Shrouded Seascape

Chapter 822: World's Crown

"Maya! Quick! Give me your hand!" Gauss exclaimed anxiously at his wife, who was trying to climb up the clifftop.

Maya quivered, and fear was evident on her face as she pushed her feet into the holes in the cliff to climb up the clifftop.

"Maybe we should just forget it. It's too high up here. It's too dangerous."

"Stop the nonsense and give me your hand!" Gauss shouted, sounding impatient.

Maya raised her hand and swung it toward Gauss' palm. Gauss' filthy palm then caught Maya's palm in midair and pulled her up in one fell swoop. The two breathed in ragged pants as they hugged each other while standing on the clifftop.

They had finally escaped; they were finally free.

It took them a long while to calm their agitated hearts. Once they were calm enough, they looked down at the ring-shaped world in astonishment.

The two stewed in their awe, astonished by the fact that they actually managed to escape with their lives.

Just then, a golden light shone on them from above, and a mouse glowing with the same golden light descended in front of them.

Gauss trembled all over upon seeing the giant mouse more than twice his size. He raised a trembling hand and pulled his wife behind him before whipping out a stone knife from his waist. The stone knife was polished to the extreme that it glimmered beneath the golden light.

Lily looked down at the tiny people before her and raised her tiny paw to her mouth, shushing at them. "Shh! Sparkle isn't here, but stay quiet. She mustn't find out that I've taken you away."

With that, Lily swooped to snatch them before flying toward the window on the side.

Gauss and Maya were soon out of the window, and the ruins of the World's Crown appeared before them. In their eyes, Lily included, the ruins were towering mountains.

Lily flew at a low altitude, and just as she flew over a "mountain," Gauss made his move.

He raised the stone knife in his hand and thrust it fiercely into Lily's tiny paw.

"Ah!" Lily exclaimed in pain and unconsciously let go of Gauss and Maya.

Gauss plummeted toward a "mountain," and he hugged his wife in midair to ensure that he'd take the brunt of the impact.

Upon impact with the ground, Gauss rolled to break his fall before standing up immediately and running down the "mountain."

"Ah! Don't go that way! This mushroom is extremely high! Come here, and I'll bring you down myself. Trust me! I'm a good mouse!" Lily dove toward them like an airplane.

Unfortunately, Gauss didn't believe the giant mouse's words. His goals were to evade the golden mouse's chase and get on a boat to leave this island with his wife.

Gauss was sweating profusely from the exertion. Just as he felt like he was about to run out of stamina, he spotted a hole and decided to seek refuge in it. He grabbed his wife and was about to jump into the hole when the ground trembled violently, kicking up a pungent cloud of dust.

Gauss was swept off his feet, and he fell to the ground while holding his wife as tightly as he could in his arm. When the commotion seemed to have ceased, Gauss looked up, and his jaw fell to the ground. A colossal figure was before him.

The colossal figure was so massive that it blotted out both the sun and the sky.

The colossal figure appeared to be an elongated and deformed infant.

Before Gauss could do anything, the colossal infant's toothless mouth opened wide, and it started crying. Then, it made a beeline for Gauss while scattering its milky-red tears everywhere.

The colossal infant generated so much tears that it seemed to drown Gauss and his wife, but before they were overwhelmed by the tears, a colossal tentacle riddled with glowing eyeballs stretched out from above and rolled them up.

Lily stared at Sparkle, who was looking down at the two tiny people that she had captured with her tentacles, and hesitantly said, "Sparkle, why don't you let them go? They're really pitiful living in that place."

"Pitiful? I don't think they're pitiful. They have plenty of food and drink inside, and there's no danger to their lives. How can you say that they're pitiful?" Sparkle asked. Then, a white light flashed repeatedly, along with dull thuds; it seemed like a heavy object would hit the ground every time there was a flash of white light.

Before Lily could comprehend what was going on, monsters in a variety of sizes and shapes were revealed before her. Despite the differences in size and body shape, they all looked like the deformed infant from earlier.

As soon as they landed on the ground, they dispersed and used the debris nearby to hide their grotesque forms.

Sparkle started counting their numbers, and that was when Lily snapped back to reality and flew toward Sparkle's shoulder.

"What... what are they...?" Lily asked, her astonishment evident on her furry face.

"They're my brothers and sisters. The Foundation is no more, but more than half of them are still alive, which is truly a surprise. I guess 004 didn't take them seriously."

"Oooh—huh?"

Sparkle looked at the monsters down below with pity in her eyes. "I saw them killing each other on the island and felt a bit sorry for them, so I decided to bring them over here.

"I'm their elder sister, but I can't do much for them. The only thing that I can do for them is to ensure that they won't be forced to devour each other for survival."

"Brothers and sisters? Does that mean that they're Charles'..." The tiny mouse's mouth opened wide, revealing her tiny front teeth.

Sparkle noticed Lily's shock and decided to explain the whole story to her.

Lily finally understood what was going on, and she muttered, "So that's what happened. The Foundation is so awful. And Mr. Charles is so pitiful..."

"Don't feel too sorry for them. They are your targets for your combat training. Having strength is not enough; you also need to know how to use it in many different scenarios."

"If I become even stronger, will Mr. Charles let me stay on the ship rather than drive me away if he ever wants to do something again?" Lily asked. Her gaze was complicated as she stared at the deformed monsters down below.

"It all depends on the level of strength you'll achieve. If Daddy ends up finding himself in trouble in the future, then it means his enemies are extremely dangerous. Right now, you are too weak to help him."

Lily clenched her tiny paws. A surge of gentle sunlight swept out of her figure, vanquishing the darkness. "Mmhm! I'll do my best, then. I will not be a burden!"

"You got this," Sparkle said, grabbing Lily and tossing her toward the deformed monsters. "I can heal them, so you can injure and cripple them. However, you must not kill them."

Lily was about to respond when three shadowy figures shot out from the ruins and charged at her before she could land.

A muffled thud echoed as Lily was sent flying into a wall. The wall cracked open, and a cloud of dust enveloped Lily.

When the dusty Lily floated out of the cloud of dust, she found out that she had been surrounded by the deformed monsters.

These deformed monsters would devour each other when no one else was around, but against an outsider, they'd unite by virtue of their blood ties and bare their teeth against their common enemy.

Lily pouted, looking aggrieved. She blinked her reddened eyes and muttered, "I'm not afraid of pain. I can withstand this. I can help Mr. Charles."

Sparkle looked at the chaos down below and began instructing Lily from up above.

"You have to hold back. If ten percent of strength is enough, then don't use twenty percent. The more cards you have up your sleeves, the higher your chances of winning."

"Too slow! Faster! Remember—you can't always rely on the power inside you."

Lily improved by leaps and bounds under Sparkle's guidance. This was due to both Lily's hard work and the fact that they were using the Divine Light Order's techniques for using the Light God's radiant light, of which they found in the ruins of the Divine Light Order.

The gentle sunlight radiating from Lily's figure was sometimes strong and sometimes weak as it illuminated the sky above the World's Crown. The warm sunlight lasted for quite a while, only dimming at midnight.

The exhausted Lily sprawled out in Sparkle's palm. Her golden fur no longer appeared as radiant as hours ago, and Lily herself was breathing roughly; her chest heaved up and down rapidly out of exhaustion.

"Your potential is massive, Lily. Your strength depends entirely on how much control you have over the power within you. It's going to take a while, but you might become the new Light God once you have full control over the power within you."