Although she had successfully risen to divine messenger, the curse that came with it had caused her to fall apart. She had been forced to use a mermaid as a vessel, transferring her pure self into it, abandoning her body, and seeking a new life.
Fu Qian recalled the story Vivian had told him.
And so far, plenty of things had confirmed that account.
The eggs—symbols of the self condensed and expelled from the body through a special method—did indeed leave similar traces on the fishfolk.
And the reaction of the little mermaid princess named Ninianni, as the thing he had crushed gradually faded away, proved that it truly bore Vivian's mark.
But there was one very important question: was the one who had made a deal with him really Vivian?
In other words, the curious frog had made him gather things through killing, so that it could eventually be reborn inside him. Was the part that would be reborn the pure part, or the curse itself?
Rather than believe that Vivian had left her sister here, gone off alone to attempt a dangerous ascension, then failed and become trapped somewhere she couldn't return from, Fu Qian leaned toward a simpler explanation: something had eaten Vivian after she left home.
The one who had spoken with him was that thing, not Vivian.
Its actions had indeed helped him ascend, but the side effects had left him in a state of collapse.
The mermaids it had lured here were its way of purging the poison.
And he was no different.
It wanted to shift its affliction onto him.
As for the method of advancing to the Second Order that it had offered in exchange, it might not have been entirely a lie.
By then, the self that replaced its current state