Even Martial Artists from Heaven-Breaking Pass avoided provoking these troublesome creatures.
Now, to deal with a person and a monster, they unleashed these fierce beasts, showing they held them in high regard.
As the Snake Woman thought certain death awaited her, Zhao Ya remained unfazed.
Early on, when the water began flooding, he knew they had other plans.
After all, if they intended to drown him with just water, that was impossible.
Even Zhao Ya couldn’t help but secretly admire them upon seeing the Bone-eating Fish.
The virtues or vices of the Wuyou Longevity Palace aside, their biological engineering skills were undeniably impressive.
Even a small aquatic fierce beast displayed astonishing creativity.
Just as the Bone-eating Fish were about to attack en masse, an invisible red line rapidly spread through the water.
Where it passed, the Bone-eating Fish seemed to freeze, and then slowly sank to the bottom.
At this moment, the three-dimensional map of the Black Ship’s internal passage was finally completed in Zhao Ya’s mind.
He took a deep breath and then swam towards a specific point under the water.