Chapter 555 Reaching an Agreement, Plans Go Awry

Sarissa could no longer clearly remember what her mother looked like.

After she went to sea, she heard a grizzled sailor in a tavern say that memories were like a fishing net dragged behind a ship. The things that tangled at the bottom were either the fiercest, fattest catches or worthless seaweed and driftwood. As for the countless ordinary days, they were like seawater slipping through the mesh, leaving not a single drop behind.

She hadn't thought much of it at the time, but thinking about it now, it was remarkably true.

Perhaps because she had been so young when her mother passed away, Sarissa couldn't remember ever arguing or having any conflict with her.

Everything about her mother in her memories was warm, beautiful, and happy.

On the other hand, precisely because she was so young, even though she was old enough to form memories, the passage of time had fragmented them into disconnected pieces.

Sarissa remembered the single bed tucked in the corner of their room. It was old and shabby, squeaking whenever someone sat on it. She also remembered the warm embrace of her mother holding her as she slept, and the hazy nursery rhymes sung softly into her ear.

But the patterns on the quilt and the exact feeling of lying on it had become as blurred as the wrinkles on her mother's face.

Growing up, she occasionally heard others mention that her mother had come from a wealthy merchant family, and that their business in the Southern Archipelagos had been quite successful.

More than once, she wondered if, in another world, her mother had never ended up at sea, but had remained a carefree and wealthy young lady under her family's protection. That way, she too could have—

'Heh. If that were truly the case, I probably wouldn't have been born into this world at all.'

After all, given her background, unless she had been forcibly kidnapped, how could she have ever ended up with a vicious pirate leader, let alone borne his child?

Reality was always far blunter than the tales told by Bards.

"Algae Scale" Dodd had set his sights on her mother's family assets. As a pirate, he hadn't even needed to prepare any special schemes.

Gathering his men, he stormed the island, slaughtered, and coerced. Then, by funneling a portion of the extracted profits to the Governor's Mansion, everything that had happened simply vanished like foam into the ocean.

All that remained was her mother, who had fallen from a wealthy noblewoman to a captive treated worse than a commoner, and herself, someone who should never have been born.

One night, when Sarissa was nine, her mother threw herself into the sea from the high cliff by the shore.

When her corpse was fished out the next day, they said her skin had already been soaked entirely white.

Following the dying wish her mother had left on the table the night before, kind-hearted neighbors buried her by the sea.

Sarissa had long since forgotten how she felt at the time, or how she had reacted while staring at her mother's grave.

On the third day after her mother's death, for the first time since she could remember, she met her father.

Obviously, the pirate who held the title of "Algae Scale" on the high seas didn't care about a minor interlude in his sailing career. In his eyes, her mother was likely no different from the prostitutes in the brothels; he might have long forgotten such a woman even existed.

Correspondingly, Dodd didn't have many thoughts about Sarissa, whose birth had been an accident to begin with. He certainly wasn't going to treat her as an "heir" or "family."

It was highly likely that when Sarissa was born, he had merely said, "Oh," upon hearing the news, just acknowledging it.

When her mother died and his subordinate pirates reported the situation, he only then remembered that he seemingly still had a child.

Therefore, Sarissa received no special treatment because of this relationship.

To some extent, because of her identity as "Algae Scale" Dodd's daughter, she was instead subjected to the hostility of many commoners on the island, who poured their hatred for her father onto her.

Fortunately, she at least managed to keep her life.

Perhaps it was precisely because of this unbearable, nightmarish experience in her youth that Sarissa developed a resilient will and drive far beyond her peers.

She seized every possible opportunity to improve herself.

Finally, on her twenty-fifth birthday, under the cover of night, at the base of the cliff where her mother had fallen into the sea, she secretly took a small fishing boat and left that island, swearing never to return.

As for what happened next, it was exactly as she had told Xia Nan and the others.

Becoming an Adventurer, drifting on the sea, and joining the Black Tide Hunter Crew—

And just as Sarissa had previously concluded, "Algae Scale" Dodd might have known she existed, but he completely ignored whether she lived or died.

Even though she had vanished inexplicably, he had never sent anyone out to look for her in all these years.

There was no doubt that even if news of Sarissa's death reached his ears one day, or even if he unintentionally killed her himself during a raid, the cold-blooded pirate wouldn't feel the slightest ripple of emotion.

As for her father, Sarissa's attitude had also undergone a massive change over time.

In the beginning, during her childhood, it was a mix of deep sympathy for her mother, fear, and confusion.

During her youth, upon closer scrutiny, it turned into absolute hatred, viewing him as a target she had to surpass and take revenge on in this life.

By today, the existence of "Algae Scale" Dodd had long since become an abstract, conceptual entity to her.

Her childhood experiences left a lingering shadow in her heart regarding him, and she still hoped he would receive his due punishment. But on the surface, she completely hid everything about her origins, avoiding any contact with anything related to him as if fleeing.

Until that day, when the Black Tide Hunter Squad was wiped out due to a flawed hunt, leaving her all alone just as she had come into the world.

When she stood on the deck of the Blade of Vengeance Ship and heard those Adventurers say they were going to attend the Lunar Tide Banquet.

Sarissa suddenly felt an indescribable, mysterious premonition.

It was as if all the suffering she had encountered in her life so far would come to an end in the near future.

She couldn't explain or understand why she had this feeling, and she even instinctively resisted coming into contact with anything related to "Algae Scale" Dodd.

Deep down, however, she couldn't help but feel a glimmer of hope.

Driven by some inexplicable impulse, she ultimately didn't disembark early. Instead, as if wanting to witness something, she followed the Blade of Vengeance Fleet to Stodd Island.

Of course, she ultimately still lacked the courage to set foot on land, choosing to stay behind and guard the ship at the port.

When the ritual's light curtain descended, Sarissa—who had unexpectedly run into Dodd's subordinate, Flynn—was naturally affected by the ritual and dragged into the Secret Realm.

Just like the vast majority of Adventurers pulled into the ritual right now, Sarissa quickly grasped her current situation. She guessed that this was likely intentionally engineered by Dodd, using the Sea Rhythm Festival as an opportunity.

But for some unknown reason, after entering the Secret Realm and possessing the body of a sparrow, she unexpectedly found that she seemed able to sense the location of the nearest Adventurer.

Furthermore, by relying on her flight capability and tiny body to closely observe the Adventurers she found, Sarissa concluded that this ability was likely unique to her.

She didn't know what this meant, nor had she figured out the reason behind it yet.

But without a doubt, even if it was just for the obsession in her heart, having been swept into the Secret Realm, she had to do something.

In this regard, Sarissa's plan was similar to that of Fink from the Windforged—attempting to find teammates who had also entered the Secret Realm.

And her luck was evidently quite good.

In less than two days, she found an acquaintance with very distinct characteristics.

She didn't know why he was still able to use his previous combat techniques, despite clearly being pulled into the ritual and losing his human body to become a wild beast.

But that unique wolf-mimicry dashing combat technique, along with the distinct move capable of generating forcefield damage—which was rare even among Adventurers...

...allowed Sarissa to recognize his identity almost instantly. She chose to expose her presence during the battle and lent a helping hand.

Out of caution, Xia Nan didn't immediately give her his full trust.

Instead, he interrogated her about details only the crew members present would know—such as "the dish for the last dinner before arriving at Stodd Island: mushroom fish stew" and "his method of killing the Wind-Seed Octopus: descending from the sky with the help of his Druid teammate." Only after that did he finally confirm Sarissa's identity.

"So 'Algae Scale' Dodd is your father?"

With his fur shifting from pitch-black to pure white at a speed visible to the naked eye, Xia Nan looked at the little sparrow on the ground ahead of him, his tone carrying a hint of oddity.

Although he had long since confirmed Sarissa's dragonborn identity, this race—just like dwarves, Elves, and Halflings—was frequently seen among Adventurers. It was impossible to inexplicably link her to "Algae Scale" Dodd purely based on that.

Moreover, who could have ever guessed that the biological daughter of such a great pirate would hide in a completely unrelated Adventurer Squad, making a living by hunting sea beasts?

[It is true, but—]

Scratching her tiny bird claws against the ground again and again, Sarissa looked conflicted, as if not knowing how to explain it to Xia Nan.

[Rather than father and daughter, our relationship is more like that of enemies.]

Xia Nan understood instantly.

There were a considerable number of similar storylines, whether in the various entertainment works of his past life or the legends and Epics of this current world.

Even if she didn't want to explain it explicitly, he could roughly guess the gist of it.

"You must have confirmed my identity through the combat technique I just used, right?"

The little bird Sarissa had transformed into nodded gently.

"Then running into me was just a coincidence?"

In response, Sarissa didn't hide the ability she had discovered after entering the Secret Realm to sense the locations of nearby Adventurers.

After all, to some extent, the only ones left in the entire Secret Realm who could be called her teammates were the people from the Blade of Vengeance Ship.

'Sensing locations?'

Seeing her answer like this, Xia Nan's heart stirred.

He wasn't overly eager, however. Instead, he suppressed the flashing thoughts in his mind and introduced his own discoveries in the Secret Realm over the past few days to her.

He omitted the existence of the Attribute Panel, but revealed that it was possible to achieve an evolution in life tier by absorbing the residual life energy of other Adventurers.

He speculated that "Algae Scale" Dodd likely wanted to achieve some goal through this kind of ritual.

Moreover, judging by how Dodd had hosted the Lunar Tide Banquet and set up numerous arrangements on Stodd Island in advance, it was obvious that he had been plotting this for a long time.

A white wolf and a sparrow—two entirely unrelated creatures—exchanged their intel in the woods in a highly awkward manner, with one speaking and the other writing on the ground.

Perhaps their relationship hadn't been incredibly close originally, but they indeed belonged to the same faction.

For Sarissa, since such an opportunity had presented itself, she naturally didn't want Dodd's ritual to proceed smoothly. Furthermore, she wished for him to meet an end befitting his sinful life.

For Xia Nan, he didn't care whether "Algae Scale"'s ritual succeeded or not, but he viewed the [Dream Weaving Corridor] encryption key in Dodd's hands as a must-have target. He had also unexpectedly discovered that killing Adventurers in the Secret Realm granted combat technique proficiency. And right now, he even had Sarissa, a teammate who acted like a living radar.

The two merely communicated briefly to understand each other's demands.

Cooperation thus became a matter of course.

It was just that, for the other Adventurers currently in the Secret Realm besides the crew of the Blade of Vengeance, this was clearly not a good thing.

"Algae Scale" Dodd naturally didn't know that the situation in the entire Secret Realm would undergo an earth-shaking shift taking this exact moment as a pivotal turning point.

At this moment, he was holed up in his sand cave lair deep in the wasteland, quietly recuperating.

Compared to the Gravel-Scale Lizard he had been when he first descended into the Secret Realm, it was evident that his form had already changed into an entirely different creature.

With a body length approaching two meters, the surface of his massive frame was covered in earthy-yellow scales that resembled crystals. His translucent skin looked fragile but was actually incredibly tough; peering from the side and underneath, one could even see his writhing organs and veins inside.

However, there were absolutely no signs of the planned wings or dragon horns evolving. This was clearly a far cry from the "dragon" evolutionary path he had intended earlier.

Dodd's actions during this time had not been smooth.

On one hand, although he could fully and clearly sense the locations of all Adventurers throughout the entire Secret Realm, the massive size of the Secret Realm itself, coupled with his slow mobility, became the main limiting factors slowing his evolutionary speed.

Often, his four short lizard legs had to crawl through the desert for an entire day just to find a single Adventurer, costing him a massive amount of time and energy.

Even knowing that the Secret Realm would soon shrink and the chances of running into Adventurers would drastically rise, he, who wanted to elevate his life tier and complete his initial accumulation of energy as soon as possible, naturally couldn't afford to slack off.

On the other hand, there was a primary reason he was sacrificing precious growth time to lie resting in this underground burrow right now.

Not every Adventurer was as weak as the desert rat he had hunted the first time.

For those with particularly good luck, it was even possible that the creatures they possessed upon first descending already surpassed the strength of other Adventurers who had completed their First Evolution.

The Adventurer he had encountered a few days ago was exactly like that, having possessed an adult "Desert Rock Snake" with a Challenge Rating approaching lv2, and what was more, it was protected by an entire pack.

Restricted by the environment and his slow movement speed, by the time he wanted to retreat, it had been too late. At the cost of near-fatal injuries, he only managed to kill his opponent and escape that nest by the skin of his teeth.

He estimated that, given the regenerative capabilities of his current body, he would need to rest for at least another three days to barely recover eighty percent of his combat prowess.

However—

'After all, the other Adventurers in the Secret Realm don't have the ability to sense others' locations. Resting for a few days obviously won't affect the development of my upcoming plans.'

Lying in the depths of the sand cave, "Algae Scale" Dodd thought this to himself and slipped into a deep slumber.