45: Chapter 45 The Most Perfect Body

"Let go."

Wu Xiu's remains sank straight down. The headless torso was still spewing black blood, which was compressed by the deep-sea water pressure into perfectly round beads of blood, drifting slowly toward the endless darkness.

Dead through and through.

The surface of the Tentacles was coated in a layer of mucus, leaving a film of slime on everything it touched. The suckers, the size of copper coins, opened and closed, with a circle of fine teeth around the edges, gleaming with a cold light.

With a thought from Wu Xi, one of the Tentacles suddenly coiled around a nearby undersea reef and squeezed.

Crack!

Five deep pits were instantly crushed into the reef, which then split in two, the debris drifting away with the current.

Satisfying.

Wu Xi took a deep breath and clenched his fist hard. The surrounding seawater was forcibly pushed aside, exploding into a small vortex.

"Is this the Seed-Fetus Realm?"

The voice vibrated in his chest, but it was swallowed up by the seawater before it could travel very far.

No one answered him. Wu Xiu's corpse had long since sunk out of sight; there was only silt on the seabed, along with sulfurous steam erupting from hot springs, bubbling up.

Wu Xi was trembling with excitement. Blood raced through his veins as if magma were coursing beneath his skin. He could clearly feel that world-destroying power.

The deep-sea undercurrents slammed into him, but his body didn't move an inch. His feet sank half a foot into the silt, yet he stood as steady as a rock.

His weight had changed, his density had changed, and even the texture of his bones had changed. He reached out and touched his ribs; through his flesh, his fingertips felt a cold, hard, metallic texture.

He wanted to go back and find Mr. Xiangli to ask clearly what the Seed-Fetus Realm actually meant.

Just then, a voice suddenly drilled into the depths of his consciousness. It was very light and soft, carrying the damp moisture of the deep sea, intermittent: "Husband..."

"Tentacle Lady."

"I have remembered more things." Tentacle Lady's voice sank. "The origin of that piece of flesh is the flesh of the Ultimate Ancestral God."

Wu Xi instantly tensed his body. "Tell me in detail."

Tentacle Lady's figure slowly manifested in the murky water; her blue-white body was translucent yet carried an unquestionable pressure. She opened her mouth but did not make a sound immediately. After a long while, she spat out a few words, each one trembling: "The Ultimate Ancestral God... is named Ubbo-Sathla. The Source of Sources, the Ancestor of All Ancestors. Its flesh... is my father's treasure."

Her father's treasure.

Wu Xi's heart sank suddenly: "Who is your father?"

"He sleeps in Rlyeh..." Tentacle Lady's voice finally dropped, very light, light enough to fear disturbing something sleeping, "known as the Lord of the Deep Sea—Cthulhu."

As soon as these words were spoken, the surrounding seawater seemed to have all its temperature drained away instantly, and the chill crept along his scales and pores, drilling straight into his marrow.

Cthulhu, Rlyeh—these names were like thunderbolts from the dawn of Chaos, exploding in his consciousness.

"Rlyeh..." He unconsciously muttered these three words.

Tentacle Lady said: "You are becoming more and more like it."

Wu Xi looked up sharply: "Like what?"

"Like me." Tentacle Lady paused, adding word by word, "Like how our Family is supposed to look, the most perfect... physical form."

"Most perfect?"

"Husband..." She called to him, her voice as light as a sigh. "You don't understand. Perfection has never been about looking good; it is the rules themselves. Your body is becoming a part of the rules."

She paused, her voice slowing down, each word sounding as if it were fished out from the bottom of the endless deep sea, carrying a heavy sense of destiny: "The blood in your body decided everything from the moment you were born."

"The flesh of Ubbo-Sathla." Tentacle Lady's voice became ethereal, as if chanting an ancient Spell lost for billions of years. "Legend says it is the source of all life."

Wu Xi felt a tingling pain in his jawbone; his jaw was deforming, the angle of its opening far exceeding that of a human.

"My father once used the flesh of the Ultimate Ancestral God to create a subservient race." Tentacle Lady's voice continued.

A piece of flesh could create an entire race.

Then what did the piece inside him count as?

"I was chosen." He spoke, his voice as hoarse as if ground against sandstone; it was not a question, but a definitive statement.

Tentacle Lady nodded, all the Tentacles around her body spreading out and then slowly retracting in the water, as if performing an ancient and solemn ceremony. "It was not an accident. You chose it, and it, in turn, chose you. The call of the Bloodline is stronger than any Spell or any Restriction in this world."

Wu Xi closed his eyes, his mind churning like a raging sea.

"Husband, you must remember... the Deep Ones... they will definitely come looking for you... The flesh inside you... is the holy relic they have worshipped for millions of years."

The blood in Wu Xi's whole body froze instantly.

"Beware of the eyes in the deep sea..."

Wu Xi stood where he was, not moving.

Three breaths, five breaths.

Then, he abruptly reined in all his emotions and all distracting thoughts. Forget it. No matter what was waiting for him, no matter what this Bloodline actually was, no matter what the Deep Ones were. Go back first.

Find Mr. Xiangli and ask clearly what this so-called Seed-Fetus Realm and this so-called Bloodline actually meant.

The Tentacles wrapped around him and then disappeared into the sea, as if no one had ever been there.

...

Three thousand miles away, in the darkness of the endless deep sea.

A hunched Deep One suddenly raised its head.

Its body was a dull green color, its belly was deathly pale, most of its flesh was slick and glossy, but on its back grew a high, scaled ridge.

Its shape had the vague outline of a human, but its head was completely that of a fish, with a pair of huge, protruding, never-closing eyeballs. On both sides of its neck were constantly quivering fish gills, and on its long limbs grew thick webbing.

"Gurgle... gurgle..."

A string of turbid bubble sounds issued from its throat; its vocal cords were simply not suited for human language, yet its companions understood instantly.

In the surrounding waters, a dozen identical figures raised their heads simultaneously.

The flesh of the Ultimate Ancestral God, the holy relic bestowed upon their race for reproduction by the god Dagon, had suddenly erupted with an anomaly after millions of years of silence, and then... disappeared.

The leading Deep One was a full size larger than the others, its back covered in sharp bone spurs like unsheathed knives. It swam slowly to the coordinates where the aura had completely cut off; in its sunken eye sockets, those turbid, never-closing eyeballs stared fixedly at the void ahead.

The aura of the holy relic had completely cut off here.

But in the water, there remained other scents, a trace of a Bloodline that was even more ancient and made their Souls tremble, like a mark carved into bone with a knife, branded firmly into this stretch of water.

The leading Deep One slowly opened its mouth, revealing three rows of jagged, gleaming fangs. A string of low, murderous bubble sounds rolled from its throat.

It was an order.

The surrounding tribesmen dispersed instantly, their movements uniform and orderly, without a single wasted motion. Six Deep Ones silently lurked into the rock crevices of the seabed, three burrowed into the silt, revealing only pairs of cold fish eyes, and the remaining few swam silently toward the higher reaches of the water, occupying all the vantage points.

A net for hunting was spread silently in the pitch-black deep sea.

That existence that had stolen the holy relic, no matter what it was, had used its power here.

Places where power had been used would definitely leave traces. If there were traces, one could track. If one could track, one could wait.

The hunters of the deep sea lacked nothing more than patience.