Steampunk: Sixth Era Epic

Shard slowly walked into the water, but he furrowed his brow as he looked at his arm.

Although he had experienced swimming in the sea many times before, this time as he entered the water, he distinctly felt an increased affinity with it. This so-called affinity didn't mean he could manipulate the ocean, but rather that the ocean seemed to welcome Shard's return. When his skin came into contact with the seawater, it even felt smoother than when it touched air on land.

This definitely wasn't because the seawater had turned red; after all, Shard had no connection with the "Lord of the Crimson Spiral." Therefore, it was probably the lump of flesh he had just eaten that had enhanced his affinity with water.

"What Level of Relic are you, exactly?"

He asked quietly.

Only then did he dive into the water, and as a small string of bubbles rose from the seabed, Shard's figure darted forward like a Wandering Fish. Originally, he was just barely able to swim, but now he felt as if he had truly become a fish underwater.

After leaving the small dock beneath the sea cliff, Shard looked up from underwater to check his direction and found that he wasn't far from the beach. The raging waves and the rain forced him to quickly return below the surface. When Shard stumbled out of the red sea water, it was ten minutes later.

He gasped for air as he stood up and turned to look at the vast ocean behind him.

Under the murky yellow sky, crimson waves continued to beat toward the direction of Coldwater Port Dock, and the eerie composition instinctively filled one with unease. And in the distance, where the beach was already submerged, several black dots hovered above the waterline.

Shard was puzzled for a moment before his eyes suddenly widened.

The black dots were heads, belonging to people walking towards the deep sea, with only their shoulders and above not yet immersed in the water. Just as Shard thought about diving back in to try and pull them back, someone walked past him again.

It was a middle-aged man dressed in checkered pajamas and a nightcap, staggering as he walked. After Shard pulled him, the man immediately fell to the ground, then ironically got up on his own, continuing to walk forward in the rain.

Since Shard was still pulling on him, the man was merely stepping in place.

The man's eyes were open, but there was no spark of life in them. Moreover, on the right side of his face, there was a blood-red tattoo of a merman with a fish's tail. The tattoo, having swelled up like a scar upon contact with rainwater, was trembling in rhythm with his heartbeat. Your next read is at My Virtual Library Empire

"Sir, can you hear me talking?"

Shard tried to see if he could awaken the man. However, it was then that he noticed more and more people appearing on the vast beach, all moving with the same frequency and swaying towards the ocean.

Under the dim yellow sky and the red sea, each person had lifeless eyes and tattoos on their faces. Their legs became soaked with seawater, then the water level rose higher and higher. They continued like this towards the depths of the ocean until Shard could no longer see them.

When he turned back towards the city, more people appeared in the distance on the beach, joining those who had already stepped into the crimson sea, creating an odd, spine-chilling tableau under the dim sky of Coldwater Port.

They were going to offer their bodies and spirits back to the ocean, allowing the mermaid corpse summoned by the ritual to ultimately engulf the city with the waves.

"How can there be so many people infected with the Mermaid's Curse? Weren't there only a dozen reported cases?"

Thinking this, Shard forcefully hit the back of the man's head, knocking him unconscious... or at least he hoped he had, as he had never learned how to properly knock someone out. But no sooner had Shard let go than the man who had collapsed on the beach sprang up and resumed his swaying motion, joining the group of others already moving towards the crimson water.

He couldn't stop these people at all.

The cold rain beat against his face. The red of the sea, the yellow of the sky, and the line of people on the ocean and the beach at this moment made Shard truly feel a chill in his heart:

"Lecia..."

No longer concerned with these strangers, he turned and ran towards Aphrola Manor.

The beach where Shard had landed was not far from Aphrola Manor. It was only after leaving the beach that he realized the church was not inactive. On the coastal streets, every few yards, there were lay priests in robes holding scriptures, loudly proclaiming the teachings of the True Gods. At least two-thirds of the people who had walked out of the city unconsciously collapsed to the ground as they passed by them.

The police had set up barricades at the main roads near the beach to prevent those who had left home without consciousness from going any further. Excluding those whom the church and police had stopped, the rest were the people Shard had just seen on the beach.

With this in mind, the number of people in Coldwater Port infected with the "Mermaid's Curse" was at least in the thousands. And at least ninety percent of them had been contained within the city; the Coldwater Port Parish was indeed well prepared.

But the church's preparations didn't stop there. What they were really guarding against was a tsunami that would flood Coldwater Port, leading to the death of the entire city's population. Thus, those currently in action were mostly just ordinary clergy members, fighting alongside the police and the Coldwater Port garrison both within the city and on the beaches against the merpeople trying to incite a riot throughout the town.

On his way from the beach to the manor, Shard encountered more than one firefight. But he didn't come across any Circle Sorcerers from the Crimson Cult, nor did he see any organized teams of Circle Sorcerers from the church, indicating the battlefield wasn't confined to land.

```

The blockade set up by the merman around Aphrola Manor had been lifted at dawn. When Shard arrived near the manor, the police were still surrounding the place, preventing anyone from approaching. Despite the rain and the peculiar sky, there were many people around, and carriages were even jammed up to the door of the small tavern that Shard had visited in the latter half of the night.

In addition to the police, there were Coldwater Port Navy, clergy members from the church, private armed forces of the local nobles, and a few gun-toting mercenaries whose backgrounds Shard could not discern.

The messy situation indeed caught Shard by surprise, but fortunately, the manor was now open for people to enter and leave as they pleased. Guests who had come for the banquet were leaving in batches. Only, the Circle Sorcerer squad of the church was blocking the entrance to the manor, and anyone who wanted to leave right now had to submit to the most stringent body search, resulting in a group of guests lingering inside the manor, planning to wait until the church's inspection relaxed before departing.

Utilizing "Lagre's Leap" to avoid the church's gaze, Shard successfully blended into the manor. At this time inside Aphrola Manor, there were people everywhere, and it was not uncommon to see others like Shard dripping wet.

Only the corridor leading to the wine cellar on the first floor was sealed off by the church, and going against the flow of people to the upper floors, Shard surprisingly did not see Miss Aphrola nor Princess Lecia.

However, the witch had not forgotten Shard; she had specifically left a maid on the third floor waiting for his return. It was through Miss Aphrola's message that Shard learned that Princess Lecia did not wish to encounter the church and therefore had gone to the beach behind the manor to clear her mind. As for the witch, she still had things to do. Shard strongly suspected that she had discovered Daknis among the cultists through the explosion of the steam bomb.

"Could it be that Miss Aphrola has gone after Daknis?"

Although Luviya's divination showed that Daknis would not die in Coldwater Port and would travel to Tobesk in the next day or two, there was a stark difference between going to Tobesk unscathed versus barely clinging to life.

"But why would Lecia go to the beach at this time..."

With such doubts in mind, Shard walked out of the mansion again, crossed the garden, and arrived at the beach. The beach and harbor outside it were both part of Aphrola Manor, which meant that this vast area theoretically belonged to Hevy Aphrola.

The beach was huge, about twice the size of the garden, buildings, and courtyard combined. Because of the rain and the shock of the gunfight earlier in the night, there were hardly any people on the beach now.

Shard initially did not see Lecia and worried that she had walked into the sea. After anxiously running around the sand for a couple of turns, while turning around, he saw Princess Lecia standing at the edge of the beach, near the grape trellis next to the manor's garden, watching him.

There were only two maids by her side, one holding an umbrella for her, and the other with the Scribe Level Relic "Soul Fishing Rod" that Shard had bought from Old John. The transparent fishing line was tied to the wrist of the princess.

Seeing Shard rush over quickly, the red-haired maiden deliberately turned her body as if she did not want Shard to see the right side of her face. But when Shard got closer, he inevitably saw the swollen red tattoos on Lecia's face.

Because of the joint suppression by the Sage-Level Relic "Saint's Uncursing Stone," Scribe Level Relic "Saint Roland's Ring," and the fishing rod, Lecia seemed to be in a decent state. Only when Shard approached, the red-haired maiden raised her hand to cover her side face again, avoiding looking at him.

Shard grabbed her wrist very impolitely, forcefully took her right hand away, and touched the swollen, hot tattoo, and it was then that Princess Lecia, with teary eyes, looked up at him:

"Do I look amusing to you in this state?"

Her Highness the Princess would absolutely never say such things normally. Although the curse had not taken her into the ocean, her mental state could not help but be affected.

Shard glanced at the two maids; both of them looked out to the empty beach as if there was something very captivating out there.

"I have even seen Dorothy with her entire face turned into that of a merman's; how is what you have now anything to compare? You also know about that incident."

By touching the tattoos of the mermaid on Lecia's side face, Shard confirmed that the curse was under suppression.

"Dorothy..."

Whether it was the comparison or hearing a familiar name, Lecia's expression did relax a bit.

Shard's fingers gently stroked the tattoo, and then he added:

"Besides, this isn't a permanent tattoo. Even if it was permanent, I could scrape the flesh off your face with a knife and heal you with 'Satiety Food,' restoring you to your most beautiful appearance without any marks."

The external wounds healed by "Satiety Food" never leave any traces.

Lecia murmured softly:

"What exactly did you do just now, why do you seem so different? Dorothy said you rarely compliment girls on their beauty aside from greeting them."

"That's not important. Lecia, why didn't you stay in your room instead of running down here?"

Shard asked, frowning slightly.

```