Novalia’s chest heaved violently. “Queen Quina was a kind person! She wouldn't harm others for her own selfish desires!”
“You ask what you did wrong? Your mistake was your self-righteousness! You thought you were helping her, but you only burdened her with immense guilt and pushed her into the abyss.”
“Since you aren't Quina, where is the real Quina?”
Kani sighed. “She is dead. She died of excessive blood loss during a difficult childbirth.”
“I went to see her one last time. She begged me to take care of her child, so I lived on using her identity, raising William to adulthood.”
At this point, Kani’s palms tightened bit by bit, her eyes filling with dark emotions.
“Actually, every time I looked at William, I wanted nothing more than to kill him with my own hands. He was the one who caused Quina's death!”
“But whenever I thought of Quina's final words, I had to suppress the killing intent in my heart and pretend to be a loving mother.”
The more Ning Busan listened, the more he felt something was off.
Was it possible that Quina was simply afraid Kani would blame William for her death, which was why she left this final wish as a protective shield for him?
Novalia asked in confusion, “Why did you take on Queen Quina's appearance?”
The corner of Kani’s mouth curled up. “I swallowed her—”
Ning Busan shuddered.
Swallowed her whole?
That was way too yandere!
“You killed William, so I will kill you to avenge him. That way, I won't be breaking my promise to Quina.”
Kani stared straight at Ning Busan. There was no hatred in her eyes, only a serene calmness, as if she could finally rest after completing a glorious mission.
Facing the murderer of her mother, Novalia naturally wanted to kill her with her own hands. However, Ning Busan was also poisoned, and only Kani knew what the antidote was.
After a brief internal struggle, Novalia said in a deep voice, “Hand over the antidote to the Mermaid's Sorrow, and I won't kill you. I'll let you return to the deep sea.”
Kani shook her head. “There is no antidote to the Mermaid's Sorrow.”
Leo said slowly, “She lost her entire heart. It's already a miracle that she has survived until now.”
Kani’s skin began to turn translucent. In her final moments, she saw a vision of the deep sea.
Glowing schools of fish, massive whales, and the sight of her former clan members singing on the reefs.
Kani murmured, “My only regret is that I can never return to the deep sea.”
Her body dissolved into bubbles that rose one by one, refracting the colors of the rainbow under the sunlight.
Ning Busan grumbled in his heart. As expected, fairy tales are all lies!
The beginning was right, and the ending was right, but everything this mermaid did in between was completely beyond his expectations.
She was completely insane!
“Your Majesty! This is bad, Your Majesty!”
Novalia’s maid, Vinya, ran over in a panic.
Novalia asked, “What happened?”
Vinya whispered, “The King has passed away.”
Novalia asked in shock, “How did he die?”
Vinya replied, “He drowned in his bath.”
“It must have been Kani’s doing!” Ning Busan had already guessed the truth. “Making Quina happy was Kani’s obsession. So, before she died, she wanted the man Quina loved to be buried with her.”
Ning Busan muttered, “The Siren Clan is just a bunch of obsessive maniacs.”
Novalia was only worried about one thing: “Now that Kani is dead, Ning Busan, what about the poison inside you?”
What else could Ning Busan do?
He naturally went back to soak in the hot spring!
Ning Busan had a dream.
He was still in the deep sea in his dream, but this time, there was a majestic and lonely structure in the ocean.
Towering stone pillars were wrapped in fluorescent blue coral, and phosphorescent jellyfish drifted between the cracks.
“At... lan... tis...”
“At... lan... tis...”
An intermittent voice echoed from the deep sea, carrying a chill that could freeze the dead of winter and a murderous intent so dense it was suffocating.
Ning Busan jolted awake.
The moment he woke up, he began to mutate. But instead of turning into a sea monster, he was transforming into a jiaoren.
His toe bones snapped and rearranged one by one, and his feet elongated into the webbed shape of a developing tail fin.
Immediately after, his legs completely collapsed into a fish tail.
The scales were a gradient of blue, transitioning from silver-white at his waist to a dark navy blue at the tip, with the end of the tail unfolding into a fan-shaped fin.
Ning Busan stared at his reflection in the water. Sea-blue long hair, deep blue pupils... He looked just like...
Ning Busan hurriedly summoned the Siren card. Seeing that it was still there, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Siren had lived for tens of thousands of years. If Ning Busan had unknowingly absorbed this card, he was afraid he would have exploded from the sheer energy.
Ning Busan suddenly noticed something was wrong. “The Siren card is dissipating?”
The image of Siren on the card seemed to be shrouded in a layer of mist, with pale blue light spilling out of it.
The poison of the Mermaid's Sorrow had been neutralized. Could it be because he had absorbed this leaking energy?
But why was the Siren card leaking?
Ning Busan pulled out the Book of Sages directly and asked what was going on.
[Oh no, oh no! Ning Busan, you need to go to Atlantis immediately, or this card is going to be completely ruined!!!]
The three bolded, enlarged red exclamation marks indicated that the situation this time was exceptionally severe.
Ning Busan recalled the structure he had seen in his dream. It was as if Siren was sending him a vision, calling him to Atlantis.
Just as Ning Busan was about to ask for details, he heard a smug voice from behind him. “Well, well, well, whose little mermaid is this?”
The moment Ning Busan turned around, Leo whipped out a memory crystal ball. “It really is you, Louis! No, wait, I should change how I address you now. Isn't that right, Mermaid Lu?”
Ning Busan slapped the water with his tail, splashing a massive wave. “I'm not a mermaid, I'm a jiaoren! A jiaoren!”
Leo slowly approached Ning Busan with the crystal ball, and while Ning Busan was off-guard, he slapped the Book of Sages in Ning Busan's hand straight into the water before bursting into laughter.
[Fck off, you fcking idiot! You're so damn annoying every single day!]
The moment the Book of Sages saw Leo, all the elegance and politeness it had put on in front of Ning Busan vanished, leaving behind a screen full of profanity.
Ning Busan stared at Leo and said quietly, “You deserved it when it refused to tell you how to restore an undead's sense of taste.”
Leo smiled grimly. “It doesn't matter. Just seeing it suffer makes me feel better than having my taste buds back.”
Ning Busan asked in confusion, “What kind of grudge do you two even have?”
“No grudge, just a competitive relationship,” Leo smiled meaningfully. “It set me up several times, trying to get me killed, and I've also been looking for a way to make it disappear permanently.”
Ning Busan thought, Is this the legendary love-hate relationship?
The Book of Sages and Leo despised each other on sight. The book decisively stuffed itself back into Ning Busan's space ring and hid.
Ning Busan originally had more questions for it, but now that it was gone, he could only ask Leo. “Have you heard of Atlantis?”
Leo said, “Atlantis is the ruins of the Sea God, located in the Realm of Eternal Night in the deep sea. It's said that the Sea God once resided there, and his treasures are hidden inside. Why? Are you interested?”
Ning Busan knew that the Sea God referred to Siren. He asked again, “Is this Sea God's divine seat the real deal, or is it inflated?”
Leo understood his meaning and chuckled. “His godhead was incomplete, but he was still a demigod. Having protected the deep sea for ten thousand years, he is worthy of the title of Sea God.”
Ning Busan fell into deep thought.
Could Siren have left something behind in Atlantis that was affecting the state of the card?
Could it be his godhead?
Rate on N.U.
