When the Dragonbone sank into the sea, he naively wondered if Nine Toes wanted him to help him find the heart of the deep, the gem he already owned. He knew that the "scorpion" Woriti was buried in a ship after his death, his resting place was in the deep sea, and his beloved stern thorn was his coffin, which must be full of countless traps.

He was preoccupied. But for a while, his attention was inevitably taken away by the Dragonbone. Aside from its eerie appearance, the ship is a miracle indeed. It didn't dive into the deep sea by magic...... At least not entirely. As its cabin closed and its bow tilted downward, it took Ed a moment to realize that the boat was slowly descending like a giant whale.

The entire captain's cabin was sealed with iron plates, except for a palm-sized piece of thick glass on one side of the door facing the bow, and a soft white light filtered through the other side of the glass. Ed involuntarily leaned over - no one stopped him anyway.

Nine-toe was half-lying in his chair with his eyes closed, and Oylan was immersed in drawing a picture, only Adora leaned against the wall, smiling at him.

"Look, it's okay. She even told him in a childlike tone, "This is not something that anyone can see." ”

Ed felt both the shame and the joy of being slighted, and simply put his face on the glass without saying a word, and then understood why the captain's cabin of the Nine Toes was not in the stern, as in the other ships he had seen, but in the bow - the only place where the ship had the clearest view when it was in the water.

The bow of the Dragonbone resembles a skeleton with its arms crossed over its chest, and a bright light is shooting out of the skeleton's eyes, dispelling the darkness and panicked fish underneath.

The strong helmsman was not in the captain's room, he must have been steering the ship somewhere. Away from the surface of the water that had been stirred up by the wind, the boat dived faster and faster, but it was so steady that it almost didn't feel like it was in the water.

"What a good ship...... It's more than a unicorn stick, isn't it?"

Adora was bored and leaned up to him, tilting her head like a little girl playing with her favorite toy.

“...... Then why are you robbing other people's boats? Ed replied stiffly.

"Who would have too many good things?" said Adora, rightfully speaking, "besides, we're pirates." ”

Ed twisted his face silently. This meaningless conversation was so stupid that he couldn't even take it.

In the quiet captain's room, only Adora continued to chatter without words, and Ed occasionally replied, but he already understood that this young female pirate seemed innocent, but in fact she would not reveal anything useful to him at all—if she did "accidentally" reveal something, he should worry about whether there was a trap in it.

Once they reached a certain depth, the hull began to creak under the pressure of the water, but no one seemed to worry about it cracking, and the air was dull and dirty, and no one worried about whether they would suffocate to death - this was probably not the first time they had dived into the depths of the sea like this.

The temple that had been forgotten at the bottom of the sea gradually came into view. At first, Ed didn't make out what it was. The light from the bow of the ship could illuminate only a flat slab in front of him, and all he could see was a slab that was too flat, and all he wondered was why it was not covered with epiphytic plants or animals like other rocks on the ocean floor. It wasn't until the straight edge of the rock was revealed in the light that he realized that this was not a natural spectacle...... Rather, it is a relic of some kind of civilization.

There is only one race in this world that can leave such a legacy.

That's when Nine Toes walked up behind him.

"Look, that's what I'm looking for. "I'm really looking for the heart of the deep...... But it's not some stupid legendary gem that responds. ”

.

Jay Oylan drew the entire temple, but he didn't shy away from saying that most of it was speculation. Even though they have dived down many times, their knowledge is extremely limited.

"It is said that they worship all the gods in this temple. The old mage didn't hide his sarcasm, "Guess how the gods feel about this?"

Ed didn't bother to answer at all.

He stepped away from the pane of glass, his squinting eyes darling over the painting the old mage had raised. With the statue of the giant raised in his hands as the outer stone pillar, the whole temple is so square that you can't even see the gate.

"There is no door. Oylan casually made up a few strokes on the painting, not even looking at him, but always knowing what he was thinking as easily as ever, "It seems that there are no walls." The temple must have been very well ventilated back then. ”

The corners of Ed's mouth twisted - he wanted to laugh, but he really shouldn't have laughed in any sense.

"What exactly are you trying to find here?" he asked, "the giants have perished for tens of thousands of years." ”

Even so, they were the closest to God of all the creatures God had created. Oylan replied, "Perhaps no one has told you that there are 'Sages' among the giants. Unlike fragile elves and humans...... Their bodies and souls were strong enough to receive the gods. Perhaps the gods once wanted to rule the world in this way, or maybe the war between the giants and the gods was really nothing more than a war of the gods...... Who knows. ”

"Where did you dig up this 'nobody knows' stuff?" Ed sneered.

"Three-storied pagoda. The frank answer Oylan threw at him made him even more depressed, "How ...... you are guarding a treasure and not even knowing what the most precious thing in it is."

He didn't finish his sentence, but the slightly raised tail note was enough to express his contempt and mockery.

He shook his head and walked away. Ed silently pressed his face to the glass again, and he could never beat Oylan in a battle of words...... Nothing else seems to have prevailed.

This shouldn't be the time to make himself more frustrated—he tried to remind himself, his eyes wide open trying to see something. But the light on the bow of the ship was so weak in the boundless darkness of the ocean floor that he could barely see the finger of a stone statue.

My heart pounded a few times. He suddenly realized that there was no need for Oylan to take the painting and make up for those few strokes...... What did he want him to see?

He admonished himself that he should no longer expect anything from a necromancer who had pitted him again and again, and he unconsciously recalled—that is, some kind of symbol was drawn on the forehead of a stone statue?, he spoke of the "Sage", of the coming of the gods...... Clash of the Gods......

The moment the memories overlapped, a layer of cold sweat instantly soaked in the back.

It had been changed to look more like some kind of decoration, but it was a symbol—a symbol that he and Oylan had both seen, carved into the ground floor of the throne room in Lockburg, in the chamber where he had nearly killed Fili and had inexplicably vanished into a gust of wind.

On the altar where Scott's blood still remains.

.