Chapter 30 - The Farm in Irttat
Chapter 30: Lament of the Deep Sea 06
"Acquanetta?"
"Mm." Acquanetta responded again, murmuring to herself: "Acquanetta... That's right, I was originally called this name."
She had slept here for too long. Time had gradually worn away her memories. When her last trace of self-awareness faded, her true spirit would transform into a gust of wind, a drop of water, a flake of snow, dissolving between heaven and earth. That would be her final death.
Now, that moment had nearly arrived. Fortunately, she had once again heard the name that had slept for five hundred years.
She was Acquanetta, the Merfolk King who died five hundred years ago.
Hearing Acquanetta’s answer, Amala felt a surge of complicated emotions. She let out a long breath and closed her eyes.
Her voice hoarse, she sought confirmation: "Did Your Majesty anticipate the merfolk race's present day and deliberately leave a backup plan in this pocket watch?"
Had their king, dismembered on the altar, already anticipated her body would be used to impose a curse and left behind a wisp of true spirit as a key in advance?
But Acquanetta sounded utterly bewildered: "What are you saying?"
Lucita interjected to introduce on Amala's behalf: "Let me introduce, this is Her Majesty Amala, the current Merfolk King."
Acquanetta: "Oh."
After a pause, Acquanetta was startled: "Wait, you said she's the current Merfolk King?"
Lucita nodded.
"That doesn't make sense. She's so weak, she doesn't even have a tenth of my mental power back then. How did she become king? What, I just died and you changed the election standards? No more fighting? Did you learn from those weak humans—virtue dwells in the worthy?"
Acquanetta had a fiery temper. This rapid-fire barrage left both Lucita and Amala stunned.
This Majesty seemed to know nothing.
The two exchanged glances. Amala tried to explain: "Your Majesty, you didn't... just die. It's already been over five hundred years since your passing."
A stretch of silence.
Then: "Over five hundred years?!"
The person inside sounded even more bewildered: "I slept that long?"
“Well… no wonder I almost forgot who I was…”
Acquanetta muttered to herself for a while, her voice growing quieter.
Amala probed: "So you leaving a wisp of true spirit here was an accident?"
"Ah, let me think..."
It wasn't a memory worth preserving, yet the instant she began recalling, it leaped into her mind.
Five hundred years ago on the Orr Continent, the capital of the Galan Empire, Mirror Palace Square.
A pale sun, hazy sky, oppressive crowds. Six limestone pillars pointed straight to the sky. She lay motionless at the center of the high platform.
Beneath her body, hidden from sight, blood flowed through grooves carved into the stone floor, forming a sinister hexagram.
Not long ago, Elven King Violet had been chained on this high platform. The elves' remaining bloodstains had not yet been wiped clean. Today, it welcomed new martyrs.
She didn't know Violet's fate, but she would soon face her own.
Acquanetta already had more breath going out than coming in. Her deep blue eyes were covered with a layer of shadow. The scales all over her body had lost their luster. In the long-term dehydrated environment, they were even slightly graying, rubbing against the ground and leaving layers of broken scale powder.
That great wizard draped in black robes ascended the high platform, raised that specially-made dagger, and chanted under her breath.
"Puff."
The sound of piercing flesh and blood.
Her gaze moved down with the great wizard's hand and saw those aged hands gouge out a heart from her body.
A few gasps overflowed from Acquanetta's throat. She actually laughed softly.
Damn it...
You all... deserve to die!
Acquanetta clenched her teeth. Her hawk-like gaze swept across the crowds below the platform. She convulsed violently several times around her body, then stopped moving.
On the verge of death, her sea of consciousness was instead warm.
The warm true spirit wrapped around her consciousness, gradually beginning to dissipate.
No, don't...
She wanted them all to die!
Her consciousness began rampaging. Even in the warm true spirit's embrace, she refused to melt, huddled tightly together, trying to charge out.
The true spirit seemed to sigh lightly and let go.
Her consciousness rose while irreversibly dissipating.
No, don't, don't die!
She saw the merfolk corpse on the high platform, saw the fanatical crowds in the square, saw the fish-scale-like city, saw the panicked tribespeople on the continent...
The vast continent, yet not a single place to shelter.
Wait, there!
A spark of silver light flashed. The pocket watch refracted a ghostly cold light.
There—a bit of her true spirit!
That was a pocket watch she'd given her daughter five years ago. She'd left a wisp of true spirit on it, originally intending to sense it promptly if her daughter was in danger.
Now that wisp of true spirit had suddenly severed connection with the main body and hadn't completely dissipated yet...
She made a split-second decision and rushed into that pocket watch.
This wisp of true spirit had been about to dissipate but was forcibly stabilized by her obsession.
The stars shifted. She gradually forgot the past, forgot all attachments, even forgot who she was. Only a trace of hatred endured.
Until someone suddenly shouted at her: "Acquanetta!"
That voice seemed to come from the distant void, faint and indistinct, yet she still caught that familiar word.
Acquanetta...
So familiar.
She struggled out from sleep with all her might, looking toward the source of the voice.
A piercing white light. She closed her eyes.
Memory returned. Acquanetta's voice darkened.
"Call it an accident."
Amala was about to speak when Acquanetta interrupted her: "You're the current Merfolk King?"
"Yes, I am." Amala answered instinctively.
"I remember they killed me back then to start a curse ritual. What was that curse?"
This question was truly bitter for Amala to answer. She told Acquanetta about the five-hundred-year curse, including the fallen merfolk.
The fallen?
Remembering those tribespeople she'd seen the first time she woke—hair tangled with seaweed, minds lost to madness—a surge of stifling anger rose in Acquanetta's chest, almost grinding her teeth to pieces.
Humans, humans, those cursed humans!
Her anger not yet subsided, looking at this weak Merfolk King before her, her tone irritable: "No wonder you're so weak."
"I..."
Amala had long occupied a high position. Being mocked to her face like this, she couldn't quite maintain her composure for a moment. But facing Acquanetta, she couldn't express her temper at all.
Not only was she an ancestor from five hundred years ago, the merfolk God of War famous for her fiery temper, she was also someone who had sacrificed for the entire race. And now they wanted to sacrifice her again.
She said: "Your Majesty, right now we have a chance to lift the curse."
Acquanetta immediately grasped her meaning.
Knowledge about curse rituals had been thoroughly researched by the merfolk race during the great war back then.
A curse generated using one's own flesh and blood as medium could only be lifted by oneself. And the only thing she had left was this bit of true spirit she'd forcibly preserved.
Sacrifice it—she died, the whole race lived.
Acquanetta fell silent for a moment, then sneered: "When those old witches set up this curse back then, they didn't expect I could still leave some dregs behind and didn't die completely, huh? Tsk."
Amala understood Acquanetta's implication.
This prehistoric Majesty was saying: "Acceptable."
While she secretly breathed a sigh of relief, she also felt a breath stuck in her throat, unable to speak.
Acquanetta didn't care about the discomfort in Amala's heart and asked straightforwardly: "Who will conduct the ritual? Where will you find a human?"
"I want her to try." Amala pointed at Lucita.
"Her? She's human?" Acquanetta looked incredulous: "Five hundred years have passed, have humans evolved to breathe underwater?"
"No, she's not." Amala said: "She's a mixed-blood with part human bloodline, so I think we can try. If it really doesn't work, we'll find someone else."
Hearing this, Acquanetta glanced at Lucita with ambiguous meaning.
In that moment, Lucita had a feeling of being seen through and uncomfortably touched her nose.
Amala instructed tribespeople to begin preparing the materials needed for ritual magic.
These materials might have been common in the former human world, but in the merfolk race that couldn't perform rituals, each item needed temporary collection.
Fortunately, the most important material—Acquanetta's true spirit—was secured. The other materials were all easy to obtain, so there was no rush.
Setting up a ritual magic formation usually required meeting three requirements.
First, use some sea salt, essential oils, and such to arrange a sufficiently tranquil and pure environment to help the caster communicate with the divine.
Second, draw a corresponding magical symbol with spirituality. Curse magic was a sharp open hexagram. Lifting the curse corresponded to an upright and peaceful closed hexagram.
When the merfolk race suffered the curse back then, they used Acquanetta's blood to fill the hexagram with spirituality. Now Acquanetta had no body. Fortunately, the true spirit was dispersed, she could separate some diluted true spirit to activate the hexagram.
Third, incantations to communicate with the divine were needed.
These were the ritual magic elements humans had summarized.
According to Amala, the reason the merfolk race couldn't use ritual magic very likely lay in the third point. Incantations were just the surface appearance. Most important was a complete soul that could communicate with the divine in the spirit realm.
Lucita neither agreed nor disagreed, only saying to try.
If Amala's speculation was true, then she should have no problem.
Sea salt was easily obtained, just take seawater and dry it. The merfolk filled some seawater and placed it on reefs in the sea. The late spring sun was scorching. In just one day, they obtained sufficient sea salt.
Essential oils too. Since the type didn't matter, they directly took algae from the seabed to grind and extract, using primitive methods to extract some seaweed essential oil still carrying green impurities.
They used stones to draw a crude hexagram on the seabed.
The instant the hexagram took shape, the lines gave a faint sense of connection.
Acquanetta cut out half her true spirit and guided it into the hexagram's lines. The hexagram brightened slightly, then dimmed.
To complete these things, they used a total of two days.
Lucita divided the remaining life potion in two and fed it to Sylvette and Lily, maintaining their normal vital signs.
All materials were crude, but the divine treated all equally and wouldn't treat petitioners differently based on material value.
The only possibility for accidents lay with Lucita.
She couldn't help but feel some pressure. She took a deep breath and stepped into the hexagram circle.
Everything was ready. There was no more room for delay.
Amala gripped the pocket watch in her hand, closed her eyes, and said quietly: "Your Majesty, the merfolk race will forever remember your sacrifice."
Acquanetta sneered: "Enough. Just make sure you don’t let enemies march right into your home again."
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