Chapter 1154: Atlantis, Forgotten King, and Historical Painting

After temporarily saying goodbye to the Saint of the Absolute Felix, Bai Zemin and the others followed the Seventh Princess of the East Sea, Xian Mei'er, to her chambers.

Of course, the little golden-haired mermaid was with them.

"It's really mysterious and interesting," Angelo commented as he walked down one of the long corridors of the Xian Royal Family's palace. "To think that despite being underwater there would actually be a city not very different from our cities on the surface."

The palace was very beautiful and luxurious.

It appeared to be made of pure white limestone, the floor was covered with a material very similar to the tiles used by humans in their buildings, and on the walls, although there were no pictures, there were a number of drawings painted in an extremely elegant style.

However, Angelo's comment was not specifically aimed on the palace.

"The mermaid race is considered one of the royalty races among sea creatures so, even before the arrival of the Soul Record on Earth we were already capable of thinking and performing actions in accordance with those thoughts. Basically, our intelligence was not much inferior to that of you humans." Xian Mei'er explained as she walked down the hallway, nodding with a slight smile to the seahorse race maidens on the route to her private room.

"The reason our mermaid race was considered a legend is partly because of that, aside from our exotic beauty. Because of a rule that had been passed down for countless generations, we were forbidden to make contact with you humans and had to do our best to hide." She continued, "But some curious mermaids who disobeyed that rule activated the curse that ran in their blood, which in the end turned them into evil mermaids. You've probably heard of ships lost and then sunk? Fishermen? It was probably provoked by evil mermaids who lost their mind."

"... And like this the mystery has been solved." Wu Yijun smiled bitterly as she learned the truth.

"Because our race can live for much longer and we are not as destructive as the human race, many precious treasures from ancient eras are still preserved even to this day." Xian Mei'er looked over her shoulder at the group without stopping her footsteps and pointed upwards, "This treasure is called 'Bright Oxygen Fortress' and it has two basic functions other than providing a bit of defense. The first feature or function is to repel water within a large area to form a giant dome where oxygen runs unimpeded, and the other would be to grant all sea creatures the ability to get legs to move around like this when entering the Bright Oxygen Fortress."

"So that's why all the sea creatures we saw so far had legs? Really mysterious and interesting." Eleanora nodded as if realizing something.

On the way to the palace, the group had encountered all sorts of sea beasts. But the peculiar thing was that when they entered the dome of white light that covered all of Kraya City, they immediately gained a modicum of consciousness and even grew legs.

Of course, only the mermaid race of the royal family had legs identical to those of humans.

Four-legged sharks, 8-legged fish, whales that looked like a hundred feet, etc.

"Hey, Xian Mei'er." Bai Zemin suddenly spoke up.

"Mm?" The Seventh Princess looked at Bai Zemin over her shoulder with questioning eyes.

"Correct me if I'm wrong but, in all the oceans there should be other royal families, am I right?"

"That's right. The great oceans of the world are divided into many kingdoms, some larger than others and some allied between them but different at the end of the day." Xian Mei'er nodded with her eyes on the front once more.

"In that case, your mermaid race has different branches?" Bai Zemin inquired.

"Mmh." Xian Mei'er nodded and said in a serious voice, "In the past, our mermaid race was close-knit and the ocean was the only empire in the Earth's deep waters. The only reason why the then Forgotten King was not called Emperor was because among the humans there was an exceptional and tremendously powerful warrior capable of standing up to him, so even though the humans were not united and were weaker, he had not yet reached the highest authority recognized."

"... Are you talking about past eras, about when the Soul Record was in our world?" Shangguan Bing Xue asked after a moment's consideration.

"That's right." Xian Mei'er stopped in front of one of the painted murals. An expression of reverent admiration crossed her face as she pointed to the image in front of her: "According to legend, the Forgotten King had once been a tremendously powerful human who, although not as strong as in his heyday, could easily have been considered one of the three strongest in all of Earth. However, he was affected by a curse after a failed alchemy experiment causing him to become half human and half fish."

On the wall painting one could see various things that were painted in transition rather neatly. Although it was difficult to understand the images there, the explanation provided by Xian Mei'er helped the rest of them understand what each thing on the wall meant.

"It wasn't until more than a thousand years later that the Forgotten King, forced to live in the ocean after being rejected by humans along with his cursed kingdom, managed to become the only legendary figure recorded in history who managed to unify all the seas and oceans."

Indeed, an extremely prosperous kingdom could be seen on the mural. Humans were smiling and dancing on what were huge expanses of land, powerful soldiers numbered in the millions equipped with armor and spears, and there were even flying beasts that served the humans.

However, a black lightning bolt that fell from the sky without warning turned all the inhabitants of that realm into sea creatures at the same time as the earth broke apart and sank deep into the ocean.

Normal citizens were turned into fish, crabs, sea snakes, sharks, whales, tritons, mermaids... Depending on the strength and status they had in the kingdom, they all became different species of sea creatures. However, they had a great advantage compared to the rest of sea kingdoms.

They, everyone from the smallest crab to the largest war whale, managed to retain their intelligence from when they were still human.

"With his intelligent army and citizens extremely willing to survive no matter what, the Forgotten King managed to become the absolute ruler of the waters. But even though he had everything, he still couldn't suppress the greed in his human heart... that is why he tried to extend his hands to the mainland."

Xian Mei'er led the group to another wall not far away and continued, "The Forgotten King and his army were unstoppable. Kingdom after kingdom fell, one more easily than the last as a product of a domino effect... However, a tremendously strong group of humans appeared just 20 years later and managed to stop the march of the Atlantis Empire's army."

The wall portrayed the unclear images of what seemed to be approximately 20 to 30 humans. Mages, archers, warriors, priests... The group seemed to have all classes.

Only the leader of the group was painted with greater clarity, as if the previous generations wanted later generations not to forget that face no matter what.

Golden armor, golden spear, inky black hair, eyes as black as night, eyes blazing with confidence, and a bold smile on his face. Despite being just a painting that was countless years old, the sense of dominance of that figure could still be felt by others.

"After more than 100 years of war with the slow but constant retreat of the sea race, the figure in the front fought for seven days and seven nights against the Forgotten King, defeating him in the end and stabbing his spear into his heart to claim his life and put an end to the Atlantis Empire... This human's name was lost along with those of his group... perhaps it is in the records of other palaces that were divided when the Forgotten King fell, I don't know." Xian Mei'er sighed as she thought of the miserable history of the sea race, who from being the strongest fell along with their king to the point where they were split all over the place like pieces of a broken puzzle.

The history of the Forgotten King was precisely what Xian Mei'er wanted to avoid, but now she understood and knew that without fighting she could never reach her goal.

It was truly ironic, having to fight to avoid fighting...

"Ah!"

Little Xian Bao Bao suddenly exclaimed in astonishment, drawing everyone's attention to her.

"Bao Bao, what's wrong?" Xian Mei'er asked in puzzlement to her little sister who was staring at the wall art as if she was looking at the most amazing thing of all.

Although the painting was indeed amazing, Xian Bao Bao had already seen it hundreds of thousands of times in her young 34 years of age. Xian Mei'er did not understand why she was suddenly behaving so strangely even though she used to ignore the paintings drawn on the walls before.

Xian Bao Bao let out an amused chuckle and her eyes sparkled. She looked at Bai Zemin and said excitedly, "Big brother, don't you think the person on the wall looks a tiny bit like you?"

"Uh..." Xian Mei'er was astonished by her little sister's words, but soon, she burst out with a giggle, "Bao Bao, Bai Zemin only turned 21 recently so in terms of time he has lived less than you. This is a history that is billions of years old you know? how could he..."

Suddenly, Xian Meier's words became softer and softer until her voice soon stopped altogether.

She looked at the complicated expression on Bai Zemin's face staring at the painting in front of them, and after several seconds she couldn't help but mutter to herself, "It can't be..."

Now that she was watching him more closely she couldn't help but think about what her little sister had just said.

There were certainly differences.

For example, Bai Zemin's hair was longer even if she ignored the crimson highlights he had gained along with his evolution. Also, his gaze was far colder and indifferent compared to the extremely arrogant eyes of the man in the painting... The face of the man in the painting was also more mature but that arrogance made him look even more childish than a college student from some point of view.

"Zemin..." Wu Yijun looked at him worriedly as she saw the countless emotions flashing in his eyes fixed on the painting.

Even a fool could realize now that there was definitely something very big happening behind a large veil of mystery as they saw Bai Zemin's reaction after hearing the story of the Forgotten King and the human group that stopped him; particularly that human male who managed to take him down in combat.

"You have to be kidding me.... " Angelo subconsciously glanced at Eleanora, but seeing her shocked expression he couldn't help but suck in a breath of cold air.

Shangguan Bing Xue didn't care about Bai Zemin's past. She didn't care if he was once a legendary figure who saved mankind after taking down the terrifying Forgotten King, she only cared about the fact that she loved and wanted to spend the rest of her life together with the person in front of her regardless of whether he was once a king or a thief.

She watched and silently recalled the expressions of everyone present.

Only little Xian Bao Bao still seemed oblivious to the fact that her innocent comment had changed many things.

Bai Zemin slowly closed his eyes after a long time, and while extending his hand outward, he called out in his heart: 'Annihilation of the Falling Sky.'

With a golden resplendence, Annihilation of the Falling Sky appeared in spear form directly in Bai Zemin's grasp.

Unlike the golden spear whose aura seemed to be capable of tearing everything apart, the golden spear in Bai Zemin's hands was much, much weaker. Moreover, the spear in the painting was covered by fewer mysterious runes but each rune was bright crimson while the spear in his hands had many more runes in comparison but the vast majority were opaque like burnt-out light bulbs.

However, Xian Mei'er and the others were not normal beings... They were all Third Soul soul evolvers and higher so their eyes were infinitely sharper than those of normal soul evolvers.

"That spear...!" Xian Meier's pupils contracted to the size of a needle as she finally understood why on earth she felt so strange when she first saw Bai Zemin's spear.

Bai Zemin sighed and with a thought of his Annihilation of the Falling Sky turned into a flash of golden light that disappeared inside his body.

After a long time of considering the pros and cons, he said quietly, "I'm afraid I don't know much more than you probably already know, so I won't be able to clear up many of your doubts... But yes, what you're thinking probably is true."

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