Even in its final moments, the whale didn't struggle against the people that it had thought it was friends with.
However, it did see that it was the humans that were controlling the boats that had attacked it, which completely shattered its heart.
In its final moments, the whale turned to look at the little girl with a betrayed look in its eyes as they dimmed.
The little girl saw this and her heart broke, as her world collapsed around her. Everything that she thought that she could believe in was suddenly gone and all she was left with were people that seemed like wild animals as they butchered the corpse of the whale.
They cut the whale up into smaller and easier to carry pieces which they brought back to the village.
The entire village held a feast to celebrate the successful whale hunt, naming the little girl their hero. They didn't care about the emotional damage that they had caused her, rather they just cared about what they had gained. The reason why they even named her their hero was to give her parents some credit since they wanted more rewards for hunting the whale since it was their daughter who had led them to it.
As the village prepared for the celebration, the little girl wandered around in the village and watched them. Looking around, all she could see were beasts in human skin, she could no longer see them as humans after what they had done.
Disillusioned by everything she had seen, the little girl wandered out into the sea and disappeared.
That would have seemed like where it would have ended, even though it would have been a very bad ending, but that wasn't where it ended. The story took a much stranger turn after that.
After the girl disappeared, the people of the village continued holding their party without caring that she wasn't there. The people of the village knew how against this party the little girl was, so they thought that it was natural that she didn't come.
Of course, that didn't stop them from arguing over how the whale carcass should be divided. No one held back as they all tried to get as much of the whale meat as possible, not even blood related relatives held back against each other.
This was a scene of people who were completely swallowed by greed.
It was at this time that there was a giant wave that came from the sea that crushed the village underneath it.
Even before they died, these people didn't stop arguing for even a single second, but that was because they weren't aware they were about to die.
But even in death, not a single one of them had regretted what they had done. It was just too bad that not a single one of them knew that this was their punishment for what they had done to the whale.
The whale was actually the son of a sea goddess who had sent her son to the humans to test their compassion. She had seen the greed that was lurking under the surface of the village and wanted to give them one last chance at redemption, but it seemed like the village was just too far gone in the end.
She had sent that final wave to wipe out the entire town for their sins and to start anew.
That was where the story chose to end itself, after the sea goddess had wiped out everyone in the town.
While this story was quite well written and it did teach a good lesson about excessive greed, the content of the story itself left a bad taste in the mouth.
After all, in the end, both the little whale and the girl had died and while the villagers were punished, they also all died in the end. There was no after story that followed this that gave a sense of comfort after all the tragedies that happened. Once one finished reading this story, all that one felt was a sense of sadness that didn't go away.
Lin Fan felt the same after he finished reading this story, but that wasn't what he was paying attention to.
What was the reason for the ghost to drop this story along with the rudder?
Could it be that this story was a story of the past and this village was the village that had settled here after this story?
Then did that mean that there was actually a sea goddess that was here?
Mo Ze Chen had been reading the story over Lin Fan's shoulder and he was someone who let his emotions show when he felt them, so there were tears that were dripping down his face once he finished reading.
He put his hand on Lin Fan's shoulder and said, "Boss, this story is just too sad."
Lin Fan just ignored him as he continued looking at the book lost in thought.
After all, there was actually a clue that he had found when he had been reading.
When the girl had been splattered by blood, it mentioned specifically that it was blood from the heart of the whale. Why would the author of the book take the time to add in the extra words to describe the blood of the heart if it didn't mean anything?
Not to mention that the podium that he had seen in front had mentioned the word 'heart', so there had to be some significance…
Could it be that the whale and the girl were still alive out there somewhere and they had something to do with the heart?
As he thought about it, the more likely that it seemed that they would have to go looking for them. After all, why else would the ghost have dropped the rudder of a boat if it wasn't designed for them to go out to sea to look for them?
But even if it was a small area since this wasn't a complete sea, it was still not a place that they could search easily. Not to mention that this was on the sea, which would make it even harder for them to find since they wouldn't be able to dive that deep.
While reaching the Soul Realm meant that they were able to live up to a thousand years and survive for months without eating, they still needed air which was why they couldn't freely travel across the void. So even if they could dive into the water, they would need to breathe eventually which was what restricted them.
Still, there were no other clues than this right now, so Lin Fan had to assume that their final goal was to head into the sea…
But before that, it seemed like there were still other things that they had to collect since they wouldn't be able to sail a boat with just a rudder.
When they had looked over the boats that had been docked, they had seen that most of them were in various degrees of disrepair, which meant that not a single one of them could be sailed out.
However, there had been one that was in the center that was the least damaged out of all the boats. That was the only one that could be sailed, if it wasn't for the fact that it was missing a few parts.
When thinking back on it, he remembered that in total, there seemed to be five different parts that were missing.
Including this rudder, it meant that there were still four other parts that they had to find before they would be able to assemble the ship and sail out.
That meant that there would be at least four more bosses that they would have to find and defeat before they would be able to move onto the next part of this stage.
This really was annoying because unlike the previous stages, it meant that they would have to defeat all the mid area bosses before moving onto the next area.
There were only two of them and there were four bosses that they had to find and defeat. With their limited time, it would be almost impossible for them to do this quickly. At the very least, Lin Fan suspected that it would take another two hours for them to finish.
If that was true, that would mean that they would have less than three hours to finish the rest of this realm and who knows how long the last location would take. Then after that, there would surely be something else that they would have to undertake, so this was by no means the final stage for them.
Since that was the case, that meant that Lin Fan had to do something to make sure that they would be able to finish on time.
After thinking this through, the first thing that Lin Fan did was release a bunch of rats, both living and dead all around him. As soon as those rats fell to the ground, they ran off in all different directions under Brainy's control and disappeared instantly.
Outside, there were the sounds of ghosts growling, but those sounds also quickly faded as the rats pulled the hordes of ghosts away from their location.
Mo Ze Chen wasn't surprised by this as he knew that their cue to leave, but then before he could move, Lin Fan suddenly turned around to look at him with a smile.
When Mo Ze Chen saw this smile, he felt a chill run down his back.
This was a smile that he had seen before and it was never good when he saw this smile.