Chapter 48 – Deep Sea

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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At some point, I was looking at the sea rather than Ranium.

A sea that was unpleasantly calm, that was.

Neither the sound of waves splashing nor the sound of fins cutting through the currents could be heard.

No matter how broad and deep it was, there could not be a single air bubble or foam in sight.

This must have been the sea where Blood-Soaked Mud had hidden.

Was I able to gauge the location thanks to the dead gods passing on clues?

It was while I was repeatedly questioning myself.

For the first time, the calm surface of the sea began to ripple.

It wasn’t a change that occurred here.

Beyond this vast horizon, from the sandy beach touching the land, voices were being heard.

“U-uhuhk!? Uput, uuup!”

=Do not become numb to the pain. Accept the precious instinct of life as it is. For it will guide you to life.=

It was a demon in the form of a lugworm.

Other monsters with similar appearances were also shoving people into their bodies and… trapping them.

Struggling inside the flesh with only their faces poking out was useless. The Heteromorph lineage demons were ones exceptional at mixing.

Like sinking into a swamp the more they struggled, the person’s flesh merely melted down and mixed with the monster.

The people captured like that were not just one or two.

Hundreds, picking a low number. Whether they resisted to the end or didn’t resist was useless.

Because even the dead, the moment they mixed with a Heteromorph, were forcefully revived and suffered.

If a ghoul merely moved the dead, a Heteromorph mixed it with other organisms to revive it. This was the reason Blood-Soaked Mud and his subordinate demons swept away corpses.

If they could not revive them, they just ate them up, and if the head remained, they forcefully stitched them together.

Blood-Soaked Mud used to call this respecting life and living.

And before the people could even catch their breath, the monsters submerged their bodies into the seawater one by one.

What started it was sinking carefully so as not to cause splashes.

“B-breath, eoheok, eok!”

“Eutwe, euk…. Upuput.”

Since they were already mixed, they couldn’t die.

Even if they didn’t agree to a contract, there’s no way to rescue them alive once their flesh gets entangled like that.

The monsters led by the lugworm demon gradually moved farther from the shore.

As they moved farther from land, the sea naturally deepened.

After passing the place where the faint starlight at least showed the outlines of seaweed, there was nothing.

There were merely pitch-black and ominous shadows flickering like a bottomless pit.

The lugworm demon looked at the shadow of the sea and laughed while bizarrely twisting its face.

=I shall guide you to the place most free from the sun’s whims.=

The people were already exhausted from drinking and spitting out seawater.

The demon willfully considered this silence as affirmation and shook its long body.

While following behind it, naturally the sandy beach completely hid its traces as well.

A vast, open sea with nothing but the horizon left.

The place the demon headed was a dark blue swamp waiting only for those without fear to fall into it.

From that place, the heads of the demon and the monster pack plummeted downward.

Beyond the deep sea where even starlight couldn’t flicker, that is.

Whether it was a dream or not, it was a place I had to see at least once anyway.

I faced the surface of the water to chase after the demon. Then I flew with all my might.

…Even if I knew how to swim, I never had any thoughts of diving though.

A trivial complaint came to mind before crashing into the water current.

Cold and heavy.

It was the very first thing I felt after breaking through the surface of the water.

And it was dark. It couldn’t compare to the surface where the Black Sun rose.

A suffocating sense of weight was pressing down on my whole body.

Ppogeureureureu…

Due to rough entry into the water, bubbles rose from all directions.

At first, the bubbles vaguely bothered me, but later on I rather missed them.

Beneath the surface where light could not reach… the deep sea was exactly that gloomy and quiet.

There was no seaweed swaying in the ocean current either.

There were no small fish swimming in schools either.

Those things that one would normally think of simply hearing the sea, none of them were seen at all.

However, it wasn’t that there was no movement at all.

Every time the stars inside my body twinkled, I felt the water current twisting.

The floating matter that I thought were just drifting around were actually alive and moving.

As if responding to the light I emitted, paper lanterns gently swaying beyond that distant darkness were also seen.

How deeply did I come in.

Before I knew it, things resembling pure white snowflakes began to be seen.

It wasn’t snow created because it was cold, but simply bits of crumbled flesh.

They merely slowly rotted and precipitated until they reached the edge of the seabed.

Looking only at its outward appearance, it was the frozen wasteland itself. Now the only light was entirely just the stars inside my body.

It was then that a whale’s cry was heard.

Uuuuuuung-.

It loudly rang around the surroundings like a heavy ship’s horn sound.

The vibration was so large that it was to the point where the surrounding water shook along with it.

…It was after knowing that another sound was mixed in that cry, that I realized the guy was narrowing the distance.

Eu a a a a a a, eu a a. Eu a a a-.

The screams of humans mixed with the whale’s cry began to shatter the stillness of the sea.

In this dark and gloomy sea, light was bound to call in danger.

Even so, it was weirder if stars did not twinkle.

Leaving the approaching monsters behind, I made up my mind to enter as deep into the sea as possible.

Then, not a guy, but guys moved.

Uuuuuuung, uuuuuuung-.

The monsters noticed the intruder and were rushing in.

The problem was the pressure that grew heavier the further down I went.

I might not know if it only pressed down on me, but it grew stronger as I headed downward, to the point where it started pushing me away instead.

Because of this, the distance was narrowing. I tried to break through somehow, but eventually they got close enough for the monster’s shape to be seen.

The reason Blood-Soaked Mud desperately cut off his tail.

That turned from a guess to a conviction.

“Look at how it looks.”

Leviathan.

A word roughly used when meaning a giant monster, and it was similar in Last Comet.

It was a monster created by throwing together whales and marine life, as well as humans at the end, into a huge mix.

The biggest feature of Leviathans was that the arms and legs of the sacrificed people swam while flailing as if boatmen were rowing oars.

If Blood-Soaked Mud was given enough time, ecological changes would happen here and subspecies would begin to swarm.

Covering itself in barnacle shells to reduce physical damage, or sprouting tentacles to compensate for slow movement.

There wasn’t just one or two of these.

Uuuuuuung-.

The Leviathans chasing me as I tried to head to the seabed numbered in the dozens even at a relaxed estimate.

The monsters whose eyes had degenerated to adapt to the dark deep sea didn’t even fear the light.

Nevertheless, the reason they noticed the light was because of the people they ate.

Euaaaaa, aaaaaak-.

The envy for the sky and light that humans possessed could not be erased no matter what means were used.

Blood-Soaked Mud used this exact part to make them track me.

The reason those who already lost their reason desperately flailed their arms and legs was to see the light from closer.

And those thirsting for light were down below there too.

Even though it was a truly thin streak of light, I saw ones who noticed it and clamored.

Trapped in the red mud at the bottom of the seabed, they tried to pull their bodies out but repeatedly failed and wailed.

This was my first encounter with Blood-Soaked Mud.

[If you wish to fight, come. Since I cannot avoid it, I will fight back.]

The red mud on the seabed that swallowed people up. That was Blood-Soaked Mud.

Far from melting away in the water, it was squirming like a slime and growing its bulk.

While slowly sucking up people alive, that is.

Those who wailed and were eaten were being forcefully crumpled and kneaded inside that mud.

[However, O young god, since you are looking into the future, you must know.]

With those words, the water pressure became much stronger.

Before, I was able to push my way through somehow, but this time it felt solid, as if I was blocked by a hard stone wall.

I knew that it was close to a dream. Yet, unable to hold back, I made the stars inside my flesh orbit.

-Punishment miracle, Sound of a Thousand Thunders

[In this place, no light whatsoever can advance.]

The lightning was crumpled like a sheet of paper, sparkled, and disappeared.

-Punishment miracle, Crushing Death

[As no power whatsoever can fully block the surging seawater.]

The power that crushes even boulders was pushed back by the water pressure of the deep sea.

It was to the point of rather bouncing off and being crushed before grasping the seawater.

[The sea route shall never open.]

The Great Demon, who shook off all my attempts, made the water pressure one layer heavier.

BOOM!!

It wasn’t that the sound rang out, but I could tell by the water currents colliding.

Similar to the punishment miracle Crushing Death, it was smashing layer by layer as if clapping its hands with the pressure of the deep sea.

This was not the power of a Great Demon.

The authority of an Elysium.

If it was enough to block light from advancing, he had eaten either the Sea or the Night, one of the two.

Right now… it was too much.

I dodged the seawater that was closing layer by layer and squeezed past the Leviathans approaching with jaws wide open.

BOOM!, BOOM!, BOOM!!

[No matter how hot your star is, it still cannot defeat the sea!]

The arms and legs of the victims, the characteristic of Leviathans, moved even more roughly.

They swam desperately trying to grasp the departing starlight, but catching up to me was impossible.

Like pleading, like begging, they wailed and remained as an echo within the sea.

Ppogeureureureureu-.

[Therefore… if you have seen it, give up.]

The bubbles filling the surroundings were the last precognition I saw.

What greeted me as I woke up from the precognition was Bartol.

The priest knelt down with a calm attitude, as if he had already guessed everything.

“O Godfather of the Stars, I came knowing that you have looked far away.”

He brought writing instruments admirably.

Bartol laid down the parchment with a reverent posture and was holding a quill pen.

Even if it was an isolated place in the shelter, there should have been one or two people, but it seemed they were all sent away.

However, I had no leeway to write down the precognition I had just seen separately.

“Where is a place close to the sea? Where should I head to head for the sea?”

Bartol guessed a lot just by hearing these words.

With a calm attitude, the old priest rummaged through his head and brought out his words.

“To the north of Ranium is a place called Tyrium. If you head straight west from Tyrium, there was a city called Terjaohm. I remember there being quite a large shipyard there.”

“A shipyard…”

If I didn’t know anything, I might have gone by boat. However, there was something I saw through my precognition.

Even if the Leviathans just bumped into it with their bodies, it would shatter with a crunch.

However, since he said it was a shipyard, there would be several stockpiled materials.

Nobody knew how much time it would take while I pierced down to the seabed alone.

To stand against an attack that might strike by any chance, a place close to me, at least a place with enough materials to build a barrier was better.

However, since Blood-Soaked Mud had eaten either the Sea or the Night, I had to become stronger.

I threw the question I had kept unasked for a long time out of consideration for Bartol.

“Bartol, you said you had a god you served previously.”

“That is correct. It happened that Tyrium was famous for having that person’s temple. It was the place where the Pleasant Oblivion resided.”

Of course I knew.

It was a god that made you forget useless traits. It was safe to view him as a sort of skill training instructor.

Of course, he had already been murdered, but thanks to the trait of oblivion, there were many cases where he escaped the demons’ attention and his Elysium remained intact.

He helps with growth in ways like erasing negative traits or erasing distracting thoughts. In-game, it was implemented in a way where required experience points were cut in half.

Even so, if eaten too early, he was a nuisance that didn’t help with fighting or protecting survivors.

“I have to look around that place once.”

I thought the same, but there was a need to accelerate the growth speed a little more.