Shirley's consciousness suddenly woke up from the collapsing dream. She opened her eyes in the darkness and saw that she was still lying in the dark bushes that looked like thorn bushes.
The whispers and strange roars seemed to be right next to my ears, almost drilling into my brain. The cold air spread from the cracks in the shadows like disgusting tentacles, as if to lick my skin. There was something outside the bushes, a group of wriggling creatures whose sizes expanded and shrank and whose solid outlines were difficult to discern. They smelled the breath of living people and found this hiding place across a long distance - a feast was about to begin.
Shirley twitched her arm slightly. The stiffness and numbness of her whole body made every movement extremely difficult. However, she felt a slight warmth emanating from somewhere inside her body, nourishing the body that had just died.
She lowered her head with difficulty and saw that the heart in her chest had completely stopped beating. In just a few seconds, it shrunk and withered into a ball of black residue. However, a faint green flame was quietly burning on the surface of the residue, strange but warm.
She regained a little strength in this limited warmth and slowly struggled to get up.
His arms swung inadvertently, and the broken black chain on his right arm rubbed against the ground, making a noise that was not very loud, but was extremely harsh in this dark and silent place.
The whispering and roaring noises outside the bushes paused briefly, and then suddenly turned into a chilling howl!
Countless expanding and contracting shadows rose from the fragmented earth outside. Countless hideous and strange demons took shape in ecstasy and rushed to the feast!
The spiritual fire spread and burned in the cracks of the bones. The black residue in the chest cavity had completely transformed into an endless flame. Shirley took a deep breath. She heard the movement outside. The fear of death and an inexplicable restlessness were surging in her consciousness at the same time. She gasped softly, and saw the two hearts dropped to the ground out of the corner of her eye.
After a moment's hesitation, she reached out and picked up the two still beating "hearts", her eyes filled with a bloody glow flickering.
There was a cracking sound at the edge of the bushes, and a giant beast tore open the barrier of its hiding place. The sound of heavy footsteps and an appetite-filled growl reached Shirley's ears.
But she seemed not to hear the voice that had reached her head, nor to feel the breath that had blown on her face. She just lowered her head, slowly stuffed the two hearts into her chest, and whispered softly as if talking to herself: "Dad... Mom... Don't be afraid..."
The feeling of her heart beating reappeared in her chest, and an experience of being "alive" made her feel that the last remaining stiffness and sluggishness in her limbs had finally completely subsided. Shirley propped herself up and stood up. A series of crackling sounds erupted from her body, and layers of bone spurs quickly grew on the edges of the dark ribs in her chest, protecting the two hearts and a cluster of flames inside - she raised her head in the darkness, her body slowly rose, and a hideous and weird demon skull with spikes all over its surface appeared in her field of vision.
A huge crack was torn in the bushes where they were hiding. A huge floating skull looked down at the prey in the bushes with malice. Around the skull were countless terrifying figures hovering—death birds, smoke jellyfish, and disordered beasts...
Agou once said that if you encounter them when you are alone, you must run away.
But this is the deep ocean, there is no place to escape—they are everywhere.
"Shirley, don't be afraid..."
A death bird launched the attack first. This chaotic and unintelligent demon finally couldn't suppress its instinctive hunger and desire to attack. It let out a sharp and piercing cry, and its wings suddenly expanded into a dark cloud, swooping down towards the bushes with a corrosive cloud.
Then, accompanied by a dull piercing sound, a pitch-black, multi-sectioned bone spur pierced into the sky like a sharp sword and pierced the death bird directly!
Then, one after another, multi-sectioned bone spurs appeared—the pitch-black skeleton stretched out from the bushes like some twisted and symmetrical limbs, first stabbing towards the sky, then bending down, supporting a tall body that stepped out of the bushes.
Her limbs are long and slender, with pitch-black bone fragments layered and crisscrossed like some kind of close-fitting armor. Sharp bone spurs and blade-like structures grow from the joints of her arms and legs, flashing dim blood. Her shattered chest is covered with thorny bones, and two dark red hearts beat slowly in the bone cage. Countless arthropod-like skeletal structures extend from her back, like a giant wing of a skeleton, but also like strange and ominous limbs. These pairs of limbs bend down from the air, supporting her body in the air like long legs, allowing her to overlook the dark demons that have gathered here from all directions.
She slowly turned her head, and on her face that still retained its human form, a pair of empty eyes gradually became bloodshot.
A hoarse and piercing cry came from the side. The dying bird pierced by the sharp bone spur struggled violently for a few times on Shirley's "long legs", and then turned into a pile of quickly dissipated smoke and a small pool of slowly flowing mud, and was absorbed into Shirley's bone spur bit by bit.
Shirley frowned slightly, looking at the place where the death bird dissipated and dissolved, and raised the bone spur limb and shook it vigorously in the air: "... Disgusting, unpalatable..."
Then she turned her head and looked at the demons who had gathered around her but were in a state of confusion and stagnation due to the sudden change in the situation. She leaned down slightly and said, "Have you seen a strange Deep Hound? Its name is Agou. It's my friend."
The group of dark demons retreated briefly, and some kind of crisis instinct made them think of avoiding options in their unintelligent minds. However, just a moment later, the desire to attack overwhelmed their fragile "reason".
The strange floating skull with spikes all over its surface suddenly opened its jaw, and a huge corrosive cloud instantly condensed and formed, smashing straight towards Shirley.
Next came the death-threatening birds circling and swooping from the sky, the Deep Hounds running and roaring wildly on the ground, and countless bizarre monsters that even Shirley couldn't name - these Deep Demons, which acted completely on instinct, rushed over all at once, roaring and snarling, and rushed towards the "invaders" in the territory in a frenzy!
"I knew it… "
Shirley grumbled, her tone filled with annoyance, and the next second, her figure suddenly turned into an illusory shadow—
She swept across the shattered land like the wind, and her bone spurs, like giant skeleton wings and curved limbs, stretched and pierced in the air, stabbing every demon entity that dared to approach. She had no tactics and did not know any spells. She only relied on the physical instincts she had just mastered and the most basic speed and strength to rush into the countless demon groups.
A simple and crude fighting strategy - just like when she first swung the chain and threw Agou at the enemy.
…
Lucrecia raised her head and looked at the black stone door that astonished even a senior "border scholar" like her. It took her a long time to look away.
"... they really dug up something incredible," the sea witch exclaimed. "These cultists always make a mess that they can't control... as always."
"This is the connection point between the Deep Sea and the real world," Duncan said. "According to what I sensed, there is an 'overlap' of multiple dimensions here. Not only is the real time and space superimposed on each other, but even part of the Deep Sea is directly superimposed here. Shirley and Agou must have 'fallen' to the 'other side' because their own natures were too close to the Deep Sea."
Lucrecia nodded, but then became a little worried: "... Are you sure this is feasible? I'm not saying that you can't open the gate with your power, but... if that 'saint' can't hold on and the gate closes early, how will you get back? There's a deep sea on the other side of the gate. We know very little about it. Even for you, if you get lost on the other side, I'm afraid..."
"It's okay. I've thought about this issue," Duncan interrupted Lucrecia's worries. "We all know that the center of the Deep Sea is the Lord of the Deep, and below His throne is the passage to the warp."
Lucrecia's expression suddenly became a little subtle: "... What do you mean?"
"Drilling a small hole will not have a big impact on the balance of the entire Deep Abyss. After all, the hole created by the Lost Homeland in the Deep Abyss was much larger," Duncan said casually. "If I can't return by the same route, I will come back from the subspace. The 'Holy Lord' should not have a big objection to this. If this is not feasible, then I will simply call the Lost Homeland down to hit it again."
Lucrecia: “…”
Duncan just waved his hand: "Let's get started."
Seeing that her father was ready, Lucrecia said nothing more. She nodded slightly, then walked to the open space in front of the gate, pointed the short baton in her hand at the ground, and tapped it twice.
A cloud of smoke rose up with a "bang" like a magic show on stage. As the smoke dissipated, the "brain" with a weird and disgusting shape and wrapped in a spider bone cage appeared in front of Duncan again.
The "Saint" slowly woke up.
At the edge of the skeleton cage, the eye stalks seemed to wake up from slumber. Its many eyeballs twitched and trembled, and it finally noticed the surrounding environment and Duncan and his group who were standing next to it with expressionless faces.
Almost instantly, the monster, which could no longer be considered human, woke up completely. It struggled hard as if it wanted to get up, but because it was restrained by the witch in advance, it could not move at all. It could only shake the air around it and let out a chaotic and piercing roar: "What did you do?!"
"Not yet, but getting ready to start." Duncan took a step toward the "saint," looking calmly at the disgusting pile of eyestalks. "You can start praying—to your Lord."
(End of this chapter)