Xia De slowly walked into the water, but then frowned and looked at his arm.
Although he had swum in the sea many times before, this time entering the water, he clearly felt his affinity for water had increased. This affinity didn't mean he could control the ocean, but rather that the ocean was welcoming Xia De's return. When his skin touched the seawater, he even felt a smoother sensation than when his skin touched the air on land.
This certainly wasn't because the seawater had turned red; after all, Xia De had no relation to the lord of the scarlet spiral. So, it was probably the lump of flesh he had just eaten that enhanced his affinity for water.
"What level of relic are you, exactly?"
He asked in a low voice.
Then he plunged into the water, and as a small string of Bubbles emerged from the bottom, Xia De's figure shot forward like a fish in the water. Originally, he was only a moderate swimmer, but now he felt like he had truly become a fish underwater.
After leaving the small pier beneath the sea cliff, Xia De poked his head out from under the water to confirm his direction, finding that he was not far from the beach. The surging waves and rain forced him to quickly return underwater, and it was ten minutes later when Xia De stumbled out of the red seawater.
He stood up, panting, and turned to look at the sea behind him.
Under the dim yellow sky, red giant waves continuously crashed towards the direction of Coldwater Port's pier, a bizarre composition that instinctively made people feel uneasy. And on the distant, already submerged beach, there were several small black dots above the water.
Xia De was puzzled for a moment, then suddenly his eyes widened.
Those black dots were human heads, moving towards the deep parts of the ocean, with only their shoulders and above still not submerged in the seawater. Just as Xia De was about to go back into the water to try and pull them up, someone else walked past him.
It was a middle-aged man in checkered pajamas and a nightcap, staggering as he walked. When Xia De pulled him, he immediately fell to the ground, then picked himself up and continued to walk forward in the rain.
However, because Xia De was still holding him, he was only treading in place.
The man's eyes were open, but there was no light in them. And besides that, on the right side of his face, there was a blood-red tattoo of a fish-faced human body with a fish tail. When the tattoo touched the rainwater, it swelled up like a scar and trembled with his heart rate.
"Sir, can you hear me?"
Xia De wanted to see if he could wake this person up. But at this moment, he realized that more and more people were appearing on this vast beach, swaying and walking towards the ocean with the same rhythm.
Under the dim yellow sky, in the red ocean, everyone had vacant eyes and a tattoo on the side of their face. Their legs became wet with seawater, and then the water level rose higher and higher. They simply walked into the depths of the ocean until Xia De could no longer see them.
Turning back to look in the direction of the City, even more people appeared in the distance on the beach, joining those who had already entered the red ocean, forming a bizarre and chilling scene of strange colors under Coldwater Port's dim yellow sky.
They would return their bodies and souls to the ocean, allowing the giant Mermaid corpse brought by the ritual to ultimately carry the waves and engulf the City.
"How can there be so many people infected with the Mermaid's curse? Weren't there only dozens of infected?"
Thinking this, Xia De struck the back of the man's head in front of him, successfully knocking him unconscious. Xia De hoped he had knocked him unconscious, as he hadn't learned how to do that. But as soon as Xia De let go, the person who had fallen unconscious on the beach suddenly sprang up, then swayed his body again, and with the swaying people around him, he lowered his head and stepped into the scarlet seawater.
He couldn't stop these people at all.
The cold rain struck his face, the red of the sea, the yellow of the sky, and the procession of people on the ocean and the beach—at this moment, Xia De truly felt a chill in his heart:
"Leia."
He didn't bother to care about these strangers and turned to run in the direction of Aurora Manor.
The beach where Xia De landed was not far from Aurora Manor. After leaving the beach, he found that the Church was not doing nothing. On the coastal streets, at regular intervals, there were ordinary priests in robes holding scriptures, loudly proclaiming the doctrines of the righteous gods. At least two-thirds of the people who unconsciously walked out of the City would faint when passing by them.
The police had set up roadblocks at the main intersections near the beach, preventing those who unconsciously walked out of their homes from advancing. And after excluding those stopped by the Church and the police, the rest were the ones Xia De had just seen on the beach.
Calculated this way, the number of people in Coldwater Port infected with the "Mermaid's Curse" was at least in the thousands. And at least ninety percent of them were stopped within the urban area, indicating that the Coldwater Port Diocese was indeed well prepared.
And the Church's preparations were not limited to this; however, what they truly needed to guard against was the tsunami submerging Coldwater Port, leading to the death of everyone in the City. Therefore, those currently in action were mostly ordinary clergy of the Church, who, along with the police and the Coldwater Port garrison, were fighting the Mermaids attempting to incite a City-wide riot within the urban area and on the beach.
When Xia De traveled from the beach to the Manor, he encountered more than one gunfight. But he did not find any Ring術士 of the Scarlet Cult, nor did he see any organized Ring術士 teams from the Church, indicating that the battlefield was clearly not just on land.
The relic that the Mermaids had set up to prohibit passage to Aurora Manor had been broken at dawn. When Xia De arrived near the Manor, the police were still surrounding it, prohibiting anyone from approaching. Although it was raining and the sky was very strange, there were many people nearby, and carriages were even backed up to the entrance of the small pub Xia De had visited in the middle of the night.
Besides the police, there were also the Coldwater Port Navy, priests from the Church, private militias of local nobles, and a small number of armed mercenaries whose origins Xia De could not discern.
Such a chaotic situation was truly beyond Xia De's expectations, but fortunately, the Manor was now accessible. Guests attending the banquet were leaving in batches. However, the Church's Ring術士 team was blocking the Manor entrance, and anyone wishing to leave now had to undergo the most stringent physical examination, which led to a group of guests remaining in the Manor, unwilling to leave, planning to wait until the Church's inspection relaxed.
Using Raglai's Leap to avoid the Church's sight, Xia De also successfully blended into the Manor. At this time, Aurora Manor was almost everywhere filled with people, and it was not uncommon to see people like Xia De, who were still dripping wet.
However, the corridor on the first floor leading to the wine cellar was sealed off by the Church, and walking against the flow of people upstairs, Xia De did not see Miss Aurora, nor did he see Princess Leia.
But the Witch had not forgotten Xia De, specifically leaving a servant on the third floor to wait for his return. Through Miss Aurora's message, Xia De learned that Princess Leia did not want to run into the Church, so she went to the beach behind the Manor to relax. And the Witch still had things to do, Xia De strongly suspected that she had already discovered Darkness, who was with the Cultists, through the explosion of that steam bomb.
"Did Miss Aurora go after Darkness?"
Although Luvia's divination showed that Darkness would not die in Coldwater Port, but would depart for Tobesk today or tomorrow. However, going to Tobesk unharmed is completely different from going to Tobesk with only one breath left.
"But why would Leia go to the beach at this time?"
With this doubt, Xia De walked out of the mansion again, crossed the garden, and came to the beach. The beach behind the Manor and the harbor outside the beach were all part of Aurora Manor, which meant that this vast area theoretically belonged to Hivi Aurora.
The beach was very large, approximately twice the size of the garden, buildings, and courtyard. Because it was raining, and after the fright of the gunfight in the first half of the night, there were hardly any people on the beach.
Xia De initially didn't see Leia and worried that she had already walked into the sea. He ran anxiously in circles on the beach twice, and when he turned around, he saw Leia standing at the edge of the beach, near the grape arbor of the Manor garden, looking at him.
She was only accompanied by two maids; one held an umbrella for her, and the other held the Document-level relic, Soul Fishing Rod, that Xia De had bought from Old John, with a transparent fishing line tied to the Princess's wrist.
Seeing Xia De rushing over, the red-haired girl deliberately twisted her body, as if she didn't want Xia De to see the right side of her face. But when Xia De approached, he still inevitably saw the swollen red tattoo on Leia's face.
Due to the combined suppression of the sage-level relic, Saint's Anti-Curse Stone, the Document-level relic, Saint Roland's Ring, and the fishing rod, Leia's condition looked quite good. However, when Xia De walked in front of her, the red-haired girl raised her hand to cover the side of her face, avoiding his gaze.
When Xia De impolitely grabbed her wrist, forcefully removed her right hand, and touched the swollen, hot tattoo with his fingers, Leia looked up at him with red eyes:
"Do I look interesting like this?"
Normally, Her Royal Highness would never say such words. Although the curse had not made her enter the ocean, her mental state was inevitably affected.
Xia De glanced at the two maids, who both looked straight ahead at the empty beach, as if there was something very eye-catching there.
"I've even seen Dorothy's entire face turn into a Merman's; what is your current state compared to that? You know about that incident too."
And by touching the Mermaid tattoo on the side of Leia's face, Xia De also confirmed that the curse was in a suppressed state.
"Dorothy."
Perhaps it was the comparison, or hearing a familiar name, Leia's expression indeed relaxed.
Xia De's fingers gently stroked the tattoo, then he added:
"Besides, this isn't a permanent tattoo. Even if it were permanent, if I scraped off the flesh on your face with a knife and then used Gluttony's Feast to heal you, you would still fully recover your most pretty appearance."
External wounds treated by Gluttony's Feast never leave any marks.
Leia softly hummed:
"What were you doing just now? How do you feel so changed? Dorothy said you rarely compliment girls on their beauty beyond a greeting."
"That's not important. Leia, why didn't you stay in the room? Why did you run out here?"
Xia De asked with a slight frown.
