Chương 175: Chapter One-Hundred-and-Seventy-Five

Adam had no idea how Kat had been able to consume as many hearts as she had. He hadn't been completely off-base on his guess about the Fiend Tongue's side-effect, but the magnitude of it was way worse than he could've imagined. With every heart she consumed, Kat experienced the memories of her victims. All of them. It sounded like it was similar to how the Scale of Remembrance worked in a way. To anyone looking, it was instantaneous, but to her it was like reliving decades or longer.

It wasn't exactly that amount of time, but rather some sped-up version, though she likened it to consuming LSD and the timelessness it created. She also said it was so much worse with the bloodfiend hearts, because their lives were longer and their memories were filled with cruelty. Due to how she saw their lives through their perspectives, she admitted to feeling like they were her memories.

"It's not worth using," Adam said.

"My health, speed, and damage have all gone up by over 40," she said.

"I would need many upgrades to accomplish the same."

"And you feel okay?" he asked sceptically.

"No. But none of us are okay. Look at how you are treating your own body, or how Luo and Sofia pushed themselves far beyond what they were comfortable with. We all want to survive. Those who did not give their all to the Trials are dead and gone. We who remain are broken, but we are alive. I will do whatever it takes to survive." Adam frowned, but knew she was right. He looked down at his hand. His crimson glass hand.

"Twice now I have given up my real hand to possess this relic. It's a legendary like your fiend tongue, and its power is based around understanding, but it is too painful to use in its original form. The last time I had it, my patron gave me something to make the knowledge possible to comprehend. This time, the Flayed Lady transformed it to suit her power, allowing me to understand the blood of those around me. And you know what, I would sacrifice my real hand again to possess it in the future.

I haven't even thought about how absurd that is… All I could focus on is that knowledge matters, even if I have to make sacrifices to obtain it."

"Do you think the All-Mother would transform the fiend tongue to make it easier to bear?" Kat asked, her tone hopeful. Adam truthfully couldn't say. He was quite sure the Flayed Lady had broken a rule to transform Alepheria's Mandate, but perhaps the All-Mother would do the same for Kat if she felt like it.

"The All-Mother is the God of sustenance, so it would be strange if she was unable, don't you think," he answered. Kat smiled.

"I hope you're right."

"Have you gained any knowledge from the hearts you consumed?" Adam asked, before realising the question was quite insensitive.

"I get a sense of their emotions, but it is all like a smear with no downtime in-between moments. It is difficult to grasp onto any one thing. And even though the bloodfiends would surely know the language used by the Patriarch on his list, I have not obtained such knowledge from their memories. I could not even tell you what each person's name was, only what sort of people they were."

"Is that why you didn't consume the Golden Nail's heart?" he asked.

"I did not want to know what he had done," she admitted. Adam put the blood wine in his backpack, along with the list, crimson glass tome, and pocket watch. Once again, space was starting to run out, even though he'd left so much inside the Patriarch's lair.

"Let's get out of here. There may still be secrets left to find," Adam said. They crawled back out of the lighthouse basement and saw that the fisherman was gone. I wonder if he'll be back again. Adam stared down at the compass in his hand.

"Show me what I seek." The golden arrow immediately snapped towards the south in the direction of the breakwater and the gap in the lagoon barrier. But it wasn't a stationary target it was pointing to, because the arrow kept fidgeting and sliding between east and west erratically.

"How much do you want to bet it's pointing us to that shark he told us about?" Adam remarked.

"Why did you ask him about fishing?" Kat asked. Adam pulled out the fishing rod he'd bought from Fisher.

"Because I've got this thing," he said with a grin.

"My friend basically forced me to get it, but we have a bet going about who can catch the rarest fish."

"I do not like sharks," she said.

"Please tell me you are not going to try catching a shark…" Adam's grin widened as he used his control sigil to pull over the boat he'd left on the narrow shore near the lighthouse.

"You're welcome to stay here." Kat frowned. Adam thought the expression looked amusing on her normally-serious face, reminding him of a petulant child.

"When you are eaten, I will have to ask the fisherman to take me back to Moonport. Can you give me the key to the Patriarch's lair at least?" Adam paused, confused by the mixed signals of her voice and melody.

"Are you serious?" he asked, starting to take off his backpack. Kat got into the boat.

"Can we just get it over with?" Adam laughed and got in behind her.

"Hold on tight." He fired them in the direction of the breakwater, crossing the distance in only a few seconds thanks to his ability to pull on the three separate elements of the sculpted boat to move them at absurd speeds. He paused a few metres in the air above the large opening in the lagoon barrier, and it seemed that the secret it was pointing towards was swimming back and forth beneath the surface, too deep to see with the naked eye.

After pulling the blood and flesh out of their boat, just keeping the bone frame floating in the air, Adam shaped a large bait ball that was sure to attract the shark. He attached it on the end of his fishing rod and tossed the line into the water below. Kat was clearly displeased with the turn of events, and he noticed her melody tense up with anticipation as the bait quickly pulled the hook down in the dark depths.

"We should rebuild the lighthouse so you can get a fishing rod too," Adam told Kat.

"You could join our bet."

"What would I win?" she asked.

"You would get to decide everyone else's nickname." She laughed.

"You would not like the name I would give you."

"You can't hurt my feelings," he replied. Kat grinned, and the confidence in her melody actually terrified him a bit.

"You have no idea what I'm capable of," she said. Suddenly Adam's fishing rod pulled down, dragging the entire boat as well. Below, he felt through his mana how his bait was being interfered with and he quickly started to reel the line in. Then, from one moment to the next, a massive shape rushed up towards them.

"Oh shit!" Adam grabbed Kat and lifted her into the air with him, just as an enormous creature broke the surface, leaping high enough to chomp down on their flying boat. It was a mottled grey colour with brilliant yellow eyes, enormous teeth, and a body the size of a bus. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

< < Secret Stage Objective > > < Defeat the Lagoon Shark > Adam immediately used his control over the blood and flesh that it had consumed to create an internal explosion, followed by a Blood Crystal activation to destroy everything that'd been pierced through with his mana. Then he reached out to the bone frame it had swallowed, just as it was about to fall back down into the water, splitting his control in two to manipulate the bone as separate objects inside it.

With a powerful pull of his control sigil, Adam lifted the shark back out of the water before it could dive too deep, shaping the bones into claws that started to tear through its flesh from the inside. As he dragged it up into the air, the bottom half of its body started to break apart from his crystallisation spell, large chunks of brittle flesh and blood breaking off to plop back down into the waves.

He flew them towards the sandy shore of the natural barrier, the bones lifting the shark finally piercing through its brain to kill it, while two-thirds of its body tore free and fell down into the lagoon, becoming food for scavengers and other predatory fish. < < Secret Stage Objective Complete > > < Defeat the Lagoon Shark >"Your magic is absurd," Kat remarked as he landed them in front of the enormous shark head.

"I would have had no idea about how to fight that, but you made it look easy." Even though most of its body was gone, the head alone was bigger than both of them combined.

"It is very powerful," Adam conceded.

"But the learning curve is steep, and it requires a willingness to gamble with your own body and life. I have met other time-loopers, and none of them used blood magic."

"There are others?" Kat asked, surprised. Adam nodded but didn't elaborate.

"What do you think is the best trophy to grab from this thing?" he asked after inspecting the head for a while.

"The eyes and teeth," she replied. Adam began harvesting them, but since neither were trophies he just kept one of each.

"It's a shame we lost the heart," he remarked.

"I wonder what memories a shark would have," Kat replied. Adam paused.

"That's not what I meant. I just thought maybe the heart was a collectible trophy."

"Oh," Kat muttered before laughing to herself.

"I have hearts on my mind." Adam grinned as he lifted the shark's head into the air by pulling on the bone claws still lodged inside its flesh.

"Are we taking it to the fisherman?" Kat asked.

"I'd like to see his reaction," Adam said.

"Me too," she admitted. From afar, it must have been a ridiculous sight to see two people walking behind a giant floating shark head. Despite the absurdity of the situation, Adam found it rather relaxing. It was rare to get proper downtime in any stage, but, disregarding the giant shark for a moment, it almost felt like a vacation. He was sure this was what Emelia had talked about when she'd mentioned the Floating Sea, so it was ironic that he had this sense of calm in a stage notorious for being traumatising.

If Sofia hadn't died, it would've been perfect. He still felt an immense sense of guilt. Especially because she should've survived, but they had simply been careless. Adam let out a sigh. Kat sidled up to him and put her hand on his back.

"Deep breath," she said.

"You cannot save everyone."

"Are you a mind-reader?" he joked.

"I do not need to be, when your face says exactly what you are thinking."

"I must've let my mask down for a moment," he joked with a wistful smile.

"How many times have you looped back?" she asked.

"Thirteen, ish."

"Ish?" she asked, confused.

"It's complicated."

"I find it relieving that you have relived the Trials that many times and can still show guilt and remorse," she remarked.

"It would be easier if I didn't feel this way," he admitted.

"But I promised myself that I wouldn't distance myself from other people, even if they will forget me when I go back in time."

"Is this our first time meeting?" she asked.

"It is," he replied.

"It's actually my first time reaching Moonport."

"And yet you knew everything about it?" she said, confused.

"I have some good friends to thank for that." They reached the lighthouse and found the fisherman waiting by the rubble, holding one of the curved bricks in his hands and looking up at the ruined top of the structure.

"You're back—" he started to say when he noticed them, but then he saw the giant floating shark's head and lost the ability to speak. Adam set it down next to the lighthouse.

"We did a bit of fishing," he remarked. The guy looked between Adam and the enormous head repeatedly, clearly at a loss for words.

"What kind of bait did you use?" he eventually asked after a full minute of stunned disbelief. Adam laughed.

"You don't want to know."

"Well, you're welcome to have my fishing gear," he said.

"I know a lot of people who will be happy to hear that the damned shark is dead. It has nabbed many people's catches, not to mention a few rowboats, but I had no idea it was this… huge."

"Most of its body fell back into the water when I transported it here," Adam explained.

"Its full length was probably fourteen metres. The fisherman shook his head.

"Truly a spawn of Nwetrou, wouldn't you say?" Adam frowned at the memory it invoked. He still recalled the giant figures that had orbited him as he fell down into the black abyss. Bet this will be another excuse for him to be upset with me. The fisherman went around the side of the lighthouse ruins before returning with a simple fishing rod. < < Relic > > < Moonport Fishing Rod (Common) — The fishermen of the Moonport lagoon are a proud group of people, who take the art of fishing quite seriously.

With this tool in your possession, you have been initiated into their ranks > Hmm, it doesn't seem to be a secret, but I guess this is another way to unlock fishing. It almost seems like there should be more to it, based on the lengthy description. Kat grabbed the fishing rod before Adam had the chance.

"Now I can join your little wager as well," she said. Adam grinned.

"You're on." Even though Adam tried several different things with Fallow's Compass, he was unable to get it to show them to other secrets in the stage, which suggested to him that there were none left. They considered completing the lighthouse quest, but since they had already completed seven quests in the stage, Adam knew they had enough for the quester achievement.

As such, they just went through Moonport island once more, killing the remaining ghouls, of which they found twenty-six, collecting all of their eyes along the way. They then stopped in the market where Adam sold the pocket watch that they'd found in the Patriarch's secret cache to a collector, who paid them 4, 000 shillings. For the last few hours of daylight, they sat on the edge of a pier in the Wine district, fishing in the lagoon while Adam talked about stage nine, going over everything he knew.

He wasn't able to answer most of Kat's questions about specifics, since he was relying entirely on Emelia's information and hadn't experienced it himself, but he still felt that he was able to give her a good overview that she would be able to use well. He also once again impressed upon her the danger in killing other players or letting them die. Based on her melody, she trusted his words and would do her best.

Once they were done fishing, Adam had managed to catch a total of five fish: three sardines of common rarity, an uncommon sea bream, and an uncommon sea bass. Kat had caught five sardines, two sea breams, and a rare lagoon sturgeon. As they headed towards the Rose Terrace while the sun was starting to set, Adam vowed that he would out-fish her the following day. Since the lagoon shark had been a boss and not a rare catch, he wouldn't be able to claim that for the wager. Plus, I'm sure Beck must've caught it too.

Inside the tavern, Adam noticed that there weren't a lot of melodies from other people, and the proprietor gave them the same room as the night before for half the price, since she said most of her clientele had left Moonport. Even though the threat of the bloodfiends and serial killer was gone, most people had likely only just now found out how bad things had been, given that news always took a few days to disseminate into the general populace.

If the bridge out of Moonport leads to the Forlorn Kingdom, then many of those who left are heading straight to their doom. Adam tried not to think about it too much. Ultimately, the outcome was much better than the alternative of everyone turning into bloodfiends and ghouls, or catching the plague. I wonder if how well players do in this stage influences the next. Like, if everyone in Moonport was infected with the plague, would it show up in stage nine? Maybe there's a benefit to saving a lot of lives?

Even if there wasn't a tangible reward for stopping the bloodfiends, Adam felt a great sense of accomplishment from what they had achieved. It was true that without the Flayed Lady's power it likely wouldn't have been possible, but he tried not to give her too much credit for their hard work. As they entered the room they'd rented, Kat stopped in the middle of the floor and turned to look at him. Adam immediately noticed the change in her melody.

"There is still half an hour or so until the sun goes down," she pointed out, clearly leading to something that he could already guess. As she closed the distance between them, he pre-emptively grabbed her shoulder to stop her before she could do what she intended.

"Don't," he told her. Kat put her hand on his cheek.

"Would it be so bad?" she asked. She pushed closer to him, pressing her body against his. Adam wasn't really resisting with his full might, since he could tell there was nothing malicious behind her words, only naked desire.

"I am not looking for something serious," he said as Kat put her lips on his.

"Me neither," she replied after they pulled apart for a moment. They stared into each other's eyes. Even though Adam's were disturbing, he could tell it didn't put her off.

"So, there is no harm in it," she concluded. Adam grinned despite himself. Despite his old memories. Despite his promise to Emelia that he would find her and rekindle the flame that had died down below the Floating Sea. As their lips met again, they both pulled off their relics and clothes, and Adam lifted her off the floor, bringing her to the bed. Later, as Kat and Adam lay in the bed, their naked bodies intertwined, the night truly fell, and her body started to undergo its transformation into a beast.

Adam fell off the bed in surprise, having totally let down his guard to simply indulge in the pleasure of being alive. Kat's transformed face slowly peeked over the edge to look down at where he'd landed on his back. His tail had collapsed on top of him, which he was sure looked ridiculous. When she laughed at his precarious position, the sound was deep and animalistic, but there was genuine joy in it and it was infectious. Adam laughed too.