"What's wrong with them?" Baker asked, lowering his weapon. "It's as if they've heard some kind of call."
"It's the Siren King," Amy said in a heavy voice.
Whales can emit vocalizations at frequencies between 15 and 40 hertz, which romantic oceanographers call whale songs. As social animals, they pass information to their pods through calls of varying frequencies, including but not limited to expressing emotion, echolocation, monitoring the environment, and corralling prey.
However, the human ear cannot capture infrasound below 20 hertz.
The terrible part was that Amy could hear the Siren King's whale song. The sound echoed in her ears with a piercing force. Having been exposed to the contaminated rain for so long, her body had undergone a subtle, imperceptible change.
Baker suddenly pointed to an advertisement on a nearby telephone pole. "It's him!"
Amy snapped out of it and went to Baker's side. Like the stubborn psoriasis of the old district, various small advertisements were plastered all over the waist-thick pole. Aside from ads for rentals, locksmiths, and loans, most had been completely soaked and blurred by the rain.
Under a peeling advertisement, she saw a somewhat familiar picture.
—Mermaid Bathhouse No. 3, the hostess is warm and hospitable, the young men are strong and fit. Contact: XXXXXXXX.
The youth in the photo had black hair and a smile as refreshing as a spring breeze, standing out among the crowd of ads. Even though it was wrinkled from being soaked in rainwater, Amy recognized him at a glance—it was clearly the waiter she had seen at the Fountain of the Gods hotel!
"The guy you mentioned, wasn't his hair red?" Amy asked with a frown.
"The eyes," Baker said non-committally.
The person in the advertisement was vastly different in appearance and temperament from the red-haired youth in his memory. He couldn't be entirely sure for a moment,
But it was those lifeless eyes that made him blurt it out instinctively.
He had seen that look in several of his uncles before; without exception, they were men whose families had suffered sudden, major tragedies—wives and children gone, as if all beauty and hope had been extinguished.
Amy's heart was in turmoil. If Baker was right, then she had met the mastermind behind all of this at the very beginning. That waiter had been in disguise; was he a member of the Pole Star Society?
She recalled the small card the waiter had given her at the start and hurriedly took it out. The content of the card was exactly the same as the advertisement on the telephone pole.
Noticing the address of the mermaid bathhouse haunted house, the waiter's previous words echoed in Amy's mind. He had said he worked part-time at this mermaid bathhouse. Could it be that the seal and the anchor point were related to this haunted house?
"Baker, let's go."
There was no time to think too much; she had to verify her guess immediately.
"Big sister," Baker suddenly spoke, pulling back Amy as she was about to move.
Amy looked back in confusion to find the boy staring intently at her—or more accurately, at the card in her hand.
"That thing... did that man give it to you?"
Amy froze and nodded subconsciously.
Baker's voice trembled: "I think I recognize it.....
"Is it possible that this card... is the 'anchor point' you were talking about?"
Amy's mind went blank for a moment as countless thoughts surfaced. To prevent the anchor point from being found by those with ill intentions, the Withered-Flower family had specifically bestowed forbidden energy upon the most mundane of objects. If that were the case, these types of cards that were flying all over the island and could be seen everywhere...
Amy swallowed hard. Gripping the sides of the card with both hands, she tried with all her might to tear it in half.
But no matter how hard she tried, the card only slightly changed shape; it could not be destroyed. Even when she crumpled it into a ball, it would slowly flatten out and return to its original state after a short while.
Amy and Baker exchanged a look.
For so many days, not a single wrinkle had appeared on the card. Amy should have realized it sooner—to prevent the plan from being exposed and someone using psychic abilities to squeeze the location of the anchor point out of him, that madman had handed the anchor point to someone else from the very beginning.
How to avoid being questioned about exactly who the anchor point was given to?
It was simple. One only needed to produce countless advertisement cards, mix the anchor point into the pile of cards, and randomly distribute them to passersby. Like a part-time youth advertising his haunted house, as long as he himself didn't know where the anchor point ended up, naturally, no one could force him to tell where it was.
"Do you remember where you first picked up this card?" Amy asked Baker.
Baker shook his head. "Recycling these haunted house ads and selling them back to the staff can earn some money. Usually, when the adults don't go out to sea, I'd pick up these little cards with my little sister on the island to sell. I've picked up way too many; I can't remember."
Amy fell silent.
She knew the island's tourism and haunted house industries were well-developed; the name of the Death Island Resort came from this.
Perhaps from the moment the Withered-Flower family took control of this miracle, they never imagined that one day two children who depended on each other would accidentally break the miracle's seal, nor that the Pole Star Society would learn the location of the anchor point through various means and set this trap.
Amy forced a smile, unsure if she was feeling lucky or self-deprecating. As the Queen of Clubs of the Dawn Society, the queen of luck and hope, her combat ability was nearly zero. She had been chosen as the executive specialist for this Siren miracle because of her profession.
She was a grade 3 lucky one. That's right, a somewhat confusing profession with no combat-related bonuses and no possibility for growth. From birth, her upper limit had been locked at grade 3. Aside from luck, she had nothing.
How did she get into the Starry Art Academy?
Wasn't it just a matter of closing her eyes and filling in multiple-choice questions at random to pass the cut-off score, or playing a random melody that just happened to touch the deepest emotions of the academy judges to gain unanimous approval?
Even after graduation, despite achieving nothing, she had inexplicably caught Aivmey's eye for her makeup and styling skills, becoming the assistant to the chief fashion designer, and then stumbled into joining the Dawn Society because of her talent as a lucky one.
If she hadn't been favored by good fortune and happened to obtain one of the anchor points, the entire Siren miracle incident would have been an almost unsolvable situation. The final destiny of everyone on the island would have been to be buried at the bottom of the sea.
The problem now was—where exactly was the seal?
Just as this thought popped into Amy's head, a crazed man passed by her, holding his head and whispering in a daze: "The seal... the Siren King... the seal..."
"The Siren King... must be sealed..."
Amy recognized the man; it was John. He looked as if he had encountered something that drove him completely insane. Kim Jung-han, who had been traveling with him, was nowhere to be seen.
The entire island began to shake violently. The ground sank by dozens of centimeters at a visible rate. The rising tides slapped against the reefs, creating ten-meter-high waves, submerging several levels of the coastline. A typhoon cyclone thousands of meters thick covered the entire sky, and the hurricane winds were nearly strong enough to snap houses in half. It was a picture of the apocalypse.
The intense ground tremors sent Amy tumbling to the ground as the Siren King's whale song drifted into her ears.
Everyone knew the Siren King needed to be sealed; if things continued like this, everyone would end up as fish food at the bottom of the ocean. But she couldn't think of any clues regarding the seal on her own. Goddess of Luck, please grant her a light that can resolve all of this!
Shortly after the tremors subsided, the sound of a girl with slightly rapid breathing reached Amy's ears.
"Where is Tang Xin? Where is she now?"
Amy turned and froze upon seeing Xu Xiaoyou. That flowing blonde hair was exceptionally striking at this moment.
Xu Xiaoyou frowned when she saw Amy looking moved to the point of tears and asked somewhat impatiently, "Where is Tang Xin?"
"She's at the schoolhouse in the east of the town, staying with Shanshan. The direction you came from," Amy replied, her voice weakening as she guessed what had happened.
Xu Xiaoyou's face darkened. The direction she came from? The entire schoolhouse had been almost reduced to ruins, and she had seen people from Life Daybreak active in that area.
"Did something happen to Shanshan's side?" Baker's face turned pale.
Xu Xiaoyou forced herself to stay calm. Tang Xin's current physiological condition had stabilized and she was out of danger; it seemed the people from Life Daybreak had found her.
"Let's talk about the Siren miracle," Xu Xiaoyou said.
Baker wanted to ask more about Shanshan. He opened his mouth, but considering the current situation, he bit his bloodless lips and remained silent, his small body trembling.
Seeing the boy like this, Amy sighed softly and quickly informed Xu Xiaoyou of everything she had discovered.
After hearing this, Xu Xiaoyou took the card from Amy's hand and fell into thought for a moment. She had already dealt with Von Jay,
And now, the anchor point had made its way back into her hands after a long detour.
"Seal... Siren King."
Xu Xiaoyou was very concerned about those words. Her naturally keen sixth sense for events allowed her to detect a clue, though she didn't show it on the surface.
Once she handed over the anchor point, Amy took Baker to look for Shanshan. Xu Xiaoyou quickly caught up to John, who had passed by earlier, easily knocking the man unconscious to restrain him before leaning over to check his memories.
Everything that had happened in the underground haunted house flashed through her mind. She sifted for potentially useful information until the mental image finally froze on Kim Jung-han, who had turned into a siren cocoon.
He had established some kind of connection with the Siren King at the end and learned part of the truth about the seal.
Xu Xiaoyou made a swift judgment.
What Kim Jung-han wanted to express wasn't for the other members of the Paranormal Explorers to go seal the Siren King, but to tell them that the Siren King himself was the seal!
This also explained why she hadn't been able to find anything wrong even with 【Hunter's Perception】 and her Gaze of Spiritual Vision while turning the whole island upside down. After the miracle arrived, the original seal had lost its effect; the Siren King was the walking sealing ground.
Having deduced the truth, control over the situation gradually returned to her hands, and a meticulous plan began to form in Xu Xiaoyou's mind.
Water flowed down Xu Xiaoyou's face, her golden pupils lighting up. She took out a 【Stamina Recovery Potion】 and used it on Angelina's character card.
Receiving the agreed-upon signal, a silver figure appeared by her side in less than half a minute, looking thoroughly annoyed.
"If you're calling me over, you'd better have a good reason."
"Do you really hate seeing me that much, Anya?" Xu Xiaoyou said sadly.
Angelina pinned Xu Xiaoyou against the wall with a harsh tone. "If you called me here to spout nonsense, I might not be able to kill you, but I can break one of your fingers every time I see your face. Want to try?"
Xu Xiaoyou raised her hands in a gesture of weakness. The feeling of being turned upon by a little wolf cub she had raised herself was quite miraculous.
Her face calmed. "How confident are you in a direct confrontation with that grade 5 standard-bearer?"
Angelina: "..."
"What are you trying to do?" Angelina's voice was somewhat raspy.
"Can you hear it?"
As urban legends, they could clearly hear the Siren King's whale song hovering over the island.
"It's the sound of that monster. What does it have to do with me?"
"I can find a way to help you lure away the companions by her side. You only need to lead her to the Siren King and find a way to give this to her," Xu Xiaoyou said as she handed over the card.
"Haven't you always wanted to get rid of the trouble from Section 6? This is a great opportunity. I can help you, provided that you ensure that girl's life isn't in danger from the side," Xu Xiaoyou said.
Angelina took the card, her face expressionless. "Are you joking with me?"
"You want to get rid of the trouble, but you don't want to kill that person directly. What exactly are you trying to do?"
Xu Xiaoyou looked aggrieved. "I'm doing this for your own good. Think about it—if Chihong really dies in this incident,
And the association sends a prism grade fixer next time, what would you do?"
"Heavily wounding a grade 5 fixer and killing a grade 5 fixer are two different things."
"I'll leave the Star of Art and go somewhere else," Angelina said.
Xu Xiaoyou's lips curled into a smile. "That won't do. I can't bear to leave Anya. You still have to come back to see me every month. Without a powerful Anya by my side, I'd feel very insecure."
"You have to protect my safety."
Terrifying bloodshot veins crept into Angelina's eyes. She fought back the urge to vent her frustrations on the person in front of her, gritting her teeth. "What exactly do you want to do!"
"Resolve the Siren miracle while simultaneously wounding everyone in Section 6, leaving them in a dilemma. Drag them down on the Star of Art for a long time so they can't pose a fatal threat to you or me, yet still maintain a certain level of combat capability—at least until the day I leave."
Angelina understood Xu Xiaoyou's meaning. After a moment of silence, she shook her black glove and said, "Under the restriction of this glove, I'm not that person's match."
"And without the glove?" Xu Xiaoyou tilted her head and asked.
Angelina was at a loss for words. She turned her head. "Even if I lose my sanity, I'm not her match."
Seeing that Xu Xiaoyou didn't look surprised, Angelina closed in fiercely. "But fighting ten of you at once is still no problem.
Want to try?"
Xu Xiaoyou bit her lip, her eyelids lowering slightly. "Where are we fighting?"
"Anywhere!" Angelina blurted out before realizing the oddity in the question. Her expression became animated. Finally, she let go of Xu Xiaoyou's messy collar and silently changed the subject.
"A grade 5 fixer isn't as simple as you think. They aren't on the same life level as those grade 4 trash."
"If it's just stalling her for a while, I can do it. You have to promise me that you won't sell me out this time," Angelina said. "You have to help me stall the others from Section 6."
Xu Xiaoyou stood on tiptoe and patted Angelina's head. "Rest assured, Anya. I swear to the Stars that I am absolutely on the same side as you."
The faint scent of hyacinth and honey perfume from the girl lingered at the tip of Angelina's nose. Her wolf ears were enveloped in a gentle warmth, like curling up in a mother's soft fur on a winter day—warm and peaceful. Coming back to her senses, she slapped Xu Xiaoyou's hand away, her gaze cold.
"I also swear to the Stars—if you dare to pull any stunts behind my back, I'll come back and kill you first."
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