Chapter 3207: The Mermaids

With the motion of his step, the toe of the black leather shoe materialized under the moonlight, and in an instant nearly twisted the fundamental physical laws of the entire street.

The witch wanted to close her eyes and shrink back behind Xia De, but her body could no longer move.

But because of that, she saw Xia De reflexively raise both hands forward, and pure silver flames bloomed with incomparably resplendent radiance. But the moonlight's color only held her attention for a brief second before Leaving Xiao Leaving Xiao Miya darted out from Xia De's embrace.

The cat bravely leaped onto Xia De's shoulder, and a threatening "Meow!" instantly shattered the spacetime that seemed about to freeze.

The cat's mouth once again spat sparks, and a tiny flame also appeared at the tip of her tail. And it was precisely the flame at the tip of the Sun Witch's cat's tail that drew her attention—though the flame's color was normal and its temperature barely perceptible, she somehow felt that the fire was so familiar and warm.

The cat's flames and Xia De's moonlight appeared together, so the shadow in the darkness maintained its raised-foot posture as if frozen in place. Two seconds later, the black leather shoe did not step forward but instead retreated back into the darkness. ta stood once again at the edge of light and shadow, silently "watching" all of this.

"Leaving Xiao Leaving Xiao Miya, come back."

The flames vanished before the witch, because little Leaving Xiao Leaving Xiao Miya was grabbed by Xia De and stuffed back against his chest. The best method was right before his eyes—taking advantage of the fact that the shadow in the darkness made no further move, Xia De stepped forward twice and picked up the pocket watch from the ashes.

When the belatedly aware witch caught up, his hand was already clasped on the pocket watch:

"The best method—use this relic again. This relic's effect can clearly only manifest one at a time!"

The risk of this method lay in the fact that Xia De did not know what properties the relic before him actually possessed; he could only roughly guess that the smiling face and crying face indicated by the spine-bone pointer corresponded to good fortune and misfortune respectively.

But there was no time to worry about that now—he refused to believe anything worse could happen. So he directly clicked the pocket watch, and sure enough, the bronze dial began spinning rapidly.

"Before the year's end, I am in luck!"

He thought to himself with wide eyes, but amid "her" laughter, the spine-bone pointer still stopped at the crying face.

The light shot from the crying face's mouth landed at their feet, and instantly a teleportation gate formed beneath Xia De and Miss Reinhardt. Then the two people and one cat dropped straight through, heading toward a distant place unknown to anyone.

The teleportation gate closed, and the pocket watch fell back to the ground. The bronze dial slowly vanished into the darkness, and the shadow within the darkness also disappeared at some unknown point.

Night wind blew through the alley once more. More than ten minutes later, the big-headed man Xia De had knocked unconscious earlier sat up clutching the back of his head only after snow had fallen all over his body.

"Who knocked me out?"

He looked left and right and found that he was the only one left in the alley; even the Sage-level relic 【Double-Life Fortune Dial】 the cult had given him had fallen into the snow.

Although he didn't know what had happened, clearly something major had occurred here, and it seemed he had survived only because no one had noticed him.

So he picked up the pocket watch, re-entered the secondhand clock shop, took the trade item from the other two unconscious men, and without time to silence them quickly vanished into the depths of the alley. The prophecy had not been wrong—they had indeed successfully completed the mission.

As for Xia De and Miss Claire Reinhardt on the other side—

The instant his feet lost purchase, Xia De knew what had happened, but due to the relic's properties he still fell into the teleportation gate along with the witch.

Seawater rushing in from all sides immediately engulfed them—or rather, they had been teleported directly into the sea. The 【Underwater Breathing】 spell took effect. Xia De pressed his chest to turn little Leaving Xiao Leaving Xiao Miya into a toy to prevent her from drowning, then reached out and grabbed the witch beside him; her platinum-blonde long hair spread out in the seawater, looking extraordinarily beautiful.

But because she had been somewhat drained from the influence of the shadow in the darkness earlier, she seemed about to sink downward in the sea. So Xia De promptly took her hand, confirmed that the witch could also breathe underwater, and swam upward with her:

"This place better not be some deep-sea abyss—if it's a deep-sea abyss I'm going straight home."

Deep darkness stretched in every direction, and Xia De even sensed more than one gaze observing him from afar. He struggled to suppress his imagination and instead held Miss Reinhardt as he swam upward—doing so was faster.

Their luck held. Xia De soon sensed moonlight overhead, and before long he emerged from the sea surface holding the drenched Miss.

"Oh!"

Seawater slid down their cheeks, and both gasped for breath simultaneously. Partly because of the undersea environment, but mostly because of the dire situation in the alley earlier.

Looking around now, beneath the starry sky stretched an endless sea. The empty ocean surface showed no trace of land or islands; Xia De would probably have to dig out an Old Continent map shortly to precisely locate where this was:

"If it just triggered a random teleportation, this luck isn't that bad—unless this place is extremely remote."

While he was pondering this, he felt the Miss in his arms clutch him tightly. She had probably been truly frightened earlier; now, in this "aftermath of disaster," she was still somewhat fearful.

Xia De did not push her away but gently patted her back twice. So the Miss who had been curled against his chest raised her head to look at Xia De. On the moonlit sea surface, those pale-gold eyes looked quite different from how they appeared during the day.

And in Claire Reinhardt's eyes, the Xia De beneath the moon also seemed very different from before—when they fell into the teleportation gate, the illusion had vanished.

Under the moon, his entire figure was shrouded in a halo, so amid the rise and fall of the sea surface, for reasons even the witch herself couldn't fathom, she gazed at Xia De for a moment, then voluntarily closed her eyes—later when she recalled it, she nearly covered her face and banged her head against a wall.

But then she felt movement against her chest. Thinking the outlander was being a pervert, she blushingly opened her eyes to look—and the cat was squeezing out from the gap between Xia De and her, then climbing onto Xia De's shoulder to look around the sea surface.

This surprise thoroughly jolted the witch awake. Thinking about her own actions just now, at this moment she wished she could burrow back to the bottom of the sea.

Fortunately, Xia De was focused on "scolding" the cat who had arbitrarily transformed back on her own, saying things like "disobedient cats get eaten by mermaids"—a lie that not even children would believe.

The blushing witch thought about tonight's events and suddenly felt like laughing. Beneath the starry sky, she tightly wrapped both arms around Xia De and instantly forgave her own self from dozens of seconds ago:

"This isn't bad either. What an interesting man. It's no wonder Vanessa and Sylvia have such high affection for him."

She thought to herself, then felt that if today's story were told to others, they probably wouldn't believe it.

But just then, Xia De and the witch who was consoling herself both noticed that in the depths of the ocean beneath them, a mermaid-shaped dark shadow was slowly swimming past underwater.

The witch was merely curious about what it was, but she didn't expect Xia De to be so startled that he hugged her and flew up from the sea surface at once:

"Let's go! Let's go now!"

Saying this, he was about to disregard concealing his identity and directly transform into the Moonlight Dragon to fly off with Miss Reinhardt and little Leaving Xiao Leaving Xiao Miya.

Silver moonlight had even begun to emanate from his body. But fortunately, at that very moment, dozens of beautiful heads emerged together from the sea below them.

Black hair, red hair, golden hair, blue hair; blue eyes, green eyes, yellow eyes, black eyes—the mermaids looked up at the witch and Xia De above them and waved their sleek arms in greeting. The moonlight illuminated them as well. They were indeed mermaids, but merely mermaids.

"Oh, they're mermaids. Where on earth did we end up?"

The witch, who didn't know why Xia De was so afraid, breathed a sigh of relief and even comforted Xia De:

"Don't worry. I have a very good friend who has excellent relations with the mermaid race. We can ask them for directions."

Xia De's heart, which had almost leapt out of his throat moments ago, settled back down. He had truly thought the "mermaid" from Moon Bay had come. A worse thing than encountering "Desire" by a pool, pond, lake, or seaside was encountering her directly in the water.

Seeing that the mermaids in the water were friendly, Xia De held Miss Reinhardt and descended back into the water. So the mermaids all gathered around:

"Hello there~"

Each with different appearances but all very beautiful, they greeted Xia De with smiles, seeming to dance around him. The cat watched these fish with some annoyance but didn't threaten them with cries; however, Miss Reinhardt felt she was being ignored.

"Hello, do you know how to get to Fatimunst Island in Star Fall Bay?"

Xia De asked the highest-ranked among the mermaids, so the Miss with a Level-10 ring and shell ornaments in her red hair smiled and pointed northward.

They did not speak with Xia De afterward, but instead gathered around Xia De and the witch singing softly. Gradually, all the mermaids joined hands with one another, circling around them.

Scattered runes appeared on the water surface within the circle until the ritual base array was completed. With a flash of light, Xia De, the cat, and the witch vanished.

"Go quickly and tell Miss Aurora that the handsome man has appeared! Oh, he looks even more charming than Miss Aurora described."

The mermaid Misses laughed and chattered as they dove together into the deep sea, while on the desolate reef beach of the southern shore of Fatumonster Island, two humans and a cat had already been washed ashore by the waves.

Xia De had been here before; when he first arrived locally to search for the whereabouts of the "Potion Merchant," one of that merchant's secret warehouses was nearby, and at that time, he had even seen traces of the mermaids here.