Gwyn blinked, looking at Hysilens, who had walked away without a hint of reluctance, and felt a sudden sense of helplessness— “As expected, someone as easy to talk to as Castorice is a rarity after all…” Sighing in his heart, Gwyn followed three or five steps behind Hysilens.
Back by the campfire, the purple-haired, purple-eyed Siren Princess still had no intention of paying attention to Gwyn.
Seeing this, Gwyn circled to the other side, carefully observing Hysilens’s expression.
Seeing no signs of displeasure, he inched closer to the campfire and finally sat down cautiously at its edge.
“Hello?” After sitting for a moment, feeling the warmth of the campfire dispel the chill of the deep night, and confirming that Hysilens had no intention of driving him away, Gwyn tried to greet her.
“I am not good.” Hysilens’s gaze remained fixed on the campfire before her, her thoughts seemingly drifting far away, yet she answered quickly.
“My name is Gwyn, a…
patient who has just recovered from a serious illness.
May I ask your name?
If there is anything bothering you, perhaps saying it out loud will make you feel a little better.” Seeing that Hysilens did not refuse to communicate, Gwyn breathed a sigh of relief and carefully continued the conversation.
“Really?” Hysilens stopped staring at the campfire and looked at Gwyn with confusion.
“Yes, at least that’s been my personal experience.
It’s like two people lifting a stone as tall as a person; it’s generally easier than one person lifting it alone.” Gwyn nodded quickly, a gentle smile on his face—the Hysilens before him seemed a bit withdrawn, but not entirely so; at least she was willing to communicate.
“My name is Helicula, from the sea…” Hysilens believed Gwyn’s words and nodded slightly, but her gaze returned to the campfire as she slowly began to tell her story.
She didn’t care who Gwyn was, nor where he came from; she simply believed his words about feeling better after speaking, and chose to pour out her past, her loneliness, and her doubts.
The story Hysilens told was not unfamiliar to Gwyn.
The Black Tide emerged from the deep sea, and the Siren Clan, as a subordinate race to Fagina, followed Fagina to fight against the Black Tide.
But Fagina was not a Titan skilled in combat.
All she could do was use the cup of overflow to contain the Black Tide until the cup of overflow shattered, and of the Siren Clan that followed her, only Hysilens remained after the war.
She followed Fagina’s divine oracle and continued to fight against the Black Tide until the Strife, Nikador, took over the mission of fighting the Black Tide, coming to land to seek the banquet promised by the Queen.
Yet, the Sticoxia in the promise had long since turned into a dead city, devoid of the banquet and music she had expected.
She wandered the land in loneliness, occasionally fighting the Black Tide that appeared before her, watching the wars on land, unable to understand why the people of the land did not cherish the time the Siren Clan had fought with everything they had to secure…
“Tell me…
why is that?” Finally, Hysilens sighed heavily, as if seeking an answer from Gwyn, yet she did not look at him at all.
Instead, she picked up the two oddly shaped weapons at her side and gently pulled them, playing a sound of loneliness from the deep sea.
Listening to the lonely music Hysilens played, Gwyn did not know if she truly wanted to ask him for the answer to this question— Hysilens’s current situation was that everything from her past had been swallowed by the Black Tide; the goal she had strived for for hundreds or thousands of years had been shattered, and she was completely lost, living in a daze.
If not for her unique nature and the long-term battles, as well as the long period of cleansing and piecing together the cup of overflow which caused some changes to the essence of her existence, she might have died in some corner.
What she needed now was not a listener, but a goal, a Wish-Dale—wishing for a home.
Just as Gwyn was thinking about how to answer Hysilens, a strange note suddenly mingled into the music lingering in his ears.
Instinctively turning his head to look, Gwyn couldn’t help but widen his eyes— The Black Tide surged in from afar, swallowing everything from hills to vegetation, as if it intended to submerge the entire world.
Just by staring at the surging Black Tide, Gwyn felt a sensation as if he were suffocating.
And within the Black Tide, various monsters that looked like abominations rose and fell like fish leaping in the sea.
“Stand back—” The lonely music had stopped at some unknown moment, and a cold, slender figure stood before Gwyn.
A chilling, icy light reflected off the bow, piercing toward the Black Tide like an unstoppable sword.
“Hoo…” With Hysilens blocking the pressure of the Black Tide, the overwhelming sense of oppression finally dissipated a little, allowing Gwyn to finally catch his breath.
But before he could say anything, Hysilens’s figure had already leaped out.
She was like a fish in the deep sea, her movements light and agile, yet there was a chilling murderous intent in her graceful figure.
From Gwyn’s perspective, her slender form almost seemed to overwhelm the all-encompassing Black Tide.
In the blink of an eye, the Siren Princess of the Waves had already met the surging Black Tide head-on.
Immediately, the unstoppable spread of the Black Tide slowed, followed by shrieks and roars.
Gwyn squinted through the dim moonlight to observe, only to see that Hysilens was already cutting a path through the Black Tide.
The instrument that had just played beautiful music had now transformed into the sharpest of weapons, slaughtering the Black Tide creations with exhilarating ease.
Whether it was the basic humanoid monsters or the giant four-legged lion-like monsters with sunflowers on their heads, none were a match for Hysilens; they were all disposed of like slicing melons and vegetables.
“As expected of a badass who can single-handedly repel the Black Tide; even when fighting away from home, she can still display such overwhelming combat performance.” While watching Hysilens dominate the group of Black Tide monsters, Gwyn also noticed that although the advance of the Black Tide had been slowed by her slaughter, it had not stopped and was still moving forward slowly.
At least, until the Black Tide creations, which acted as the tentacles of the Black Tide, were mostly slaughtered by Hysilens, this wave of the Black Tide would not recede.
“It’ll probably reach me in a few minutes…” Gauging the speed of the Black Tide’s advance, Gwyn sighed and prepared to meet his death— If it were Hysilens, the Knight of the Sword Banner, she would probably lend a hand to save him if she had the spare energy.
But Hysilens, in her period of being a lonely sound-whale just arrived on shore…
Gwyn felt it was better not to hold any expectations— It wasn’t that Hysilens wouldn’t save people, but that compared to saving someone, repelling the Black Tide might be more important in her current eyes.
And although he had now fused with Golden Blood and could be considered a standard Chrysos Heir, he had no training, no armor, and no weapons.
Facing a Black Tide creation directly, even just the scraps that leaked past Hysilens, he would hardly be a match.
“Hoo…” His heartbeat accelerated suddenly due to what might happen next.
Gwyn took two deep breaths, trying to face the upcoming battle as calmly as possible.
“It’s a pity that my cheat doesn’t have a part where I gain experience and level up by killing monsters.
Otherwise, given the number of Amphoreus cycles, even if I only spent a small fraction of the cycles in them, these Black Tide creations would be enough to grind me up to several thousand or ten thousand levels…
I also wonder if dying in the Black Tide would accumulate a Black Tide progress bar for me, and if it really fills up, whether I can choose not to extract it…” While finding topics in his heart to distract himself from his nervousness, Gwyn watched the Black Tide creations, whose forms were gradually becoming clear as the Black Tide approached—