The King of Curses

Chapter 309: Echoes of the Ancient Times

After temporarily parting with Yi Qingyan, Cen Dongsheng went to see An Zhizhen first.

"You are more generous."

After the elder sister understood his thoughts, she burst out laughing.

"If Sister Zhizhen objects..."

"No. You know I don't care."

The woman sighed.

"If we let her go, many people on this ship might die. Sister Qingyan...is different from us and most people in this world."

She doesn't care about interests, or the gap in status and power. She only thinks about the things in front of her.

She may care about the outcome, but this concern will not affect her current choice. "Eradicate all evil" and "kill them all" are her style.

"It would be nice if she was just a beautiful girl with a cute appearance, but unfortunately she holds the most destructive power in the world in her hands."

Although she said "what a pity", it was obvious that the elder sister didn't feel any regret at all.

"There's a lot of unsightly stuff on this ship, and someone needs to clean it up."

……

Then, Cen Dongsheng went to see Jiang Yunmei again.

"What just happened..."

"Well, I see it."

The senior looked at the ground beneath her feet.

Her eyes easily penetrated the layers of walls and decks and saw the engine room at the bottom.

"The activities of the Mirage Lord came to a standstill, so the entire ship stopped. There was a person standing there."

"who is it?"

Jiang Yunmei silently shared the images in her mind with him.

"…Is it her?"

The person appearing in the center of the picture is the eldest sister among the snail girls. She is standing at one end of the jellyfish barrier with a smile on her face.

The Mirage Lord was perched at the other end, its slightly glowing tentacles coiling around it as if out of curiosity.

The snail girl took the initiative to grab one of them and gently shook it up and down. This scene was like a handshake and greeting in human society.

"Strange, her temperament seems to have changed."

Cen Dongsheng thought.

"You know her? We just met once at the party."

His thoughts were heard by the girl, and Jiang Yunmei asked curiously.

"The snail lady later took the initiative to invite me out, and after I agreed, I went to the casino with her."

"..."

Jiang Yunmei choked and her expression seemed speechless.

"We were able to hook up on our second meeting? Teacher Cen is really charming."

"No, it seems like it was sent by Meng Huafan, right? I didn't accept it."

"I think only those who are very 'familiar' with her in every aspect can distinguish the true from the false..."

Cen Dongsheng ignored the sarcasm in the senior's words and replied:

"I only spent half an hour with her, so I'm not familiar with her, but her temperament is definitely different from last time."

"Is she someone in disguise?"

Jiang Yunmei stared at it intently for a while, then shook her head.

"I'm sorry, I can't tell with my own eyes. If Mr. Cen's guess is correct, then I may have to see the real 'Snail Girl' first before I can tell whether she is real or fake."

"So, she either always looked like this, or she was replaced before we met her."

Cen Dongsheng stroked his chin.

He naturally couldn't see through Jiang Yunmei's disguise. What made him feel strange was not the appearance or spiritual perception, but the "temperament", which could only be detected after personal contact with the other party.

For example, if one day the elder sister turns into an ignorant fool and the younger sister Qingyan turns into an evil little devil, even if there is nothing wrong with them in other aspects, the acquaintances around them will still feel that they are not the same person.

When she was with him, Snail Girl gave people an impression of being introverted and shy, but the man in the picture was a completely different person.

Something more evil, something higher in level, was descending upon her.

"I've only been with her for half an hour, it could just be my illusion..."

Cen Dongsheng prepared to leave.

"As for whether it is true or not, you will know once you meet her in person."

*
"He should be here now, right? Hehe..."

"Yi" retracted his gaze upward.

She sensed a pair of prying eyes and adjusted her disguise.

Of course, this was just something she did out of interest and it didn't affect her plans.

The girl's gaze returned to the mass of flesh in front of her.

"Mirage Lord, how does it feel to be a human puppet?"

The tone of her voice was as if she was talking to an old friend she had known for many years, casual and friendly.

The ball of flesh did not open its mouth. Its sensory organs, those fragile tentacles, crawled along invisible lines in the air and cautiously reached out.

It is hard to imagine seeing emotions such as "innocence" and "curiosity" from such a hideous monster without any human form; but this is the fact, it is like an ignorant child.

"Do you still remember me? Or..."

She sighed softly.

"Now you have no intellect, no memory, nothing. Only an idiot body remains."

The girl's fingers gently touched the jellyfish barrier.

Cen Dongsheng had once blasted this place open with his fist. After being repaired by the owner of the ship himself, it became even tougher and its strength increased several times. However, it still couldn't withstand that slender finger and was pierced through like a thin layer of toilet paper.

"Yi" walked to the front of the meat ball, flicked away the tentacles that were reaching out, and raised his head to look at the monster in front of him.

"A long time ago, we met. At that time, you were ambitious and said that you wanted to become the master of the sea and one day become a god on par with us. The sea has changed dramatically, the sky and the earth have fallen, the dynasties of the sea people have all been destroyed, the countries of the demons have sunk into the ground, and humans, who were once like ants, have become the masters of this world... and you have fallen into this state."

She looked down at the Mirage Lord with a condescending and compassionate gaze.

"How pitiful! Let me end your life without dignity."

Very few of them have survived from the time when she was active to the present day.

Even the gods who were said to live as long as the heaven and earth perished in the war. Those who survived were the final victors, the strongest, and the wisest who knew how to protect themselves.

Apart from the gods, only a very small number of races with tenacious vitality and long lifespan can survive the changes in heaven and earth and the passage of time. The Mirage Lord is one of them. It has been sleeping in the seabed for nearly ten thousand years and escaped the disaster that swept the planet.

After she woke up, the Mirage Master was a rare acquaintance she could meet. She had a subtle feeling towards him. Although they had only met once, they were from the same era after all. How should she describe this emotion?

A thought flashed through her mind: In human terms, this is probably "the rabbit dies and the fox mourns", right?

Unfortunately, although the body of the Mirage Lord still remained, his former consciousness had disappeared completely and he could not communicate with her. What was left was a puppet that was neither real nor fake and was manipulated by humans. Seeing this, she immediately made a decision: to end this ugly existence.

……

She stretched out her slender hand and touched the empty air in front of her.

"..."

She seemed to be doing nothing, but the ball of flesh suddenly stopped moving, its silver-gray tentacles curled up, the wriggling stopped, and the gills that opened and closed with its breathing closed.

It seemed to have fallen into a deep sleep.

In the first second, the Mirage Lord went on strike completely, and the Mirage, which was powered by it as its core energy source, stopped sailing with a loud bang.

In the second, the silver-gray tentacles and the floating plankton nearby all "fell" downwards and disappeared into nothingness.

In the third second, the entire space where the Mirage Lord was located began to fall, and everything in the field of vision was distorted and slid towards the invisible abyss...

In the fourth second, the Mirage Lord suddenly woke up.

A powerful and unfamiliar will descended upon the monster, and the body of the meatball shattered in the blink of an eye. Countless pieces of meat flew in all directions like butterflies. Half of them were swallowed by the "invisible abyss", but the other half managed to escape the trap and reunited on the other side of the ship.

Several cracks appeared on the ball of flesh, and several irregular eyeballs were rolling between them, staring at her coldly.

"You are here indeed, on top of it."

Her plan to kill the Mirage Lord failed, but she was not surprised at all. She withdrew her hand from the air and laughed lightly and happily.

"——Meng Huafan, you finally came to see me."

……

"The Lord of Mirage" - or "Meng Huafan", was looking at the girl in front of him with caution.

"What are you doing here? This is my place."

The person opposite seemed to be his "first daughter" who was transformed by his own hands. In the end, she chose to betray him and left the ship. She only returned here in recent days.

But when she came back, she was no longer "her".

"You were the one who woke me up, and now you're asking me the same question?"

The evil god's skin faded away little by little, revealing his true appearance.

"Of course I came to you to seek an explanation. You imprisoned my acquaintances and woke me up from my sleep. I am just repeating what you did and being an uninvited guest."

"The ancient evil god...it is you after all."

Meng Huafan confirmed the other party's identity.

……

This happened two months ago.

After he captured the Mirage Lord, he used its power to transform the Mirage into a fortress capable of traveling through the deep sea, underground, and even outer space, preparing to explore the other side of this world that had been hidden by history.

——“A larger and more mysterious world, where there will be abundant untapped resources, legacies and secrets from ancient times, and sufficiently powerful opponents.”

Meng Huafan once said this to Cen Dongsheng and An Zhizhen, and it was true because he did just that.

With the strength of a special-class spell-binding master, even the dangerous creatures left over from the ancient times would hardly threaten him. They would either turn them into his puppets like the Mirage Lord, or simply kill them.

What's more, in most places, only empty ruins remain, without any trace of life. Everything that once existed has been lost in the dust of time.

Meng Huafan was immersed in exploration and adventure. Compared with the benefits in the human world, the rewards he got from here were more substantial. Until one day, he accidentally broke into a strange and alien space.

He originally thought it was just a ruin that could be seen everywhere, but the secrets hidden here were more terrifying than he had imagined. The more he dug down, the more frightened he became. He even discovered that there was an ancient god sleeping here that was more powerful than himself.

and so……

He decisively chose to escape.

But part of the god's consciousness had awakened and chased onto the ship.

The girl in the white dress who had regained her true appearance turned in a circle in the air and landed lightly on the ground. Meng Huafan looked at her gloomily and finally came to the conclusion:
He had left last time out of caution, but this time, there was no need for him to run away.

"You are not a complete 'God' now. You cannot defeat me."

"Yes, I just got back the ability to fight with you strong humans, so I rushed here. I sincerely hope you can show mercy~"

The meatball didn't answer, but the evil god had already noticed the subtle change in the atmosphere.

A biting chill began to permeate the air around them, and the bright and gentle light dimmed in an instant, as if it had gone from day to night.

"I didn't expect to call for help."

There are shallow dimples on Loujia's face and his lips are curved upwards.

……

In the darkness, a figure wearing a dark hood walked out.

"Is this what you call... the ancient god?"

Wan Dugu's cold pupils were ignited by the fire of ambition for the first time.

"It's incredible. The life form is completely different from humans."

*
The lower deck was silent and hushed.

The meat ball, the man, and the girl faced each other, while the monsters, humans, and gods silently observed each other.

Wan Dugu spoke slowly:
"Do you know the special-class curse master who was killed some time ago?"

"The dragon slayer from the Shanyin Ghost Market." Meatball responded, "It just so happens that several of the parties involved are on this ship. I can introduce you to each other."

"That's not necessary. I've already met everyone I should meet."

Wan Dugu laughed in a low voice.

"I mean, before he died, I went to see him and asked him for advice."

"Oh? This is the first time I've heard of it."

"According to my research, the Dragon Slayer is the oldest among 'us'. I was very interested in what insights such a senior could have, but the result disappointed me. His idea was to increase his true energy by absorbing external forces, break the boundaries, and thus get a glimpse of a higher realm."

"That sounds a bit taken for granted."

Meatball didn't care.

"Too rough." Wan Dugu shook his head. "I am sure that this path is not feasible. It is impossible to break through the realm above the special level with such a simple method."

Without exception, all the special spell-binding masters are staring at this road to heaven; whoever can take this step first will be able to dominate the fate of all the rest.

"So, I have to thank you, Mr. Meng. You gave me a great gift. I never thought that in this era, I would be able to witness the existence of someone who has walked that path with my own eyes."

"I said, I am a generous person. She has echoes of ancient times and secrets leading to a higher level."

The sound of Meatball began to echo throughout the cabin.

"We must seize this opportunity...right?"

(End of this chapter)