Chapter 846: No Pathogenic Cause?

The emotion on Royer’s face came quickly and left just as fast.

But Saul could still sense the suppressed anger beneath the other’s now-calm expression.

Saul knew Royer looked down on mermaids, viewing the entire population as trash.

But he hadn’t expected Royer to get so angry when seeing Alfonso and Pearl get close.

“Could there be other conflicts between them?”

After glancing around at the two people and one mermaid, Saul turned to prepare for takeoff.

Then he heard Penny’s laughter again.

“Brother Saul, just now when you were looking at others, that little shorty was also observing you!”

Penny actually described Stuart like that!

Saul remained noncommittal.

He and Stuart and Royer flew to the Red Sea surface according to their pre-assigned areas.

After all three gestured, Alfonso patted Pearl’s head.

Pearl hesitated for a while, seemingly only then remembering what she was supposed to do, and opened her pale little mouth.

Although the mermaid princess opened her mouth, no sound emerged.

Saul narrowed his eyes slightly and felt an unstable mental power fluctuation spreading from Pearl toward the ocean.

The seawater initially showed no reaction. After about ten minutes, there were some ripples.

After another ten minutes or so, a mermaid surfaced, looking toward the shore where Pearl was located, with some curiosity and longing on her face.

This mermaid was in the area Royer was responsible for. He immediately raised his hand, and the mermaid was scooped up from the seawater by an invisible large hand.

Once out of water, the mermaid immediately struggled in panic.

Royer wasn’t gentle—he directly tightened the invisible hand, and the mermaid didn’t struggle long before immediately fainting.

Saul quickly reminded him, “Royer, don’t kill her!”

Only then did Royer loosen his grip, letting the mermaid catch her breath.

Next came the second, third…

They looked toward Pearl’s direction with some curiosity and yearning, then were pulled out of the sea one by one by three third-rank wizards guarding the surface.

Using about an hour, they caught a total of 11 atavistic mermaids.

And 136 non-atavistic mermaids.

“Isn’t Pearl only supposed to summon atavistic mermaids? Why did so many come up?” Stuart asked puzzledly while sorting the mermaid types.

Saul was also selecting mermaids. “I think… it’s probably not Pearl’s fault. These mermaids generally have low intelligence. They probably saw atavistic mermaids swimming toward the surface and followed to watch the excitement.”

While speaking, Saul also looked at Pearl. Having completed her task, she was placed back in the water. Beside her was also Coral with red hair.

The two mermaids looked quite amusing as they simultaneously gazed at Saul and the others, watching them select mermaids.

If you didn’t look at their fish tails below, they looked like two beauties fresh from bathing.

Pleasing to the eye.

But Royer smiled contemptuously. “This is why we chose to use modified mermaids to absorb Red Sea Tree pollution. Controlling them with mermaid royal bloodline is very easy.”

“Modified mermaids aren’t as sensitive to black tide pollution, but they feed on Red Sea Tree root stems daily. There’s always a time when pollution reaches their tolerance limit,” Stuart said, looking at the wilted mermaids covering the ground. “How do you handle that?”

“Of course,” Royer forcefully pounded his right hand into his left palm with a thunk, “compress the useless trash and throw it into the deep sea.”

This world had no concept of protecting marine environments. In fact, the oceans here weren’t something wizards could protect anyway.

After explaining the mermaids’ final destination, Royer deliberately looked back at Alfonso, who was adjusting potions. But the latter completely ignored him, as if he hadn’t heard anything.

Including the atavistic mermaids originally in the deep pool, there were 22 atavistic mermaids total. The number wasn’t much among hundreds of thousands of modified mermaids, but once pollution diseases appeared in them, they could potentially infect thousands or tens of thousands of nearby mermaids.

Still very dangerous.

Alfonso’s operation using Pearl to concentrate all atavistic mermaids before the black tide assault was very wise. It should have also received Tribunal approval.

Otherwise, Royer and Stuart couldn’t possibly have set aside their work to help him.

At this time, Alfonso came over with potions. “Nearby atavistic mermaids should all be here. Later I’ll take Pearl to other sea areas to collect mermaids.”

Royer crossed his arms. “What, you want us to accompany you along the south coast?”

“No need,” Alfonso shook his head expressionlessly. “You can return after today’s experiment. Local garrison wizards will cooperate with me afterward. And currently atavistic mermaids have only been found in this area. The possibility of them elsewhere is small, so there’s no need for you to make wasted trips.”

Royer seemed to think of something, suddenly smiling again and slapping Alfonso’s shoulder. “Good, then you take your mermaid princess out for a tour. Just don’t forget to come back.”

Saul remained silent on the side, feeling Royer’s words had hidden meanings.

Penny also complained in his consciousness, “These two seem like friends on the surface, but there’s so much drama underneath.”

Without responding to Penny, Saul stepped forward to take the potion Alfonso had prepared, then walked toward Pearl and Coral.

According to their previous agreement, he would conduct black tide pollution experiments on Pearl. But because of Pearl’s special status as mermaid princess and her unique ability to summon other atavistic mermaids, Saul had also promised Alfonso he would definitely clear pollution from her body before black tides caused significant harm to Pearl.

Coming to Pearl’s side, Coral was also watching nearby. Besides these two, Saul was also responsible for three other mermaids.

The mermaids assigned to him all had the most obvious atavistic features. At least one-third of the scales on their tails were cyan.

Among these five mermaids, Pearl and Coral showed higher intelligence.

Their appearances also most closely matched human aesthetics, without strange fish-like features.

Without wasting time, Saul used Little Algae to secure the five mermaids to the ground, then injected black tide pollution sources into their bodies.

After completing the first step, Saul stepped back two paces to observe the five mermaids’ reactions.

None had any reaction.

After an hour, Coral was the first to develop rotting wounds. Coral, who had felt nothing before, began crying with pursed lips.

Seemingly seeing Coral cry, Pearl also began shedding tears with “pitter-patter” sounds.

The other three mermaids hadn’t shown abnormal reactions yet, but seeing Pearl and Coral cry, though looking bewildered, they also began tearing up.

The mermaids seemed to know no one would care about their tears. Even when crying, they did so silently, quietly by themselves… never thinking to ask anyone for help.

Saul stood nearby like a cold-blooded, heartless killer, letting them cry while occasionally checking each mermaid’s pollution condition.

When a cyan scale fell from Pearl’s tail, revealing a small wound underneath, Saul immediately stepped forward to clear the pollution from her body. He simultaneously healed Coral.

Pearl hadn’t contracted the strange and terrible pollution disease like Coral, but her resistance to black tide pollution was the lowest among atavistic mermaids.

“The more obvious the atavistic condition, the lower the resistance to black tides. But the lowest resistance still belongs to Coral, who contracted the pollution disease. Coral’s bloodline concentration is clearly lower than Pearl’s, yet she contracted the disease first. So what exactly caused her illness?”

Saul walked to Coral and lifted her chin.

Coral was forced to look up, her ruby-like eyes gazing at Saul, eye sockets full of tears but no longer overflowing.

She looked at Saul without hatred or fear in her eyes, even with a hint of curiosity.

Saul looked down at Coral, silently thinking: “I’ve tried many methods but still can’t find the pathogenic cause… Could it be… there is no cause?”

(End of Chapter)

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