Chapter 416 The Matter of "Dog Leashing Human"

On the shattered floating island shrouded in stagnant starlight, A' Gou and Shirley reached the edge of the earth, sat down, and began to space out.

A jet-black chain extended from Shirley's arm, covered in black bone fragments, and connected to A' Gou's cervical spine. The thoughts of two minds flowed quietly in the connection constructed by the chain, merging, sharing reason and humanity with each other—just like the past twelve years.

They had many things to talk about. In the brief but thrilling time after the chain broke, this pair of "partners" who had depended on each other for twelve years faced many unimaginable things, and even Shirley, who was the least fond of using her brain, had many thoughts about life at this time.

Of course, they also had to think about how to adapt to the new relationship of "guardian dog" and "contracted human," which was explosive no matter where it was placed in the world…

Duncan did not disturb them, but took Alice to a place a little farther from the edge of the floating island, and took the opportunity to investigate the strange environment of this "Deep Sea Embers" while waiting.

It was very quiet all around, and no living things could be seen on the wilderness shrouded by the dim starry sky.

Many Deep Sea demons had gathered here before, but in order to avoid being beaten, they had already run away cleanly. Now, only a barren land covered with black strange rocks and some rugged shadows in the distance remained.

If Duncan didn't know that he was in the "Deep Sea Embers," he would have felt that the scene in front of him was like a desolate alien planet—the surface of the earth around him, like a dead planet, and the stagnant starry sky above his head exuded a desolate and depressing atmosphere, which was hardly a good environment.

And considering that the only "animals" here were countless violent demons, and that the demons' daily routine was to gnaw on their own kind, gnaw on rocks, and be gnawed on by their own kind, this place was even less "habitable."

"...I'm starting to think that the Four Gods Church's plan is unreliable," Duncan said casually. "I'm referring to the plan to settle in the Deep Sea Embers—in this ghostly place, even if humans really survive, they will definitely be distorted beyond recognition… Whether a completely inhuman 'civilization' can still be regarded as a 'human civilization' is probably questionable."

Alice thought for a while, as if she understood.

However, she didn't seem to have any resistance to the environment here, and even adapted very well. She was still happily wandering around until now. The bare wilderness and dim environment did not affect the doll's good mood—she ran to the side and picked up a strangely shaped stone, and happily gave it to Duncan: "Captain! Look, look, a stone!"

Duncan immediately gathered his thoughts and glanced at the stone Alice picked up with a serious and solemn expression: "What's so special about this stone?"

"Don't you think it looks like a goat's head when you look at it from the side?" The doll小姐 immediately laughed, with a look of boasting on her face. "I spotted it at a glance just now!"

Duncan: "..."

While he was stunned, Alice ran to the side again and dug up some things from the nearby jagged rocks, happily showing them to Duncan: "And these, don't they look like tree branches?"

Duncan looked at the branches in Alice's hand—he had seen a lot of these things along the way. They looked like thin branches of some kind of shrub, growing in the cracks of the rocks, with gray-white patterns on the surface, but only the main stem and no leaf structure, and the shape was quite strange.

Anyone who saw this thing for the first time would probably subconsciously think that it was a unique "plant" in the Deep Sea Embers.

However, Alice casually broke off a thin branch and pointed to the cross-section of the thin branch: "Look, this thing is also stone."

Duncan frowned slightly, took the "thin branch" that Alice broke off, and curiously observed its cross-sectional shape—this thing seemed very brittle, the fracture was neat and sharp, and it showed the same texture as the black and gray stones on the surrounding ground, but when Duncan held them up and observed them carefully under the starlight, he saw that the cross-section vaguely reflected tiny gleams, as if it contained very fine metal dust or fibers.

Then he raised his head and looked at the vast space shrouded in the dim starry sky in the distance—large and small broken islands floated in this dimension. Some islands were almost the size of the largest city-states on the boundless sea, while others were just larger stones, but no matter how big the "island" was, its structure had one thing in common:

The lower half of the "floating island" was a regularly shaped "disc," and many clustered, stalactite-like inverted objects could be seen at the bottom of the disc, and huge structures of unclear shape were connected between those inverted objects, as if they were the "base" carrying the floating island.

Duncan frowned slightly and couldn't help but think of the "mirror island" he had seen on the seabed of Frost a while ago—the black mirror island floating in the deep sea also showed the same desolate and primitive appearance as the broken floating island here, and the island was also covered with "black stone" material similar to this, mixed with a slight metallic texture.

Obviously, the two were similar things.

If those black mud humanoids with human outlines were "human roughs," then the barren and primitive dark mirror island on the seabed of Frost was a "city-state rough," and in this Deep Sea Embers… it seemed to be filled with "city-state roughs."

Were these perhaps the "raw materials" used by the Deep Sea Sacred Lord in the Third Long Night? Or, to put it another way… were they the "semi-finished products" of the many islands on the boundless sea?

If these were all semi-finished products… then it was clear that the Deep Sea Sacred Lord had a more ambitious plan when building the "sanctuary"—more islands, more city-states, a wider living space, abundant resources, and even… the scope of the boundless sea in the initial plan may have been many times wider than what the world knows now.

But now, these "semi-finished products" were just quietly floating in this space like a cage, allowing time to pass, forgotten by the world and the gods, with only the chaotic and ignorant Deep Sea demons fighting here all day long, maintaining a meaningless material cycle and "balance" day after day.

Footsteps suddenly came from the side, awakening Duncan from his thoughts.

He raised his head and looked in the direction of the sound, and saw two tall figures walking towards him—one was Shirley, who still maintained the form of a Deep Sea demon, and the other was A' Gou, whose mental state had completely recovered.

"Looks like you're done talking," Duncan took the initiative to step forward, taking the lead to break the silence.

"Thank you for the time," A' Gou lowered his head and said very politely. "I hope this didn't delay anything."

"We have a lot of things to do—but we're not in a hurry for these ten minutes," Duncan said casually, while observing Shirley and A' Gou's expressions (mainly observing Shirley's; A' Gou's bone face really didn't show any expression). "Looks like you're in good shape—have you discussed what to do in the future? I mean, your new contractual relationship… about a demon summoning a contracted human, an unprecedented situation."

He felt a burst of weirdness in his heart when he said this, but he didn't expect Shirley and A' Gou on the opposite side to be particularly calm after hearing this. The latter even shook his head indifferently: "It's not a big deal. Shirley and I both think this doesn't have much impact on us…"

Alice, who was next to her, widened her eyes in surprise when she heard this: "No impact?"

"Yeah," A' Gou said very calmly, "Anyway, Shirley has always been bumping around everywhere, and I'm responsible for holding the leash next to her to prevent her from causing trouble. What did the captain say… oh, dog leashing human. We've been doing this for more than ten years. Isn't it still the same now!"

When Duncan heard this, he exchanged glances with Alice. After a few seconds, they said in unison: "It seems so…"

Shirley, who was next to her, almost drooped her head to her chest, and muttered embarrassedly while lowering her head: "Can you stop talking about this… I'm not that reckless…"

Duncan immediately felt that this girl's words were unconvincing at all—from the day she first swung the chain and threw A' Gou out to hit people, her relationship with "reckless" had been inseparable…

But after this interruption, he was slightly relieved in his heart. It seemed that Shirley and A' Gou really didn't care about the transformation of the contractual relationship, which relieved him of a lot of unnecessary worries.

Shirley lowered her head and glanced at A' Gou, who was connected to her. She gently shook her arm, causing the chain to make a rustling sound.

The chains kept them together, as always. As for who was human, who was a demon, who shared whose humanity, and whose heart was beating in whose chest… it wasn't that important.

They were "Shirley and A' Gou"—forever so, being together was good.

"Then there's only one other question left," Duncan suddenly coughed lightly after a few seconds of silence, breaking the silence. He raised his head and looked at Shirley, who had "grown" up and was almost three meters tall when supported by bone limbs. "Can you still transform back to your original form?"

"Yes," Shirley nodded immediately, but then her expression was a little hesitant, "After the chain recovered, A' Gou and I 'sensed' a way to control our bodies again, but…"

Duncan looked puzzled: "But?"

"There's a slight side effect…" A' Gou muttered next to her.

As soon as he finished speaking, Shirley began to control her new body to transform in the direction of a human—

With a series of cracking sounds of bones deforming and reorganizing, and smoke rising, her body quickly shrank in the smoke. In just a few seconds, she had returned to the height and body shape of a normal human. Those terrifying black bone fragments and bone spurs had shrunk into her body, and her once mature face had returned to her normal appearance, except…

The eyes were still filled with blood-colored light.

She raised her head and looked at Duncan with those eyes completely covered in blood, with a rather helpless tone: "The characteristics of the Deep Sea demon can't be eliminated. A' Gou can directly return to its previous appearance—anyway, it's just shrinking a circle, but my eyes can't change back no matter what. It just doesn't look right."

"...Actually, it's quite cool," Duncan commented very objectively.

Shirley held back for a long time and let out a long sigh: "Oh… forget it, I'll close my eyes when I enter the city in the future. Anyway, I can see things even with my eyes closed now."