On the broken floating island shrouded by stagnant starlight, Agou and Shirley came to the end of the earth, sat down and began to daydream.

A pitch-black chain extended from Shirley's arm covered with black bone pieces and connected to Agou's cervical vertebrae. The thoughts of the two minds flowed quietly and blended in the connection constructed by the chain, sharing reason and humanity with each other - just like the past twelve years.

They had a lot to talk about. In the brief but thrilling period after the chain broke, this pair of "partners" who had depended on each other for twelve years faced many things they had never imagined. Even Shirley, who was the least fond of thinking, had a lot of thoughts about life at this time.

Of course, they also have to think about how to adapt to the new relationship between "guardian dogs" and "contracted humans", which is very explosive in the whole world...

Duncan did not disturb them, but took Alice to a place a little further away from the border of the floating island. While waiting, he investigated the strange environment of this "deep sea".

It was very quiet all around, and no living creatures could be seen in the wilderness shrouded by the dark starry sky.

Many dark demons once gathered here, but in order to avoid being beaten, they had all fled away. Now all that was left was a wasteland covered with strange black rocks and some rugged shadows in the distance.

If Duncan didn't know that he was in the "deep sea", he would feel that the scene before him was like a desolate alien planet - the surface around him that was like a dead planet and the stagnant starry sky above his head exuded a dreary and depressing atmosphere. It was really not a good environment.

And if you consider that the only "animals" here are countless violent demons, and that the demons' daily routine is to gnaw on their own kind, gnaw on stones, and be gnawed by their own kind, then this place is even less likely to be "livable".

"...I'm beginning to think that the plan of the Four Gods Church is unreliable," Duncan said casually, "I mean the plan to settle in the deep sea - in this damn place, even if humans really survive, they will definitely be distorted beyond recognition... Can a completely inhuman 'civilization' still be considered a 'human civilization'? I'm afraid there is a question mark."

Alice on the side thought about it and seemed to understand.

But she didn't seem to have any resistance to the environment here, and even adapted well to it. She was still strolling around happily. The bare wilderness and dim environment did not affect the good mood of this doll. She ran to the side and picked up a strange-shaped stone, and happily gave it to Duncan: "Captain! Look, look, a stone!"

Duncan immediately gathered his thoughts and looked at the stone Alice picked up with a serious and solemn expression: "What's so special about this stone?"

"Does it look like a goat's head from the side?" Miss Doll laughed immediately with a boastful expression on her face, "I noticed it at a glance just now!"

Duncan: “…”

While he was in a daze, Alice ran to the side and dug something out from the nearby jagged rocks. She showed it to Duncan with great joy: "And these too. Do they look like tree branches?"

Duncan looked at the branches Alice was holding in her hands - he had seen quite a few of these along the way. They looked like twigs of some shrub, growing in the cracks of the rocks. There were grayish-white lines on the surface, but there was only a main trunk without any leaf structure, and the shape was quite strange.

Anyone who sees this thing for the first time would probably subconsciously think that it is a kind of "plant" unique to the deep sea.

However, Alice casually broke off a twig and pointed at the broken surface: "Look, this thing is also stone."

Duncan frowned slightly, took the "twig" that Alice broke off, and observed its cross-section curiously - this thing seemed very brittle, with neat and sharp breaks, and had the same texture as the black and gray stones on the ground around it, but when Duncan took them and observed them carefully under the starlight, he saw a faint glow reflected on the cross-section, as if there was very fine metal dust or fibers mixed in it.

Then he raised his head again and looked at the vast space in the distance shrouded by the dark starry sky - broken islands of all sizes floated in this dimension. Some islands were almost as large as the largest city-states in the vast ocean, while some were just larger rocks. However, no matter how big the "island" was, its structure had one thing in common:

The lower part of the "floating island" is a neatly shaped "disc", and at the bottom of the disk you can see many clustered, stalagmite-like hanging objects. There is also a huge structure whose shape cannot be seen clearly connected between those hanging objects, as if it is the "base" supporting the floating island.

Duncan frowned slightly, and couldn't help but think of the "Mirror Island" he saw at the bottom of the Frost Sea. The black mirror island floating in the deep sea also showed the same desolate and primitive appearance as the broken floating island here, and the island was also covered with "black stone" materials similar to the one here, mixed with a slightly metallic texture.

Obviously, the two are similar things.

If those black mud figures with human contours are the "rough prototypes of humans", then the desolate and primitive dark mirror image at the bottom of the frost sea is the "rough prototype of the city-state", and this deep sea... seems to be filled with "rough prototypes of the city-state".

Perhaps these are the "raw materials" used by the Lord of the Deep during the Third Long Night? Or in other words... are they the "semi-finished products" of the many islands in the Infinite Ocean?

If these are semi-finished products... then it is obvious that the Lord of the Deep had a more ambitious plan when he built the "sanctuary" - more islands, more city-states, a wider living space, abundant resources, and even... the scope of the boundless sea in the original plan may be many times larger than what the world knows now.

However, now, these "semi-finished products" are just floating quietly in this cage-like space, allowing the years to pass, forgotten by the world and the gods. Only the chaotic and unintelligent demons are fighting here all day long, maintaining the meaningless material cycle and "balance" day after day.

The sound of footsteps suddenly came from the side, waking Duncan from his thoughts.

He raised his head and looked in the direction of the sound, and saw two tall figures walking towards him - one was Shirley, who was still in the form of a dark demon, and the other was Agou, whose mental state had fully recovered.

"It looks like you guys have finished talking." Duncan took the initiative to step forward and broke the silence.

"Thank you for your time," Ah Gou bowed his head and said politely, "I hope this didn't delay anything."

"We still have a lot to do - but there's no rush for these ten minutes," Duncan said casually, observing the expressions of Shirley and Agou (mainly Shirley, Agou's bony face really couldn't show any expression), "It seems that you are in good shape - have you discussed what to do in the future? I mean your new contractual relationship... This is an unprecedented situation where a demon summons a contracted human."

He felt a little weird when he said this, but he didn't expect that Shirley and Agou on the other side would be very calm after hearing it. The latter even shook his head nonchalantly: "It's not a big deal. Shirley and I think it won't have much impact on us..."

Alice next to him opened her eyes wide in surprise when she heard it: "No effect?"

"Yes," Agou Te said calmly, "Anyway, Shirley is the one who usually runs around with her head down, and I am responsible for holding the leash beside her to prevent her from getting into trouble. What did the captain say...Oh, the dog walks the person, we have been doing this for more than ten years, and it's still the same now!"

When Duncan heard this, he and Alice looked at each other in bewilderment. After a few seconds, they said in unison: "It seems so..."

Shirley, who was standing next to him, almost drooped her head into her chest as she listened. She lowered her head and muttered awkwardly, "Can you please stop talking about this... I'm not that reckless..."

Duncan immediately felt that the girl's words were totally unconvincing - from the day she first threw Agou out with a chain to beat someone, her relationship with "recklessness" could no longer be removed...

However, after this interruption, he felt a little relieved in his heart. It seemed that Shirley and Agou really didn't care about the "little matter" of the contractual relationship transformation, which made him worry less unnecessarily.

Shirley lowered her head and glanced at Agou who was connected to her. She gently shook her arm, making the chain make a rattling sound.

The chains held them together, as they always had, and it didn't matter who was human and who was demon, who shared whose humanity, whose heart beat in whose chest...

They are "Shirley and Dog" - always like this, just stay together.

"Then there is only one more question left," Duncan said after a few seconds of silence, coughing twice. He looked up at Shirley, who had "grown" to a height of almost three meters when supported by her skeleton limbs. "Can you change back to your current form?"

"Yes," Shirley nodded immediately, but then her expression became a little hesitant, "After the chains were restored, Agou and I 'discovered' a way to regain control of our bodies, but..."

Duncan looked puzzled: "Just?"

"There are some minor side effects..." muttered Agou next to him.

As soon as she finished speaking, Shirley began to control her new body to transform into a human.

With a series of crackling sounds of bones deforming and reorganizing and smoke rising, her body quickly shrank in the smoke. After just a few seconds, she had returned to the height and size of a normal human. Those terrifying black bone pieces and bone spurs shrank into her body, and her once mature face also returned to her normal appearance, except...

Eyes still filled with a faint bloody glow.

She raised her head and looked at Duncan with her eyes completely covered in blood. She said helplessly, "The characteristics of the Deep Devil cannot be eliminated. Agou can be restored to his previous appearance - anyway, his whole body will be reduced in size, but my eyes can't be restored no matter what I do. It's not right at first glance."

"...It's actually quite exciting." Duncan commented very objectively.

Shirley held it in for a long time, then let out a long sigh: "Oh... Never mind, I will close my eyes when I go into the city next time. Anyway, I can still see things with my eyes closed now."