Chapter 929 — Warning

Kamael's words left Gao Yang wearing a thoughtful expression.

He had heard from Tier before about certain aspects of siren culture and tradition, so the concept of "Eve" was not unfamiliar to him.

Unlike most races on land, the sirens had since ancient times possessed no concept of a "deity" domain whatsoever. They worshipped no gods, nor did they believe any absolutely transcendent individual to be some kind of creator, savior, or guide. In their cultural system, the only thing resembling the "gods" of the land races was "Eve"—and yet they never regarded Eve as a deity. Tier had once spent a long time explaining to Gao Yang what Eve actually was, for to a land race it was a most difficult concept to grasp. And after hearing Tier's account, Gao Yang had distilled one crucial point:

Eve is the collective of all sirens. They regard their entire race as a single whole, just as a vast number of cells gather together—and those cells have given their enormous, complex aggregate a name: human.

This peculiar worldview likely had something to do with their culture of "belonging to the deep sea"—that all things arise from the deep, all things return to the deep, and all things become one within the deep.

Thus the sirens had no concept of god-worship, and never would—for the greatest and most transcendent being in their minds was simply one oversized siren.

In Gao Yang's view, the sirens were a wondrous race that retained individual will yet perceived the world as a swarm did.

He furrowed his brow slightly and looked at Kamael. "You mean the Deepsea Song and the Deepsea Runes produce a mental protection effect because they are in essence channeling the power of 'Eve'—that it is Eve helping us resist divine corruption?"

"Very likely," Kamael nodded.

Gao Yang was still frowning. "But why is it that the sirens' Eve can resist divine corruption?"

"On that point… as I mentioned earlier, to our 'gods,' Eve's essential nature may well amount to that of an 'alien god,'" Kamael said slowly, weighing his words. "You should recall that Miss Tier herself said she and her people are not the original inhabitants of this planet of ours—they come from a place whose environment is utterly different from our world's."

"I remember," Gao Yang nodded. "And from her description of the vessel the sirens used to come to this world, it sounded very much like some kind of 'spaceship' capable of crossing the vast distances between stars—like the 'star-barks' envisioned by the astromancers and scholars of the ancient Gondor era. But clearly that thing was countless times larger than the star-faring vessels the human scholars of seven hundred years ago had imagined."

Kamael nodded slowly. "Yes, some manner of craft for crossing the starry void. It sounds as though the sirens came from another planet. But recently I have spoken with Miss Tier several times, heard her describe her homeland and the troubles the sirens faced when they first survived in this world… and I have formed a bolder conjecture."

Gao Yang's eyebrows lifted. "A bolder conjecture?"

"The sirens endured an exceedingly long 'adaptation period' on our planet—they even lost their bodily form for a time, passing untold years in 'reaggregation' at the bottom of the sea in their most primal elemental state before regaining the capacity to act… This goes beyond the notion of 'two planets having different natural environments.' And considering that elemental beings are innately immune to the effects of the Magic Tide, the problems they encountered were probably not some 'post-Magic-Tide aftereffect' either. So… I suspect they may come from somewhere even more 'distant' than we imagine—so distant that even the fundamental laws of the world are different."

Gao Yang's expression turned grave at once. "Go on."

"If it truly is a difference in fundamental laws that makes the sirens 'incongruous' with our world, then their Eve must be likewise. In their world there is likely no such thing as 'divine corruption' or 'chains of faith,' nor anything like a 'mind stigmata.' An Eve born under such conditions may, to us, be a god who has 'already' broken free of its bonds… no—strictly speaking, a 'god-like individual,' because their Eve would never receive prayers, nor generate any faith feedback, nor establish any substantive connection with worshippers…

"If that conjecture holds, then the effects of the Deepsea Song and the Deepsea Runes become explicable: they channel the corruption toward a 'rule anomaly.' There was a proverb in the ancient Gondor era—'the flood of the living world cannot wash away a feather from the underworld,' because the two are not in the same dimension. And the corruption of our world… clearly cannot affect an individual from another realm."

"The corruption of our world cannot affect an individual from another realm…" Gao Yang thought rapidly, and gradually doubt arose. "But there is one thing—the Deepsea Song and those runes can conversely affect people of our world. Isn't that uplifting mental effect a real, tangible influence?"

"We are still analyzing that point, but Miss Jenny has a conjecture," Kamael said. "She believes the pleasure and exhilaration we feel from the Deepsea Song and the Deepsea Runes may not be Eve's mental influence at all—it may be a byproduct of some kind of 'connection-building'…"

"A byproduct of connection-building?" Gao Yang looked with curiosity at Jenny, who had spoken little. "What connection?"

"The 'connection' between sirens," Jenny answered at once, then began explaining her view as she sorted out her words. "The sirens are elemental beings. Though they may be elemental beings from 'another world,' they share traits with the elemental beings of our world—namely 'resonance,' a phenomenon that inevitably occurs when pure elements draw near one another. I have also confirmed with Miss Tier that sirens can, to a certain degree, sense the emotions of their kin, and that this emotional resonance becomes even more pronounced when they communicate through the Deepsea Song or the 'tentacle wiggle dance'…"

Gao Yang very much wanted to maintain his gravity throughout, but he failed utterly. "What in the world is a tentacle wiggle dance…"

"…Those are Miss Tier's exact words," Jenny said, her own expression somewhat strange. "It's when they turn into a pile of tentacles and wiggle about with their kin—"

"All right, no need to explain, I get the gist," Gao Yang waved a hand to cut her off. "In short, there exists some fairly basic 'telepathy' among sirens. It cannot transmit information directly the way a mental network does, but it lets sirens share emotions—so those runes and that song…"

As he spoke he looked at Jenny, who nodded. "Yes. Those runes and that song bring us into the sirens' 'collective emotion.' The exhilaration and pleasure the user feels does not come from Eve's 'positive mental corruption'—it is simply… feeling the sirens' good mood."

Gao Yang was taken aback, then suddenly pressed a hand to his forehead without thinking. "So those deep-sea salted fish are always that happy…"

"We can now explain why prolonged exposure to the Deepsea Runes produces aftereffects like 'squid frenzy,'" Kamael spread his hands. "It, too, is the result of emotional resonance."

Gao Yang nodded slowly, gradually making sense of Kamael and Jenny's conjecture, and then a new thought struck him. "If those runes and that song derive their power to resist corruption from the sirens' 'incongruity' with this world, does that mean that if the sirens were to fully adapt to and merge into this world, that resistance would vanish with it? Eve has already taken the Storm God's divine seat—the sirens are clearly adapting to this world more and more!"