“Luvia, what’s wrong? If you can’t bear it, let Dorothy temporarily take your place.”
Holding the princess, Xia De quickly offered advice in the rain.
“No, our souls are connected. Even if I go to Tobesk, this curse will still…”
She was clearly holding Xia De’s arm to steady herself, but at this moment, she actually took a step forward. Xia De immediately tightened the fishing line on the rod, and then actually felt a powerful force pulling him forward as well.
This didn’t seem like Leia’s strength; she was walking very slowly. Instead, it was as if the fishing line was not only connected to Leia but also to something invisible.
“What’s going on?”
Xia De braced himself against the soft sand with his shoes, extended his right hand, and pressed it onto the top of the princess’s wet long hair:
“Moonlight!”
Silver light spilled from his palm, not dazzling. But when the sacred silver light shone on Leia’s face, black smoke actually emerged from the swollen merman tattoo on her body:
“Leia, quick, the Curse-Breaking Stone!”
Wobbly people passed by the two of them, and after bumping into Xia De, they proactively walked around him.
Xia De hurriedly reminded her, and the slightly more conscious princess raised her hand to touch the ruby on her right ear. As a slender red ribbon was pulled out by her, the ugly merman tattoo actually started to move.
“Oh!”
Leia felt pain but suppressed it with only a groan. She guided the red ribbon at her fingertip, trying to entangle the merman tattoo moving on the surface of her skin. But the tattoo was very agile, actually moving along the skin of her face, trying to move towards her heart via her neck.
Xia De was shocked. If the tattoo moved from her face to in front of her heart, he wouldn’t be able to touch it.
“What am I thinking?”
Cursing himself inwardly, Xia De proactively untangled the fishing line wrapped around Leia’s wrist:
“Leia, I’m sorry.”
His hand, glowing with Moonlight, gripped Leia’s neck, forcing the tattoo to be unable to pass. With his left hand holding the metal fishing hook, he pierced Leia’s right cheek, penetrating the merman tattoo.
“Oh!”
The red-haired girl gripped Xia De’s arm tightly. Xia De gritted his teeth and held the fishing rod with both hands:
“Leia, endure it.”
“It’s okay, just be quick—oh!”
Before she finished speaking, Xia De had already raised the fishing rod, and the fishing line pulled the hook away from Leia’s face. What was peeled off was not only blood and flesh but also the blood-red merman tattoo.
It wasn’t flat; after absorbing the blood from Leia’s face, it had gained thickness.
After being “fished” out by the hook, the small blood-red merman landed on the beach, constantly writhing and struggling. And because it wasn’t hooked voluntarily, it couldn’t trigger the special properties of this fishing rod.
Leia flicked out the red ribbon from her fingertip, firmly trapping the tattoo on the fishing hook, and then finally couldn’t help but sob.
“It’s okay, it’s okay.”
Reaching into his pocket with his left hand to retrieve a test tube filled with water, and imbuing the water with the power of Gluttony, Xia De gently dripped the water onto Leia’s face.
Just as Leia’s face had healed, Xia De surprisingly felt the pulling sensation from the fishing rod again. Looking up, the merman tattoo, which had been struggling on the ground, actually flew up and pointed directly towards the distant coastline, where the giant Mermaid corpse was battling the Ring術士 of the Church and the Academy.
“Is there such a good thing?”
Xia De had originally planned to return to the sea to approach that corpse. Now, with an item to guide him, and even this thing actively providing the force to pull him forward, he could even save some physical strength.
“Leia, how do you feel now?”
Xia De held the fishing rod with both hands, leaning his body slightly backward to resist the pulling force of the tattoo on the fishing hook.
“I…”
The red-haired girl covered her right face, gently touching it a few times:
“My face really…”
“There’s really not a single trace, it’s still so pretty. I guarantee it with Mia. I’m asking, can you still feel the curse now?”
“No.”
She immediately shook her head. Although she was still standing in the blood rain, the curse transmitted by the rainwater had almost no effect on Ring術士.
“Good, you go back to the manor first.”
“Okay, where are you going?”
She looked at Xia De in the rain. Although there were many other people around, passing by them and walking towards the ocean, at this moment, she only saw Xia De.
“I still have things to do.”
Xia De looked at the distant coastline, an excited expression on his face that Leia couldn’t possibly understand. The thing he craved was very likely there:
“I never do anything adventurous, you can rest assured of that. Wait for me to come back with peace of mind. I’m going to completely end the Mermaid curse, so you won’t have to worry anymore. Once the matters in Coldwater Port are settled, I think we can finally meet in Tobesk. Perhaps we can spend an afternoon discussing political topics, or you can disguise yourself with makeup and stroll with me and Mia along the tree-lined avenues of the University District; the evening sunset there is very pretty.”
The red rainwater made his clothes and face look exceptionally strange, but Xia De still spoke with a smile, controlling the struggling force of the tattoo on the fishing line in his hand with a series of tightening and loosening:
“How can I be saying such things before doing something big?”
He made a joke about himself.
“Xia De, please be very careful.”
In the end, she couldn’t say anything to stop Xia De. Xia De pulled hard on the fishing rod and gave the princess one last smile:
“Go back quickly.”
“You must be careful.”
“Of course, if I don’t come back, let Dorothy take care of Mia and write to Miss Gaode. The ruby ring your mother gave me is yours, and all my remaining property will be equally divided among the four people in our group and Mia.”
Although he still had a drop of divinity, Xia De still wanted to guard against the worst outcome.
He didn’t think this was pessimism; instead, he felt happy about it at this moment.
As an Outsider with no family, the young student Sak Har died alone in a rented apartment. If Xia De hadn’t appeared, no one would have even been able to inherit his legacy. But Xia De, whose hometown was even further away and to which he could never return, was able to find friends to inherit his legacy.
“Xia De, you…”
Before Leia could finish speaking, the merman tattoo dragged Xia De forward. In a very comical manner, he stumbled forward with large strides, following the tattoo. After passing the swaying people walking into the sea ahead, he cried out in surprise, as if he had tripped, and plunged headfirst into the sea. After surfacing a few times, he never appeared again.
It wasn’t like Xia De was following the tattoo; rather, it was as if he was forcibly dragged into the sea.
The blood rain stained the princess’s clothes. At this moment, she wanted to laugh, but also felt a little sad:
“Xia De · Su Lun · Han Mi Er Dun.”
She turned and picked up her umbrella, softly calling Xia De’s name. With her back to the blood-red sea, she walked towards the Aurora Manor. At this moment, no one could see the princess’s expression:
“How many secrets do you still have?”
Xia De in the sea didn’t know what Leia was thinking at the moment. In fact, he wasn’t swimming at all but was purely being dragged forward in the water.
The flesh of desire allowed Xia De to maintain good visibility underwater. Not long after entering the water, he saw the people who had entered the sea due to Sea Return.
They were “floating” in the water in a strange posture, eyes wide open, in a praying stance. Seawater flowed through the corpses, causing a humming sound to emanate from them, but they clearly weren’t opening their mouths. This was the ritual array of the grand ritual “Sea Return” in the ocean. Every person who voluntarily returned themselves to the sea was a part of the array.
And when Xia De passed them, they would try to capture him. Because of this, Xia De saw that most of the corpses had traces similar to mermen. This led him to more speculation:
“The Mermaid curse is more extensive than I imagined, not only because rainwater can also spread the curse, but also because most of the indigenous people of this City actually have merman blood. Sea Return, returning to the ocean where their ancestors lived.”
Holding the fishing rod and moving rapidly forward in the sea, five minutes later, when Xia De vaguely saw the color of the seawater in front suddenly deepen, he immediately realized that the giant Mermaid corpse was right before his eyes.
“How big is this thing?”
Just the part Xia De could see underwater, the lower half of that Mermaid occupied a space on the seabed larger than the biggest sea monster Xia De could imagine.
He had always thought he didn’t have so-called megalophobia or thalassophobia, but as he watched himself get closer and closer to that colossal creature sprawling in the ocean, and it was still wriggling, Xia De couldn’t help but feel an uncontrollable fear in his heart.
At first, he could alleviate the growing fear by closing his eyes and imagining his cute Mia at home. But as he got closer and closer to the colossal Mermaid corpse summoned from the deep sea by the Scarlet Cult, even with his eyes closed, Xia De felt he could clearly “see” the thing’s more concrete form.
The corpse had already decomposed. The part on the seabed, with the ocean currents, continuously flowed out terrifying green and black pus into the water, forming slender streams that merged into the seawater. In the lightless seabed, the patterns on the surface of the corpse were faintly visible. The upturned scales were rotten, but the patterns were exceptionally clear.
With the faint light, one could see that they were spirals, interconnected spirals. Small spirals formed large spirals, and large spirals formed even larger spirals.
Accompanied by the strange sounds from the seabed, those spirals emitted a scarlet glow in the lightless deep, like open eyes, possessing a strange power that attracted souls. Xia De closed his eyes, and merely perceiving those patterns mentally, he felt an uncontrollable illusion of his body.
“Do the patterns on the corpse alone have such power?”
Fortunately, Xia De didn’t have to endure for too long. He didn’t approach the deep-sea giant corpse underwater but was carried directly towards the surface by the blood-red tattoo hooked by the fishing hook.
