Shade slowly walked into the water, but then frowned and looked at his arm.
Although he had swam in the sea many times before, this time he felt more comfortable with water. The so-called comfort was not that he could control the ocean, but that the ocean was welcoming Shade's return. The seawater on his skin felt smoother than the air on land.
This was definitely not because the sea water turned red, after all, Shade had nothing to do with the Lord of the Scarlet Spiral. So, it was probably the piece of meat he had just eaten that increased his affinity for water.
"What level of relic are you?"
He asked in a low voice.
Then he dived into the water, and as a small string of bubbles emerged from the bottom of the water, Shade's figure rushed forward like a fish swimming under the water. Originally, he could only swim a little, but now he felt like he had really turned into a fish underwater.
After leaving the small pier under the sea cliff, Shade poked his head out of the water to confirm his direction and found that he was not far from the beach. The surging waves and rain forced him to return to the surface as soon as possible, and it was ten minutes later when Shade staggered out of the red sea.
He stood up, panting, and turned to look at the sea behind him.
Under the dim yellow sky, huge red waves are constantly hitting the direction of the Coldwater Port Pier. The strange composition makes people feel uneasy instinctively. In the distance, on the flooded beach, there are a few black dots above the water.
Xia De was confused for a moment, then suddenly his eyes widened.
Those black spots were human heads, heading towards the depths of the ocean. Currently, only the shoulders and above were not immersed in the seawater. Just when Shade was about to dive into the water again and try to pull them up, someone else walked by.
He was a middle-aged man wearing plaid pajamas and a nightcap, and he walked unsteadily. After being pulled by Xia Pu, he immediately fell to the ground, then got up on his own and kept walking forward in the rain.
It was just because Xia De was still pulling him, so he was just standing still.
The man's eyes were open, but there was no light in them. In addition, on the right side of his face, there was a blood-red tattoo of a fish face, human body and fish tail. After being exposed to the rain, the tattoo swelled up like a scar and trembled with the rhythm of his heart.
"Sir, can you hear me?"
Xia De wanted to try to see if he could wake this person up, but then he realized that more and more people were appearing on this vast beach, swaying towards the ocean at the same frequency.
Under the dim yellow sky, in the red ocean, everyone had dull eyes and tattoos on their faces. Their legs were stained with seawater, and then the water level rose higher and higher. They walked towards the depths of the ocean until Shade could no longer see them.
Turning around and looking in the direction of the city, more people appeared in the distance of the beach. Together with those who had already stepped into the red ocean, under the dim sky of Lengshui Harbor, they formed a strange picture with strange colors and frightening effects.
They will send their bodies and souls back to the ocean, and the giant mermaid corpse attracted by the ritual will eventually carry the waves to engulf the city.
"How come there are so many people infected with the Mermaid Curse? Aren't the number of infected people only in the double digits?"
Thinking in his heart, Xia De hit the man in front of him on the back of the head, and then successfully knocked him out... Xia De hoped that he had knocked him out, after all, he had never learned the skills to knock someone out. However, as soon as Xia De let go, the man who had fainted on the beach suddenly jumped up, and then shook his body again, and together with the people shaking around him, he hung his head and stepped into the scarlet sea.
He couldn't stop these people at all.
The cold rain hit his face, the red sea, the yellow sky, and the crowds of people on the ocean and the beach. At this moment, Xia De felt a chill in his heart:
"Lecia..."
He didn't bother to pay attention to these strangers and turned and ran towards the Aurora Manor.
The beach where Shade landed was not far from Aurora Manor. After leaving the beach, I realized that the church was not doing nothing. On the streets along the coast, every few meters, there would be ordinary priests holding scriptures and wearing long robes, loudly preaching the teachings of the righteous gods. At least two-thirds of the people who walked out of the city unconsciously would faint on the ground when passing by them.
The police set up roadblocks at the main intersection near the beach, preventing those who had unconsciously walked out of their homes from moving forward. Excluding the people stopped by the church and the police, the rest were what Shade had just seen on the beach.
By this calculation, the number of people infected with the "Mermaid Curse" in Coldwater Harbor was at least in the four digits. At least 90% of them were stopped in the city. The Coldwater Harbor Parish was indeed well prepared.
The church's preparations were more than that, but what they really wanted to prevent was a tsunami that would flood Lengshui Port and kill everyone in the city. Therefore, most of the people currently taking action were just ordinary clergy from the church. Together with the police and the Lengshui Port garrison, they were fighting the fishmen who were trying to start a riot in the city and on the beach.
When Shade was heading from the beach to the manor, he encountered more than one gunfight. But he did not find any ring sorcerers from the Scarlet Mysticism, nor did he see any organized ring sorcerer teams from the church, so it was clear that the battlefield was not just on land.
The prohibition artifact set up by the fishmen for Aurora Manor had been broken at dawn. When Shade arrived near the manor, the police still surrounded it and prohibited anyone from approaching. Although it was raining and the weather was strange, there were many people nearby, and the carriages even blocked the door of the tavern that Shade had visited in the second half of the night.
In addition to the police, there are also the Coldwater Port Navy, church priests, private armed forces of local nobles, and a small number of armed mercenaries whose origins Shade cannot tell.
Such a mess was beyond Xia De's expectation. Fortunately, the manor was now open to the public. The guests who came to the banquet were leaving in batches. However, the church's ring magician team was blocking the entrance of the manor. Anyone who wanted to leave now had to undergo the most rigorous physical examination. As a result, a group of guests stayed in the manor and refused to leave, intending to wait until the church's inspection was relaxed before leaving.
Using Raglai's jump to avoid the sight of the church, Shade also successfully sneaked into the manor. At this time, the Aurora Manor was almost full of people, and it was not uncommon to see people like Shade with water dripping on their bodies.
However, the corridor on the first floor leading to the wine cellar was blocked by the church. Walking upstairs against the flow of people, Shade did not see Miss Aurora or Princess Leisia.
However, the witch had not forgotten Shade, and left a servant on the third floor waiting for him to come back. Through Miss Aurora's message, Shade learned that Princess Leicia did not want to run into the church, so she went to the beach behind the manor to relax. The witch still had things to do, and Shade suspected that she had discovered Darkness who was with the cultists through the explosion of the steam bomb.
“Did Miss Aurora go after Darkness?”
Although Luvia's divination showed that Darkness would not die in Coldwater Harbor, but would leave for Tobesk today or tomorrow, going to Tobesk intact and with only one breath left were completely different.
"But, what is Lecia doing at the beach at this time..."
With such doubts, Shade walked out of the mansion again, walked through the garden and came to the beach. The beach behind the manor and the harbor outside the beach are all part of the Aurora Manor, which means that this huge area, in theory, belongs to Xiwei Aurora.
The beach was very large, almost twice the size of the garden, building and courtyard. Because of the rain and the fright of the gunfight in the first half of the night, there were few people on the beach.
At first, Shade didn't see Leicia and was worried that she had walked into the sea. He ran to the beach and anxiously walked around twice. When he turned around, he saw Leicia standing at the edge of the beach, under the grape trellis near the manor garden, looking at him.
There were only two maids around her, one holding an umbrella for her, and the other holding the soul fishing rod, a clerical-level relic that Shad bought from Old John, with the transparent fishing line tied around the princess's wrist.
Seeing Shade running towards her, the red-haired girl turned her body deliberately, as if she didn't want Shade to see the right side of her face. But when Shade got closer, he couldn't avoid seeing the swollen red tattoo on Leisia's face.
Because of the combined suppression of the Sage-level relic Saint's Curse-Removing Stone, the Clerical-level relic Saint Laurent's Ring, and the fishing rod, Leicia looked pretty good. But when Shade walked in front of her, the red-haired girl raised her hand to cover her face and didn't look at him.
When Shade grabbed her wrist rudely, took her right hand away forcefully, and touched the swollen and hot tattoo with her own fingers, Resia looked up at him with red eyes:
"Am I interesting in this state?"
Normally, Her Royal Highness the Princess would never say such things. Although the curse did not cause her to enter the ocean, her mental state was inevitably affected.
Xia De glanced at the two maids, and they were looking at the empty beach ahead, as if there was something very eye-catching there.
"I've even seen what Dorothy looked like when her whole face turned into a fish-man. What do you look like now? You know what happened that time, too."
By touching the mermaid tattoo on the side of Lecia's face, Shad also confirmed that the curse was suppressed.
"Dorothy..."
Maybe it was because of the comparison or because she heard a familiar name, but Lecia's expression relaxed.
Xia De's fingers gently stroked the tattoo, and then added:
"Besides, this isn't a permanent tattoo. Even if it is, I can use a knife to scrape off the flesh on your face, and then I'll use the food of satiety to treat you. It will be able to completely restore you to your most beautiful appearance."
External wounds treated with a filling diet will never leave any traces.
Leicia hummed softly:
"What on earth have you been doing? Why do you seem to have changed so much? Dorothy said that you seldom compliment girls on their beauty, except when you say hello."
"That's not important. Leicia, why didn't you stay in your room? Why did you come here instead?"
Shade asked, frowning slightly.