Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 751 - 750: Deep-Sea Intelligence

Inside the Cecil Palace, in an unusual guest room.

This guest room’s furnishings were unusual, without the typical bed and bedding. Instead, a large pool was half-buried in the room’s center, occupying the space for the bed, alongside a large wooden barrel filled with fine, white, granular substances. Surrounding this bizarre pool and barrel were the normal furniture items like tables and chairs, daily necessities.

The strange layout of the room gave an impression as if someone had constructed a swimming pool in a bedroom.

Betty, dressed in a black and white maid’s dress, was standing by the pool. She held a long-handled wooden scoop and was scooping some white granules from the barrel nearby, sprinkling them into the pool and stirring carefully.

Suddenly, the water in the pool rippled oddly. Then the ripples quickly enlarged, as if waves were suddenly forming in the windless room. The pool’s water swirled into waves that piled upon each other, and amid the splashing sounds, the water gradually coalesced into a figure with an enchanting snake tail and long blue hair at the pool’s center.

Betty maintained her position of tightly gripping the long-handled scoop and blinked at the figure emerging in the pool. Once it fully solidified, she let out a small gasp and then bowed deeply: "Good afternoon, Miss Tiel!"

Successfully revived, Tiel propped herself up with her tail, raising her upper body in the water: "Little Betty! Is Gawain around?"

"Master... ah, His Majesty is in the study," Betty thought for a moment, belatedly correcting her address, "There are no visitors over there right now."

"Oh, good, I need to see him— you carry on, I’m off!"

Tiel, speaking rapidly, crawled out of the pool but paused as she was about to head to the door. Noticing the scoop in Betty’s hand, she stirred the pool water with a flick of her tail tip, gauging it for a moment before gesturing: "You didn’t add enough salt; it’s not salty enough, add a bit more..."

As she spoke, she swiftly shuffled towards the doorway, soon vanishing from Betty’s sight.

The occurrence might have been a bit quick for Betty to process. After a while, she realized what had happened, looking in the direction Tiel had left, then at the scoop in her hand and the salt barrel at her feet. Bending down, she lifted the barrel, beginning to pour salt into the water with a loud clatter...

Tiel rapidly shuffled into Gawain’s study, the commotion making Gawain, who was reading, look up.

Upon seeing Tiel suddenly appear at the door, Gawain was momentarily stunned, then couldn’t help but comment with a peculiar expression: "Someone just reported saying you suddenly jumped off the highest Magic Web central tower outside the city, shattering to pieces everywhere— is this a new quick-return-to-home skill of yours?"

"Who said jumped off, it was because my tail froze off and I fell..." Tiel protested vigorously, but then showed a pondering expression, "But you’re right, in such cold weather, if I’m outside, dying outside might indeed be a quick way... oh no, I didn’t come to talk about that!"

"No matter what you have to say, pull your tail in first," Gawain glanced at Tiel’s long tail behind her— although she was near his desk, the tail’s back half was still outside the door, restlessly swaying in the corridor, "Outside, blocking the way; someone might step on it as they pass by."

"Oh, oh," Tiel responded, drawing her tail back into the room, using the tail tip to close the door, and after elegantly curling herself into a ball, she nodded at Gawain, "I just communicated with Antawen and learned some things that might interest you."

"Things that might interest me?" Gawain hesitated, thinking about what connection he might have with the sea demons Kingdom across the Endless Sea, couldn’t help but jest, "In the depths of the Endless Sea, something that might pique my interest, unless it’s the God of Storm undergoing a mutation or the Sons of the Storm wiping themselves out."

Tiel nodded: "Exactly."

Gawain: "...Huh?"

"There might indeed be an incident with the Sons of the Storm, though we haven’t figured out what happened yet," Tiel, seemingly oblivious to Gawain’s bewildered expression, continued on her own, "A few days ago, on ’Sunshine Beach’ on the west side of Aeo Continent, a peculiar group of amphibious intelligent creatures appeared. The Deep Sea Great Witch Hesterwe named them ’Naga.’ Now, our Queen suspects these ’Naga’ might have mutated from the Sons of the Storm..."

Gawain: "...Huh?"

"We found some identifiers of the Sons of the Storm on these ’Naga,’ and some Naga are even wearing robes of the Sons of the Storm," Tiel added.

"Hold on, I need a moment." Gawain massaged his forehead, never expecting this deep-sea slacker to bring him such explosive news suddenly— this visitor from the deep sea seemed skilled at performing acts that left him, a transmigrator, utterly astonished, whether it be her frequent bizarre deaths or the occasional deep-sea intelligence she brought.

If Gawain always stunned the world with his forward-thinking insights, then Tiel seemed to be there explicitly to astonish Gawain.

After calming his mind, he breathed out, looking at Tiel: "Alright, let’s go through this step by step, starting with the ’Naga,’ how they emerged, and then the discussion on the Sons of the Storm..."

Tiel didn’t hide anything since these sea-borne oddities weren’t considered state secrets here; she truthfully relayed the information she had heard.

"...They likely snuck ashore on the Aeo Continent under the cover of night. We have surveillance devices set up in Antawen and several major towns, but those ’Naga’ seemed to have coincidentally bypassed the surveillance blind spots...

"These Naga look peculiar, somewhat like a mixture of humans, water snakes, and sea fish, or perhaps deformed versions of adolescent sea demons. The Great Witch initially speculates they are the result of human mutation, but the cause is untraceable, nor are there marks of a curse left behind...

"...They seem exceedingly excited, behaving as if they’ve returned home after reaching the Aeo Continent. However, they haven’t attacked any sea demon sisters— in fact, they displayed an unusual closeness and obedience towards the sea demons— of course, that’s once they calmed down enough for simple communication. Most Naga arriving on the beach were in a state difficult to communicate with.

"...According to the narrative of the few Naga who calmed down and could converse, they came for ’pilgrimage’ to the Aeo Continent because they ’heard Eva’s call.’ Yet, they couldn’t clearly remember their human memories nor how they mutated into their current forms...

"The Great Witch believes some Naga might become more lucid over time and recover more memories, but everything remains uncertain..."

As Tiel spoke, she raised a hand, summoning a water ball. The ball twisted mid-air, gradually forming into a lifelike "water sculpture." The sculpture portrayed the creature known as "Naga."

It seemed Tiel’s communication with the sea demons Kingdom through global magic-power-field resonance could transmit not only sound but also images— the Naga’s image should have been transmitted to her from over there.

If decoding the technique of sea demons using magical ripples to establish communication across the Endless Sea were possible...

Various speculative thoughts flashed across Gawain’s mind, and his attention fell on the floating water sculpture.

The image of the Naga was even more bizarre than he had imagined, with scales and fins, webbing and gills, highlighting various distinct features of amphibious creatures, yet maintaining a considerable degree of human-like posture in the upper body and face. It would leave a lasting impression on every witness.

Looking at the clear fin structures presented on the water sculpture and the long tail somewhere between a water snake and a sea fish, Gawain gently sighed: "Very distinctive deep-sea features..."

Tiel nodded: "Yes, they’ve mutated to fully adapt to living in the deep sea—whereas the previous Sons of the Storm couldn’t, even though those humans were skilled in ocean-related spells, they still needed to settle on land."

Gawain frowned: "We still can’t be a hundred percent sure these Nagas originated from the mutated Sons of the Storm?"

"In my view, the evidence is quite apparent, but the Great Witch is a scholar and she and her Deep Sea Witches emphasize rigor. They reportedly haven’t found the key evidence of the Sons of the Storm mutating into Nagas, nor have they observed the specific mutation process, so they can’t draw conclusions just yet."

"Then let’s assume Nagas indeed mutated from the Sons of the Storm," Gawain said casually, "You mentioned earlier that some cooled-down Nagas claimed they entered the sea demon realm for pilgrimage?"

"Yes."

"You also mentioned ’Eva’s call’..." Gawain frowned, "I’ve heard you occasionally mention the word ’Eva,’ but what does ’Eva’s call’ mean?"

"First, let’s talk about Eva, it’s a term we sea demons use to refer to the collective consciousness of all sea demons on a planet," Tiel spoke while carefully choosing words, aiming to help Gawain more easily understand the concept, "You might think she is a ’God’ to sea demons, but you know, we don’t believe in any specific gods. This Eva... you might as well think of her as the collective will of the sea demon race. But according to our theory, the collective will of Eva should be a virtual, conceptual product, existing invisibly, affecting our race in an abstract way. There shouldn’t theoretically be something like ’Eva’s call’..."

"But a bunch of crazy evil cult followers claim they heard ’Eva’s call,’ and might have even undergone unimaginable mutations because of this call, leading them to the sea demon realm for pilgrimage," Gawain’s expression gradually turned serious, "It’s not supposed to exist out of thin air, isn’t it?"

"...Yeah, I also think so, and the Queen and the Great Witch probably think the same," Tiel frowned with some distress, "But how come we sea demons don’t feel anything about the so-called ’Eva’s call’?"

Gawain looked at this visitor from the deep-sea, yet his mind was quickly piecing together various pieces of intelligence and clues.

Firstly, the most notable point is the identity of the Sons of the Storm before they turned into the so-called "Naga."

They were crazy evil cult followers.

Their actions were closely related to the "Gods."

Whether they were like the Oblivion Association wanting to defy the gods, or like normal evil cult followers fervently wanting to please the gods, their actions were most likely motivated by "God."

Then, "Eva’s call"... what’s its relationship with God? Or rather, what’s the relationship between Eva, representing the sea demon race, and God?

In an instant, Gawain’s mind was filled with a bizarre mix of words like food chain, raw Storm Sons, hungry salt spirit, food, and diners.

He couldn’t help but tap his forehead, gathering those arbitrary words into one point: Sea demons ate the God of Storm.

As a transcendentalist who has read countless stories from past lives, as an experienced satellite spirit observer, a faint answer quickly surfaced in his mind.

This answer seemed shocking and peculiar, seemed unimaginable, yet it conformed to the logic of this world.

A divine position seemed possible to usurp.

The Oblivion Association dared to create a counterfeit divine being, indicating that the position of God wasn’t as indestructible as mortals imagine.

Gawain couldn’t help but cast a peculiar gaze at Tiel.

Tiel looked bewildered by such a gaze, her tail tip stood upright and swayed: "Hey, what are you thinking?"

"Your sea demons... how large is your population? Um, or fish-mouth count or something..."

Tiel thought for a moment: "A few million, perhaps. We’re controlling the population size."

Gawain’s mouth twitched slightly.

If the situation he imagined was true, and if these deep-sea salt creatures unwittingly and erroneously usurped the divine position of the God of Storm, then this image would indeed be quite bizarre.

Were the ones who took the divine position of the God of Storm the sea demons with millions of population, or was it that concept-like Eva?

If it’s the former, then what’s the state of a "new God of Storm" that requires millions of population combined into "godhood"?

If it’s the latter...

Then would the conceptualized Eva become the physicalized God of Storm? Where would this newborn divine being appear, in the real world? In the water elements realm? Or that mysterious and distant Divine Realm? Would it still be the collective will of the sea demon race?

No matter what, perhaps within this lies the secret of the gods, the mystery of their birth and demise.

With his mind racing, Gawain looked at Tiel, who returned a puzzled gaze, while still idly fiddling with her tail tip.

Indeed, this is the deep-sea heretic god...