Mermaid Reef

"boom."

There was a muffled sound.

The vine ball landed on a piece of golden sand.

Tiny black tentacles tugged at the sand, rolled about 30 feet, and fell straight into the sea.

"..."

Ten seconds later, Jason surfaced in embarrassment.

He was drenched, with a piece of seaweed hanging from his hair, and when he looked down, there was a red crab hanging by his collar.

Jensen pinched the crab suspiciously, wondering how this thing could survive "close range" contact with his real body.

The crab was motionless, and the two eyestalks in front of the hard shell did not respond to touch.

It is neither dead nor alive.

...wait, it's time to stop.

Jason turned to look out to sea.

The sun shines on this beautiful turquoise water, sparkling and shining like gold.

The waves kept undulating, and the snow-white foam froze in mid-air, like pieces of exquisite artwork.

Jason reached out to touch it, and the waves broke immediately, and the sea water poured over his face.

Jason silently "cleaned" the seawater off his body, and at the same time pieces of ice floes appeared where he was standing.

After confirming that the real body was not injured and there was no problem with the use of power, Jason quickly withdrew his power.

The ice floe melted.

The temperature here is very high, and the sea water is slightly hot from the sun.

Jason threw the crab into the sea and walked towards the shore.

He has regained the appearance of an English gentleman, with neat hair, a black top hat, and a beautiful gold pocket watch in his right hand.

The gem-studded pointer is approaching the Roman numeral IV, which is the time when he left Venice in 1930.

This pocket watch has been transformed by the power of the evil god.

After leaving the evil god's warehouse of items that did not exist in this world, the pointer trembled slightly, then began to spin rapidly, and finally settled at around [-]:[-].

"Crack."

Jason closed the pocket watch with his fingers and stuffed it into his coat pocket.

He felt that the function of this thing is still a little less. The time of the day can only be determined by the positions of the sun, the earth, and the moon. It should go further and locate the date.

Jason quickly found the second thing, a palm-sized crystal compass.

Inside the compass is not a pointer, but a blue crystal ball.

The sphere rose slowly in Jason's palm, spun around, and then fell again, stuck into the groove on the surface of the compass.

Humans can't see the changes of the compass, but Jason's eyes are different.

This crystal ball simulates the earth under your feet. Its "falling point" is where Jason is now. The principle of positioning is similar to that of a pocket watch.

"so far?"

Jensen found himself standing in what humans call the Atlantic Caribbean Sea.

It is a tropical sea near the equator.

The sea is full of reefs, and the shore is a steep cliff, and there seems to be no trace of human beings.

Jason raised the brim of his hat and walked along the beach.

Where he walked, all the footprints were affected by the force, sinking silently, and the sand quickly filled the gaps.

Jason was thinking.

He remembered everything that happened before very clearly, and even felt the terrifying power that erupted when Gemil was angry.

Anyway, Jason didn't feel the perfect fusion of time and space that the magic carpet Gu Keluo was talking about. He only saw the terrifying picture of their collision and imbalance.

It was as if a giant hand squashed the world in front of me, and the power turned into nothingness and chaotic matter, eroding order and law like flowing water.

Gravity, magnetic fields... all messed up.

Colors disappear, sounds are swallowed.

At the same time, their bodies were being torn violently, and they couldn't help sliding into the abyss of nothingness.

Thoughts and memories were shattered, and the last thing Jason felt was the process of shadows entwining his body and falling into the endless abyss.

Then?

He woke up in the sea water scorched by the sun.

The compass told him that he somehow came to a tropical island from the North Pole.

——This place is obviously in a state of stagnation in time.

Jansen first had to find out how big the anomaly was, and then he had to find Gemil as soon as possible. At the same time, he had to be careful, so as not to encounter the enemy before the lover was found.

Bypassing palms and coconut trees, Jason "walked" up the steep sea cliff effortlessly.

His original intention was to find a high point and look around.

But the backside of this screen-like sea cliff was a sight that Jason could not have imagined at all.

It was a large town.

Large and small roofs are arranged in disorder, including churches and temples.

Some houses are randomly piled up like bricks, and many buildings are exaggerated and exquisite, with tall stone carvings on the outer walls and Roman-style arched doors.

The town is very prosperous, with more than a dozen markets and countless shops.

The port in the distance is crowded with a large number of sailboats, which line up to the lagoon on the outermost edge of the lighthouse.

- everything is still.

Flags don't fly, humans don't talk.

After Jason walked into the town, he smelled the special atmosphere here.

Spirits, food, and stench.

There were not many people on the street, but there were many pubs, full of drunken men.

They lay dead on tables and on women's beds, their hair dirty and their clothes even dirtier.

Their common feature is that they carry weapons, even if they are drunk to death, they can still see these things around them and in their hands.

There were knives, arquebuses, iron hooks, and spiked hammers.

There are messy plates on the table, strings of kippers hanging from the beams of the tavern, and live chickens and ducks in the backyard.

Some minced meat and bones were thrown on the corner of the street. Several homeless men with bruises on their faces and even missing arms and legs were fighting for food. Their opponents were not the same kind, but drooling vicious dogs and swarms of rats. .

Jason frowned slightly.

It stinks.

It wasn't the stench of spirits mixed with vomit, nor was it the stench of garbage and sewage in the dark corners, but a strange smell of moldy bodies with chaotic minds that could only be felt by evil gods.

In Jason's eyes, these motionless human beings are like statues filled with gray gas, and they will be deformed if they are slightly polluted by evil forces.

If it is described in human language, then this is a corner abandoned by God, a city of sin.

A favorite place of worship for the Secret Order.

Chaos and death will attract evil gods.

Jason couldn't help but wonder, could this be the reason why "myself" or "their four evil gods" fell here?

Jason looked at the shops on both sides, and the doubts in his heart grew bigger and bigger.

Jason has been to many human towns, but none of them are so old, as old as the ones in the book illustrations.

The windows were greasy and dusty, with poorly polished glass and beautifully painted posters.

There are no mannequins in the clothing store, and there are no electric lights.

The stones in the box are dull in color because they have not been polished and cut perfectly.

Finally Jason stopped in front of a tall and gorgeous house.

Although the people here are also drunk and staggered, the tables are messy and full of food scraps, but here you can see more details.

—their clothes were very elegant, but whether they were men or women, Jason felt that they were dressed like opera actors, especially those exaggerated ruffled collars and tight trousers below the knees.

Next to the remnants of half a roast chicken, there is a sliced ​​fruit.

The skin is black and green, much like a watermelon, but the white flesh occupies half of it, and the light pink flesh is petal by petal. (Note)

Jason: "..."

Very well, he determined that there must be something wrong with the timing.

This is not the era when he was "born", it should have been pushed forward several hundred years.

No, that's not accurate.Jensen muses as he walks that he may be in a rift in time where everything around him has stopped.

How do I go back here?

Jason had a headache.

At this time, he walked towards the most concentrated and prosperous area in the town - the port.

There were porters, sailors, tax collectors and soldiers in crisp uniforms on the docks.

On the flagpole hangs a Union Jack flag with a light blue background, a red cross and white diagonal stripes, which looks a lot like the British flag.

A beautiful double-decked three-masted ship was moored at the pier, with black and shiny muzzles.

There are all kinds of sailboats outside the port, basically fast light sailboats.

Some added an extra tailsail, some replaced all of them with flexible triangular sails, and some moved the foremast to the bow and lowered it, imitating a Mediterranean three-masted schooner.

"Ok?"

Jason was admiring these sailing ships one by one, when he suddenly saw an invisible shadow moving slowly from one sailing ship to the other. The thin, round, featureless limbs protruding from the edge of the shadow first knocked on the deck earnestly , seems to be inspecting the goods to decide whether to board the ship.

This should be a very terrifying picture. Under the bright sunlight, above the heads of ignorant humans, the devil turned into a shadow and entrenched on the bow of the ship, stretching out weird tentacles to go to another ship. The sailor was still leaning against the ship and shouting towards the port, but he turned a blind eye to the dark tentacles that were so close at hand.

"Gamil?"

Jason yelled in surprise.

Shadows immediately fell from the sails.

It was as fast as a fish slipping into the sea, without even arousing the splash.

Jason: "..."

The shadow of a giant whale first appeared below the sea surface, and all the sailboats began to shake due to the forced sea surface rushing up, and the stationary people on board fell into a pile.

The giant whale disappeared quickly, and a mermaid with red hair and golden tail appeared in the waves.

"What happened? Where are we?"

The mermaid grabbed the wooden railing next to the pier and looked suspiciously at the port where time stopped.

Jason couldn't help but ask, "Were you looking for me just now?"

In an unconscious state, disguise the sails and check the ships one by one?

Gemil turned his head slightly, his golden eyes flickering.

"……no."

He seemed to be looking for a gift for Jason in his dream.

It's great to have so many sailboats.

"We should be in the time gap, you and Gu Keluo's power caused a strange result, and now I don't know how to go back... You have been holding me tightly, and we still fell to the coast of this island On both sides, Gukeluo and Huidie may be farther away from us... I just saw this town, and these human clothes and objects show that this place should be hundreds of years ago, Gemil?"

Jason found that the mermaid was still looking at the boat, not paying attention.

"Oh, let me think about it, I've heard that some evil gods will occasionally break away from the current point in time, but their power will be greatly limited."

The mermaid swam towards Jason, and then they were talking on the shore while one was in the sea.

"I feel like I'm carrying a heavy load, and my consciousness is dizzy, and I can't even switch the body shape."

"Really? But I don't think it has any effect?" Jason said in surprise.

Gemil rested his chin on one hand, spread the other hand, and said helplessly, "You don't exist in this era! Without the restriction of another self, of course you won't feel your power being suppressed."