As he flew upward, Shade did not forget to rummage through the pile of little trinkets in his pocket and put on a mask. But because he was rushing up too quickly, he nearly dropped the mask into the sea.
"Oh!"
The tattoo finally leaped out of the water. Raindrops struck Shade's face, and amid the surging waves, he too sprang upward. He spat out the water in his mouth while gripping the Fishing Rod tightly with both hands.
Looking around, the enormous rotting corpse appeared directly before him. Its upper body was bare, with only the area around its waist exposed above the water. The stench of decay and blood rushed into his nostrils, and the instant he saw the corpse, fear nearly made Shade let go of the Fishing Rod in his hand.
The building complex of the Old Underwater Temple that he had seen from afar, surrounding the Mermaid amid the towering waves, could finally be seen clearly.
The stone building complex rose in bizarre formations. Spiral structures that defied normal rules revealed the strangeness of deep-sea civilization. Broken Ancient Runes glimmered dimly beneath the yellow sky, while vast fields of bones lay scattered along the edge of those ruined buildings, radiating a phosphorescent radiance beneath the murky heavens—strange and chilling.
The longer he looked at the building complex, the more clearly he could hear a rhythmic, measured, even somewhat wild ethereal chant. The sound was wholly unaffected by the rain and tides. It resembled a girl's soft singing, yet also the hymns of a wild temple.
Ancient, grotesque, terror, primitive, and Spiral—these were the words that naturally rose in Shade's mind after seeing the temple complex.
And within the building complex encircling the giant corpse, at the position of its heart, through the doors and windows