The singing of the deep divers trembled with the sea water, and a faint red light emanated from the huge golden statue of Futan.
The octopus head that organized the ceremony had a gleam of light in its dark yellow, oval eyes.
As he raised the golden staff covered in blood mist, a low murmur began to mix in with the song, adding a touch of weirdness to the creepy sound.
The sea water dyed red by blood gathered towards the statue, and the red light of the statue of Futan became more and more, almost completely covering the gold.
The statue seemed to be melting, but only slightly. After a hymn ended, the statue returned to its original state.
A trace of disappointment appeared on the octopus head's face. As he waved his hand, black foam enveloped his body and he disappeared in front of the Deep Diver.
Gradually, the consciousness of the deep divers began to return, and they dispersed in groups of three or five.
Dipper had only been here for a short time and didn't have his own social circle. He was floating alone in the water, looking a little out of place.
"The clan leader seems a little unhappy today. He didn't even finish the prayer." Dipper muttered to himself as he looked at the place where the octopus's head was just now.
Soon the surroundings became empty, and Dipper began to swing his webbed feet and walked towards home.
As soon as he came out of the prayer building, Dipper saw six tribesmen nearby tying up a killer whale with seaweed. They cut its skin with a knife and put a sea urchin that was emitting black air into it.
The killer whale began to twitch violently, and kept emitting extremely painful cries from its mouth.
Hearing the screams, the deep divers showed excitement on their faces, as if torturing others could bring them pleasure.
But that’s not all. The divers standing in front of the fish head began to take out half of the shells that had been sharpened to an extremely sharp edge, preparing to skin the killer whale.
Suddenly they stopped and waved to Dipper beside them. Looking at their pairs of dead grey eyes without eyelids, Dipper shook his head and stepped back.
The deep divers who were torturing the killer whale didn't care when they saw the new little guy refused.
Newcomers are all shy like this, but it doesn’t matter. After he has been here for decades, hundreds of years, or even thousands of years, and has enjoyed all the fun, he will join in.
Dipu swam silently towards his home. The tribesmen around him began to please him in every possible way. His age could be judged by their methods.
Simple sex and games are basically played by children who are just a few decades old, while those who start to torture others or hurt themselves are middle-aged people who are hundreds of years old. The older they are, the more cruel their methods become.
As for the elderly who were over a thousand years old, most of them would return to their rooms. Dipper didn't know and didn't want to know what they were doing in there.
Just as he swam past a pair of tribesmen entangled in each other, a female deep diver appeared in front of him.
When he saw her, Dipper showed a hint of fear on his face, that was his mother.
The female diver raised her dark green sharp claws, and Dipper quickly shook his head and slowly began to retreat.
Suddenly, a cold body approached from behind. Dipper turned around and saw that it was his mother's mother.
Then he felt something cold under his feet, and when he looked down, he saw that it was his mother's other child, his sister.
The three of them hugged Dipper at the same time, their cold bodies rubbing against each other.
"Ah!!!" Dipper pushed them away and ran away like crazy.
The three of them looked at each other and swam towards the ball of flesh that was tangled together by seven or eight deep divers nearby.
Dipper huddled in the corner of his room, curled up in fear and shaking all over.
As an orphan, he longed for his family very much. When he was a beggar, he even drew his family on the ground, lay on the ground, and pretended to be with them.
When he first arrived in Ihasli, he hugged his mother for the first time with this feeling, but what happened next scared him. This was not the kind of family he wanted, absolutely not this kind.
Dipper felt extremely disgusted, but what frightened him even more was that deep in his dark heart, he actually had a slight wavering tendency to compromise.
"Hey... Do you think that if we stay here forever, we will slowly become like them..." a voice came from Dipper's mind.
Faced with this question, none of the three personalities answered, but they vaguely knew the answer.
After a while, another voice sounded in Dipper. "I don't know about you, but I miss the captain. I want to go back to the island."
Dipper swam to the east side of the house and picked up a mirror he found in the shipwreck.
In the mirror was Dipper's reflection, eyes that were so bulging that his eyelids couldn't close, skin that was fading into gray-green, teeth that were as sharp as needles, and a dark red fin standing on his head.
"Don't even think about it. We can't go back. We are monsters now. We are no longer human."
The hand with sharp nails suddenly moved, inserting and pulling the green scales on the face frantically, as if trying to tear off the outer layer of horror.
Unfortunately, underneath the scales is not smooth human skin, but a bloody layer of muscle.
A crying voice exploded in Dipper's mind. "I want to return to the Narwhal! I want to explore with the captain and the others!! I am the boatswain of the Narwhal!!"
The other personality and Dipper quickly stopped the self-harming behavior.
Just as Dipper was trying to calm down the emotionally broken personality, a peculiar trembling sound came from outside the door that was covered with barnacles and seaweed.
This is someone blowing a warning conch, indicating that there is a ship on the water.
Dipper put down the mirror in his hand, opened the door and swam out. When he raised his head, he found that there were several small boats slowly passing by on the water above his head.
Dipper didn't move because he saw the tribesmen surrounding the ship with harpoons in their hands.
Humans here not only represent prayer props, but also represent that they have new targets for torture.
But at this moment, something jumped down from the ship above, and it seemed to be a human.
The deep diver who came forward had no intention of attacking, but instead led them to swim towards the city below.
This scene aroused the curiosity of everyone including Dipper, and they swam over quickly.
Soon he saw clearly the identity of the people who got off the boat. They were a group of guys wearing black robes.
They floated in the water in an orderly manner, like a group of water ghosts.
Seeing the special style of robes, Dipper knew the identities of these people. He had seen this kind of robes before, and they were people from the Futan religion.
The rippling of the sea water allowed Dipper to see the terrifying face hidden under the cloak.
Their mouths, which should have had teeth, were filled with octopus tentacles with suction cups. They were different from the clan that had just organized the prayer ceremony.
The tentacles of these things are thinner and denser, like whiskers.
(End of this chapter)