"Curious about the changes in your body? You absorbed my flesh, and if there were no changes at all, wouldn't I be too weak?"
The human head said with a smile, "See? I didn't play any tricks this time, did I?"
Xia De nodded and retracted the chain. The chain didn't disappear into thin air but retracted into Xia De's sleeve, though he didn't feel anything entering his sleeve.
"I can feel the flame of desire in your soul; it's very pure."
The human head continued to praise in a low voice. Xia De shook his head vigorously, took a deep breath to adjust his state, and after confirming that both his body and mind had fully recovered, he decided to leave.
The first ray of sunlight illuminated Coldwater Port several tens of minutes ago, and he was still thinking about the red-haired princess.
Just thinking of Leia, the distracting thoughts in his mind led him to think of more things. This was a side effect of that flesh; power, of course, came with a price. For a month, Xia De would constantly have these strange thoughts.
"I—"
"You're not trying to thank me, are you?"
The head in the pool continued to smile.
"Of course not, I just want to ask, what exactly do you want to do?"
Xia De stood at the exit door and asked backward.
"I was born from desire; as long as there is desire in this world, I will never disappear. All I want to do is witness your desires and help you, merely to see how far you can go."
The alluring laughter was no different from when Xia De first arrived. She didn't seem disappointed at all that she couldn't obtain Xia De's soul:
"After this separation, we will definitely meet again. I hope next time we meet face to face, you can give me a new surprise."
Xia De opened his mouth but ultimately said nothing. He knew he couldn't trap this thing, and the failed seal could no longer contain it. The danger level of the opponent was definitely no lower than Angel-level. Although she didn't show any combat power in front of him, even a Thirteen Ring Sorcerer would have difficulty predicting the outcome when encountering this thing.
One must know that Xia De, whose soul contained a drop of divinity, nearly completely lost himself to desire.
"Then, goodbye."
He said softly and politely, turned to leave, passed through the already open iron gate, and ran in the direction of the sea breeze.
As the sound of footsteps faded, in the pool, dozens, even hundreds of times more hands and legs than Xia De had seen just now, extended out from under the water one by one like unfurling peacock feathers, then retracted.
The water splashed, but only the head remained still. Her chin rested on the ground beside the pool, and she looked with a smile in the direction Xia De had left:
"Do you really think a mortal body could absorb my flesh as perfectly as you did?"
With a soft hum, she sang an ancient song and returned beneath the water:
"So, you don't even know what you truly are."
The passage behind the iron gate was very similar to the rugged narrow path of the damp chapel, but perhaps because of the obstruction of that dark room, it wasn't like the path on the way in had already collapsed.
As Xia De advanced, the damp sea breeze ahead grew stronger, and the splashing water sounds in his ears became clearer. However, the further he went, the narrower the passage became.
Until Xia De could almost see the light in the distance, the narrow passage only allowed him to pass sideways.
Forced to use Moonlight Greatsword to cut through rocks to clear the way, a journey that would normally take only a few minutes, Xia De spent twenty minutes to complete.
He climbed up along the narrow rock crevice, and when Xia De's hands, covered in dirt, finally touched the not-so-bright sunlight, it was almost seven in the morning.
Xia De estimated his current location to be roughly behind the cliffside of Aurora Manor.
"Finally, I'm getting out."
When he finally used the sword in his hand to break through the last bit of rock obstruction and laboriously climbed out of the crevice, he realized that the faint light was due to his current position.
This was a concave dock beneath the sea cliff, as if a section of the cliff's base had been hollowed out. Seawater constantly flowed into the base of the cliff and crashed against the ground, which sloped upwards to the rock wall Xia De had broken through.
Rotten wooden jetties and the remains of wooden boats on the ground indicated that this place was once used as a dock. Considering that Aurora Manor's predecessor was a Scarlet Cult stronghold, and the damp chapel and the dark room sealing the relic were also built by mermen.
This was enough to deduce that hundreds of years ago, the Cultists in the manor used the wine cellar and the small dock at the bottom of the sea cliff to transport some dangerous items and used this as an escape route. However, as the relic was sealed inside the passage, this hidden small dock was also abandoned until Xia De arrived here.
"Although that Witch only occasionally comes to Coldwater Port, staying in the Manor for only a few days a year, is she truly unaware of what's beneath the Manor?"
Thinking about things, Xia De checked the ramp above the dock. Leaning against the wall was a skeleton. Due to long-term wind exposure and humidity, the clothes on the corpse had almost completely disappeared, and the bones were covered with flesh remnants, but it was impossible to determine who this was based on that.
Besides this, there were also many pieces of trash and fish carcasses washed ashore by the seawater. But there were no signs of recent human activity, so it seemed the people of Aurora Manor truly didn't know about this place.
Following the ramp down, Xia De prepared to enter the water directly and then swim back to Coldwater Port. As Xia De got closer to the outside of the sea cliff, the sound of the surging waves grew louder, and he could finally clearly see the sky outside.
It was a Summer morning, but the sky presented a bleak, dim yellow hue. Accompanied by the surging waves, the continuous drizzle that had lasted all night was swept by the strong winds towards Coldwater Port.
In the darkness beneath the sea cliff, the water surface was not yet clear, and when Xia De's boots stepped into the water, he realized that the seawater was actually blood-red.
It wasn't that red things were floating on the surface of the water, but that the water itself had turned red. Xia De risked touching the seawater and lightly dabbed it on his tongue. He didn't even need the sound in his ears to remind him; he knew there was blasphemy in the water.
This kind of water, if chemically concentrated, could even be directly used as a potion or ritual material.
"It seems the Sea Offering Ritual has already begun; it's so punctual. Do these large-scale rituals always come with free potion materials? It was the same at Lakeview Manor last time."
Lost in thought, he entered the seawater.
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