"Sparkle, do you like Mommy more or Daddy more?" Anna asked her daughter.
A hint of hesitation flickered across Sparkle's little face. She lowered her head and pondered for a moment before she looked up at Anna again and said, "Can we not kill Daddy? If we kill him, we'll never see him again."
Tenderness filled Anna's gaze as she looked at Sparkle. Then, she stroked her light blonde hair, asking, "Sparkle, isn't Mommy nicer to you than Daddy?"
Sparkle went through a moment of internal struggle before nodding.
"That's right. No matter what happens, you should always be on Mommy's side. Always trust Mommy; there's a reason for everything Mommy does."
Anna then looked up at the dark dome above. "You heard everything, right?"
A massive stone sculpture descended in front of Anna and crashed to the ground with a loud, dull thud.
It was the statue of the Pope. The Pope nodded in satisfaction at Anna, saying, "Don't worry, that ship will never make it back to the Sea of Mist."
Sparkle's eyes widened in surprise at the statue's sudden appearance. The turn of events was a bit too complex for her one-year-old mind to understand.
"Very well, Miss Anna. Thank you for the assistance you've provided to the Divine Light Order. We will forever remember your help. I never expected that those mixed blood would think of targeting us."
Anna sat up on her beach chair and looked calmly at the aged figure. "It's time for you to pay up. My information isn't free."
The Pope didn't seem too surprised by Anna's words. "Speak, but I can't help you right now. You should know that the situation on my end is quite tense as well."
"I don't want anything from you. Neither do I need your assistance. I only want a promise from you."
"What promise?"
Anna didn't answer immediately. Instead, she looked at the statue for a few seconds before letting out a chuckle. "Can you tell me what exactly are you using Charles for?"
"Do you even need to ask? Of course it's to find the way to the surface. I thought considering your relationship with Charles, he would have told you everything," the Pope replied with a shrug.
"You've been using him," Anna remarked calmly, but her words were laced with confidence.
The Pope thought for a brief moment before he slowly said, "So you want me to promise not to use him anymore? That might be difficult. Even if I agree to it, Charles probably wouldn't agree."
"No. I want you to promise me that no matter what happens in the future, you absolutely cannot harm him or let him die."
"Hmm" The stone sculpture's brows furrowed before it eventually spoke. "Alright, I promise you."
"A mere verbal promise won't suffice. As far as I know, the Divine Light Order is best known for lying through their teeth," Anna commented, her voice laced with sarcasm.
"Then what do you propose?"
"Sign a contract, with the Feaster as the witness..."
With a hint of threat in her voice, Anna continued, "It's best not to breach such a contract lightly. Not even your Light God could save you from the Feaster's wrath if you were to do so. "
The stone sculpture of the Pope showed no traces of panic. Instead, a smile spread across its face. "Are you sure about this? The last person who made a contract with me ended up shooting himself in the foot."
"You can choose not to make the promise. The Haikors' turtleshell ship hasn't gone too far. I can still get them to come back."
The Pope stroked his stone beard and said, "Alright, I agree. Please make it quick. I'm quite busy over here, as our battle with the Fhtagn Covenant is still ongoing."
Under Anna's lead, they shifted to a depression on the eastern side of the dock. The ground looked like it had been struck by a massive iron ball.
The aftermath of it was a semicircular pit that was filled with wooden poles. On each pole, a human was bound to it, and everyone appeared to be in great agony with mushrooms growing out from their noses and ears.
These were the farmers on World's Crown, and Anna had purchased them. For the black ryegrass farmers, selling the elderly members of the household, who were dying from the torturous spores, for a significant sum of money was a profitable transaction for them.
The wooden poles in the pit were not uniformly spaced apart, but they seemed to follow an indescribable pattern.
"Ah such a rare ritual. Where did you find it? I remember this ritual requires the soul fragments of all those involved in the contract even if they are just being mentioned. Ours are manageable, but what about Charles'?" the Pope asked.
Anna's lips parted to reveal her tongue with a glint of blue sitting at the tip.
"It has all been prepared in advance. Please step into the pit. You should know the ritual incantations."
Without saying another word, the Pope directly floated into the pit.
Anna's slender form suddenly expanded and a twisted, deformed monster suddenly appeared in place. Her mouth parted to emit a high-frequency tremble.
As Anna slightly swayed her tentacles, the people bound to the poles parted their mouths simultaneously and chanted along to her in tones that eluded a normal human's vocal cords.
The Pope looked up to specks of dust falling down. The dome above the pit began to twist; the darkness receded slowly to reveal a kaleidoscope of white dots.
It was stars, a sky full of stars, a sight never seen in the Subterranean Sea. The cold starlight cast a silvery sheen over the entire World's Crown.
The Pope instantly felt a gaze from the deepest part of the starry expanse. The unsettling sensation was wholly unlike that of the Light God.
He began to swear an oath in a high-frequency voice. There was one phrase that was repeated constantly. If the phrase were to be pronounced in human words, the closest approximation would be "Tawil At-Umr."
Anna's voice, the Pope's voice, and the voices of the tributes overlapped. Then, their surroundings seemed to distort.
The tide began to recede, the darkness retreated, and the flesh on the humans turned transparent.
Sparkle was astonished when she realized that she could see everyone's bones, organs and even the marrow within their bones. She could even see the structure of the lens in their eyes. It was as if at this moment, the human body had become transparent in her eyes.
An unknown amount of time passed before everything returned to normal, apart from the tributes.
Their bodies were undergoing some form of ethereal transformation, and they turned into what seemed like individual strands of solidified jelly that disappeared with the vanishing stars.
Cracks began to spread across the Pope's stone sculpture as he turned to Anna with a smile.
"You are very wary of me, aren't you? You are the one secretly feeding Charles all those suspicions he has about me, aren't you? Unfortunately, you didn't succeed."
Anna remained silent. Her monstrous body swiftly returned to her human form, and she bent down to pick Sparkle up.
"I'm curious," the Pope continued. "Why didn't you just control Charles directly and make him oppose me? After all, you already left a tentacle inside his head. You need just a mere thought to do anything you want."
"Charles' decision to allow me to leave one of my tentacles in his brain was born out of trust. I will never ever try to control his thoughts," Anna retorted calmly.
More and more dust fell from the crumbling stone sculpture. The sculpture's arm even fell off into the pit and crashed into a wooden pole.
"Is that so? Would a normal man really fall in love with a tentacle monster? Did you really not alter his memories in secret?"
"Absolutely not!" Anna's rebuttal was quick and vehement.
The stone sculpture smiled before disintegrating into a heap of rubble.
"Sparkle, do you like Mommy more or Daddy more?" Anna asked her daughter.
A hint of hesitation flickered across Sparkle's little face. She lowered her head and pondered for a moment before she looked up at Anna again and said, "Can we not kill Daddy? If we kill him, we'll never see him again."
Tenderness filled Anna's gaze as she looked at Sparkle. Then, she stroked her light blonde hair, asking, "Sparkle, isn't Mommy nicer to you than Daddy?"
Sparkle went through a moment of internal struggle before nodding.
"That's right. No matter what happens, you should always be on Mommy's side. Always trust Mommy; there's a reason for everything Mommy does."
Anna then looked up at the dark dome above. "You heard everything, right?"
A massive stone sculpture descended in front of Anna and crashed to the ground with a loud, dull thud.
It was the statue of the Pope. The Pope nodded in satisfaction at Anna, saying, "Don't worry, that ship will never make it back to the Sea of Mist."
Sparkle's eyes widened in surprise at the statue's sudden appearance. The turn of events was a bit too complex for her one-year-old mind to understand.
"Very well, Miss Anna. Thank you for the assistance you've provided to the Divine Light Order. We will forever remember your help. I never expected that those mixed blood would think of targeting us."
Anna sat up on her beach chair and looked calmly at the aged figure. "It's time for you to pay up. My information isn't free."
The Pope didn't seem too surprised by Anna's words. "Speak, but I can't help you right now. You should know that the situation on my end is quite tense as well."
"I don't want anything from you. Neither do I need your assistance. I only want a promise from you."
"What promise?"
Anna didn't answer immediately. Instead, she looked at the statue for a few seconds before letting out a chuckle. "Can you tell me what exactly are you using Charles for?"
"Do you even need to ask? Of course it's to find the way to the surface. I thought considering your relationship with Charles, he would have told you everything," the Pope replied with a shrug.
"You've been using him," Anna remarked calmly, but her words were laced with confidence.
The Pope thought for a brief moment before he slowly said, "So you want me to promise not to use him anymore? That might be difficult. Even if I agree to it, Charles probably wouldn't agree."
"No. I want you to promise me that no matter what happens in the future, you absolutely cannot harm him or let him die."
"Hmm" The stone sculpture's brows furrowed before it eventually spoke. "Alright, I promise you."
"A mere verbal promise won't suffice. As far as I know, the Divine Light Order is best known for lying through their teeth," Anna commented, her voice laced with sarcasm.
"Then what do you propose?"
"Sign a contract, with the Feaster as the witness..."
With a hint of threat in her voice, Anna continued, "It's best not to breach such a contract lightly. Not even your Light God could save you from the Feaster's wrath if you were to do so. "
The stone sculpture of the Pope showed no traces of panic. Instead, a smile spread across its face. "Are you sure about this? The last person who made a contract with me ended up shooting himself in the foot."
"You can choose not to make the promise. The Haikors' turtleshell ship hasn't gone too far. I can still get them to come back."
The Pope stroked his stone beard and said, "Alright, I agree. Please make it quick. I'm quite busy over here, as our battle with the Fhtagn Covenant is still ongoing."
Under Anna's lead, they shifted to a depression on the eastern side of the dock. The ground looked like it had been struck by a massive iron ball.
The aftermath of it was a semicircular pit that was filled with wooden poles. On each pole, a human was bound to it, and everyone appeared to be in great agony with mushrooms growing out from their noses and ears.
These were the farmers on World's Crown, and Anna had purchased them. For the black ryegrass farmers, selling the elderly members of the household, who were dying from the torturous spores, for a significant sum of money was a profitable transaction for them.
The wooden poles in the pit were not uniformly spaced apart, but they seemed to follow an indescribable pattern.
"Ah such a rare ritual. Where did you find it? I remember this ritual requires the soul fragments of all those involved in the contract even if they are just being mentioned. Ours are manageable, but what about Charles'?" the Pope asked.
Anna's lips parted to reveal her tongue with a glint of blue sitting at the tip.
"It has all been prepared in advance. Please step into the pit. You should know the ritual incantations."
Without saying another word, the Pope directly floated into the pit.
Anna's slender form suddenly expanded and a twisted, deformed monster suddenly appeared in place. Her mouth parted to emit a high-frequency tremble.
As Anna slightly swayed her tentacles, the people bound to the poles parted their mouths simultaneously and chanted along to her in tones that eluded a normal human's vocal cords.
The Pope looked up to specks of dust falling down. The dome above the pit began to twist; the darkness receded slowly to reveal a kaleidoscope of white dots.
It was stars, a sky full of stars, a sight never seen in the Subterranean Sea. The cold starlight cast a silvery sheen over the entire World's Crown.
The Pope instantly felt a gaze from the deepest part of the starry expanse. The unsettling sensation was wholly unlike that of the Light God.
He began to swear an oath in a high-frequency voice. There was one phrase that was repeated constantly. If the phrase were to be pronounced in human words, the closest approximation would be "Tawil At-Umr."
Anna's voice, the Pope's voice, and the voices of the tributes overlapped. Then, their surroundings seemed to distort.
The tide began to recede, the darkness retreated, and the flesh on the humans turned transparent.
Sparkle was astonished when she realized that she could see everyone's bones, organs and even the marrow within their bones. She could even see the structure of the lens in their eyes. It was as if at this moment, the human body had become transparent in her eyes.
An unknown amount of time passed before everything returned to normal, apart from the tributes.
Their bodies were undergoing some form of ethereal transformation, and they turned into what seemed like individual strands of solidified jelly that disappeared with the vanishing stars.
Cracks began to spread across the Pope's stone sculpture as he turned to Anna with a smile.
"You are very wary of me, aren't you? You are the one secretly feeding Charles all those suspicions he has about me, aren't you? Unfortunately, you didn't succeed."
Anna remained silent. Her monstrous body swiftly returned to her human form, and she bent down to pick Sparkle up.
"I'm curious," the Pope continued. "Why didn't you just control Charles directly and make him oppose me? After all, you already left a tentacle inside his head. You need just a mere thought to do anything you want."
"Charles' decision to allow me to leave one of my tentacles in his brain was born out of trust. I will never ever try to control his thoughts," Anna retorted calmly.
More and more dust fell from the crumbling stone sculpture. The sculpture's arm even fell off into the pit and crashed into a wooden pole.
"Is that so? Would a normal man really fall in love with a tentacle monster? Did you really not alter his memories in secret?"
"Absolutely not!" Anna's rebuttal was quick and vehement.
The stone sculpture smiled before disintegrating into a heap of rubble.
