Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 874 - 873: The Sea Demons’ Efforts

This struggle that had lasted for several centuries finally came to a halt with the last human being also transformed into a Naga—its ending exceeded the expectations of every human being, and also those of the sea demons.

In the final analysis, this bizarre ”Naga” phenomenon was an inexplicable accident for everyone; the human beings could not figure out its underlying principle, and the sea demons were just as baffled.

In the deep-sea, a deep water shuttlecraft with a streamlined hull was gliding quietly over the seabed. Petia stood by the shuttlecraft’s porthole, her gaze sweeping over the pitch-black, unfathomable seawater outside and the rugged, coarse seafloor. In the dim light and shadow, several hastily established dwelling sites could be seen. The Naga who had just completed their transformation were resting on this tranquil sea floor, and everywhere in those settlements one could see sea demons busy tending to their ”new friends.”

”I’m afraid we’re going to need a very long time to slowly study these ’Naga’,” the sea demons Queen said softly. ”This really is an unbelievable phenomenon... A race, a race that has no biological connection whatsoever with the sea demons, actually underwent such a tremendous change—and this change is very obviously related to us... This world really is full of secrets, Rosalia.”

The Deep Sea Handmaiden Rosalia floated beside Petia and, upon hearing this, nodded lightly. ”As you say, Her Majesty the Queen.”

Petia gave a soft ”mm,” then casually asked, ”Have the witches and deep water technicians reached any conclusions from their research?”

”There has been no substantive progress for the time being. Only after asking many Naga who have regained their clarity and consulting books about human religious beliefs do the witches have some conjectures—they think this transformation may be related to the long-standing ’spiritual faith’ of those humans who call themselves Sons of the Storm.”

”Oh? Tell me in detail.”

”These ’Sons of the Storm’ worship a god called the God of Storm, which is obviously our ’Big squid.’ According to the data shared by our Cecil Clan allies, human faith produces a power that connects, and that connection points toward a specific gods. However, the gods of the Sons of the Storm had already fallen many years ago, while we sea demons... most likely have already occupied this gods’ original place. So all along, throughout this entire era, the storm believers among the human beings have probably been worshipping us, or to be precise, worshipping the sea demons as a whole.”

”Eva, huh...” Petia murmured thoughtfully, slowly folding her arms over her chest. ”Now that is surprising. Judging from the timeline, we started excavating the Big squid many cycles of civilization ago. That is to say, right from the very birth of their religion, those Sons of the Storm directed their faith connection onto our species... yet in reality, we did nothing at all, and didn’t even know this was happening.”

”That is also one of the subjects the witches are studying,” the Deep Sea Handmaiden Rosalia nodded. ”Human ’faith’ seems to be something that runs automatically, and it originally transforms from a feeling of awe toward natural phenomena or particular natural objects. Strictly speaking, the earliest storm faith should not have been directed toward any gods, but toward awe of the ocean itself. Under such circumstances, according to the intelligence shared by the Cecil Clan allies, human beings should have shaped a new ’God of Storms’ out of their faith. Yet this process was accidentally interrupted by us—our excavation confined an Ancient Deity to an undying, undeath state and then took its place, and on top of that we effectively control vast areas of the ocean. Thus the faith of human beings began to point toward the ’actual controller of the sea.’ This process... happened entirely of its own accord.”

”What kind of effect does this ’pointing’ have on the sea demons?”

”That cannot yet be determined. The human ’religious concept’ is something rather difficult for us to understand,” Rosalia shook her head. ”But judging from the current situation, this ’pointing’ has already lasted for very, very many years; it’s even possible that in previous cycles of civilization, there were people on land who revered the sea and directed their faith toward the sea demons, yet none of that has ever had any effect on us. So this ’pointing’ is most likely harmless.”

”Harmless to us... but it has unilaterally affected them,” Petia withdrew her gaze from the Naga’s temporary settlements, a trace of emotion in her tone. ”It now seems that it was their long-term faith in the sea demons that affected these human beings, causing them to transform toward a life form similar to the sea demons... To think that the power of so-called ’faith’ could actually affect matter—this really is an incredible transformation.”

Rosalia replied, ”The witches are studying this transformation—especially the trigger for it. The faith of these Sons of the Storm has lasted for thousands of years, yet their transformation only began suddenly quite recently, with no gradual process in between, which is baffling. Lord Hesterwe currently has a conjecture: she thinks this is the result of both the recent actions of the Sons of the Storm and the recent changes in sea demons society—

”Since last year, the actions of the Sons of the Storm have become more radical. They established a large number of strongholds on the ’border,’ which brought them too close to the ’Big squid,’ and too close to the sea demons. This strengthened the ’connection’ between them and us. On the other hand, in our last ’hunt’ we preyed upon the ’God of Nature’ created by the human beings, and the God of Nature seems to possess an influence on the biological level—this influence might be the reason that induced the ’Naga’ phenomenon.”

Listening to the Deep Sea Handmaiden’s report, the sea demons Queen Petia fell into silence for a time, and pondered in that silence.

After a period of contemplation, this deep-sea ruler raised her head and sighed softly. ”From now on we really can’t just eat anything... This world is truly dangerous.”

The handmaiden Rosalia nodded in agreement as well. ”...Our home planet is still better; anything on the seabed could be picked up and eaten.”

”Speaking of the witches’ research—our human allies mentioned during our last contact a mysterious signal they had captured. Has Hesterwe made any progress on that?”

”Tide Master Tiel submitted the characteristics of that signal together with her situation report. After comparison by the deep water technicians, it can be confirmed that the signal was not emitted by Antawen, nor does it match any of our communication bands,” Rosalia answered at once. ”Master Hesterwe has taken a very strong interest in it. She believes that the transmission method of that signal, as well as the technology the human beings use in Magic Web Communication, will be very helpful to us—for many years, because we could neither sense nor comprehend this world’s magic-pervasive environment, we have been unable to repair Antawen’s main Superluminal Communication Array, but now there may be hope.”

”Oh?” Petia’s eyebrows rose slightly. ”Now that is truly good news.”

...

On the edge of the Aeo Continent under the shining sun, a majestic Steel Starship crouched along the coastline like a mountain. The waves gently rose and fell around the vessel, licking at the hull and deck of this immigrants ship.

At the stern of the Antawen Vessel, on the platform where the antenna array stood, the deep water technicians were busy at work.

At the edge of the platform, the Deep Sea Witch Hester, who had long blue hair and more scales than usual on her cheeks, withdrew her gaze from the distant beach.

This starship had crashed onto this planet at an angle, causing everything on board to form a tilt of roughly thirty degrees against the planet’s own gravity. The sea demons lacked the power to move this giant ship that had already lost all propulsion, yet they could not abandon the massive stores of supplies aboard her, nor the precious habitable space she still provided. So, after finally managing to repair a portion of the ship’s functions, the very first thing they did was activate and reset the Antawen Vessel’s gravity generator—by recalibrating gravity, the sea demons could stand comfortably on the slanted hull as if they were on level ground. This also gave them a strange sensation whenever they stood on the ship and looked outwards:

The entire world was tilted.

”I think we really ought to set up an optical filter over every viewing area on the Antawen,” the blue‑haired witch Hester stretched out her hand, gesturing between sky and earth as she spoke to the assistant at her side, ”so this slanted scenery can be ’uprighted.’ Looking at it like this all the time just makes one dizzy.”

”...I think the main reason you feel dizzy is that you drank too much ’deep‑sea special,’” the assistant smacked away Hester’s claws that were flailing in the air with her tail. ”That was nearly twice our usual portion.”

”I need to stimulate my brain, keep my thinking at high speed,” Hester poked the nearby alloy deck with the tip of her tail, making a ”dodo” tapping sound. ”All the recent research projects have been so exciting, I don’t want to stop for even a moment...”

The assistant glanced at this deeply respected Deep Sea Witch who nevertheless had a mountain of problems in her daily life, and shook her head helplessly. ” ’Stimulate the brain’ is a human being’s saying, Master—when did we ever have a brain?”

Hester looked at the assistant’s serious face and shook her head. ”No sense of fun.”

Then this Deep Sea Witch, who had once lived through the ”Great Crash” and was of the same era as the Queen, slid her long serpentine tail along and came to the antenna array not far away.

This large‑scale ancient device stood there in solemn silence, its streamlined casing sheathing a super‑alloy framework and concealing the complex structures within. Its end pointed to the distant blue sky, while a set of highly sensitive sensing arrays stood ready to listen, at any moment, for signals that might come from all directions.

It had once been designed for superluminal communication between the stars, used to contact the other colonial ships that had fled their home planet.

Yet now, only the Antawen had crashed alone upon this world; the compatriots who had once fled with them had long since vanished into the depths of the spacetime turbulence. The advanced and powerful Superluminal Communication Array had also lost its function on this planet with its anomalous environment, leaving only the most basic sensing devices barely able to operate—let alone receiving signals from space, even maintaining communication within the atmosphere itself required all sorts of auxiliary boosting methods.

Hester’s gaze traced along the outer shell of the antenna array all the way upward. At roughly a hundred meters high, she saw that part of the casing had been opened; the deep water technicians were busy at work there, carrying out bold modifications to the ancient structures within. Rune Devices that flickered with a faint light were being installed one after another into the original framework, and many additional cables and drag chains extended outward from the ”maintenance hatch.”

”Our human being allies have generously shared so many things with us...” the Deep Sea Witch said softly. ”We originally thought the technology on land was utterly backward, but it turns out that even on this backward land, the wisdom of the local people has its merits...”

The assistant’s voice came from beside her. ”Master, do you truly think this kind of refit will be useful? After all, we’ve tried all sorts of methods to modify other things before...”

”A year ago, the sea demons still utterly failed to understand or even sense what this world’s ’Magic Power’ was. It was something outside our worldview, something that even our physiology could not ’interface’ with—that is the result of a clash of rules,” Hester spoke in a low, steady, and solemn voice. At this moment, she was fully the Deep Sea Witch worthy of all sea demons’ respect, and her words made every sea demon around her unconsciously show an expression of contemplation and agreement. ”Many years ago, I predicted that if the rules of this world and those of our home planet had deviated by even one ten‑thousandth more, then at the very instant we entered this spacetime, we would have been reduced to dust. But fortunately, we did not encounter that extra one ten‑thousandth of deviation, and we survived. Yet this survival was incomplete.

”Our powers of perception and thought are confined within our own life form. In this world, we are like a defective race that is born incapable of understanding addition and subtraction; we are born unable to perceive and comprehend a portion of this world’s structure. So no matter how hard we tried, we still could not repair the ship, and were instead knocked back to square one by this world’s chaotic wave again and again.

”We couldn’t fix the antenna not because we lacked wisdom or technology, but because, when faced with certain information, we were ’blind’ and ’deaf.’

”But that defect has now been compensated for.

”We can sense Magic Power now, and we can understand what Magic Power is. The human being’s magic symbols are no longer a chaotic mess of marks to us; the energetic tremors in the air are no longer incomprehensible noise. On this foundation, every repair we carry out on the starship from now on will no longer be the blind pounding and random trial and error of the past.

”We’ve already succeeded in restoring a small portion of the Core Fusion Tower to normal operation. The Antawen’s energy supply rate has now reached thirty‑six percent. It’s an unimpressive little number, but it is enough to prove that we have indeed moved one step forward.

”Sisters, our efforts now are meaningful—let us begin by repairing the main antenna.”