Chapter 62

Yue Yin arrived to find the group silent in response to her approach. Finally, Eda gripped the drawing from the little girl, glaring at Yue Yin, and demanded, “What does ‘Deep Ones’ mean?”

Everyone expected Yue Yin to feign ignorance, but instead, she raised an eyebrow and said nonchalantly, “Deep Ones. Didn’t she tell you?”

Yue Yin hadn’t been present when the team interviewed Finara about her brother’s tragedy. She’d claimed she wanted seafood and had taken Jiang Suliu along for a stroll around the island. Yet she hadn’t even set foot in the house—how could she know what the little girl had called it?

Their gazes grew wary, and Eda, holding the drawing tightly, asked, “How do you know?”

Eyes fixed on Yue Yin and Jiang Suliu beside her, Eda finally realized the oddness—Jiang Suliu’s sudden appearance after the island’s mysterious fog, Yue Yin’s casualness…

In response to their questioning, Yue Yin raised an eyebrow in puzzlement. “I told you, I worship the Thousand-Faced Moon. Is it so strange I know about the Deep Ones?”

“You worship the Thousand-Faced Moon?” Everyone spoke up at once, except for Luo Anna, whose eyes flashed with hidden emotion.

Eda shot a glare at Zhou Zicheng. “What on earth are you playing at? She’s from your Metaphysical society!”

Zhou Zicheng ignored the jab, his shock exceeding the others’. After all, Yue Yin was an S-Class user! Was this really just a casual recruitment mission as the chairman had claimed?

Things had already spiraled far beyond expectations. Still distrustful, Eda’s scrutinizing gaze fell on Yue Yin. “Do you swear you have no ulterior motives?”

Yue Yin blinked, scratching her head. “Ulterior motives?” She’d come to find Jiang Suliu and to meet her century-old quota on Sacrificial Day. Her deep-sea followers had been waiting all year; she couldn’t miss it, even if she’d nearly forgotten it in her eagerness to find Jiang Suliu.

Luo Anna took a step back, visibly skeptical. “Did you kill Andre?”

Luo Anna had been filled with dread ever since learning of Andre’s death, suspecting Yue Yin of silencing him. Yue Yin looked exasperated. “Of course not!”

Luo Anna, however, didn’t believe her. Zhou Zicheng, having thought Yue Yin an ally brought by their Metaphysical society to protect the team, finally spoke up. “So, you’re saying you just happened to show up here and got entangled in this mystery by pure coincidence?”

Yue Yin put her hands in her pockets and replied innocently, “Yes.”

The atmosphere grew tense as the group continued to press her, while Yue Yin squinted up at the sky, feeling as if she’d forgotten something.

Meanwhile, miles away, back in the Jiang family residence, a dispirited octopus butler climbed out of the sewer and slumped into a chair. Other dark spirits gathered around.

“We’ve searched for days. We haven’t delivered her homework yet, and we’ll be done for if she finds out!” one said.

A pair of twins sobbed, “We’ve searched the entire city. We haven’t found her—do you think she’s toying with us?”

Back on the island, Yue Yin seemed to remember something she’d forgotten but couldn’t place it. Returning to the matter at hand, she gazed at the investigators, their faces filled with fear and suspicion. Zhou Zicheng asked, “What are you looking at?”

Yue Yin finally refocused, answering seriously, “I was thinking it’s lunchtime.”

The group: …??

The investigators were stunned. They were facing off with her, questioning her motives, and she was thinking about lunch? All stared at her in disbelief, except for Jiang Suliu, who chuckled softly.

Oblivious to their reactions, Yue Yin turned to Eda, as if she’d settled on her lunch options, and said, “Surina Island has a long history of Sacrificial Day. No one forced you here—this was all your choice.”

She looked exquisite, with headphones around her neck, her hair windswept, and a tear mole under her eye. “Besides, you’re not here to save anyone. You’re intruders. There’s no one here in need of your ‘rescue.’”

Everyone looked at her, uncertain. Yue Yin continued, “You ask too many questions. I don’t have to answer them.”

To a god, humanity was little more than insects. Yue Yin had patience for her followers but no tolerance for others.

Turning away, she walked off, Jiang Suliu following in silent obedience. After a few steps, she looked back and said, “The fog will clear at four o’clock Thursday morning. You’ll have one hour. If I were you, I’d leave Surina before Sacrificial Day.”

They were shocked. Eda asked urgently, “Thursday? How do you know?”

Luo Anna swallowed hard. “Who are you?”

They tried to block her path, but Jiang Suliu intervened. Attempting to use their powers, they found their connection to the divine severed, their prayers unanswered.

In that moment, they finally understood why an A-Class like Andre had met his end here.

Jiang Siliu followed closely beside Yue Yin, softly praising, “My Lady, you are as merciful as always.”

Yue Yin replied airily, “Naturally.”

She glanced back, her gaze oddly focused on Jiang Siliu.

For gods, mercy and cruelty are two sides of the same coin—indifferent yet generous in their own paradoxical kindness.

Meanwhile, the investigation team watched Yue Yin and Jiang Siliu walk away, eventually making their way back to the mayor’s house in a daze.

But this time, the mayor refused to let them stay, informing them that the house arranged by the Metaphysical Society for visitors had been cleared and they could move in. Though puzzled, they were beginning to sense the eerie peculiarity of the islanders, and realizing they were powerless without their abilities, they dared not protest and obediently gathered their belongings and relocated.

“Could what Yue Yin said be true?” This question weighed on everyone’s minds.

Some wanted to leave, while others insisted on staying to uncover the truth.

Eda, focusing on a distracted Zhou Zicheng, questioned suspiciously, “Isn’t she from your Metaphysical Society?”

Zhou Zicheng sat on the steps with his head in his hands, voice heavy. “I’d never seen her before coming to Surina. All I know is, she’s an S-class ability user.”

Everyone fell silent, stunned.

It began to make sense why Yue Yin, seemingly unafraid, could somehow know that the mist would clear in three days.

After days of indecision, each made their choice—to leave or stay. During this time, one of the team was attacked and left gravely injured, casting an even darker shadow over the team, each member silently carrying their worries.

On the third day,Luo Anna left the team, and Zhou Zicheng vanished along with her. No one knew if they’d been attacked like the other teammate or had left by choice.

Those remaining, including Eda, chose to stay indoors, wary of the islanders’ strange bait—a rotten, red-hued meat, offered to the sea. Recalling the disappearances of fellow ability users, they dared not ponder its source.

Most wanted to leave, but the only boat was the one they arrived on. The other boats belonged to locals, who they couldn’t expect to lend them passage.

As the last day approached, fearing attacks, they planned a quiet escape.

The small boat could carry few, so no one mentioned retrieving the tourists hospitalized on the island.

At dawn, they gathered at the shore.

Unexpectedly, the mayor and many townsfolk awaited them, showing no surprise at their approach, as if expecting them.

Seeing the crowd, the team’s hearts sank.

But the anticipated confrontation never came. Instead, the mayor, impeccably dressed, smiled as he provided boats for them, even bringing over the hospitalized tourists.

“Take them with you,” he said with a courteous smile.

The locals insisted they bring the tourists along. Uncertain but unwilling to oppose the mayor, they complied.

The mayor watched them depart, never attempting to hinder them.

In a turn of events, Eda chose not to board.

Her teammates looked at her in bewilderment, but she replied with resolute calm, “I can’t leave. Too many questions remain unanswered.”

As a devotee of Nodens, an ancient god who eternally opposes the Outer Gods, Eda felt compelled to face her fate on this island and to awaken her misguided fellow devotees.

She watched the boat sail away, as an hour passed and the mist rolled back, sealing the sea from outsiders once again.

The townsfolk seemed disinterested in her decision to stay, barely sparing her a glance despite the countdown to the sacrificial festival that night.

Eda noticed how each villager brimmed with excitement as the festival approached, their normally impassive faces alight with joy.

“Why did you let those tourists leave?” she asked the mayor, pursuing him closely. “I know what you are and what you’re planning,” she challenged. “So why let them go? Don’t cultists like you thrive on having more sacrificial offerings?”

The mayor initially feigned ignorance, but then his face darkened. “You despicable thieves, heretics! You tread on our sacred ground, invoking your foreign gods to desecrate our flesh, our faith.”

“As for those tourists…” The mayor gave a cold sneer. “We never planned to kill them.”

Their targets were not ordinary people but the ability users, those who set foot on their land bringing with them foreign gods.

At that moment, Eda finally understood.

According to the island’s curse, any ability user who set foot on Surina Island would suffer from it, their strength draining away until they succumbed within three months.

The investigation team, perplexed by this, attributed it to the deep-sea S-class malevolent entities. But what was odd was that this curse only affected ability users, sparing ordinary tourists.

While she’d always sensed something was amiss, now, hearing the mayor’s words, Eda saw the truth.

They had never considered linking it to faith.

Ability users are chosen vessels of the gods, blessed to communicate with and wield divine power. Wherever they go, gods have agents, avatars able to manifest their will.

But the native islanders, descendants of fishmen, worship the Thousand-Faced Moon, fiercely guarding their god’s domain from rival deities.

Eda was dumbstruck, realizing the answer to her lingering doubts.

The mayor’s mouth curled into a smirk. “As for those ordinary folk…yes, they’d make fine sacrifices, but they’re more useful for another purpose.”

Rather than serve as mere sacrifices, those tourists would become missionaries.

As they succumbed to illness and desperation, the townsfolk offered them sacred texts of the Thousand-Faced Moon, promising that reciting its prayers would clear the mist and guide them home.

After months of isolation and despair, those visitors would naturally yield to belief. Then, with the islanders’ help, they’d be sent back.

Even if only a few among them became true believers, upon leaving Surina, they would spread their newfound faith to others…

The mayor’s contemptuous smile deepened. “One day, the glory of our holy order will emerge from the depths, spreading to the city streets.”