The ninth floor was originally the mermaids' resting place. However, in Li Xian's memory, it was the most terrifying part of the Mermaid Palace.
After the divine punishment descended, the growth rate of those problematic baby mermaids was twice that of normal mermaids.
They were blood - thirsty and cruel. The clan chief ordered them not to leave the Mermaid Palace, so they couldn't attack the passing cultivators. But their craving for blood within their bodies increased day by day.
Finally, they couldn't resist attacking their closest kin.
The Mermaid Palace was filled with the stench of blood for years because of this, which attracted attacks from other sea creatures. There was no other way, so the clan chief led the guards to seal these mermaids on the ninth floor and sent people to check on them regularly.
But once these mermaids broke free from the ropes and restraints, they would kill each other.
They seemed not to feel pain at all. Even if they were severely wounded with bones showing and limbs broken, they would still continue to attack others.
Therefore, the scene inside the ninth floor must be extremely horrible. That was why Li Xian told Shen Qing to be prepared.
Shen Qing also knew from Li Xian's words that there was something wrong with the ninth floor. He took a deep breath, nodded at Li Xian, and said, "Open it."
Li Xian placed his hand on the doorknob made of spirit stones. The cold touch of the spirit stones made his whole body tremble.
If he didn't have to pass through the ninth floor to reach the higher inheritance land, he wouldn't want to bring Shen Qing here.
After preparing himself mentally, Li Xian used magic to unlock the lock outside the door.
The door opened, stirring up a string of bubbles in the water.
The long - sealed place, which had not been opened for a long time, welcomed its first clansman in thousands of years.
The ninth floor was not as bright as the lower eight floors. Instead, it was extremely dim.
The night pearls and crystals used for lighting were covered by a thick layer of something, and only faint light came through the cracks.
Li Xian and Shen Qing carefully prepared to swim inside. But as soon as they passed through the door of the ninth floor, they felt a gravitational force. This gravity allowed them to walk on the ground instead of swimming around.
Although they were still in the water, the feeling of having their feet on the ground made Shen Qing feel much more at ease.
"When the ninth floor was built, the clan chief engraved magic arrays on the walls and the ground made of corals. This allows the things here to ignore the buoyancy in the water and be like on land," Li Xian explained while leading Shen Qing forward according to his memory.
"Mermaids not only have fish tails but can also transform into human forms and walk on two legs. For the future, the clan chief tried to make the clansmen get used to walking on land in the Mermaid Palace."
The deeper they went, the more intense the bone - chilling cold became. Even Shen Qing, who had an ice spiritual root, found it hard to bear.
But Li Xian seemed to feel nothing, and his expression didn't change at all.
The ninth floor was divided into rooms with long corridors. Blackened blood had solidified on the walls or in the corners of the corridors.
Moreover, there were scratch marks left by sharp claws on the walls. The walls of some rooms had been completely destroyed. One could imagine how fierce the fights here had been.
Some broken crystals and shell fragments were floating in the water, making the water look a bit turbid.
Each room was in a dilapidated state. The originally luxurious and beautiful shell beds had all turned into pieces, losing their former glory.
After turning a few corners along the corridor, Li Xian led Shen Qing to the central hall.
This hall seemed to be the source of the cold in the entire Mermaid Palace. Before Shen Qing could clearly see the scene in the hall, he was so cold that he hugged his arms and shivered.
Li Xian stopped walking, and his body involuntarily stiffened.
Shen Qing looked up and saw bubbles of different sizes. Inside each bubble, a mermaid was sleeping.
But all these mermaids had ferocious faces, and some even had incomplete limbs, obviously seriously injured.
They were in various postures, sealed in the bubbles.
"What's this?" Shen Qing was startled when he suddenly saw these faces illuminated by the dim light.
Li Xian said in a solemn voice, "These are the mermaids born after the divine punishment. They have completely lost their sanity. Helplessly, the clan chief had to use a secret method to seal them here."
Shen Qing looked and saw that the smallest of these mermaids was just a baby. But his tail was seriously injured, as if a piece had been bitten off.
His teeth were long and sharp, protruding out of his mouth, and the nails on his hands had also become sharp.
He bared his teeth and still maintained the posture of wanting to attack.
"He's so young, yet he has become like this..."
There was a trace of pity in Shen Qing's eyes. Such a young child had been tortured by the divine punishment of the Heavenly Dao, losing his original appearance and turning into a numb and blood - thirsty monster.
Li Xian sighed and walked up to his clansmen. His eyes were extremely complicated.
He had never seen these clansmen before, but in Li Yuan's memory, he had personally witnessed the mutation of the clansmen and the once - peaceful Mermaid Palace turn into a blood - thirsty purgatory.
How desperate Li Yuan must have been at that time.
At the bottom of each of these bubbles, there was a thin thread connected to the ground. Some of the threads still emitted light from time to time.
Shen Qing had seen this in books. It was an array to maintain life.
The people sealed in this array needed spiritual energy to sustain their lives, but their sealed bodies couldn't absorb spiritual energy actively, so this array was used instead.
Shen Qing looked at them one by one and found that not all the threads under the bubbles still had light. Some of the threads had dimmed, and the mermaid in that bubble had obviously lost its vitality and looked gray.
If the thread lost its light, it meant that the spiritual energy stored in the array couldn't last long.
And the mermaid in that bubble would lose its life because of the lack of spiritual energy.
Knowing this, Shen Qing felt even more desolate.
The mermaids who were born against their will had lost their sanity because of the divine punishment. Their relatives had tried every means to save them, but still couldn't save them.
"Li Xian, how can the divine punishment of the mermaid clan be solved?"
"Are you the only one left in the mermaid clan now?"
Li Xian came to Shen Qing's side, silently looking at the dimmed thread. After a moment, he said in a low voice, "I don't know."
"Before I met my father, like you, I only thought that mermaids, like the dragon clan, were just creatures in legends."
"In my father's memory, there were thirty people who left the Mermaid Palace with him to seek a chance on land. I'm not sure if they have descendants in this world."
"Or maybe they have reached a higher cultivation level and have a longer lifespan, and are still alive in this world."
"But one thing I'm absolutely certain of is that no one in the mermaid clan has found a way to solve the divine punishment so far."
"Otherwise, they wouldn't be trapped here."