After serving the dishes, the servants left one after another, leaving only the middle-aged head maid and two older maids standing by.
Leia motioned to Xia De that they could talk safely here, and as they ate, they finally discussed the morning's events.
"The Scarlet Cult seems to have infiltrated Coldwater Port long ago, perhaps even involved in the City's establishment.
Those Merfolk and Cultists have always existed in the shadows of Coldwater Port, but no one ever discovered this.
I think the earliest Mermaid statues that appeared were probably spread by them."
This was the conclusion Xia De deduced based on the clues found that morning.
"But what exactly do they want to do?"
Princess Leia asked, puzzled.
She had only taken a small amount of food, probably not accustomed to eating too much at noon:
"The Sea Offering Ritual, the steps are basically confirmed.
So, what is the purpose of the ritual itself?
The last line of the nursery rhyme involves sacrifice, which is very unsettling."
She didn't utter words like "Evil God" in front of the servants, but Xia De understood what she meant.
While clumsily handling his knife and fork, he said:
"This time is different from the one in Tobesk.
The Church made a mistake in Tobesk half a month ago, so there will be no accidents this time, no matter what.
What we can do now is wait for news, and deal with your problem."
Xia De spoke very cautiously:
"The Captain I played cards with said that as long as you are prevented from entering the red ocean when it appears, the curse will naturally disappear once the ritual ends.
That means that when the red ocean appears, you will most likely be affected mentally and unconsciously walk into the sea."
The so-called "sacrifice" should not be about selecting individual targets, but rather all those tainted by the curse will eventually appear in the red sea, staggering onto the beach, and then collectively stepping into the ocean.
The thought of such a scene made one's scalp tingle.
Leaving Coldwater Port was the first option to be ruled out.
With this type of curse, if one were to leave the ritual location, the curse might immediately erupt.
As for relics that suppress curses, Leia already possessed a Sage-level ruby earring and the Saint Laurent Ring purchased at the coastal lighthouse.
After requesting aid from Zaras Academy, the Academy could also lend some relics specifically for curses.
And Xia De believed the safest option was for him to stay by Leia's side when the red sea appeared.
Although he was just a Second-Circle Arcanist who couldn't do anything, if the curse itself was truly linked to the power of a God, then Xia De's presence would make many things that ordinary people couldn't do easily resolved.
"So, the current difficulty we face is that we don't know the progress of the ritual after the Pirate Ship was driven away by you, and when the red ocean will appear."
Leia made a simple summary, while Xia De frowned slightly:
"It will definitely be resolved within a week.
I have a very capable Diviner friend, and she predicted that among the male Ring術士 who encountered the pirates with us, one of them would set off for Tobesk in a week.
By then, the curse problem will surely have been resolved."
It rained all day in Coldwater Port.
Because of the morning's events, Xia De, with the idea of avoiding trouble, did not leave Sophia Manor that afternoon but waited for news there.
Xia De's Moonlight attracted the attention of the Peace Church.
Although the other party was called the "Peace" Church, its full name was actually the "War and Peace Church," and it was theoretically the strongest in combat among the Five Gods Church.
The Merfolk stronghold on that old street would probably become history.
Leia hosted Xia De well in the Manor.
After dinner, she took him to the Library to pass the afternoon.
She had many official documents to process.
Most of the adult Princes and Princesses of the Cavendish Family were assigned government work by the King.
This was also why the outside world generally believed that when the King grew old decades later, the struggle for the throne would certainly lead to big problems.
The Library in Sophia Manor was about the same size as Larus III's Library that Xia De had seen in Yodel Palace.
The walls of the spacious room were filled with bookshelves, and a desk was placed in the center of the room, with a set of guest sofas near the door.
This was the current King's preference; he liked spacious rooms.
Leia handled her affairs, while Xia De was allowed to pick any book from the bookshelves to read.
The dazzling array of books was mostly related to politics, economics, and history.
Xia De finally chose "Cavendish Secret History," a semi-official publication.
This was a descriptive literary work detailing the origin and history of the Cavendish Family, through which one could effectively understand the development and prosperity of Delarion.
Of course, Xia De still had many things to do for the rest of the week.
"Wasting" this afternoon reading by Leia's side was mainly to inquire about further news related to the Scarlet Cult.
Their actions that morning were not investigated by the Church, but the Cultists who used the old street in the South City as their base were in big trouble.
Among them, the Ring術士 Mr.
Jude was killed by Xia De, and only one of the remaining four Ring術士 successfully escaped.
Most of the humanoid fish-headed creatures that scattered from the old street were captured by the Church.
According to the intelligence the Princess received, there were at least three hundred already transformed targets on that street.
And it was conceivable that there were many more in Coldwater Port.
These monsters, with strong self-healing abilities in water, could partially switch between human and merfolk-like forms, though their human forms were mostly exceptionally ugly.
After the morning's operation, the Five Gods Church directly collaborated with the official authorities of Coldwater Port to launch a large-scale search of the entire City.
However, this was not Tobesk, which was under the strict control of a large army and police.
Conducting a search in this free port was indeed useful, but how useful was hard to say.
The Church linked the Merfolk monsters, the Scarlet Cult, the Sea Offering Ritual, and the Mermaid curse together, officially naming this event the "The Shadow Over Cold Water Harbor in 1853" event.
This indicated that the cult had infiltrated the shadows of the City and had been hidden since the port's establishment.
After a gunfight with the Merfolk in the rain, the Peace Church successfully occupied Kazem Alley and Jude Manor.
Through the captured prisoners and the documents left in Mr.
Jude's safe, the Church gained more information about the "Sea Return" ritual.
Under a powerful intelligence network and extremely strong information retrieval capabilities, they comprehensively understood what the Cultists hidden in the City were trying to do.
Therefore, before dinner that evening, through intelligence from "well-informed sources" planted by the Royal Family within the Church, Xia De and Leia received a total of three important pieces of information.
First, the exact number of Ring術士 who encountered the Fishbone Pirate Ship with them on Monday night could now be confirmed: a total of thirteen people.
Excluding "John Watson" and "Princess Leia," among the other eleven, two had already been found by the Church.
Through the descriptions of these rational individuals, the Church further understood what happened on the ship and knew the attire of the Ring術士 who attended the auction that day.
However, those two male Arcanists should not be the second Chosen, because the Church was still actively searching for the remaining unidentified individuals with unreasonable "enthusiasm" and proactively investigating foreign Ring術士 who suddenly appeared in Coldwater Port since Monday.
They did this to eliminate competitors.
Secondly, the ancient text of the "Sea Return" ritual was found in the Creation Church's Papal Library.
This ritual was not the God-summoning ritual that Xia De had worried about.
"I knew it; how could it be that wherever I go, an Evil God is being summoned?"
This was Xia De's comment as he sat by the desk, listening to Leia read the letter.
He had a relaxed smile on his face.
Her Royal Highness, with her emerald green eyes, glanced at him, her voice resolute:
"Even if it's not the worst-case scenario, if this ritual succeeds, the consequences will be no less severe than an Evil God appearing."
In the early sixth epoch, when Coldwater Port was not yet Coldwater Port, the influence of the Orthodox Church had not reached here.
At that time, there were three different cult beliefs locally: the God of Drowned in the Deep Sea, the lord of the scarlet spiral, and the raging storm.
All three Gods were inextricably linked to the ocean.
While their followers fought among themselves, their common cultures also permeated each other, leading the coastal Cultists to develop extremely similar customs and even extremely similar extraordinary abilities.
Strictly speaking, the "Sea Return Ritual" was a ritual that could be used by followers of all three Evil Gods, with only subtle differences in the specific corresponding steps.
The purpose of this ritual was that after the red ocean arrived, by sacrificing mortals tainted with divine power, the power left by the God in the deep sea would be awakened, thereby summoning a tide to flood the City, turning Coldwater Port from a harbor into an underwater City.
The Scarlet Cult did not act on a whim; they had planned for this purpose for many years.
The evidence was that although the four main steps of the ritual corresponded to the nursery rhyme, the ritual also involved other fragmented, extensive work that required decades of preparation.
The Merfolk hidden in the shadows of Coldwater Port had been carrying out the plan, it just so happened that the final steps were being performed this summer.
This was a true large-scale ritual, rarely seen in the material world.
And the reason the Scarlet Cult wanted to hold the ritual was that too many humanoid Merfolk had been transformed and developed on land since the establishment of Coldwater Port.
They needed new habitats, but while gaining power, the Merfolk were also bound by an ancient covenant signed by their ancestors and Gods, preventing them from leaving Coldwater Port where their ancestors lived.
Therefore, they decided to call upon the power left by the God in the deep sea, to let the sea inundate the City, so that the terrifying Merfolk could forever occupy and live there.
"The good news is that this matter is only related to the local ancient cult belief of the Scarlet Cult and has nothing to do with the other two ancient beliefs.
So, what the Church has to deal with this time are only those Merfolk populations that have developed and hidden in Coldwater Port for nearly a thousand years."
Leia said.
Seeing Xia De's puzzled expression and desire to ask questions, she explained to the Outsider who had only been a Ring術士 for a month:
"Only the cult of the Guardian of the terrifying Merfolk population, the lord of the scarlet spiral, has the tradition of transforming kin through rituals and divine spells.
Most followers of the Evil God of Drowned in the Deep Sea are human Ring術士 who manipulate undead 'Drowned Corpses,' and followers of the Evil God raging storm have no relation to marine creature populations; they manipulate storms and lightning.
Therefore, only the Merfolk would want Coldwater Port to be submerged by the sea.
We don't have to worry about this matter being related to other sects."
