Mermaid Reef

The aberrations were quickly over.

A bony monster with four arms and a long, narrow head crouched over the boat.

There are gray webs between its fingers, and its skin is like a gray-black rock. The clothes hang on its body in tatters, and a hoarse and ugly sound comes out from its throat, mixed with a few human languages .

"Seagull...Secret Order...Port Dock..."

The monster repeated the words deliriously.

Jason saw some broken memories "flowing" out, including the group of strange men in gray cloaks dressed like heavy knights.

"He failed to retain human memory." Jason closed his eyes.

One can imagine the consequences of letting a polluter wander in a human city.

Gemir took off the silver mask, and the boatman curled up in horror under his gaze, and finally turned into a strange stone sculpture.

——From the front, you can only see the thin and protruding backbone of the boatman and the two hands holding his head.

The other two extra arms drooped on both sides of the body, and the bony spurs growing on them made them look like shriveled demon wings. Although there was a weird feeling, this feeling deepened the "realism" and would make human beings mistaken I thought it was the masterpiece of a certain sculptor.

"Let's see how sensitive the city's defense mechanism is."

Stone carvings appear on the roof of a building in the distance, and the rough stone surface quickly blends with its surroundings, as if it has been sitting there, weathered and weathered for hundreds of years.

The setting sun only had time to touch the surface of the statue before falling into the horizon.

Stone sculptures stand quietly on the roof.

"There is no power fluctuation." Jason said with certainty.

Gemil put on the mask again: "The item that peeps into the real world may only be usable during the day."

Then they looked at each other, and they all looked at the bell tower in the distance.

It was there that the secret sect spied Jansen and Gemil just now.

"If they were smart enough, there would be no one in the bell tower," Jason said thoughtfully.

Mystic scholars generally judge what they have encountered based on the "backlash situation".

Although Gemil and Jansen use incarnations to restrain their power, they are still evil gods in essence. No matter what method humans use to spy on the evil gods, they will have to pay a painful price.If that secret sect really has a lot of research on "occultism", it should know the seriousness of the matter.

——If you don’t run, do you want to wait to die foolishly?

Although it was a misunderstanding, it was impossible for Jason to explain it to those humans.

Explain that he's not here to destroy the city, but just to have fun, listen to an opera at most, and taste some human-brewed odorants.

First, the other party would not believe it, and second, Jason didn't have that much patience.

After all, it was the secret sect who took the initiative to seek death, disturbing their good mood.

"This is the nest of ants, they have enough places to hide." Gemil said slowly.

He looked into Jason's light blue eyes thoughtfully.

In other words, are they missing something?

A detective who can sneak into the church to investigate and determine what the so-called treasure is?

Sure enough, the useful ants are always missed.

"Where's John?"

"Ran."

Jason answered.

Running quickly, John sent an apology letter at the post office of the train station, rejecting the entrustment he was going to pick up in Venice, and enclosing a check, which was probably the entrustment deposit received by the detective.

John refunded the money and bought a ticket instead.

He didn't ask whether the location was good or bad, and he didn't ask about the destination. He just wanted to leave Venice as soon as possible and get away from the two evil gods.

Very decisive.

It may be hundreds of kilometers away by now.

Gemil was silent for a while, and then asked, "Are there any other detectives in Venice?"

After trying the leisurely life of commanding ants to work and waiting for the result while falling in love, the lazy Sea God couldn't help but look for a substitute.

Jason shook his head and said, "There are definitely some, but if you look for it temporarily, it's hard to find a detective with high willpower."

Jensen didn't want to fill the buildings of Venice with a row of assorted demon statues.

It's really outrageous for the evil god to leave a "visit here" mark in this way.

"So, let's check it out ourselves?"

Gemil tried to propose, and he found Jason hesitant.

"Although all the ants are gone, there must still be clues left in that clock tower." Gemil continued to persuade, he leaned into Jason's ear, trying to encourage his ideal person to take a big adventure, "human detective novels, you I've seen a lot, and it's not difficult."

The protagonists in the novel still have to use deduction. As long as their evil gods are not blind, they can discover many secrets just by looking at them.

"Pretending to be a human to investigate?" Jason asked in surprise.

Gemil replied calmly: "Yes, this is also a very interesting human game, don't you like it?"

"I……"

Jason looked up at Gemil.

It wasn't that he objected, but he just remembered that he had searched Black Reef Town for three days, but he didn't find the "key sacrifice" hidden in the cellar of the mayor's house.It wasn't until John Doe woke up from a coma that Jensen learned the key clue by following the detective.

It's embarrassing to say this level of investigation, but it's the truth, otherwise Jason wouldn't have been looking for Pastor Conor for decades, and he almost lived safely until the day his life was exhausted by that guy.

"It's okay, let's play!" Gemil continued to bewitch.

In fact, it doesn't matter if you can't find it. Watching those ants hiding in fright is barely a pleasure.

Although human cities look different, they are basically the same, so let's treat it as a new game!

——On the premise of not hurting the lives of ants as much as possible, investigate a secret sect.

Sensing Gemil's emotions, Jason finally nodded in agreement.

Five years have passed since Black Lagoon Town to Venice. As Gemil said, after reading so many human novels, it stands to reason that he should have some investigative capabilities?

"Ok."

After Jason finished speaking, he found that Gemil was even happier.

Jason: "..."

Just now, he was so lazy and didn't want to move, but he became so interested in detective games in a blink of an eye?Is it because the old god's mood has changed too much, or is his tacit understanding with Gemil not enough?Why can't I understand it?

Gemir smiled silently behind the mask.

When Jason hesitated, Gemil found himself wanting to see him in trouble.

***

Even though no one was paddling, the gondola still slid forward gently in the night.

Venice is not like London. There are more advanced electric lights here, which are very bright and will not be filled with choking smells.

However, this requires workers to pull the gate one by one.

Therefore, the lights are turned on very slowly, and one more light will appear every few tens of seconds. The lighting is concentrated in the more prosperous neighborhoods. wooden bridge.

"Can humans jump over the roof and climb up that clock tower?" Gemil asked seriously.

After detouring for half a day, Poseidon found that the waterways in Venice were too complicated. It seemed to be the shortest way, but the waterway suddenly made a big turn, and it was farther away from the bell tower.

What, walk ashore?

The city is built by driving huge wooden piles into the water, and laying stone slabs and bricks on top of these dense wooden piles. Sometimes there are no alleys between the two houses, only water flow.

Streets often only exist on one side of a row of houses, and there is no way around them.

The only places that can accommodate more people are the squares in the central city, as well as the bustling port terminals and commercial areas.

If you want to take a shortcut, you can only jump over the wooden boards at the door of the house, or step on the eaves to cross the block.

"If you are flexible, you should be fine."

Jason recalled John's desperate run on the Orient Express and confirmed that it was correct.

"But our clothes don't work." Jason looked down at his British gentleman's attire.

"Forget it, I'll observe the direction from the water."

The shadow behind Gemil was immersed in the water like a thin blanket.

The murky waters are like a dead forest.

Countless dense wooden piles silently support this miraculously beautiful city.

They have no contact with the air at all, and can only look up at the thin sunlight through the water waves, the sunlight that once nourished them.

The sea water had made the stakes black and hard... After the initial corrosion, they had barely changed, except for the layers of algae and the occasional shell.

Huge shadows were swimming in the water, trying to find their way—those silent stakes suddenly woke up, shellfish and algae fell off one after another, and the houses began to shake.

The humans on the water let out horrified cries.

The shadow left the bottom of the water at an extremely fast speed, and jumped back to Gemil along the tail of the gondola.

Gemil opened his eyes, and the shadow that was separated just now was equivalent to a part of him, but without thought.

"I found something interesting."

Gemil looked around at the shaking houses.

"Is there something underwater?" Jason looked down.

"The foundation of the city is a forest... once a large and vigorous forest, or more than one forest. It is full of wood that is decades or hundreds of years old. Even if such trees are cut down, they lose their roots and trunks. Still retain the remnants of their lives."

Then they were shipped here.

sink into the sea.

At the end of life and in the long afterlife, they cannot touch the sunlight on the water.

It is also necessary to use the corpses to support the heavy stones, so that human beings, the eternal enemies who kill and torture them, can live and walk on them.

"I've seen a lot of ant nests, not many like Venice."

In the eyes of the evil god, anything can be a material for building a nest, such as trees, real animal and human corpses, the evil god doesn't care and even likes it, but is it really reasonable that humans are more creative than the evil god?

"Why can human beings always unconsciously kill the same kind or other life in the cruelest way, and then deal with their corpses creatively, letting curses and wailing linger in their ears, and sleep on their pillows?"

Gemil was puzzled.

He had seen the water turn red with the carcasses of whales.

He's sure that humans don't enjoy the sweet howl of burning coal, nor the reverberation of the curse of the death of whole forests.

"...This, I think this may be the reason why the secret sect is stationed in Venice to guard and defend against mysterious forces?"

Jason said hesitantly.

After all, humans living here are no different from living in a crater.

If any evil god, or a few evil gods' relatives come to make trouble, there is a risk of waking up the "death forest".

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The author has something to say:

John: To be honest, as a British citizen, I came to Venice for the first time. I didn’t feel the beautiful sunshine, but a kind of chilling fear. I immediately chose to run away.

I feel like the city is sitting on top of an abyss, though I don't know why...

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Gemil's question is from the perspective of the evil god, not the author's

Venice is a beautiful city, architectural marvel, underwater forest, water stones

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Gemil: Can I walk on the roof, that fast

Jason: It should be ok, John stepped on the wall and ran a few steps

Detective: Thank you for the invitation, it is a matter of life and death, I can't normally!

Author: Please wait another 80 years, you can run the map in the game, and you won't get lost.The point is, you can walk on the roof in the game