552: Seventy-one.
Going out to sea.
552: Seventy-one.
Going out to sea.
The existence behind him felt like a cold rock, motionless, and breathless.
His right hand pressed on the holster of salvation while the other reached behind him.
The cold, rough touch was flat, like a dead object.
It was rely a gray reef rock standing under the wooden hut, and its shape did not remind one of any monster.
Lu Li looked back at the wooden steps because his earlier caution had not disturbed the presence at the door.
However, he felt sothing unusual.
The knocking had ceased for quite a while.
Lu Li plucked a pebble from the reef rock and threw it into the hut through the open window above.
Rattle—
The sound of the pebble rolling on the floor echoed, accompanied by the movents inside the hut, causing a slight change at the entrance.
Creak—Shhh—
The sa sound as when Lu Li had opened the door.
Creak—Creak—
The floor creaked with the movents of the presence.
The presence entered the hut.
Slightly hesitant, Lu Li under the floor dimd the oil lamp, letting it barely illuminate the surroundings while he looked down at the gravel underfoot, preparing to leave the hut.
A small piece of gravel stained by congealed blood caught Lu Li’s eye; he paused briefly and then turned to look around.
He saw the trail of blood extending from under the hut towards the shoreline, gradually becoming invisible.
About a dozen ters from the trail, a wooden boat lay capsized on the beach.
Next to the wooden boat was a conspicuous drag mark that extended into the sea.
Lu Li imagined that just minutes earlier, Richard had dragged the boat into shallow water, clumsily climbed in, and rowed into the boundless and dim depth of the open sea.
Looking up through the cracks between the wooden planks, Lu Li stepped backward out of the hut’s range, avoiding the window, and approached the overturned boat.
The presence still lingering inside the hut with a strong fishy sll gave Lu Li enough ti to overturn the boat and push it to the shallows.
He flipped the small wooden boat, threw his shoes into it, rolled up his pants, and pushed the boat closer to the shoreline.
The cold tide surged, wrapping around his ankles, and retreating while taking away so of the warmth.
Walking into the shallow water that subrged his calves, the boat entirely lifted off the seabed.
As the tide that had reached his knees receded, Lu Li looked towards the deep sea with hesitation for the first ti.
Do I really want to leave the shadowy shore and venture into the deep seabed?
Is it worth risking the encounter with the Blood-Colored Tentacles?
Lu Li did not know where the wooden boat would take him after leaving—would it lead to Richard’s traces, the truth, or the end of his life?
But Richard knew.
That was why he had co here undeterred, to venture into the deep sea aboard the boat.
Or perhaps the boat was just a trap, and Richard was only fabricating the appearance of going out to sea.
Perhaps, just hundreds of ters away on the shoreline, an unclaid boat lay stranded before the tide.
Perhaps sensing Lu Li’s hesitation, or because Lu Li stared too long into the deep sea, an indescribable, murky consciousness, like invisible tendrils one cannot see, gently wrapped around Lu Li.
In the deep sea, an indescribable presence was calling for Lu Li.
This consciousness, this presence, tried its best to contain all its malice, as Lu Li might have gone insane from the sheer malice that it emitted undiluted.
Lu Li thought of the “Ancient God’s Body.” Was it the so-called “Ancient God” that was calling him?
Regardless, with the guidance of the call, Lu Li seed not to need to worry about losing his way in the shadowy deep sea.
He was not entirely at a disadvantage; at least, he and Richard started from the sa starting line.
“The ownership of the Ancient God’s Body.”
Suddenly, a shrill, raspy noise, like that of a damaged record player, emanated from the beach.
Lu Li withdrew his gaze from the deep sea and looked in the direction of the cabin from which the sound ca—
A figure stood where the tide could not reach, resembling a human, but every detail starkly differed.
Its head was like that of the most vicious piranha, its dark green body similar to a human’s, but its palms and soles featured the webbing of a fish.
The gills on its cheeks, bulging wide-open eyes that could not close, its wet, slimy body and scales all suggested that this creature lived in the sea.
This rmaid’s ferocious head displayed usually human-like emotions as it lay prostrate on the beach, like a frog, more so like a praying believer.
The rmaid evidently possessed so intelligence, and perhaps its kind even had a language.
Lu Li realized sothing, glanced at the wooden boat that would not drift away, and suddenly waded towards the rmaid.
At first, the rmaid did not move, but when Lu Li got within about ten ters of it, it suddenly rose anxiously, retreating backwards with a low roar.
Lu Li stopped, and the rmaid no longer retreated, prostrating itself again on the sand.
It seed not to want Lu Li too close.
Watching the rmaid with its head buried deep in the sand, Lu Li continued towards it.
The rmaid rose and backed away, issuing a call once more, but this ti the sound was sharp and clear, filled with panic and irritability.
It conflictedly respected and feared Lu Li, yet bore a natural hostility towards humans.
Realizing that getting any closer might cause it to lose control and attack, Lu Li no longer pressed the rmaid, took a long look at it, and turned back towards the wooden boat.
Behind him, the rmaid lay on the sand, murmuring in its unique language.
Lu Li boarded the wooden boat without hesitating.
As if alive, the boat floating in the shallow sea automatically set sail, heading towards the boundless deep sea underground.
…
Lu Li had still not appeared.
The fire completely engulfed the asylum, fortunately the vegetation no longer grew, and the fire struggled to spread outside, only a few dead trees too close to the asylum were ignited by the high heat.
In front of the woodshed, Anna anxiously waited for Lu Li’s return.
anwhile, a hint of doubt surfaced in her mind.
Since the black smoke first began to rise until now, it had been almost half an hour, but not a single policeman had appeared.
Watch Town was only a few miles from the asylum, even if the people coming were walking, they should have arrived by now…
…
Watch Town.
Since the surge of immigrants from Lennon Islands, this small town backed by Belfast was no longer quiet.
Noisy and bustling beca its new norm, with thousands of visitors from all over passing through and staying in the town each day.
This brought considerable profits to the locals—in an increasingly harsh environnt, nothing was more comforting than the shillings falling into their pockets.
But at this ti, what surged through Watch Town was not noise and warmth, but unrest and chaos.
People gathered in the streets, staring blankly toward the top of Sugard Mountain.
They were not looking at the noble manors that could be vaguely seen on the peak, but at the crowds of running, screaming people erging from the other side of the mountain.
They were like ants from a destroyed anthill, a colony with no ho.
Against this backdrop, the thick smoke rising a few miles away seed inconsequential.
On the street, a lumberjack’s hand holding an axe trembled, terrible speculations pressuring his nerves, he muttered, “Why…what happened…what’s wrong with Belfast…”
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