Chapter 417

Xia De walked into the water slowly, but frowned and looked at his arm.

Although he had experienced swimming in the sea many times, this time entering the water, he clearly felt that his affinity for water had increased. The so-called affinity was not that he could manipulate the ocean, but that this ocean was welcoming Xia De's return. Skin stained with seawater even felt smoother than being stained with air on land.

This was certainly not because the seawater had turned red; after all, Xia De had nothing to do with that 【Lord of the Scarlet Spiral】. So, it was probably the lump of meat he ate just now that enhanced his affinity for water.

"What level of relic are you exactly?"

He opened his mouth and asked in a low voice.

Only then did he dive into the water; following a small string of bubbles emerging from the bottom of the water, Xia De's figure darted forward like a fish in the water. Originally he only knew how to swim a little, but now he felt that he had truly become a fish underwater.

After leaving the small pier under the sea cliff, Xia De poked his head out from under the water surface to confirm his direction and found that the distance to the beach was not far now. The surging tide and rain forced him to return under the water surface as soon as possible, and it was ten minutes later when Xia De stumbled out of the red seawater.

He stood up panting and turned to look at the sea behind him.

Under the yellowish sky, red giant waves were constantly slapping toward the direction of the Lengshuigang pier; the eerie composition made people feel uneasy instinctively. And on the beach that had already been submerged in the distance, there were a few small black dots above the water surface.

Xia De was puzzled for a moment, and then suddenly widened his eyes.

Those black dots were human heads; they were heads that were walking toward the depths of the ocean, and currently only above the shoulders had not yet been submerged in the seawater. And just when Xia De wanted to go into the water again, trying to pull them back, someone actually walked past him.

It was a middle-aged man wearing plaid pajamas and a nightcap, walking unsteadily. After being pulled by Xia De, he fell to the ground immediately, then climbed up on his own, and kept walking forward in the rain.

Because Xia De was still dragging him, he was just walking in place.

The man's eyes were open, but there was no brilliance in his eyes. And besides that, on the right side of his face, there was actually a blood-red tattoo of a fish-man with a fish face and a fish tail. That tattoo swelled up like a scar after touching the rain, and trembled with the frequency of the heartbeat.

"Sir, can you hear me?"

Xia De wanted to try to see if he could wake this person up. But only then did he discover that on this vast beach, more and more people were appearing, walking toward the ocean together at the same frequency.

Under that yellowish sky, in the red ocean, everyone had dull eyes and tattoos on their side faces. Their legs were stained with seawater, and then the water level became higher and higher. They just walked toward the depths of the ocean like this, until Xia De could no longer see them.

Turning to look at the direction of the city, more people appeared in the distance of the beach, and together with those who had already stepped into the red ocean, under the yellowish sky of Lengshuigang, they formed a strange-colored, chilling, and eerie picture.

They would send their own bodies and souls back to the ocean, letting the giant mermaid corpse brought by the ritual eventually carry the waves to submerge the city.

"How come there are so many people infected with the mermaid curse? Weren't there only two digits of infected people?"

Thinking in his heart, Xia De struck the back of the man's head in front of him, and then successfully knocked him unconscious... Xia De hoped he knocked him unconscious; after all, he had not learned the technique of knocking people unconscious. It was just that as soon as Xia De let go, the person who fainted on the beach actually darted up, then shook his body again, and together with the people shaking around him, with his head drooping, stepped into that scarlet seawater.

He couldn't stop these people at all.

The cold rain hit his face, the red of the sea, the yellow of the sky, and the team composed of people on the ocean and the beach; at this moment, Xia De truly felt cold in his heart:

"Princess Lei Qianya..."

He couldn't care about these strangers and turned to run toward the direction of Aurora Manor.

The beach where Xia De landed was not far from Aurora Manor. Leaving the beach, he found that the church was not doing nothing. On the coastal street, every distance, there would be ordinary priests holding religious texts and wearing robes, preaching the doctrines of the True Gods loudly. At least two-thirds of the people who walked out of the city unconsciously would faint to the ground when passing by them.

The police set up roadblocks at the main intersections near the beach, preventing those who walked out of their homes unconsciously from moving forward. And excluding the people blocked by the church and the police, the rest were what Xia De saw on the beach just now.

Calculating this way, the number of people infected with the "mermaid curse" in Lengshuigang was at least four digits. And at least ninety percent of them were blocked inside the city; the Lengshuigang diocese was indeed well-prepared.

And the church's preparation was not just that; it was just that what they really had to guard against was the tsunami submerging Lengshuigang, leading to the death of everyone in the city. Therefore, most of those currently in action were ordinary clergy of the church; they, together with the police and the Lengshuigang garrison, were fighting the fish-men who were trying to stir up a city-wide riot in the city and on the beach.

When Xia De went from the beach to the manor, he encountered more than one gunfight. But he did not find the ring-warlocks of the Ringed Shushi, nor did he see the church's organized ring-warlock squad; obviously, the battlefield was not just on land.

The relic that forbade passage set by the fish-men for Aurora Manor had already been broken at dawn. When Xia De arrived near the manor, the police were still surrounding the place, forbidding anyone from approaching. Although it was raining and the sky was also very strange, there were many people nearby, and the carriages were even blocked to the door of the small tavern Xia De went to in the second half of the night.

Besides the police, there were the Lengshuigang Navy, the church's priests, the private armed forces of local nobles, and a small number of armed mercenaries whose origins Xia De could not tell.

Such a messy situation was truly beyond Xia De's expectations; fortunately, the manor was now in a state of free entry and exit. The guests who came to attend the banquet were leaving in batches. It was just that the church's ring-warlock squad was blocking the door of the manor, and anyone who wanted to leave now had to undergo the most rigorous physical examination, which led to a batch of guests staying in the manor unwilling to leave, intending to wait until the church's examination relaxed a bit before leaving.

Using 【Schluch Lake Jump】 to avoid the church's sight, Xia De also successfully mixed into the manor. At this time, inside Aurora Manor, there were people almost everywhere, and there were not a few people like Xia De who were still dripping with water.

It was just that the corridor on the side leading to the wine cellar on the first floor was blocked by the church, and walking upstairs against the flow of people, Xia De actually did not see Miss Aurora, nor did he see Princess Princess Lei Qianya.

However, the witch had not forgotten Xia De and specifically left a servant on the third floor to wait for him to return. Through Miss Aurora's message, Xia De learned that Princess Princess Lei Qianya did not want to run into the church, so she went to the beach behind the manor to relax. And the witch still had things to do; Xia De very much suspected that through the explosion of that steam bomb, she had already discovered Dac Nisi who was with the cultists.

"Could it be that Miss Aurora went to chase Dac Nisi?"

Although Luweiya's divination showed that Dac Nisi would not die in Lengshuigang, but would set off for Tobesk in the next day or two. But going to Tobesk intact and going to Tobesk with only one breath left were completely different.

"However, what is Princess Lei Qianya doing on the beach at this time..."

Holding such doubts, Xia De walked out of the mansion again, passed through the garden, and came to the beach. The beach behind the manor and the harbor outside the beach both belonged to a part of Aurora Manor, which meant that this huge area theoretically belonged to Xivi Aurora.

The area of the beach was very large, almost twice the area of the garden, buildings, and courtyard. Because it was raining and he had experienced the shock of the gunfight in the first half of the night, there were not many people on the beach now.

Xia De did not see Princess Lei Qianya at first, fearing that she had already walked into the sea. Running to the beach and turning around anxiously twice, he turned around and saw Princess Lei Qianya standing on the edge of the beach, under the grape trellis near the manor garden, looking at him.

She only had two maids beside her; one was holding an umbrella for her, and the other was holding the poet-level relic 【Soul Fishing Rod】 that Xia De bought from Old John, with a transparent fishing line tied to the princess's wrist.

Seeing Xia De running over quickly, the red-haired girl deliberately twisted her body, as if she did not want to be seen by Xia De on the right side of her face. But when Xia De approached, he still inevitably saw the swollen red tattoo on Princess Lei Qianya's face.

Because of the joint suppression of the sage-level relic 【Saint's Curse-Breaking Stone】, the poet-level relic 【Saint Laurent's Ring】, and the fishing rod, Princess Lei Qianya's state looked quite good. It was just that when Xia De walked in front of her, the red-haired girl raised her hand to cover her side face and did not look at him.

Being grabbed by the wrist very impolitely by Xia De, forcibly pulling her right hand away, and touching the swollen and hot tattoo with his own fingers, Princess Lei Qianya raised her head to look at him with red eyes:

"Is this appearance of mine very interesting?"

Usually, the princess would absolutely not say such things; although the curse did not make her enter the ocean, her mental state was inevitably affected.

Xia De glanced at the two maids; the two looked at the empty beach in front, as if there was something very attractive there.

"I have even seen Duo Luo Xi's whole face turn into a fish-man; what does this count as for you now? You also know about that incident."

And by touching the mermaid tattoo on Princess Lei Qianya's side face, Xia De also confirmed that the curse was in a suppressed state.

"Duo Luo Xi..."

I don't know if it was because of the comparison, or because she heard a familiar name, Princess Lei Qianya's expression really relaxed.

Xia De's fingers gently stroked the tattoo, and then added another sentence:

"Besides, this is not a permanent tattoo; even if it were permanent, if I scrape the flesh and blood off the face with a knife, and then use 【Satiating Food】 to treat you, I can still completely restore your most beautiful appearance."

The wounds treated by 【Satiating Food】 never left any traces.

Princess Lei Qianya said 'hmm' softly:

"What exactly did you do just now, how come I feel your change is so big? Duo Luo Xi said that you rarely take the initiative to praise girls for being beautiful, except for greetings."

"That's not important. Princess Lei Qianya, why don't you stay in the room? Instead, you ran here?"

Xia De frowned slightly and asked.