Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 1231: Chapter 1230: Sea Demons Begin to Act

The original intention of repairing the Superluminal Communication Array was to reestablish contact with other immigrant ships that were lost back then.

However, even the inherently optimistic sea demons were well aware of how slim the chances were.

It has been too long... It’s been far too many years since the fleet fled from the home planet and lost contact between immigrant ships. Even the ageless sea demons could hardly withstand such a lengthy passage of time, while the vast, dark universe would devour many things during these eras.

Queen Petia looked up at the antenna tower components slowly rotating high in the sky, aware that these components had lain dormant for too long—the sea demons should have repaired these critical systems earlier, but the world rules’ rejection caused the sisters to linger excessively on this strange planet. When they finally understood this world completely and sensed the ubiquitous ”Magic Power”... the world had long since undergone great changes.

Yet the sea demons still invested tremendous enthusiasm into this task, harboring great hope. They knew how much time they had wasted, but they didn’t care—they were a slow yet resilient species, long accustomed to taking up extensive periods to accomplish simple tasks, just as their cherished motto declares:

As long as you start, it’s never too late.

Furthermore... although the antenna system didn’t catch the expected signals from other immigrant ships, it yielded unexpected results: the reactivated receiving unit listened to the echoes reverberating among the stars. This universe wasn’t as empty and barren as initially imagined—and among these sounds, the most unique one seemed capable of helping the sea demons’ new allies resolve their dilemmas.

Maid Rosalia arrived at Petia’s side, joining her queen in watching the direction of the communication antenna. Almost at the same time, a deep and soft humming sound emanated from the central structure of the antenna array.

Petia squinted slightly, observing as the aerial-sensitive structures swiftly adjusted their positions and orientations, while bright arcs of electricity intensely jumped between antenna towers and subsidiary devices, rapidly forming several ring-shaped ”Interception Force Fields.” Through the open ”windows” near the tower bases, she could clearly see many structures within this ancient system lighting up after recent repairs, with the receiving units working at full power, beginning to listen to those voices from distant space—

Precisely as expected, the signal from 6.12 light-years away visited this galaxy once more.

Queen Petia stood silently on the high platform of the deck, watching as deep water technicians and Deep Sea Witches busied themselves—it was an apt opportunity to calibrate the antenna’s key systems whenever the signal arrived. On this primitive, backward planet, a superluminal communication signal from afar served as an incredibly rare ”reference guideline” for technical personnel.

Naturally, the sea demons also recorded the content of these signals and utilized the translation method provided by their Cecil allies to decode it into recognizable image information—Petia didn’t wait long, as the signal content was repetitively cyclic, so soon she obtained this new round of listening report.

”...No changes,” looking at the reported chart that Rosalia handed over, the Deep Sea Sovereign shook her head somewhat indifferently, ”straightforward, comprehensible geometric patterns, simple basic mathematical operations, and strange characters nobody understands. This signal merely repeats broadcasting these contents.”

”It might be a ’greeting’ continuously broadcasted for hundreds or thousands of years, the Deep Sea Witches even suspect it’s machine-automated timed broadcasts,” Maid Rosalia said beside her, ”they also suggest perhaps only when a response echoes from the starry sky, might the signal’s owner take a look at the situation.”

”... Assuming there’s still a ’owner’ behind this signal,” Petia casually handed the report back to Rosalia, speaking offhandedly, ”If an automatic signal has been released for many years, it’s hard not to doubt whether the original signal broadcaster is still alive, considering our lengthy observations... most living organisms in this world don’t have the longevity like sea demons, their civilization cycles are similar.”

Rosalia extended her tail, curling the report handed by the queen with its tip, continuing, ”Master Hesterwe is still organizing manpower to decipher the textual content behind the signal, though progress is slow, as there aren’t any sea demon experts in literature or cryptography. But recently, some Naga heard about the situation here and volunteered to help, so perhaps one can look forward—”

”The Naga...” Petia’s silver brows raised slightly, a hint of a smile appearing on her face, ”That could be promising. They were once human, and humans traditionally have better linguistic talents than the sea demons... In any case, whatever progress is made, send it directly to Tiel. Our Cecil allies seem quite engrossed by this matter; humans recently have a saying... This is a favor in a flowing water context. Well, ’favor in a flowing water,’ I like this expression; rarely is it so vividly descriptive with ’water’ for metaphor.”

The Deep Sea Sovereign spoke unhurriedly while slowly winding her way to Antawen’s edge. Stretching her body against the deck’s edge, her gaze fell in the direction of Sunshine Beach—the sunlight grew increasingly radiant, the giant sun’s brilliance making the beach glitter brightly beyond the surf’s end, where some sea demons who have just finished their night shifts were already finding comfortable spots, digging sand pits to coil inside, waiting to flip over for sunbathing as the sunlight intensified.

Further away, Nagas were building towns on the open inland areas. Now showing initial scale, the town buildings arranged randomly, infused with human charm yet mingled with various deep-sea elements. The dark-tinted rooftops and gray-white walls formed a landscape never seen on this land for millions of years, with tall towers standing in the town’s center, decorated with winding octopus tentacles and shell patterns, as somber-toned gigantic mechanical clock faces were clustered at tower’s top amid deep-sea elements, with a moist stone road extending from town to the coast, ending in a small harbor and a stone ramp leading directly into the sea.

Besides the underwater ”Sea Trench City” and Antawen’s ”Nagas District,” nearly one-third of the former Sons of the Storm population now lived in the town situated on land.

They were already deep-sea favorited, with moist sea breezes and tidal forces soaking into their flesh and soul. Yet the residual vestiges of humanity inclined them to continue dwelling on land, constructing this new home of blended style.

Petia once visited that new town; it was a fascinating place where every street seemed perpetually laced with an unobtrusive ocean scent, blurring the boundary between land and sea on the moist ground and walls, with totems symbolizing deep-sea creatures and gloomy-toned sea wave magic symbols ubiquitously visible. Scaled deep-sea favorited resided in those high-roofed houses, rarely appearing when the sunlight was intense during the day. But as the night sky descended, the faint ocean-scented streets would resonate with the sound of scales scraping against the ground, as the scaled and serpentine entities emerged from hiding—hurried to sell seafood barbecue and ”Deep Sea Special Drinks” at the town square.

Sea demons often would visit the town when off duty, frolicking throughout the night at nocturnal fairs run by local residents.

In Petia’s million-year-spanning memory, such things have never happened before. Sea demons, persistently leading low-profile, secluded lives, never changed significantly due to ”outsiders,” yet now this all transpired and... it appeared the tribe members were quite enjoying these newfound changes.

”A bit of change might not be so bad...” In thought, Queen Petia softly murmured to herself.

Rosalia asked curiously from the side, ”What did you say, Your Majesty?”

”Nothing, just talking to myself.” Petia waved her hand and turned, preparing to leave this place. As the ruler of the deep-sea, she had many things to do today—just then, a tall sea demon with long sky-blue hair suddenly appeared in her sight, causing her to stop.

”General Vanessa,” Petia nodded slightly to the blue-haired sea demon who approached her, ”What happened?”

”Your Majesty, we just received contact from Tiel,” said the blue-haired sea demon known as General Vanessa, bowing her head carefully before Petia, ”The matter is quite urgent.”

”Contact from Tiel at this time? She can actually stay awake right now?” Petia expressed a bit of surprise before nodding, ”Tell me, what’s going on.”

”Our allies hope we can help them monitor some... phenomena in the elemental world,” Vanessa recalled the contact’s details while speaking, ”They seem to have discovered some unsettling phenomena... There is an energy system that runs through the entire planet, called ’The Deep Blue Webway,’ and various anomalies are occurring within it...”

She relayed Tiel’s message word-for-word to her queen, emphasizing the part about The Deep Blue Webway, and Petia listened intently, her expression gradually turning serious.

”The Deep Blue Webway... I’ve heard a similar concept; it seems a past civilization researched this thing, but at that time we couldn’t perceive or understand what ’Magic Power’ was. To sea demons, The Deep Blue Webway was an invisible, untouchable yet existing ’anomalous’ entity,” Petia said thoughtfully after listening to Vanessa’s retelling, ”Now the situation is different...”

”This sounds quite serious,” Rosalia looked at her queen, ”Your will is...”

”This matter is indeed very serious, I am willing to believe those human allies’ judgment—regarding the Magic Power system of this planet, they are more professional than us, and they have no reason to deceive us in this matter,” Petia said sternly, ”If this ’energy megastructure’ encompassing the entire planet really is about to malfunction, we wouldn’t be safe either.”

”So...” Vanessa looked at Petia with a probing gaze, ”Should we... send a recon team to take a look at the Water Elemental Realm? Or directly set up a sentinel there...”

”Such an important matter can’t just be handled by a temporary recon team,” Petia thought briefly and shook her head, ”We need to establish a long-term sentinel and open a stable elemental passage here in Antawen.”

This Deep Sea Sovereign actually acts swiftly, once a decision is made it’s executed immediately, yet Vanessa and Rosalia couldn’t help but exchange glances upon hearing their queen’s decision, both appearing somewhat troubled. Rosalia couldn’t hold back and spoke first, ”Your Majesty, shouldn’t we further confirm the situation with the humans? Meanwhile, let’s prepare more here, like notifying the lords at the Water Elemental Realm, arranging things in advance... After all, our relationship with them hasn’t been very pleasant, even though we’ve already signed an agreement and are at peace, things are still somewhat sensitive.”

”...You’re right,” Petia furrowed her brow slightly, feeling her maid quite reasonable, ”Prior to signing the agreement, that fight was pretty fierce; it’s a bit impolite not to notify them before sending people to establish a sentinel... We were in the wrong back then, so now we should be more cautious.”

At this point, she paused, looking up at her most trusted maid and commander, ”Do you have any suggestions?”

”The matter came suddenly, and we don’t have much time to slowly negotiate with the elemental lords,” Vanessa said while pondering, ”It would be best to quickly state our intentions and make every effort to reduce the possibility of friction.”

”How about... bringing some local specialties over?” Rosalia thought for a moment, ”After all, it’s never wrong to keep etiquette; at least we shouldn’t be in the wrong this time.”

”I think it’s feasible,” Petia immediately expressed her approval, ”Elemental lords also appreciate reason; even if reckless human mages summon them, as long as the sacrifices are sufficient, they won’t flip out...”

As she spoke, she quickly started to think, designing in her mind what kind of ”local specialties” can quickly calm those elemental lords who have tense and subtle relations with sea demons, and soon she had an inspiration, a confident smile appeared on the face of the Deep Sea Sovereign.

”Vanessa, prepare the Elemental Translocator, let’s open a passage to the Water Elemental Realm; Rosalia, arrange for a skilled digging team to go to the seafloor, pick a big one...”

Rosalia quickly understood her queen’s intention, yet seemed a bit unsure, ”Your Majesty, does this work...”

”I think it works,” Petia confidently nodded, ”Antawen’s biggest local specialty is that thing—let’s take the one with the best taste over for the elemental lords to try. Ah, I’ll personally deliver it, showing more sincerity...”

As she spoke, she gestured to her two subordinates and turned to leave the place on her own, leaving the Deep Sea Handmaiden and the sea demon commander looking at each other.

After a long while, Rosalia finally couldn’t help but ask, ”General Vanessa... do you think this will work?”

”...If Your Majesty said it works, then it works,” Vanessa spread her hands, ”Anyway, I can’t think of a better idea.”