“You want to shut down the Great Barrier?” Shakira seemed unable to believe her ears.

The siren queen nodded. “The structure of the portal is very special. It is completely integrated with the Great Barrier. In fact, it was directly transformed on the basis of the energy focus of the Great Barrier. To interrupt the energy supply of the portal, the Great Barrier must be shut down.”

Hassou, who had been standing by and watching coldly, suddenly asked, “What are the consequences of shutting down the Great Barrier?”

Shakira was silent for a moment, then shook her head slightly. “The Great Barrier is not just a protective layer, but also the foundation of Nassaton’s stealth system. It controls the spatial mesosphere around the deep-sea city. Once the Great Barrier disappears, the siren city will appear in its normal location on the Pacific seabed. Humans and other races may be able to detect it—and they can invade here if they are willing to pay enough. We are losing the most important defensive facility in ten thousand years.”

The siren queen placed her hand on a crystalline pipe next to the Core of Surging Water, which immediately emitted a series of pleasant resonances, and the queen tilted her head slightly. “I know what this decision means, but now that vortex is getting stronger and stronger. If the energy supply is not cut off, it will break through the critical point within five days, but cutting it off will at least give us a month to breathe. In any case, either Nassaton and Earth will be blown up together by the vortex, or we will be temporarily exposed to the world. The latter is at least a relatively less bad choice.”

“It's not just blowing up with the Earth; it may even be blowing up with the entire universe. The entire universe will die,” Hao Ren reminded from the side, afraid that others would not know the danger of this matter—of course, the more important reason was that he was inherently foul-mouthed and it was spreading in its late stage.

“Turning off the Great Barrier just means temporarily losing invisibility, right? It doesn't necessarily mean that anyone will come looking for the siren city during this time,” Lily said, raising her hand to express her opinion. “At least I haven't heard of any plans for humans to explore the Pacific recently. Let's figure out how to solve the vortex before then and restart the Great Barrier. What do you guys think of this idea?”

“That's what I'm thinking too,” the siren queen nodded. “For more than ten thousand years, even the other races of the mythological era rarely had the ability to come to such a deep Pacific seabed. It's not easy for today's other races and humans to explore Nassaton. We only need to shut down the Great Barrier for a month. After a month, either we will shut down the vortex, or everyone will be torn apart together… there is no difference.”

“There is only one hidden danger,” Vivian suddenly looked up at Hassou. “There is currently a group of guys on Earth who can organize a team to go to the bottom of the Pacific at any time, and their forces are enough to threaten this city. Even if your ability to revive is heaven-defying, you can't stop these guys' various seals.”

Hassou shrugged. “Are you talking about demon hunters? I don't think the reputation of demon hunters is so bad that we would do such a thing to the always gentle and harmless sirens.”

“The main reason you don't do it is because you can't find Nassaton. You are unwilling to provoke this kind of difficult-to-kill other race until you can hurt the foundation of the sirens—if Nassaton is exposed in front of you like this, it's not certain. Hassou, as a junior, dare you guarantee to me that you won't have any hunting instinct when you see these sirens?”

Hassou fell silent, then suddenly straightened his body and pointed to the large vortex projected by the data terminal. “Okay, in the face of this threat, let's be frank. I and my two apprentices guarantee to you that we will keep the ‘opening of the city’ of Nassaton a secret, and guarantee that we will not let the demon hunter group know that this city has lifted its defenses. At the same time, if they detect Nassaton from other channels, the three of us will also do everything possible to prevent any action against it within a month, including even the most conventional exploration action.”

Tutan nodded in agreement. “The three of us have that kind of influence.”

Hao Ren and Vivian exchanged glances, then he patted his head and remembered something. He grabbed the data terminal that was acting as a projector. “Dial Raven 12345 for me, and put it on speaker.”

The three demon hunters looked at everything inexplicably, and then heard a ringtone like singing the Bible coming from the data terminal, followed by a loud female voice: “Whaddya want?”

“Boss, I'm catching border crossings in the siren city, and someone here wants to make an oath,” Hao Ren explained the situation in two sentences, then pointed the data terminal towards Hassou. “Say what you just guaranteed again.”

“What does this mean?” Hassou asked with a straight face, very vigilantly.

Hao Ren shrugged. “Let a third party be a witness, you can't be just talking nonsense, right?”

Hassou snorted. He didn't feel any curses or incantatory power attached to this strange “communication device,” so he calmly repeated what he had just guaranteed. After he finished speaking, Hao Ren took back the data terminal and asked in his mind, “Boss, did you hear it?”

Raven 12345's happy voice sounded in his mind: “Sure thing—remember to remind them not to breach the contract, because it won't be me executing the punishment, it will be the laws of heaven and earth automatically executing it, and that's no joke.”

Hao Ren turned off the communication and turned to look at Hassou. “Whether you believe it or not, the third party who is witnessing this time is more powerful than any force you can imagine. So I hope that in the next month, no demon hunter other than the ones present will come to disturb Nassaton.”

Hassou snorted with a straight face. “It doesn't matter, my promise itself is more reliable than anything.”

Vivian nodded to the siren queen. “Turn off the Great Barrier. Let's think of a way in the next month.”

The siren queen placed her hand on the two crystalline pipes near the Core of Surging Water and began to emit a series of voice-controlled signals in a singing tone. Some kind of strange resonance came from some nodes deep in Nassaton. The surface of the huge sphere in the center of the hall surged with light, and the light of some pipes gradually dimmed, while the Great Barrier above Nassaton began to flicker. Many sirens who were cleaning up the ruins of the city sensed the strange aura in the water flow. They looked up at the Great Barrier that had not been closed for more than ten thousand years. Many people began to swim around restlessly to inquire about the situation, while those sirens who knew the truth or guessed the truth immediately called on everyone to return to their posts. On the outskirts of the city, General Vanessa was negotiating with some werewolves who had just been freed. She was also attracted by the changes in the Great Barrier. After seeing the layer of water film gradually disappear, she sighed: "A hundred years of chaos..."

In the Nassaton energy station, Hao Ren and the data terminal were paying attention to the data during the operation of the Core of Surging Water, and they discovered some interesting phenomena.

“There is a crack… an invisible crack, inside your energy network,” the data terminal’s radar sensed the interaction path between the Core of Surging Water and the Great Barrier. It opened a set of large holographic projections, presenting the entire city model of Nassaton. “Is your energy broadcast-style?”

Soma, as the city technician of the time, was familiar with this aspect: “Yes, the Core of Surging Water is connected to the two hundred and twenty-seven relay towers around the city, and those relay towers can broadcast magic energy to the entire city, and their broadcast limit is the Great Barrier.”

“Oh, then the model is complete,” the data terminal let out a loud whistle, and then the picture on the holographic projection flickered for a while. A large number of interlaced lines appeared above the city model. The area where those lines converged most densely was the top of the Great Barrier, where the giant vortex was located, and a little below the giant vortex, there was a crack-like trace marked with light purple.

"What is that?!" Shakira asked in surprise.

“A crack, an unstable space channel, but invisible,” the data terminal explained. “Your spaceship must have been damaged when it made a forced landing on Earth. Although it looks like its energy core is still operating as usual, there is an uncoordinated turbulence at the top of your energy broadcast field. This turbulence causes the space there to be unstable. Under certain coincidences, it will connect to the Dream Plane—that mind flayer undoubtedly came that way. And its plan is also very simple, which is to expand this crack and stabilize it, so it let the sirens create a giant space gate at the top of the Great Barrier… When the center of the vortex grows to completely overlap with that crack, the gate will open.”