Chapter 63 – Ebb Tide

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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How many had been killed was impossible to count.

Block after block, until the flooding seawater churned into a soggy mess of wreckage.

Using every miracle and authority available without reserve.

The moment the stars within my flesh gathered at my fingertips, I did not hesitate for even a second.

In this, the newly seized authority of Swirling Tide played a significant part.

At the very instant the authority over freshwater was made unusable, the authority over tides had arrived.

Thanks to that, it was possible to delay the monsters’ approach at least a little.

The problem was the monsters that kept pouring in despite being blocked.

Ughhh… Huuugh…

A dying, wheezing gasp that kept growing louder.

The monsters Blood-Soaked Mud had created were grotesquely numerous beyond imagination.

Even after killing more than a thousand, new ones appeared from amid the carcasses that were already filling the surroundings.

Their forms resembled a mixture of humans and all manner of sea creatures.

What made it all the more terrible was the strangely human-like features left on them.

Lives that had been forcibly violated gasped through twisted gills as they pushed through the piled carcasses.

Even so, I was confident in my ability to hold the line.

I was merely being careful out of concern that the damage might reach the people.

To achieve a victory without losses, I chose to kill them methodically over reckless attacks.

…However, this decision could not quell the people’s agitation.

People blinded by the light the Sun God had displayed.

Of course, a few who had averted their eyes from the Sun God were fine, but many more were still blinded and straining only their ears.

What those who had only their hearing to rely on would be thinking was easy to guess.

I knew, even without visual confirmation.

The stench of sewage thick with terror, and voices from behind.

“Wh, why is the sound of the monsters’ breathing getting closer?”

“What’s happening? Why are the monsters getting closer?!”

“O light, lead us to victory!”

…The hostility the mighty Sun God had shown was driving these people into distrust and madness.

I had no room to comfort them with warm words.

Nor was it a light enough wound to be comforted by a mere handful of words.

It was only natural, having been abandoned by a being they had believed in and followed their whole lives without question.

Unfortunately, every ounce of my strength and ability was concentrated on stopping the incoming monsters.

Those who spoke up in my stead were the old cleric Bartol and Ceciel.

These two had sensed the Sun God’s intent early and looked away in time, so they still had their sight.

“Star Creation is holding the line. Don’t worry, hold on just a little longer!”

“Those who believe in the God Who Makes Stars can become stars even in death! An angel will vouch for it, so please, just trust them!”

With even Ceciel the angel joining in, it seemed as though things might calm slightly.

But at that moment, the words the Sun God had thrown at me suddenly surfaced.

It was not by my own will.

It was a prophecy the Sun God had left behind when it concealed itself beyond the horizon, having already looked ahead to what would come.

[Behold the weakness of those you seek to protect.]

“Hyeeaahhh!!!”

The moment a corpse of a monster already dead was swept by the waves and touched someone, I understood everything.

It was pointing at the human faith that so easily crumbled. The heart that turned away far too simply.

The unlucky man was so startled by the soft, squelching sensation that he even let go of the hand he had been holding.

The man had not a fragment of judgment left to gauge whether the monster was alive or dead.

“They, they’re coming! A monster! A monster!”

“Stay calm, Star Creation already killed it!”

Ceciel flew over frantically to try to calm things down, but it was useless.

The faith in victory, the expectation toward me — it had all shattered with that single scream.

Like a trembling glass finally crashing to pieces.

“A, a scream. That was just a scream. Wh, who got attacked?”

“Damn it, why aren’t you letting go?! We need to run!”

“Everyone stay calm, Star Creation is holding…”

“Stop spouting nonsense! Did you not see the Sun God? How long can a god stand against the Sun God?!”

Even the tenuous bonds holding people together had shattered.

The instinct to save at least those closest to oneself was demolishing this fragile community.

Those who shook off the hands of strangers raised their voices and set off searching for their own families.

Wading through the floodwater sloshing above their waists in every direction.

“Hey, where are you? If you can hear me, answer!”

“Stay calm, Star Creation is holding the line!”

“Mom, Dad!”

“Someone get out of my way! Move!”

“Puh, help, someone help! I, I can’t swim… glug…”

Most of them were blind.

They followed the voices of acquaintances and family, treating everything that stood in their way as hostile.

As people tangled with each other and splashed about in every direction, panic spread like infection.

That was the moment the refrain of the Sun God’s prophecy echoed in my mind.

[And then you shall come to know your own weakness.]

This could not go on. Stabilizing the people came first.

I had just thought that and was about to step back, when.

The great demon Blood-Soaked Mud, which had been watching silently, began to swell with momentum.

[God Who Makes Stars, longing for light does not ultimately alter the essential nature of life. They merely followed because they could survive under you. A living being, as long as it could survive, was not bound to something like light.

The light you display was only that much.]

“These are humans.”

I returned a simple answer, but the great demon had no intention of letting me go.

The moment before I left, I saw the horizon beyond the ruins gleam ominously.

Elysium.

A divine authority manifested.

At the same time, the surface of the dark sea was subtly lifted.

[The humans of the future will think differently.]

The authority of Swirling Tide was being pushed back.

As the waves weakened, the monsters pushed far out were slowly closing the distance again.

I knew the cause, and clenched my fist.

“I was wondering why it handed over Swirling Tide so easily.”

Only upon hearing this did Blood-Soaked Mud let out a laugh.

[Against a god that made even that Sun God retreat, I cannot afford complacency.]

With this, I could be certain.

What it had consumed was the Elysium of the Devouring Sea.

Splash.

Before I knew it, my feet were being hit by waves.

While I had been standing on the water’s surface, it had risen and soaked up to my ankles.

How many monsters were writhing beneath it, I could not even begin to estimate.

[But do not grieve for the fate of these people, young god.]

I orbited the stars within my flesh.

If I used the Sound of a Thousand Thunders here, I could stop them simply enough.

But the label of “Punishment Miracle” was hindering my resolve.

A punishment decreed by a god did not discriminate between people.

It was the people who had to evade a god’s wrath and punishment.

Those who truly believed in me would be all right… but those who did not would all die.

If the shockwave of the lightning I fired killed the very people I sought to protect, it would be utterly self-defeating.

[Someday, humans will stop chasing faint light and instead embrace quiet darkness.]

In the end, the trajectory drawn by the stars that had been orbiting my flesh formed the shape of brackets.

Crushing pressure was far a better choice than hurling lightning in a city flooded with water.

-Punishment Miracle, Crushing Pressure

Wrrrrrrk.

Alongside a tremendous noise, foul blood stained the sea.

I crushed the monsters swimming through the oncoming seawater all at once as I answered.

“Then for now, this is still my time.”

Humans had not yet abandoned their longing for stars, for heaven, for light.

***

The chaos had arrived in an instant.

Like a broken levee that could not easily be rebuilt, the fear that burst free swept everyone into madness.

As the blind ones wailed and thrashed through water that rose past their waists, screams and moans only continued to grow fiercer.

In no time, the hands barely held together were pried apart by the waves of people pressing against each other.

Shek, looking like a drowned rat, swung his head back and forth and screamed at the top of his voice.

“Huuu, huuu. Den! D-e-e-en! Damn it… Den…”

But Shek’s voice was swallowed up by the people shrieking in every direction.

He was a man who cried easily by nature. Shek’s face twisted, certain he had lost hold.

It hurt all the more because he knew the choice his brother had made to protect his only son.

“B, brother, what do I do. I, I let him go. My own n, nephew…”

A dazed and desolate Shek was weeping steadily when it happened.

Someone approaching from behind placed something heavy on his shoulder.

“Then give him a piggyback. He got swept away but I pulled him back.”

“Huh. Huh? D, Den.”

“He went still the moment he saw me.”

“Ad, you didn’t go to all that trouble carrying someone out through the Corpse Demons for nothing!”

Shek adjusted his footing and took his returned nephew onto his back.

Relief that he had not lost his nephew, gratitude and joy toward his friend all mingled together.

He had been sobbing a moment ago but was now smiling, which made him look ridiculous, but Ad did not tease him for it.

“The priest is gathering the people who still have their sight first. Let’s head over there.”

“W, was everyone really blinded? Is Debra alright too?”

A man who had been wailing thinking he’d lost his nephew immediately started worrying about others.

That was why, despite carrying the nickname “coward,” people didn’t all-out dislike him.

Someone might call it a busybody nature, but Ad considered it a good trait.

Ad finally burst out laughing and patted Shek on the shoulder.

“Both Debra and your sister-in-law are fine. There are more people with their sight than you’d think.”

“Oh, they’re ok! Then let’s go!”

The news that many were safe made Shek beam with a bright smile.

Ad was about to smile as well, but the timing was unfortunate.

A far more chilling scream began to ring out.

Aaaaaaagh!”

The death scream of a person in their final moment reached the ears of both men.

It was a shriek that made the entire body bristle.

And the very brief silence that followed it soon curdled into pure terror.

“It’s an attack! An actual monster!”

“Argh, ah, aaaaaaugh!”

“The water… it’s the water! Something moved in the water!”

From that moment on, the stars in the night sky began to twinkle restlessly.

Every time the surface of the water shuddered with something dark, the stars pressed down upon it with starlight.

But it was beyond their capacity to protect everyone scattered in all directions, fleeing in panic.

Even as stars that guarded the night sky, there was no way to protect all those who were floundering in terror.

Consoling Star.

The dawn light that the star consoling people shed powerfully only reached those whose eyes were still intact.

That soft, faint light was what finally moved the frozen Ad and Shek.

“Shek, move!”

“It’s my brother, I’m sure it’s my brother watching over us. Brother, help me protect Den.”

Splash, splash.

The two pressed through the churning current with all their strength and pressed forward.

Forcibly ignoring the screaming cries mingled with weeping that surrounded them from every direction.

Fortunately, it was not only the stars that were helping them.

Swish!

The moment the surface Sentinel Star had not yet illuminated was lifted, a long, thin line was drawn.

The being that soared upward proudly above the monster-that-had-once-been-human now cut to pieces, spilling blood.

It was the angel Ceciel, once called the Guardian of Ranium.

Ceciel was swinging her bloodied blade and cutting a path.

“Gather where I am! Quickly!”

Only then did the wandering people realize which way they should go. Both those with sight and those blinded turned their bodies toward where the angel had descended.

But it was not only the people who had realized.

The predators circling beneath the surface all simultaneously turned their fins.

This was no longer a time to play with prey, letting them go for sport.

The monsters were in no state to simply let go of the people struggling through the current.

Slithering.

Twisting through the starlight at blinding speed.

Crack, crunch!

“Aaaaaaugh!”

In one motion they bit into a shoulder or leg, shook them left and right, and dragged them under.

All that remained was a dark smear of blood.

The people near the unfortunate victims turned ashen and began to tremble uncontrollably.

“Sh, damn it. Damn!”

“That, that thing just had a human face! It was a person!”

“Help me! I don’t want to die!”

The movement through the current grew increasingly desperate.

The turbid, churning current turned everything beneath the surface into a darker shadow.

Ceciel too desperately wanted to rush toward them in answer to their pleading cries.

But the monsters, having noticed there was only one opponent, were too clever to rush in all at once.

“Rush me all at once, stop coming one by one!”

Though she scolded them in full fury, these were monsters that had already lost their human identity.

The monsters, heedless of Ceciel’s cry, languidly swayed their bodies and waited for their next victim to approach.

And so they were hunted, one by one.

Aaaagh!

Splutter…

Without fail, every time a wave broke, one person disappeared without a trace.

The people being grabbed by approaching shadows and dragged beneath the water had already numbered more than dozens.

Meanwhile, Ad and Shek raised their hands against the starlight shining around them, shielding their eyes.

Splash.

Something sank behind their shoulders. The starlight quickly moved elsewhere. The rising water had already reached the level of their necks.

Ad and Shek parted the water with their hands and grasped a terrifying truth.

The screams that had been heard so frequently had gone silent at some point.

Ad’s face went sheet-white as he guessed at their fate.

And then, suddenly, a strange sound came.

Click, click, click…

When Ad turned around, Shek had unknowingly stopped moving, teeth chattering.

“Shek.”

“A, Ad-ad-ad. I, I’m…”

“Shek!”

“Den… take, take Den.”

At the moment Ad’s eyes flew wide.

“Don’t let go!”

Thud.

Shek didn’t see much.

He only stumbled backward from the impact and floundered in the water.

Bloop, bloop, bloop…

The exhaled breath became bubbles, filling the surroundings and blocking even his vision.

He had to get to the surface somehow.

With nothing but that thought, he kicked his legs and lifted his head.

And at the moment he saw the surface of the water touched by starlight.

‘Don’t let go!’

Den. The nephew his brother had risked his life to protect.

That being was drawing Shek back into the dark water.

And he found him.

Den, already unconscious, hung limp like a corpse.

In the depths beneath the surface where not a sliver of light could reach, Shek wrapped his arms around his nephew with every ounce of strength he had.

‘Don’t let go.’

He could not tell if it was words he was saying to himself, or words Ad had given him, or perhaps words his watching brother had offered.

Shek wrapped himself around Den and paddled toward the surface.

Even as he did, he felt through his skin the ominous stirring of the current. Something blurred in the darkness was closing in savagely.

The more desperate it became, the more desperately Shek swam.

But the gap between a human suffocating in water and a monster that could breathe in it was vast.

Kicking water in anxious desperation would never shake off the approaching monster.

Blooop…

‘Brother, this time, letting him go seems like the right thing.’

Shek lifted Den up amidst the bubbles.

On the chance that if he were caught, at least his nephew might reach the surface.

At that moment, the surface that had been nothing but turbulence finally properly caught starlight again.

The star risen in the night sky was twinkling as it spotted Shek swimming in the water.

Sentinel Star.

The constellation sign of the star that watches over the earth the longest of all reached through the surface to underwater.

Slitherrrr…

The shadow that had been pursuing furiously returned into the thick darkness.

Shek too was able to return to the surface together with Den.

“Pfah, hah… Hah, hah. Hah, hah… D, Den. Den, are you alright? Den, please.”

“…Cough!”

“Den! Th, thank you, Star Creation! Ad, where is Ad?”

Shek gasped for breath and immediately checked Den’s breathing.

Fortunately it seemed he hadn’t swallowed much water, as he soon coughed up water in a choking retch.

But Shek could not breathe a sigh of relief.

It was because the moment he confirmed his nephew was safe and turned to look, the scene was devastating.

Thanks to the starlight illuminating things, he could roughly make out what had happened.

“A… Ah, Ad…”

Splash.

Vivid red blood was spreading gently, like paint dissolved in water.

Shek did not even realize that the seawater that had reached all the way to his neck had now dropped to his waist.

***

The sea in front of Terjaohm was covered in carcasses.

Carcasses of Leviathans, at that.

The monsters created by mixing whales, humans, and all manner of things were disgustingly tough.

Seven of them had been killed.

But there had been no shortage of losses either.

[Young god, I acknowledge your strength. I shall revise my plan to kill you with respect and propose again.]

The high tide had ended.

[Retreat as you are. Both you and I have lost what we’ve lost, and gained what we’ve gained.]

The sea, having swallowed all it could, was pulling back in contentment.

Except for the area I had barely managed to protect, there was not a shred of evidence that life had ever existed.

Only a thick blood mist swirling with the ebb tide remained.

[Those who did not believe in you anyway — surely it makes no difference.]

It was an ebb tide that left behind not a single body, not a shred of flesh.