Chapter 749 — Returned to the Deep... but the Deep Does Not Want You

Owen Dyson watched the stone bed in silence, watched the black-robed monstrosity dissolve into a pool of foul seawater that spread across the stone and ran off its edges.

Only when that corrupted water began to drip onto the floor did he take a half step back, his face expressionless, keeping the liquid off his boots.

A stench of kelp and silt, mixed with something rotten, seeped out into the sealed chamber.

"Can you track his soul?" Count Owen turned his head and addressed the mage in charge of this place.

"The soul is gone," said the mage in the moon-rune robe. He traced a complex sigil over his chest, a faint silver light rising in his eyes; after sweeping the whole chamber, he shook his head. "But it did not scatter in an instant—there is no residue of spirit left here. It is more as though something collected it."

"...A soul that was collected. That is even more interesting..." Count Owen's brow furrowed slightly, then slowly smoothed again. "Say nothing of this monster for now, to avoid stirring panic. Master Petori, afterward I will trouble you to purify this place thoroughly—including this black robe and the half talisman—so that no cursed power of the deep sea lingers in them."

The mage bowed his head and answered respectfully, "Yes, my lord."

Owen Dyson nodded, drew his gaze back from the stone bed, and let out a soft breath.

The thick smell of the sea in the air seemed to have thinned a little.

"In any case, it seems those Children of Storms who once turned their backs on the Dyson family have run into some trouble this time... How ironic—they gave themselves to the deep, and the deep does not appear to be treating them kindly," the ruler of Möbius Harbor suddenly laughed. "That is a fitting end for cultists, if nothing else."

"My lord," said the mage called Petori, "our route-exploration plan..."

The black-robed monster's uncanny state had struck fear into every heart. Even a mage of broad learning would feel dread beyond measure before the nameless powers of the deep—those fine scales, those webbed hands, and the sight of the monster finally dissolving into seawater were burned into the minds of everyone present. And now, thinking of the ocean expedition Möbius Harbor was actively preparing at the emperor's command, the mage Petori could not help but feel a certain unease.

"It proceeds as planned," Owen said, and in the blue eyes of this frontier count flickered the fearless light of a challenger. "It was only one cultist who brought about his own ruin. It cannot be allowed to affect His Majesty's plan to open the routes."

"But the dangers lurking in the deep sea cannot be ignored..."

"The ocean has never been safe," Owen Dyson said, turning a calm gaze on the mage. "But we cannot stay forever ashore merely because the land is safe. I will report to His Majesty and give him a full account of this monster—but the preparations for opening the routes must not stop for a single moment."

"Yes, my lord."

...

Time at sea is seldom calm, mostly furious, and always dangerous.

In the eastern waters of the Endless Sea, a nameless archipelago lay encircled and shrouded by storm and magical turbulence.

Thunder and lightning raged across a sky black as pitch, as though they would never cease; each stroke lit up the surging, violent face of the sea. A vast cyclone had formed above the islands the shape of an inverted funnel of terror, and the clouds it commanded joined the sea around the islands, raising between sky and sea a wall of storm like a circling rampart.

This dread spectacle—wind, towering waves, lightning, and magical turbulence all together—hung over the whole archipelago like a prison with no gap anywhere. Look outward from any point among those islands, and it was like staring up from a cage at hopeless, endless walls.

Yet on the Endless Sea, such a sight was in truth the norm.

Only the priests who walked the way of storms knew how to find safe passage through that raging, seemingly seamless blockade.

A ship pitched and wove through the storm, dodging every current of magical turbulence and every lethal swell as though dancing through a forest of blades. Magical radiance flickered around its hull; enormous runes blazed along both sides and drove the vessel at astonishing speed. Like a bird skimming low over the water, it crossed the most perilous stretch of wind and wave and drew swiftly toward the largest island at the heart of the archipelago.

A striking great temple of blue stone, built like a pyramid, stood on the summit at the center of the island, commanding a view of the whole sea. Above it drifted vast runes that stood for storm and god, and its powerful transcendent force held the storm at bay, preserving the barest calm and safety across most of the archipelago so that the islanders could survive in that terrible sea.

The ship slowed along one side of the island, glided smoothly into an artificial harbor, and came to rest alongside the pier.

Many people were already waiting at the port. Some wore the plain garb of fishermen; others wore long or short robes of black and blue, marked with the runes of storm.

A long gangplank was run out from the ship's side, and several figures in storm robes appeared at the rail and walked down onto the pier.

Behind those in storm robes came warriors in enchanted leather or mail, their faces hidden behind oak masks, marching in silence. These soldiers of the Children of Storms carried several stretchers, and on those stretchers lay human forms bound fast with rune-chains and stout rope, wrapped in black cloth like mummies.

A stir ran through the crowd on the wharf.

An old man came forward from among them, dressed in a storm robe of dark gold, wearing the triple crown of storm and bearing the heavy scepter of the Sea King. As he passed, those around him drew back to either side, and voices murmured with respect: "The Pontiff comes..." "It is His Holiness Saul..."

Under countless watching eyes, Saul Storm, Pontiff of the Children of Storms, walked up the pier to the storm priests who had come down from the ship. His gaze swept over the soldiers with the stretchers behind them, over the bodies bound upon those stretchers.

The sea wind caught at the strips of cloth wrapping the bodies, and beneath that black fabric showed fine blue-green scales.

A storm priest who appeared to be the highest in rank stepped forward and bowed respectfully to the Pontiff with the Sea King's scepter: "Your Holiness."

Pontiff Saul Storm nodded slightly and said softly, "So Hurricane Isle has also returned to the deep..."

"Yes. Hurricane Isle, and the two lesser islands beside it—the brethren there have all returned to the deep. With that, all seven islands that lost contact are confirmed fallen," the storm priest said, his voice heavy and his face dark with shame. "I am deeply sorry, Your Holiness. I bring no good news."

"There is no need for guilt. Human strength has its limits," said Pontiff Saul with a shake of his head, his eyes falling on the stretchers. "So these are the brethren who were transformed..."

"Strictly speaking, brethren transformed halfway. Their minds are in chaos; for now they are held under powerful sedatives, but their bodies are still changing," the storm priest said. "When we first took them, they had only a very few scales. Now the scales cover more than six-tenths of their bodies, and... they have all grown webbing. The worst-changed one—his legs have become something between a sea serpent's tail and a fish's."

"And... still no cause found?"

"No, no cause found. No sign of attack was discovered on any of the fallen islands. We suspected the sirens of spreading a curse, but they never appeared anywhere near those waters—unless the sirens' transcendent power has grown strong enough to cast a curse across hundreds or even a thousand miles upon hundreds of people at once. But from what we know of the sirens, that is all but impossible."