Miss Witch’s Devotion Has Gone… Twisted

”Is she asleep?”

Laila wrapped herself in a bath towel, walked out of the bathroom, and asked.

”She should be asleep.”

Loren went to the door of Reflection Naclis’s room, cracked it open, and took a look. Her head was buried in the pillow, her rear end sticking up in the air, sleeping in a rather peculiar position.

It made sense for her to sleep like that, after all, her butt hurt, and she couldn’t put pressure on it.

”She’s asleep. It is already this late after all.”

”Perfect timing...”

Hearing this news, Laila’s face lit up with joy. She was about to toss her towel aside, but Loren stopped her.

”Orianna made a new discovery. Those merfolk have slowed down.”

Knowing there was serious business to attend to, Laila put away her other thoughts and began sensing the location of the marks.”The marks have reached the deep sea... Those merfolk really ran far.”

”After all, that place is a forbidden zone for humans. No matter what they do there, they won’t be discovered.”

”They just didn’t expect anyone could track them.”

Loren focused entirely on controlling Orianna. At this depth, there was almost no light in the sea, plunging everything into pitch-black darkness. Fortunately, Orianna possessed the same night vision ability as Loren.

Upon reaching a certain depth, the two merfolk that Orianna had been tracking suddenly stopped moving, reverted back to corpses, and floated aimlessly in the sea.

The necromancer controlling them from behind had just released their hold. This place was likely their temporary hideout.

”I think I know where those merfolk staves came from...”

Merfolk Staves were extremely rare, basically only obtainable by high-ranking merfolk. Even Players would find it difficult to get their hands on one.

”What did you see?”

Laila noticed a change in Loren’s expression, as if he had spotted something truly shocking.

Loren didn’t answer. He controlled Orianna to look into the distance.

It seemed like there was another pitch-black sea within the sea. It was a sea of corpses, a sea formed entirely from merfolk corpses. Just from what Orianna could see with her own eyes, there were hundreds of merfolk corpses.

They floated freely in the sea, drifting like a dark cloud underwater.

Loren had been curious why they weren’t scattered apart, but he soon discovered the reason.

It was fishing hooks. They were all connected by fishing hooks and fishing lines. The hooks pierced through any part of their bodies. Loren saw one merfolk with a hook embedded in its eye socket, while the other end of the line was wrapped around another merfolk’s arm.

The merfolk corpses were fragile. The fishing line had already cut into their flesh, cinching directly against the bone.

Decaying flesh around the wounds kept falling off, drifting away into the distance, becoming food for small fish.

”How cruel...”

Loren didn’t describe the specific scene to Laila, just mentioned there were many corpses.

That necromancer’s cruelty far exceeded Loren’s imagination. But then again, that was normal for necromancers.

Beyond the cruelty, Loren also felt it was a terrible waste. If he had that many merfolk, he would definitely forge a weapon of mass destruction, not just use them to churn out cannon fodder.

”This is way too many...”

Having lived in the deep sea for so long, the merfolk had already formed their own civilization. Although Loren had never seen it, he guessed it was at least on the level of a medium-sized nation. The merfolk population was not small.

But they rarely left the deep sea and were extremely difficult to catch. The number of corpses Loren was seeing here now exceeded the total number of merfolk humans had captured in decades.

So there were only two possibilities: either that necromancer had been stockpiling for thousands of years, or they had the ability to hunt merfolk in the deep sea. Loren leaned towards the latter.

If they truly had the patience to lie dormant for thousands of years, they wouldn’t have attacked the God of Bountiful Harvest’s territory.

Whether it was for the crimes that necromancer had committed, or the threat they posed to Loren, Loren would not let them live.

”I’ll take these merfolk corpses off your hands.”

Orianna activated necromancy and seized control of several merfolk corpses in front of her.

It was extremely difficult to seize corpses controlled by another necromancer, but Loren could still manage it.

However, even for Loren, the efficiency of seizing corpses was limited. With this many corpses, it would take a while to seize them all.

The necromancer might discover the theft during this time, but that was a good thing. It saved Loren the trouble of having to hunt them down.

In the deep sea, no one could escape the pursuit of so many merfolk. But Orianna wasn’t human.

This pile of corpses here was indeed a major discovery. Now that he had found this place, Loren had already won.

From now on, that necromancer had only two outcomes: either all their merfolk would be stolen by Loren, they would lose their forces, and then Loren would find and kill them; or they would discover the merfolk being stolen, come to stop Loren, and get killed on the spot.

Of course, this place could just be a decoy, but that was highly unlikely.

So many merfolk could easily destroy a coastal country. Even without using necromancy, selling these corpses piece by piece could buy a whole country. Using something like this as a decoy was simply too extravagant.

Moreover, they had already hidden the corpses in such deep waters. If Loren hadn’t happened to build Orianna, even he wouldn’t have been able to discover them.

Laila’s marks could only tell them the merfolk were in the deep sea. There was no way she could have found this many corpses.

”Let’s speed this up.”

Loren gave up on sleep and focused entirely on controlling Orianna. He wanted to seize control of as many corpses as possible before being discovered.

At the same time, Loren was constantly prepared to destroy as many of the other corpses as possible. Even if he couldn’t have them, he wouldn’t let that necromancer continue controlling them.

”Aren’t you going to rest?”

Laila lay down beside Loren and asked with concern.

”No. I need to eliminate potential threats as much as possible. You get some rest first.”

”You really work hard...”

Laila didn’t go to sleep. Instead, she stayed by Loren’s side, leaning against his shoulder without saying a word, just silently accompanying him.

Suddenly, Loren’s eyes snapped open, and he shouted:

”Move! Go warn the others! The real attack is coming!”

Orianna had seen all those corpses suddenly stir into motion. Their movements were perfectly synchronized. After breaking free from the fishing lines, they began swimming towards the shore.

By now, Orianna had only seized control of a few merfolk. The remaining ones paid no attention to Orianna and simply swam upwards.

Orianna and the sphere beside her both released Blood Moon Condensed Light at the same time. Two thick beams of crimson energy swept through the merfolk swarm. Any merfolk they touched instantly turned to ash.

But the remaining numbers were still enormous.

Loren leaped up immediately and kicked open the door to Reflection Naclis’s room. She was still in her previous sleeping pose.

”Wake up, now!”

With the situation urgent, Loren directly smacked Reflection Naclis’s wound. The pain made her jump up. Clutching her rear, she looked at Loren with a puzzled expression.

But when she saw the serious look on Loren’s face, she quickly dove into his shadow.