Detective Agency of the Bizarre
Chapter 554 - 554 Seventy-three

554: Seventy-three.

Purpose 554: Seventy-three.

Purpose In the gloomy depths of the sea, the once blurry passage of time gradually became clear.

Giant stone pillars extending from the abyss, standing in the deep sea, seemed like ancient ruins that could be traced back thousands of years, or even longer.

As Richard’s movements through the water grew increasingly sluggish, a new strength burst forth within him, and he paddled his legs closer to the stone pillars.

Underneath the nearly still deep sea, the disturbed waters fled from beside the two of them, and a strange scene unfolded.

As Richard approached the massive stone pillar, the dust and mud accumulated on it were being stirred away by the currents.

Richard paid no heed to the original markings on the pillar as the mud dispersed, descending further down its length.

Lu Li followed behind Richard, unlike him, Lu Li drew closer to the pillar to examine the markings.

The huge stone pillar bore traces of carving, but these marks were severely worn due to the pillar’s incompleteness, or covered by mud and deep-sea dust, making them difficult to distinguish.

Yet, they were unmistakably not of any ordinary type.

Like fractal art, but with extremely irregular, twisted ravines sketched out unfathomable edges and angles when one’s gaze fell upon them, an indescribable sense of nausea and physical repulsion filled the heart.

Lu Li could briefly overcome this discomfort, but there was no need.

He found himself unable to comprehend these unsettling contours upon which his eyes landed, as if they were imbued with a mysterious power.

This was the place where that consciousness resided, full of threats and oddities; Lu Li had to be as careful as possible, subduing his inner curiosity and thirst for knowledge.

Nevertheless, he still kept an eye on the pillar in his peripheral vision.

As they continued to dive deeper into the sea, the massive stone pillars began to look more complete.

And with them, the edges and ravines as well.

Just by casually glancing at them, Lu Li’s brain felt as if it was being spun and tossed, an uncontrollable sense of nausea rising within him.

Lu Li pursed his lips and, like Richard, kept his distance from the pillar until he could no longer see the “patterns” on the massive stone pillar clearly.

This was not the only pillar.

Dozens of seconds after the appearance of the huge stone pillar, Lu Li spotted a second one within his visible range in the gloom of the deep sea.

Soon, a third emerged, followed by a fourth…

As they descended further, more and more gigantic pillars came into view, irregularly scattered within this abyss, forming a tattered, seemingly once-destroyed towering structure.

This was akin to a city ruin standing at the bottom of the deep sea.

The countless pillars that appeared before him, some distant and some near, their dense number caused such an extreme aversion in Lu Li that he had to squint his eyes, narrowing his field of vision, only faintly seeing the figure of Richard below.

Fortunately, the stone pillars did not cause the Sanity Value Counter on his wrist to sound; they merely defiled Lu Li’s mind.

Continuing to descend another two hundred, perhaps three hundred meters, the number of surrounding pillars ceased to grow, and a thought suddenly surfaced in Lu Li’s mind.

They might have already approached the bottom of the ruins.

A few seconds after this thought was conceived, a pyramid-like altar made of the same material as the stone pillars emerged below, with stair-shaped tiers.

The altar was merely an inanimate object, but Lu Li could indeed feel its call to him, as if the consciousness that had called to him at the surface of the sea was the altar itself.

Richard swam toward the altar and found a deep cavity entrance near its top, hastening into the passage.

Lu Li followed closely behind.

Suddenly, just a few meters away, Richard’s body seemed to lose control, crashing heavily onto the floor of the passage, unable to get up.

Before Lu Li could react, he encountered the same fate as Richard: his body became incredibly heavy.

Without injury, and with more strength, Lu Li merely staggered to half-kneel.

The cold air he breathed into his lungs and the uncomfortable touch of his clothes made Lu Li realize something.

They escaped the seawater.

Looking back, Lu Li could still see the towering, twisted pillars of the building cluster outside the cave.

“I underestimated you, you actually followed me here…” A light chuckle came from Richard behind him.

Lu Li turned his gaze towards Richard, who was struggling to stand up, leaning against the slippery stone walls and drenched.

“The trap in the cabin was childish,” he replied.

Richard neither agreed nor disagreed.

“Sometimes, I really admire your persistence, like a slug that can’t be shaken off no matter how hard one tries.”

Richard’s emotions conveyed an undisguised annoyance, along with an uneasy complexity.

He sighed and said, “Your persistence has moved me.

Before I replace the Ancient God and kill you, I can tell you something about this place.”

Lu Li, also dripping with seawater, watched Richard calmly, “Now you are at a disadvantage.”

“I don’t think so,” Richard said, struggling to curl the corner of his mouth into a victorious smile.

“If I don’t tell you, you won’t know anything.”

“Even if it means death?”

“Would you do that?” Richard countered.

“If you would, you wouldn’t have let me get this far.”

Lu Li fell silent.

He indeed had a way to make Richard “speak”—Anna’s Soul Projection.

Her Soul Projection could capture a person’s thoughts, memories, and consciousness in their entirety, but correspondingly, these would also surface in Anna’s memory.

Lu Li knew what happened when a person’s mind was flooded with an overwhelming amount of foreign memories.

He couldn’t bear the cost of Anna’s consciousness being contaminated.

“Have you made up your mind?

If you’re not going to ask, you might not have the chance afterwards.” Richard urged him with a playful tone.

After a disgraceful flight for several months, he was finally able to confront Lu Li unflinchingly.

After several seconds of silence, Lu Li spoke, “Where is this place?”

“…R’lyeh,” Richard said slowly.

Lu Li suddenly felt the altar beneath his feet trembling, and the seawater outside became murky as if the entire ruins shook with the utterance of this word.

R’lyeh…

This term brought Lu Li’s memory back to two months ago when he had just met Anna and acquired the diary of James Campbell.

James Campbell had once killed the eyeless ghost Ruth in the gallery and was then thrown by her “inside the door.” After escaping from there, he briefly documented his experiences over several days and in the end, unable to withstand the horror of the door, he chose to enter it willingly.

In the last portion of the diary, James Campbell wrote down jumbled, meaningless words, most of which could not be pieced together or traced back.

Lu Li only remembered the content he managed to piece together at the time: R’lyeh.

Perhaps the diary was pointing to this place?

The trembling of the altar ceased, and Richard continued, “The resting place of the slumbering Ancient God.”

“Slumbering and not dead?” Lu Li remembered that Richard had three pieces of the Ancient God’s body.

“That which lies eternally in death shall vanish even in death within the strange eons,” Richard offered an answer that seemed to carry deeper meaning.

Lu Li did not pursue the meaning of this phrase but continued to ask, “What is the Ancient God?”

“Ancient deities, the once dominant great beings of this world.

But soon, I will take the place of the slumbering Ancient God and become the new deity.”