Behind the glowing membrane sat an extremely charming woman who resembled Nataly because she was also a Mermaid Siren, but she looked more mature. Her hair was pure white, and her eyes were listless, without any irises or pupils, emitting arcane sheen. She was the most sacred being among the ocean races, the Ocean Oracle, Mercy!
"Then I can rest easy. I'll start the Great Augury Formation now. As long as the Legendary Key exists within the Unique Plains, it'll belong to our Ocean Races!"
Mercy smilingly stated, and just as her voice trailed off, she flapped her beautiful tale and swum into the depth of the huge hall, which was only accessible to the Ocean Oracle.
In this grand hall lit up with glowing pearls, there was a black obsidian mirror on the floor with a round antique golden frame. At the end of this hall was a high platform where stood a colossal statue of a breathtaking woman bathed in shafts of lights filtering through the water.
It was carved from a single block of translucent crystal; the light danced through her form, casting shimmering rainbows across the hall.
Her upper body, a vision of feminine grace, was sculpted with flowing curves. The crystal captured the delicate details of her face – the gentle rise of her brow, the full curve of her lips, and eyes that seemed to hold the wisdom of the ages. Tendrils of her hair, also carved from the crystal, flowed down her back, rippling outwards as if caught in a gentle current.
From the waist down, the statue transitioned seamlessly into a powerful fishtail. The scales on her tail were meticulously detailed, each one catching the light and refracting it into a kaleidoscope of colors.
The overall impression was one of awe-inspiring beauty and ethereal presence. The statue seemed to glow from within, a beacon of serenity amidst the vibrant life of the coral reef. As light shifted and danced around her, the statue appeared to come alive, a testament to the artistry of the sculptor and the magic imbued within the crystal itself.
Mercy stopped in front of the statue and prostrated herself before it, her white hair and arcane eyes contrasting her otherwise youthful beauty, "O' Mermaid Goddess," she implored, "Reveal the location of the Legendary Key!"
The next moment, Mercy's entire body suddenly glowed in an ethereal golden white light, and the moment this white light appeared, the statue of the Mermaid Goddess that was the faith of the Siren Hymn Temple seemed to pulse, resonating with the ethereal light from Mercy.
"600 Years of Lifespan!" At this moment, an indistinctive voice rang in Mercy's head. She was very familiar with it because it only appeared whenever she tried to seek a miracle and probe the mysteries of space and time.
After all, everything has a price, and the ability to peer into the mysterious hidden within time and space was taboo among taboos, so Mercy had to pay with her own lifespan. The more profound the knowledge she sought, the greater the price she had to pay.
Furthermore, the Mermaid Goddess statue in front of her was a legacy treasure of the Siren Hymn Temple, a Quasi Legend Rank one at that. This treasure serves as a medium that greatly reduces the backlash any oracle would receive after performing a miracle.
Or if an oracle performed a miracle without this medium, even after she paid the price with her lifespan, she would also suffer a deep scar on her psyche and would lose her mind.
However, in the long history of the Siren Hymn Temple, the Oracles have found a loophole to avoid the backlash of the lifespan as well, and that's how they were able to live their full life.
Mercy, at this moment, tapped on the floor in a peculiar rhythm while she stayed in her position. The next moment, right in front of Mercy, the stone floor suddenly slid open, revealing a rising platform with a sleeping young siren on it, but she was the mermaid siren; instead, she belonged to another branch of the siren race.
When the sleeping siren appeared, Mercy placed her hands on it and chanted a spell. Suddenly, an array circle appeared around them, shimmering with a dark, ghostly light.
At this moment, the white light suddenly shifted onto the body of the young siren from Mercy. Mercy didn't waste even a second before she stated, "I agree!"
The next moment, the white light on the young siren suddenly shimmered brightly, and an ethereal emerald fog suddenly began to rise from the young siren and start to flow into the statue.
As the ethereal fog entered the statue, the young siren started to grow older, and faint wrinkles began to appear around her youthful appearance.
Once the fog vanished, the statue's eyes suddenly lit up in golden white light, and a translucent white orb started to condense above the sleeping siren.
Thereupon, the light from the statue's eyes finally vanished, and the orb was also completed as it hovered above the sleeping siren like a star. The orb was only a pinky size and was shifting between colors,
Mercy completely ignored the siren, who had now become a middle-aged woman and quickly started to perform peculiar hand signs while muttering a spell at lightning speed.
"Great Augury Formation: Active!"
Thus, the black mirror on the floor suddenly started to stir, and glowing light dots began to appear like stars on its obsidian surface as if it were a map of the starry sky.
Mercy then grabbed the small orb and threw it into the black mirror. The next moment, the entire black mirror suddenly started to shake as those light dots started to glow brilliantly, one after another.
Mercy's eyes shimmered with ecstasy and anticipation as an icy smile grew on her beautiful face, 'With this formation, wherever the legendary key is, it'll be permanently locked in this Augury Formation Mirror, and then no matter where it hides, or the owner of it escapes, they will never be able to escape my tracking. I've spent 100 Milligrams of Timeless Sand to buy this formation blueprint and materials; it was all worth it. Now, the legendary key belonged to m…'
However, her thoughts were suddenly disrupted when she noticed a never-before-seen anomaly; the black mirror, made with Quasi Legend Rank materials, suddenly cracked from the middle, and like a spire web, that crack spread through the entire mirror.
"I-impossible…" Mercy exclaimed with widened eyes.
However, this wasn't the end of it as 'crack…' she heard an extremely sharp voice like a glass suddenly being cracked from behind. When she turned her head, her body trembled with disbelief because the goddess statue was also cracking, and the siren who had paid the price for this miracle now suddenly started withering until she turned into a dry corpse before she turned into dust!
"Booommm!"
Both the mirror and the goddess statue shattered with an earsplitting explosion almost at the same time, releasing a powerful magic ripple that sent gobsmacked Mercy flying behind like a rag doll.
Mercy wouldn't have imagined that the legendary key was in a place that couldn't be divined or revealed by anything or anyone, no matter what!
She was extremely lucky to have performed that oracle by paying with someone else's lifespan and using a medium to activate that mysterious orb; otherwise, she would've been the dust in that siren's place or met with the same fate as the statue and the mirror!