Chapter 137
His eyeballs looked as if they had been cut off with a knife, leaving his eye sockets empty in an instant.
211 Whose Sea Kin (Two-in-One)
"Lead the way."
Hebe appeared in the bedroom at some point and kicked Carl was groping for his eyeballs, to the ground.
The Cup Principle, a subordinate path, allows superiors to control subordinates even more strictly than the Authority Path. This is because the latter relies on a framework built upon power, violence, and intrigue, while the former depends on the close connection between desires.
The desires of those in lower positions are unpredictable, sometimes turning to appetite, sometimes to carnal desire, sometimes enveloped in pleasure, and sometimes turning to suffering. After going around in circles, they end up empty in body and mind.
Those in positions of authority under the Cup Principle can use desire to directly ensnare those in lower positions, like pufferfish in the deep sea, making it impossible for them to escape.
Now, Hebe has replaced Carl's "desire" with her own, making him genuinely want to achieve Hebe's goal—to go to the engine room and find the imprisoned Pure Water Spirit.
In the process of this shifting desire, Hebe also learned many details of the shipwreck ceremony.
In other words, the person in charge of this ritual has now changed from Carl and his family to Hebe.
Under the deep darkness of night, Hebe, led by Carl, once again ventured into the third-class cabin. The dim lights flickered on the cabin walls, further enhancing the eerie and silent atmosphere.
The engine room door has double security: a lock in the secular sense and a lock in the mystical sense.
"Sesame, sesame, open the door!"
When Hebe saw the lock, she whispered a spell, walked straight to the door, and pushed it open.
As expected, the blessing from the Gatekeeper of October Governor worked for all gates.
Inside the engine room, bright red and dark red hues were everywhere. The metal walls and pipes seemed to be alive, expanding and contracting erratically.
Bang, bang, bang, bang!
The sound of a rapid heartbeat came from all directions, like thunder.
From Carl's recollections of the ritual details, Hebe learned that whenever the Titanic was about to sink, they would enter the engine room beforehand, cut off a small piece of Pure Water Spirit, and take it away to re-cultivate. Once this portion of Pure Water Spirit had grown back, the sinking ceremony would be held again.
As for how to control the Pure Water Spirit... hehe, it's quite simple.
Each Pure Water Spirit that is divided is considered an intellectually deficient offspring. While they lack the ability to make judgments, they are placed in a container, and over time, they will come to regard the container as part of themselves.
Like an elephant that has been chained since childhood, even if it can easily break free of the ropes when it grows up, the "tradition" that is deeply rooted in its memory will become a shackle that binds it.
Just like a watermelon shaped from a small square container, by the time it's harvested and the restrictive container is removed, the watermelon has already grown into a square shape.
Hebe was able to sense Medea's ignorant wrath, a feeling born from witnessing the suffering of her fellow human beings.
She tapped the hilt of the Cross Sword with her finger, signaling Medea to calm down.
"Where is the Pure Water Spirit?"
"Please follow me," Carl replied respectfully.
They meandered through the engine room, which was like a living thing, as if traveling through a blood vessel leading to the heart.
Finally, Hebe saw the "Pure Water Spirit" imprisoned in the engine room.
For a moment, even the battle-hardened and knowledgeable Hebe couldn't help but feel a deep sense of disgust.
Within the constantly roaring and spinning water turbine, a mass of flesh and blood swelled and contracted, its surface flowing with patterns that were indistinguishable as eye spots or specks. With each rotation of the water turbine, a slightly murky golden spiritual dew was squeezed from this mass of flesh and blood.
Once extracted, these spiritual dews flowed through the pipes and were collected.
The mass of flesh emitted indistinct sounds, like a dream or a weak sigh.
Hebe's body was confined to an abandoned fountain by the Grand Symphony Movement. Apart from the inconvenience of movement, she did not suffer any torment.
Medea was imprisoned in an alchemical coffin by Elizabeth. While being suppressed by the Grand Symphony, she was constantly drained of spiritual dew to prolong her life, to the point that her body disintegrated and her achievements were ruined.
As for the "Pure Water Spirit" before her... Hebe no longer knew how to describe the suffering she had endured.
Lifetimes upon lifetimes, it is difficult to escape.
"... If it were Joan of Arc of Arc, she would probably ask me to pick out the 'innocents' and then put the guilty on trial."
Hebe's lips curled up slightly, as if she were speaking to Carl, or perhaps to herself.
"Now I understand June Archon's mindset back then." Hebe turned around with a smile. "He wiped out the family that led the ceremony, but spared all the innocent people... In other words, from the second ceremony onwards, none of the passengers on the Titanic were innocent."
Apart from the main characters of the ceremony—the lovers separated by life and death—everyone else was an "extras" recruited by the nobles.
Some of them were fully aware of the ritual, while others reaped considerable wealth without realizing it was money they had been given to save their lives.
Amidst the pounding heartbeat in the engine room, Hebe's smile gradually faded.
"Whether it's first class, second class, or third class... it's the same."
Pearls were used to kill most of the ritual leaders because it was considered sinful.
However, the Holy Grail preserved some details of the shipwreck ritual so that Hebe would understand that these people truly deserved to die.
As for whether it was intentional or not? Whenever the Holy Grail is involved, it's always intentional.
Hebe's palm pressed against the gurgling mass of flesh. The dark red flesh joyfully broke free from the shackles of steel and ritual, rampaging through the engine room and breaking through barrier after barrier.
The Black Musician was lifted up by the surging, growing flesh and blood.
As for Carl, he was immediately engulfed by that mass of flesh and blood, and fell completely silent.
Late at night, the sea breeze was chilly, and the high sea Serenity.
The Titanic was sailing Serenity on the sea when suddenly, a slight tremor traveled upwards from the bottom of the ship, and then the tremor became more and more intense.
As this terrifying tremor occurred, the entire giant ship gradually lost power! And this was on the vast ocean!
Inside the cabin, the citizens who were clinking glasses and exchanging toasts stormed onto the deck in a fit of rage.
The Titanic was indeed going to sink, but the original scheduled time was five days later—there was still half a day left until the agreed time. Who was so impatient?
But when they rushed onto the deck, the anger on their faces turned into fear.
"It wasn't that someone started the ritual ahead of time... the ritual went out of control!" They stared at the deck, which was gushing blood and flesh, and roared madly, "Carl! Where is Carl?! Wasn't he the one who led this ritual?!"
There was no response; Carl died even earlier than them.
Fortunately, Carl didn't have to suffer such pain and fear, but the citizens who wanted a share of the pie were not so lucky.
"Musicians! Where are the musicians on the ship?!" the citizens cried out again. "My servants, where are you?"
As a large ship traveling between Issus and other sea routes, the Titanic naturally had many musicians living on board... and even excluding the musicians on board, the citizens themselves also brought many musicians as personal bodyguards.
"Master, we've arrived!" These loyal musicians fought their way out of the blood and flesh that had nearly torn the entire ship apart.
They grabbed the arms of the citizens and immediately began to play music, intending to leave the Titanic, whose fate was unknown.
But when they leaped up, there was no strong wind to lift them up.
The musicians and citizens looked at each other in bewilderment. They tried dancing again, but nothing happened.
"What are you doing?!" the citizen exclaimed in fear and anger. "If you can't fly, can't you just jump ship and take the waterway?"
"Yes, yes..." The musician pulled the citizen and jumped directly off the ship's side.
Plop plop.
Two murky, terrifying voices reached the ears of the citizens who were about to follow their example.
Someone peered over and saw that the two people who had jumped out of the boat earlier had fallen onto the water and turned into two lumps of flesh and blood that were hard to describe as noble.
The flesh and blood did not sink into the water.
Under the cover of night, the entire vast body of water seemed to merge into a solid obsidian-like sheet, reflecting a dim light.
"We, our melodies have all been banned." The musicians were pale. "It was the Tuners — the Tuners changed the 'musical composition' here and blocked our right to play the melodies."
One of the citizens and nobles could no longer contain his fear and began to scream wildly on the deck.
At that moment, the sky broke through the clouds, and the moonlight, like pearls, fell sharply, landing precisely on the piano that had appeared out of nowhere at the back of the deck.
A musician dressed in a gray striped suit, with a dark red tie at his chest and Cross Sword hanging at his waist, is sitting behind a piano, striking the black and white keys.
The piece she played was officially titled "Moonlight".
The black musician tilted his head, seemingly oblivious to the fear spreading throughout the ship.
The moonlight flowed silently from her fingertips, like mercury spilling onto the ground, carving out a pure white space around the piano.
At this moment, even the most oblivious person would realize what was going on—this self-proclaimed Antonio Salieri, the pianist from the sea, was the mastermind behind the ritual going out of control.
"Why did you do this? What good does it do you?!" Rose's mother demanded, losing her temper. "Don't you like Rose too? Carl was so respectful to you... You could have just explained yourself clearly. What's wrong with coming in and sharing a cup of dew?!"
Hebe smiled regretfully, "Unfortunately, someone has quite an appetite."
The citizens were horrified.
They knew how the shipwreck ritual involved sacrifices, and they also knew how bleak their future as sacrifices was, given Hebe's words.
"Who... who are you?" Rose's mother asked desperately. "What have we done to offend you?"
Hebe's regretful smile deepened, gradually taking on a mocking tone.
She didn't answer, and the music in her hand suddenly changed, from the Serenity "Moonlight Sonata" to a terrifying melody that was repeated and provocative.
This time, it was the musicians' turn to turn deathly pale.
"Never... Infinite Movement?!" Immediately, a musician laughed bitterly and drew his sword to commit suicide.
The citizens were baffled as to why their court musician, upon recognizing Hebe's skill in playing, would choose to commit suicide.
"You don't know what 'Infinite Movement' means; but if we call it something else, you'll understand." The musicians smiled bitterly. "It's the unique playing technique of the Black Musicians' 'Echoes'."
"Echoes?!"
The citizens looked at each other in bewilderment.
It wasn't that they were too slow to react; rather, an extremely intense fear erupted in their minds in an instant, plunging them into a profound tremor.
If the reputation of the King of Su among the citizens is mostly positive, then the Black Musician "Echoes" is extremely cruel and terrifying, both among the barbarians of the North and among the citizens of Ys, and is capable of stopping children from crying at night.
She once used a flute to lure the entire city-state's ruling family into following her into the sea to drown themselves;
She once played her violin on the battlefield, causing several legions to go mad and slaughter each other in a frenzy.
She once played the piano in many monasteries, turning these once upright and honest monasteries into wicked religious orders that manipulated people's hearts...
Even from the perspective of the citizen family, "Echoes" is an extremely evil and heinous existence.
Her unique playing technique is the terrifying melody known as "Infinite Movement," in which no one can play safely amidst the rapid leaps of Musical Note.
Yes, even a true Tuners cannot play a complete melody in the face of "Echoes".
Moreover, the "Echoes" has also melted the minds of Tuners.
She once mischievously merged the minds of several Tuners together, then stuffed them into a music box, playing a melody that fast-forwarded time within the box by tens of thousands of years.
After that, she took it out and stuffed it into the body of a hawksbill turtle, calling it "ascension".
In the terror that pierced her mind, the last Musical Note from Hebe's fingertips suddenly leaped up.
As she raised her arms, the "flesh and blood" that ran through the entire ship instantly became as clear as water.
No, this is water.
The Titanic broke into several pieces.
This time, the frozen water did not stop the Titanic from sinking; instead, it swirled and quickly swallowed it.
It seems that the sea itself is also delighted with this offering.
Rose's mother cursed desperately and viciously, but before she could utter a sound, the surging seawater overwhelmed her.
As the Titanic sank into the deep sea, the pearly moonlight in the sky gradually turned crimson, while the turbulent sea rose up.
Abundant vitality began to emerge in Hebe's body.
The Holy Grail's rewards are extremely generous.
He did not bestow any extra blessings, but simply granted Hebe a pure and immense life force.
These life forces surged within Hebe's body, constantly transforming her Pure Water Spirit form, making her body grow ever larger.
If ordinary Pure Water Spirit are like gurgling springs, then the previous Hebe was like a clear river or lake.
But now, she has become an ocean current.