The Sunken Secret City

He turned his head and walked towards the other dim flame.

"I hope you at least know how to walk, orca," she said softly, stepping into the wilderness.

"I don't care how many men she has in bed. After all, if there aren't enough ties, even I can't get on top of them. But I... I've had enough of those idiots who can't even walk properly, who can only crawl, and even crawl backwards."

Chapter 157: The Secret City of the Deep Sea

The sea of consciousness is not the real sea.

It was merely a concept, a creation. Formed from endless longing, something as dark and deep as the ocean.

That's an emotion.

Joy, happiness, sorrow, hatred, grief, pain, love, despair, anger, loneliness, regret, twisted, morbid, delicate—countless emotions mix together and converge. Endless fragments of broken and damaged memories are mixed within, piecing themselves together.

Miss Surtr saw a lot of things.

I saw an elderly person die alone on a cold bedside table, with no one to care for them.

I saw the baby die in the mother's womb, dying at the exit of life.

I saw young men ravaged by taxes and forced labor, their breath fading away at their workstations.

They saw strong, middle-aged men, clad in armor, being killed by swords and magic in the chaos of war.

He saw a young woman suffering from bullying and hanging herself in her room in loneliness and misery.

He saw the old woman, worn out from hardship, lose all her relatives and friends, and her heart shattered in grief.

She saw death, piled up like mountains, gathered like the sea, and indeed gathered into a sea of death.

The negative outweighs the positive, which is why it is a black ocean.

The pain of death outweighs the joy of life, and that is Terra today.

Terra.

Ordinary people cannot endure such Terra, cannot endure such a sea—if they are merely mediocre creatures, their flesh and personality will be wiped out the moment they come into contact with this deep black tide. Those who are slightly better will fall into it, be swallowed up, be assimilated, like servants succumbing to whipping.

"Boring," Miss Surtr said casually as she walked forward. The dark seawater solidified beneath her feet into deep, floating stones. And from within those stones, an even more ancient history was revealed.

She saw crowds gathering and the village transforming into a kingdom.

She saw kingdoms rise and nations fight each other.

She saw rivers of blood, and people attacking one king for the sake of another.

She saw mountains of bones, and saw those who called themselves gods ravaging the people, unleashing calamities and flames of resentment.

A single stone represents the rise and fall of a kingdom. And hundreds of stones gathered together form the path beneath her feet, paving her way forward.

But she didn't care—what was there to care about? Hadn't she seen enough? Hadn't she tasted enough? Hadn't she experienced enough?

A voice whispered in her heart—she vaguely sensed something was wrong, but couldn't pinpoint what it was. She had indeed witnessed and even participated in the rise and fall of countless kingdoms in the dream world. But in Terra ...

Terra?

—Have I never ruled Terra?

Strange thoughts surfaced in her mind again. In a daze, she felt that the hundreds of kingdoms beneath her feet were incomplete—history was fragmented, the structure was not whole, and it seemed that every kingdom of these mortal races should have an immortal individual involved in determining their origins and their end.

She frowned—and the strange feeling vanished without a trace.

—Hallucination?

Is this ocean trying to influence me?

With a light breath, though his power remained restrained, a slight surge of immortal fire welled up from the depths of his soul. The dark ocean evaporated, and the black stone path beneath his feet vaporized. And those illusions, those strange sensations, finally vanished completely, leaving not a trace.

"Nonsense," the girl murmured.

She saw through the flaw—if there really was a person, an individual, who had lived since ancient times and participated in the rise and fall of various nations, how could there not be any trace of him left behind?

How could there be no poems praising it? How could there be no proverbs fearing it?

How could those individuals who have long lifespans and are capable of immortality, who call themselves gods, not imprint the things that endure throughout history in stone and steel?

No, absolutely not. The Terra in her memory of the game was almost identical to the Terra she had seen with her own eyes five years ago when she opened her eyes. The only slight difference was that, as Rhodes Island Doctor, the Sarkaz Babel Tower Evil Persephone seemed to possess unexpected talents and powers—oh, and now there was suddenly a Star Corruption.

The change is very small, too small. So small that it cannot contain a colossal entity that has occupied the course of history. And since it cannot contain it, it is false.

She thought to herself, and then continued forward.

However, amidst the sound of her footsteps, a faint yet ancient song could be heard.

—'Bury the tyrant's face with the blood of three hundred kingdoms.'

—'With the lives of six thousand tribes, strip the tyrant of his crown.'

—'With the roar of forty thousand heroes, overthrow the tyrant's kingdom.'

—'Ending the tyrant's reign with forty-four great victories.'

—'It will be lost, it will decline, its traces and history will be forever forgotten.'

—'Because its precious sword is no longer...'

The song abruptly ended, because such humble and weak words were unworthy to be heard by the gods of this world, and because the last song was trampled underfoot by the girl's final footsteps.

The road has come to an end.

What appeared before Miss Surtr's eyes was a city in the sea, built of dark blue stone, with all its structures constructed of rhomboid, pointed stone pillars. It looked like a pyramid, but it was not just one pyramid, but hundreds or thousands of pyramids gathered together. There was only one gate for entry and exit, and that gate was as large as a towering valley.

Huge mountains, menacing mountains.

Fresh blood was seeping out from the crack in the mountain, and the smell of blood was very familiar.

"Found it," she said softly, raising her hand and the sword in it.

She saw the garrison of Stone City, those strong, fully armed, giant creatures that resembled both humans and fish. They carried harpoons and warhammers, and their city walls were equipped with crossbows and net guns for whale hunting, as if they had been preparing for a long time before the girl arrived.

There were no verbal battles, no denunciations. The moment they met, war was the only solution. All the crossbows fired in an instant, all the throwing nets obscured the view, and behind the obstructing nets came a torrent of spears infused with cursed poison.

The girl responded with flames.