Chapter 1270 - 1269: Deep Waters and Shallow Shadows

Chapter 1270: Chapter 1269: Deep Waters and Shallow Shadows

At the same time, in the Water Elemental Realm corresponding to the crash site of the Antawen Vessel and the Main Material Space.

Never-ending rain covers the Boundless Sea, filling the space between two layers of ocean. Above the Boundless Sea, the ocean suspended upside down in the sky is generating waves upon waves. Through these waves, one can faintly see water elementals moving back and forth, continuously growing, merging, battling, and restructuring in a cycle. In the depths of the Boundless Sea, vast streams of blue light can be seen spanning the deep sea, connecting to a massive water system on the other side of the ocean.

This scene, impossible to see in the real world and completely contrary to the common sense of the material world, is the norm in the Water Elemental Realm. Pure elemental power blends with this world’s magic power to form a unique system of "cycles" here. However, for sea demons, who are themselves a type of elemental creature, this environment doesn’t evoke feelings of familiarity—this space is just a facsimile of their home world, and the vast Boundless Sea here isn’t the ocean from their memories of their home world.

But sea demons are carefree and adapt quickly to the environment.

An outpost stands steady amidst the rolling waves of the Boundless Sea. It is shaped like a slightly open shell, with a streamlined exterior boasting a silvery metallic texture and light blue decorations that outline unique totems resembling the limbs of some deep-sea creature. Through the ajar gap in the shell, one can see a gleaming energy field screen, and inside the screen are visible facilities such as living cabins, weapon stations, and communication stations, along with decorative tentacle stone carvings and seaweed. About a dozen sea demons busily work among these outpost facilities.

At the base of the outpost are several "anchoring" devices emitting blue halos. Together, they maintain the stability of this structure from the material world, preventing it from drifting away in this ocean-only world.

On the crescent-moon-shaped duty platform at the edge of the outpost, two sea demon sentinels on duty are monitoring the situation in the Boundless Sea. Both have a lower body resembling a water snake, their long tails coiled in a very stable shape, holding trident-shaped weapons. The front of the silvery weapons shimmers with wave-like light—this is a unique phenomenon produced by the constantly "refreshing" charged particle streams on the blade.

"Yawn... I feel like I’ve been standing here for a century," a sea demon with long sea-blue hair suddenly yawns, coiling her long tail under her body and wagging its tip left and right. "This rain is making me drowsy..."

"Nonsense, you’d be drowsy with or without the rain," the sea demon with lavender hair beside her can’t help but glance over, "You’re just lazy; you’d be wide awake the moment you’re off duty."

"Don’t say that, Caroline," the sea-blue-haired sea demon waves her trident, "I’m actually very serious—it’s just that the things we’re watching are so boring, just a few ’streams’ without any changes..."

The sea demon called Caroline does not respond to her companion’s complaints but simply stares at the thick seawater below. As a water elemental creature, her vision can penetrate the dark, deep sea to see very far. In her view, those light blue streams running through the depths of the Boundless Sea are indeed like some kind of beautiful "streams," and she stares at them for over ten seconds before suddenly looking up and saying, "What do you think this thing is? It looks like water but isn’t water, rising from the sea floor and flowing to some unknown place, with Her Majesty the Queen so serious about us keeping an eye on it. What on earth is this thing?"

"Haven’t you heard what Witch Hesterwe said? This thing is called ’The Deep Blue Webway,’ the ’power system’ of this planet, similar to ocean currents and atmospheric cycles. But inside it flows magic power, unlike ocean currents and atmospheric cycles that can only appear in the material world; it can flow in all the ’realms’ of the planet, cycling through the real world, shadow realm, and so on..."

The sea demon with long sea-blue hair seems quite knowledgeable, at least having seriously listened to the scholars. However, her companion Caroline is evidently not the type to pay close attention in lectures. Halfway through listening, Caroline starts nodding with an "I completely understand" expression, muttering, "Power system, huh? Ocean currents, huh? Now I seem to understand..."

As she speaks, she looks down at the blue light stream in the sea, her face revealing a mischievous expression: "So you say, what if I dive in? Where would I end up swimming to?"

"Clearly, you didn’t understand!" The blue-haired sea demon is shocked, "This thing isn’t water, I tell you, if you dive in, you might end up dead—after so many years of peace with the local water elements, if you die and it causes misunderstandings, we might end up at war again..."

This sea demon sentinel is obviously frightened by her companion’s bizarre logic, rapidly spewing a lot of words to dissuade her action-oriented sister. Caroline listens with half an ear, finally abandoning her very creative idea, though her eyes still involuntarily fall on the blue streams running through the Boundless Sea, her mischievous heart stirring, muttering: "So do you think there might be something that can travel in this kind of ’river’? Since they’re a kind of ’webway’..."

"Who do I ask if not you... Maybe Witch Hesterwe or Her Majesty the Queen might know?" The blue-haired sea demon thinks for a moment, her tail tip flicking rapidly in the air, "After all, our ability to perceive and understand ’magic power’ on this planet is a recent development, even the Great Witch only has a superficial understanding in this area. All our knowledge about magic power and ’The Deep Blue Webway’ comes from exchanges with our land allies—but there’s such a large difference between the races of land allies and sea demons..."

"Exactly," Caroline curls her tail around her trident, tapping her fists together, wearing an "I get it again" expression, "The difference in life forms between land allies and us is so great that if they jump into The Deep Blue Webway, they’d die, but it might not be the same for sea demons, so it means I might still be able to dive in..."

Before she could finish, the blue-haired sea demon had already wrapped her tail around Caroline’s, tying their long, snake-like tails into a knot.

"I must prevent you from courting death—you’ve been a bit off since you ’terminated’ and regenerated yourself many years ago, now I finally understand," the blue-haired sea demon says helplessly, "Our task is just to monitor the energy flow here, so please don’t stir up trouble... Ugh, suddenly I don’t feel drowsy at all."

"Okay, I was just kidding," seeing her companion’s exasperated expression, sea demon Caroline finally raises her hands to signify she’s completely giving up on the idea of "diving in." Meanwhile, she sneaks another glance at the sea floor, "Let’s head to the monitoring room after the shift change to see if the sisters there have discovered anything interesting, then I’ll treat myself with a dried squid for comfort..."

Before she can finish speaking, a swift shadow suddenly flashes in the blue light stream in the depths of the Boundless Sea, causing the two sentries on duty to widen their eyes.

Though they chat incessantly while on duty, their attention never leaves the objects they are monitoring. The fleeting shadow didn’t escape the eyes of the two sea demon soldiers.

"Did you see that?" Caroline immediately withdraws her trident from the tail coil, quickly asking while paying close attention to any movement in the light stream below, "I didn’t see exactly what it was, but something definitely passed by just now..."

"I saw it... that thing was fast, couldn’t make it out, but the surveillance room might have caught a clearer image!" The blue-haired sea demon had already reacted, quickly calling for other sentinels in the dormitory to take over while swiftly saying to Korolin, "This definitely meets Her Majesty the Queen’s ’reporting standards’—I’ll go to the surveillance room to check the footage, you go to the communication station to contact the Antawen Vessel! We’ll split up!"

"Alright!"

The two sea demons quickly rushed to the two sections of the outpost, their tails tied in a dead knot snapping straight with a "pop"—but ultimately, they were well-trained soldiers, and a small embarrassment couldn’t affect them from executing their mission. Both sea demons simultaneously raised their tridents without hesitation to cut off their tangled tails, then, shouting both from the pain and saying "if I’d known you’d cut, I wouldn’t have," they swiftly ran towards the surveillance room and communication station.

...

In New Argondale, inside the Council Headquarters rebuilt and restructured from abandoned facilities, Andar, with the appearance of an ancient elder, stood next to a projection platform, frowning tightly. This ancient dragon, who has witnessed nearly two million years of Dragonkin history, experienced the ancient Voyager’s arrival, and the world’s transformations, now exuded a tension as if facing a formidable enemy. "Rift... runs through the entire Tower of the Inversion Tide, with a scale that can even extend to the Western Coast... and how many years has that thing been there?!"

Above the projection platform engraved with numerous Dragon Language Runes, Heragor’s image vividly appeared before Andar. The expression on this Dragonkin leader’s face was not much better than Andar’s, and even seemed gloomier: "There’s no theory to explain all this; that rift was hidden from every eye, not just ours, but even the gods’. According to clues found on site by Gawain Cecil, there seems to be a ’veil’ at work, its power miraculous, and even after losing its sustaining force, it still continued to produce effects until it was dismantled by shadow sand dust.

"As for the rift outside the tower, it was discovered by those two young dragons affected by deep blue magic power... I suspect all young dragons affected by deep blue magic power can see or sense those rifts..."

Andar nodded with a grim expression, his tone low: "That rift might have been affecting our dragon eggs for many years, but all this time, Talronde had divine protection, keeping this influence outside, until now with the gods gone, the effects on the young dragons started to show—the Deep Blue Webway has not been functioning properly for many years..."

"None of that matters anymore, old friend, those are secondary issues—" Heragor interrupted Andar, the expression on the Dragonkin leader’s face exceptionally grave, "The most critical issue now is the ’Inversion’ inside that tower... Based on the current clues found by Gawain Cecil, if the situation really develops in the worst possible direction, then the Inversion... might have been free long ago, possibly even several centuries ago.

"Andar, our prolonged monitoring and vigilance of that tower have been a joke, Talronde has encountered a major problem."

"It’s not just Talronde facing a major problem; it’s the whole world," Andar took a soft breath, "An uncontrollable ’God of Chaos’ roams beyond mortal civilization’s view—it’s become a raging fire, a mess we made millions of years ago."

The two leaders suddenly fell silent in the room, in this unbearable silence, a new light screen suddenly rose on the projection platform, and after a brief disruption, Gawain’s figure appeared next to Heragor’s holographic projection.

"I didn’t mean to intrude, but I think it’s necessary to contact you directly," Gawain began, the background behind him a vast white interior space, "You two, leaders of Talronde, should already know the situation on my end."

"Yes, we’ve received the report forwarded by Nuoletta," Heragor immediately composed his expression, speaking calmly and steadily, "The situation is very serious... I have nothing to hide from you, this situation has surpassed the worst-case scenario Andar and I previously anticipated."

Indeed, it has surpassed the worst-case scenario—after all, before this, their direst predictions for the Tower of the Inversion Tide were that it was on the verge of complete loss of control. Who would have thought that the tower would give everyone a massive surprise—it had a leak for six hundred years...

Heragor immediately asked, "Are you still in that tower?"

"Yes, I’m still here—we’ve confirmed there isn’t a trace of divine contamination left inside, a very ironic scenario, this tower that made everyone feel as if facing a formidable enemy is now very safe; it’s just an unmoving ancient relic," Gawain said with a wry smile, "I’m organizing personnel to expand the scope of investigation here. Although I don’t think we’ll find the whereabouts of that ’escaped entity,’ it might at least help us gain a bit more understanding of this relic."

With that, he sighed, looking full of helplessness, "I didn’t expect the team brought to deal with the crisis would end up being used for this, but at least it wasn’t a wasted trip."

Heragor’s face tightened, finally letting out a sigh after a long pause, "...Talronde should be responsible for all this."

"Chasing responsibility for over a million years of accounting isn’t simple," Gawain interrupted the Dragonkin leader, "Now we have more important matters to face—the ’God of the Inversion Tide’ that has already escaped. I’d like to hear your views."

The escaped God of the Inversion Tide... where would it be at this moment?

Heragor’s face was as stern as water, the question difficult to answer, yet he seemed not entirely without an answer in his heart.

(It’s time to recommend a book, just as I recommended last time, ’Guide to Conquering Other Worlds’—even after sponsoring it, it’s still strong and growing well. It’s about to be released soon, I think it can be recommended again. Those who like the theme of exploiting other worlds can check it out.)