Shrouded Seascape

Lilith gazed at the lovely girl through the dark red liquid in her goblet. A charming smile suffused her alluring face as she remarked, "Hehe, you're so pretty. When you were on Charles' ship, did you two…"

"No, nothing happened!" Lily exclaimed with her face flushed red. "I was still a mouse back then!"

Lily then told Lilith about how she ended up becoming a mouse.

"Really? How interesting. That reminds me of a talking fish I saw two hundred years ago. I thought it was another new trick that a sea monster was using to deceive people into becoming its food.

"After hearing what you said, I feel like that fish had the same experience as you."

"Really? Did you ask the fish how it became that way?" Lily asked. She still had no clue about what had actually happened to her, so perhaps she could learn more about it from Lilith's account.

"No, I grilled the fish. It tasted pretty good." Lilith replied.

Lily was at a loss for words.

"Actually, there's no need for you to ask that kind of question. There are many bizarre phenomena in this vast seascape, and they happen more often than you think. People becoming other things isn't as uncommon as you think it is."

"You became a mouse upon falling into the sea. If that's all that happened to you, then I think you were quite lucky."

The implication behind Lilith's words was unmistakable. The more common fate of falling into the sea was death or even torment from which death offered no escape.

At this point, the final dessert was served. Lily felt that it was about time and said, "Thank you for accommodating me today. I have to leave now. Mr. Charles is in trouble, and I need to go help him."

With that, Lily stood up and started walking toward the exit. After a few steps, however, she stopped and stared at the Blood Clan's Mother sitting before the dining table.

"Can you tell me if you've made any deductions about the surface world? The surface world is very important to Mr. Charles, and any information related to it might come in handy."

It turned out that both Lilith and Lily were probing each other.

"It is unclear whether the surface world still exists or not, but I suspect that the world above the Colossal Hole Fortress isn't the real surface world at all," Lilith said.

In contrast to her shocking statement, Lilith sounded calm and composed.

"Huh?" Lily's eyes widened in astonishment. "Why do you say that?"

Lilith put her goblet on the dining table and sighed softly. "Let me tell you a secret—I've been telling my children outside that someone has invited me to come here, but the truth is… the Foundation captured me and brought me here."

"I know," Lily said, nodding. "Mr. Charles and I have been to the island where you were imprisoned."

Lilith's eyes darted as she reminisced about the distant past.

"I was imprisoned in a containment site, so I had no way of hearing any news from the outside world, but there were some things that I could still sense. One of them was the strong tremors reverberating across the ground."

"A few years before the Foundation brought us here, earthquakes occurred so frequently that there was no way it could have been normal. I also learned that despite capturing dozens of Blood Clan members, they brought with them only two vampires—a male and a female vampire, which is truly strange.

"When I finally managed to escape, I discovered that aside from the members of the Blood Clan, they also took quite a number of human beings as well as animals from a huge variety of species.

"The Foundation has always been a cautious and meticulous organization. Given their nature, would they really resort to a rushed, large-scale relocation instead of a systematic and gradual exploration of such a massive, unknown region?

"Anyway, have you heard about Noah's Ark in the Bible?" Lilith asked.

As a native of the Subterranean Sea, Lily had never heard of the Bible.

"Noah's Ark was a huge ship built by Noah according to God's instructions. It was made so that Noah and his family, as well as all the world's animals, could survive a catastrophe caused by God's divine punishment.

"Don't you think that the Foundation's actions are very similar to Noah's Ark?"

"When I founded Dark Crystal Island five hundred years ago, I sent people out to look for the exit to the surface world, but they found nothing. The Foundation had destroyed all the exits to the surface world.

"It was like they were afraid of something. Don't you think that sounds fishy?

"With that in mind, this is my conjecture—the Foundation was forced to flee the surface world by an extremely terrifying disaster. In other words, the surface world most likely doesn't exist anymore."

"Huh? No, that's wrong. Mr. Charles has fallen into this place from the surface world, and he told me many things about the surface world, so it definitely still exists," Lily said, pointing out a contradiction.

Charles had clearly fallen into the Subterranean Sea from the surface world more than a decade ago. If the surface world had ceased to exist a long time ago, where was Charles from then?

The contradiction made Lily doubt every single word coming out of Lilith's mouth.

Was Lilith lying to her?

"I see. That is indeed weird. My conjecture says that the surface world no longer exists, but yet he still ended up falling here," Lilith remarked. Then, she frowned and fell into deep contemplation for a while.

Eventually, Lilith waved her hand dismissively and said, "Maybe I misremembered it. Anyway, just go ahead and treat my conjecture as an interesting story. It's been a thousand years, so my memories are a bit hazy."

Lily nodded and said, "Thank you for accommodating me today, but I really have to leave now."

She pulled the straps of the backpack in front of her chest and bowed slightly toward Lilith.

"Child, I've grown fond of you, and I hope you'll visit me often," Lilith said. This time, she didn't try to make Lily stay. Lilith had spent half a day probing for information, but there wasn't much valuable information.

Still, she would have to make a detailed report to Governor Weister of Hope Island. The child didn't seem as simple as she appeared after all.

"Are you sure you don't want to eat something? Our island's black pudding is really good, and it's actually a specialty food from my home country on the surface world, Ireland," Lilith said, pointing at the untouched dessert on the table.

Lily pondered over it before nodding and walking toward the dining table. She picked up a spoon and scooped a spoonful of the dessert. She squinted as soon as the dessert landed in her mouth.

"It's so sweet and delicious," she remarked.

With that, Lily placed another spoonful of pudding into her mouth, but her expression suddenly changed. It wasn't just her; Lilith's face became solemn as well.

Swoosh!

The two instantly arrived on the balcony, and their gaze was fixed on the northwest.

"Something is coming down from there!" Lilith exclaimed, and her eyes trembled in panic. Her keen senses had allowed her to sense the slow descent of a distinct, incomprehensible aura.

The aura disappeared a few seconds later, but Lilith had no plans of ignoring it.

"Nautical chart! Compass!"

Thousands of bats appeared out of nowhere, and they carried a nautical chart and a compass to Lilith.

After finding her bearings, Lilith used her sharp nails to draw a straight line on the nautical chart. The line started from Dark Crystal Island and stopped on a certain island.

"The Colossal Hole Fortress is above this island! Did something happen on the surface world?"