I’m Trapped in a Cube - Chapter 259

Another Moon Altar in the sky disappeared.

The petals continued to wither.

Mo Ling reached out trying to catch those drifting light points, but they were like flowing sand, impossible to grasp no matter what.

They swirled around and froze again, and once more that faint conversational voice reached his ears.

“General, immortality still hasn’t been replaced.” This time, the other voice didn’t wait for Jeff to ask.

“I understand,” Jeff said calmly. “How is the component wear?”

“The wear is worse,” the other voice answered. “Every time we approach awakening, the fog makes a comeback. They seem to have found the pattern.”

“Haven’t those Chali Tribe members had any effect?”

“Not much effect. The Chali Tribe should be aware that we want to use them to attract the fog, so as soon as they return to normal state, they immediately separate again. It can only delay things slightly.”

“Having some effect is good enough. Don’t force it too much. For future awakenings, we don’t need to stay awake too long. After waking, first determine whether immortality has been replaced, then confirm the development of the newly born souls. We don’t need much time.”

“Yes, General. I was thinking the same thing. This way we can greatly increase the number of times we awaken.”

“Let’s do that then. You go get busy and make the most of the time.”

“Yes, General. See you in another two hundred years.”

“See you then…”

Mo Ling listened to their conversation, feeling somewhat dizzy.

“They’re using the Chali Tribe to attract the fog?”

How do they attract it?

While puzzling over this, Mo Ling suddenly thought of those Immortal Wood spheres used to arrange the Sea Moon Ceremony earlier. The newly born mermen followed the merman ancient texts, using Immortal Wood spheres to hunt food-eaters, then placing them on the Moon Altar.

“That can make the Chali Tribe return to normal state?”

Mo Ling suddenly realized that since souls and bodies could separate, they could naturally also cross and restore themselves.

Bai Zhou had told him before about his disciple’s soul separating and then returning to the body.

Mo Ling just hadn’t expected that after such a long time, with the bodies processed into spheres, the Chali Tribe could actually recover to their original state.

The ancient mermen used the Chali Tribe members who had returned to normal state to divert the fog’s attention, buying time for their plans.

As long as there were enough people who knew about immortality, the fog wouldn’t have time to attack them!

However, just as the mermen said, the Chali Tribe also understood their intentions, so as soon as they recovered to normal state, they would immediately separate again, not giving them too much time.

Therefore, the mermen had no choice but to fall back asleep before the fog attacked again.

The two sides had reached a delicate balance this way.

Each awakening, both sides would repeat this process.

They actually both knew what the other was thinking, but they were all racing against time.

And those newly born mermen were kept in the dark, methodically arranging the Sea Moon Ceremony according to the records in the merman ancient texts, completely unaware that behind it all was a game between two races.

They also didn’t know why they had to do this—they completely followed the records to arrange the Sea Moon Ceremony, not daring to make any changes.

The fog would become thicker and thicker as the ancient mermen approached awakening, but this was only to set up early and attack those ancient mermen after they awakened. However, this was treated by the newly born mermen as a sign of crisis.

This also made them believe even more in the contents of the ancient texts.

The two mutually confirmed each other, and the newly born mermen could never escape the control of the ancient texts.

Their civilization level wasn’t high, and they couldn’t find other ways to fight against the increasingly thick fog. They could only place their hopes on the experience of their predecessors, even though this experience had never been proven.

Mo Ling speculated that those ancient texts must have been specially modified to make their contents match the phenomena occurring on the island, half true, half false, forcing the newly born mermen to believe.

This was what led them to fall into it step by step.

Faced with crisis, they had no choice.

…

Another light in the sky went out.

Mo Ling stared blankly down at the continuing withering petals. At this point, the shadow beneath his feet was in tatters.

The light points drifting with the flow curved around Mo Ling and swirled into the air.

Standing under this “spotlight,” Mo Ling felt this “stage” was cold and desolate enough to be despairing.

“For two thousand two hundred years, these newly born mermen have all lived like this?”

Although he had only been on the island for a short time, Mo Ling had carefully observed the living standards of those newly born mermen.

The island was shrouded in fog that, while it wouldn’t actively attack the newly born mermen, would still accelerate the decay of objects when they stayed in the dense fog for long periods. Various technologies and cultures were difficult to develop.

If it weren’t for trading with humans, they couldn’t even wear clothes, and food would be scarce.

Despite having various powerful abilities, they had always lived in primitive society due to environmental limitations.

With scarce resources and barren culture, these newly born mermen were like the rotting sludge on the island, forever trapped in the swamp.

That’s why those pseudo-mermen had envied humans so much.

“Having food and drink, having beautiful clothes to wear, even if they’re powerful…”

That’s why Jeff at that time had kept curiously asking Li Luo what human society was like.

The newly born mermen had never given up their longing for a better life, but they couldn’t achieve it…

It was just such a group of mermen living in dire straits who, every two hundred years, had to expend manpower and resources to build a Moon Altar whose principles they didn’t understand, to face a crisis whose origins they didn’t know.

Mo Ling suddenly understood why Jeff had stared blankly at those tribe members running about on the Moon Altar.

“The mermen race shouldn’t be like this…”

The moonlight became a few degrees more oppressive.

Under Mo Ling’s somewhat distracted gaze, the spiraling light points froze again.

Cold conversational voices came through the channel again.

“Immortality still hasn’t been replaced, General.”

“Mm, I understand. Is there anything unusual?”

“No…”

“…”

Mo Ling had never seen how a Moon Altar was built, nor did he know how long it took the newly born mermen to construct one.

But he understood that such “wonders,” which would take humans a long time to build, would certainly require even more time and energy from the mermen with their backward productivity.

When Mo Ling first saw the Moon Altar, that spectacular sight remained vivid in his memory.

But at that time, Mo Ling never would have thought that there were many such wonders.

In the distant sky, another Moon Altar went out, like a broken lamp that suddenly lost its light.

The ancient souls casually removed the light bulb and threw it in the trash.

Then they waited for the next lamp to arrive.

The bulb lit up, its radiance illuminating the entire stage.

The flowing light points came again, spinning on the stage, then silently landing on the flowers and withering with the petals.

For some reason, rows of ants appeared on the ground. They lined up in formation, seemingly wanting to leave the range of the moonlight and hide in the shadows.

But after struggling for a long time, they still couldn’t crawl out…