Above the dark, surging sea, an enormous silver white serpent was surrounded by countless lesser snakes. Beneath its scales, innumerable burnished golden eyes opened one after another, staring across the vast sea mist in silent confrontation.
More precisely, it was the serpents that advanced inch by inch, tongues flicking and hissing, while the sea fog, like something that had sensed fear, retreated and dispersed in the direction Yi Fengchu moved.
From afar, the fog looked as though it had been cleaved open by a blade that reached the heavens, torn apart into a deep and unmistakable rift, much like the parting of the Red Sea by Moses.
Yet even though this fog could not harm Yi Fengchu in the slightest, he was still lost upon the boundless ocean, amid the ethereal and haunting songs of the sirens, unable to find the direction of his “anchor.”
Just as the silver giant serpent lay sprawled across the surface of the sea in confusion, a voice of prayer crossed the barriers of space and fog alike, reaching his mind in fragmented echoes.
“Mr. Narrator… King of the Silver White Serpent Host…”
With the emergence of that prayer, Yi Fengchu sensed, in the depths of something unseen, that his connection to a certain point of orientation was rapidly deepening.
The massive serpent’s eyes, vast as suns marking the passage of days, gazed downward. Beneath the pitch black depths of the abyssal sea, a single point of light suddenly ignited. It grew brighter and brighter, like a lighthouse piercing layers of dense fog, clearly pointing out a direction for him.
The siren songs drifting beneath the firmament took on a mournful, desolate tone, as though they, too, foresaw an irreversible decline. Amid faint, choking sobs, the melody gradually weakened, sinking lower and lower, until it vanished completely.
Countless golden pupils opened in unison. Yi Fengchu fixed his gaze on the direction of that “lighthouse” listening as the voice of prayer continued:
“We welcome Your descent!”
At this moment, suspended in a state between dream and wakefulness, Yi Fengchu did not understand the principles or function of such a summoning, nor of what mysticism would call a “divine descent ritual.” He simply followed his intuition. He decided to respond to his believer.
He consented.
Thus, he descended.
In the next instant, the dreamlike space collapsed and folded in upon itself and before the colossal serpent’s eyes, a door took shape, one that seemed to be constructed entirely of blood.
Within that door, flowing crimson spread like splashed red oil paint, covering the waves and storms upon the sea’s surface. In their place emerged the interior of an aquarium.
Through the blood red gate, Yi Fengchu could see a familiar figure kneeling in the darkness. Pale arms stretched toward her from all directions, while before her, receiving her obeisance, was a slender silver serpent coiled atop rows of blood written characters.
This was the space where Luo Shengyue resided.
Using blood and prayer as its medium, an unknown and immense power descended upon the ritual site, overlapping that space directly onto Yi Fengchu’s path forward.
Yi Fengchu did not hesitate. He propelled his enormous, mountain range like body forward and passed through the warped spatial gateway, descending before the believer who had called upon him.
Luo Shengyue had long been prepared for this. She maintained her deeply prostrated posture, eyes tightly shut, her face buried beneath her curled body, striving to dull her senses to the lowest possible degree.
Do not look.
Do not listen.
Do not think…
She clenched her teeth hard, repeating these warnings to herself again and again.
Even so, she could still feel a heavy, terrifying force descending around her. The pressure, almost solid in its density, made all things groan faintly as if bearing an unbearable weight.
Crack… crack…
Luo Shengyue seemed to hear her spine, no, every inch of bone throughout her body, making brittle sounds, like the agonized moans of someone fatally ill.
At the same time, the impact upon her mind caused warm liquid to slowly seep from her seven orifices.
This was not physical injury. It was closer to the body’s instinctive resistance and purging in the face of mental contamination. There was no pain at all. It was only when the tip of her tongue tasted the metallic sweetness of blood that Luo Shengyue belatedly realized: she was bleeding.
Yet she quickly understood that this was already the Narrator’s mercy toward a “Believer” the result of His deliberate restraint.
Luo Shengyue did not dare lift her head but she could hear the movements of the pale drowned corpses coming from all around her.
At the very instant of the Narrator’s descent, in the throats of those bodies long corroded by seawater, inhuman shrieks erupted, as though they were enduring something unimaginably horrifying and painful.
But the screams lasted only a single second, as if someone had suddenly seized their throats and snuffed them out. What replaced them were the sounds of bodies rolling and writhing across the ground, scales scraping repeatedly against the floor and the soft hiss of tongues flicking in and out.
Luo Shengyue froze for a moment, then realized that this was the Narrator transforming the drowned corpses into another form… one that more closely resembled His favored kin, the form of serpents.
At this moment, those drowned corpses were surely undergoing the long and agonizing process of serpentine molting. They had to endure the pain of being remade, because only by shedding that layer of slick, waterlogged fish skin and growing neat, beautiful scales could they obtain true “rebirth.”
Become… existences closer to the King of Serpents.
As though awakened by these tremendous disturbances, the entire aquarium began to tremble violently.
White wall plaster fell in showers, the chandeliers hanging from the dome crashed to the floor with a loud clang and even the strongest load bearing pillars and walls began to collapse.
Bricks shattered and toppled away, gradually revealing something that had been hidden within the aquarium walls for decades,
A pale skeleton.
No wonder the navigator had once mistaken it, for it truly did resemble the bones of a whale or some other massive sea creature. It possessed the smooth, flowing lines unique to aquatic life, its elegant curves outlining a winding wave, displaying a rounded and peculiar beauty.
If this had been an ordinary organism, this skeleton would have long since been truly dead, its remains rotted away, returning with its soul to cold oblivion.
But the Tide Saint was a divine being, one through whose veins flowed the blood of a true god.
For such beings, the boundary between life and death was never so distinct. What was called “death” was merely an extraordinarily prolonged process.
Just as a planet in the universe continues to radiate energy for tens of thousands of years after its extinction;
After the Tide Saint died, His consciousness still lingered between the pillar like ribs, His heart still beating slowly, bringing long, steady breaths like the sea wind.
In the distant past, the Tide Saint’s body had sunk silently beneath the sea, enduring the ceaseless washing of the waves day after day.
Gradually, His corpse began to rot, to disintegrate but He was still breathing, still thinking, lucidly waiting for His mother’s return.
He should have remained on the seabed forever, persevering through countless cycles of hope and despair, until one day, human sailors on a distant voyage accidentally discovered one of His bones and managed to haul it onto land.
On land, the Tide Saint witnessed the people who should have been ruled by His mother being confined in tanks, stripped of their freedom and instincts, reduced to exhibits for human amusement…
Thus, His fury became uncontrollable. The disappointment and suffering accumulated over the long years of waiting finally seemed to find an outlet, pouring forth unchecked:
Was it these blasphemous acts of humans that disappointed Mother, causing her not to return for so long?
Yes, it must be so… Mother could not possibly abandon them. Therefore, something else must have gone wrong.
Then, as Mother’s closest offspring, He should punish them, in hopes of earning Her forgiveness one day.
From that point on, the shadow of a curse circled above the aquarium and spread among the crowds on land.
By day, people bustled through the interior of the Tide Saint’s skeleton, unaware that as they toured the aquarium, invisible gazes followed them closely, carefully selecting sacrifices from among the passing visitors and players, offerings both for Himself and for the pleasure of the Mother of Tides.
Yi Fengchu needed only a single glance at the skeleton embedded in the wall to understand, as though watching a film, the Tide Saint’s entire life and fate yet he felt no concern for any of it.
The only thing he cared about was…
“You look like you’ve been dead for quite a long time and you’re not very plump either.” Yi Fengchu flicked out his tongue, inspecting the Tide Saint from head to toe, then sighed regretfully.
The serpents all around let out excited, hissing murmurs. Even Yi Fengchu himself did not realize that the language he was speaking at this moment was unlike any tongue that had ever existed on Earth. It was more primal, more pure,
The “language” of serpents.
After that faint sigh, Yi Fengchu forced himself to perk up and comforted himself: “But it’s fine. You’ll barely suffice to fill my stomach.”
Before his words had even fallen, the serpents extended themselves from beneath the giant serpent’s body, winding across the ground like streaks of silver lightning in a sudden downpour, flashing with a chilling, ominous gleam.
Countless cold, golden eyes lit up in the darkness, slowly drawing closer, surrounding the skeleton hidden within the aquarium, their gazes filled with anticipation and hunger at the sight of a feast.
Yet no serpent rushed to bite. They seemed to observe a peculiar restraint, elegantly flicking their tongues, carefully holding back their appetite, like gentlemen seated at a dining table, tidying their knives and forks.
Faced with becoming food upon a plate, the Tide Saint fell silent for a moment, then erupted into a piercing wail: “Mother, Mother, Mother, Mother!”
The Tide Saint’s voice bore some resemblance to the sirens of legend, light and agile. Even this desperate, shrill cry at the brink of despair sounded as beautiful as the high notes of a sonata.
What wonderful food, Yi Fengchu thought to himself. It even plays music and sings on its own.
His appetite grew all the stronger.
Influenced by his pleasure, the serpents visibly grew more excited. Hissing sounds rose and fell in an endless chorus.
Listening to them, the pale skeleton of the Tide Saint trembled even more violently, triggering tremors through the ground itself.
Of all present, Luo Shengyue, kneeling on the ground, felt this most clearly. She pressed her palm against the floor, eyes wide as she murmured in shock, “There’s something… something writhing beneath the ground…”
As if several enormous earthworms were turning beneath the soil, thick tentacles covered in eyes soon burst up from the earth. Clods of dirt and dust were flung into the air like a sudden torrential rain, splattering filth across Luo Shengyue and the drowned corpses.
The Tide Saint suddenly broke free of the earth’s restraints, tearing out those tentacles that had been rooted deep underground and not yet decayed, lifting them high and lashing them toward the sky!
Though He was no match for the giant serpent, He possessed one incomparable advantage,
This was His dream.
He could not drive Yi Fengchu away, nor could He escape by conventional means but He could awaken from this “nightmare”…
The tentacles stretched ceaselessly upward, piercing straight into the heavens and then, as if striking a glass marble, smashed violently into the dark firmament!
In an instant, a fissure split open across the sky.
Cracks spread like a spider’s web, soon covering the entire vault of heaven. Light from the material world streamed in through countless gaps.
The entire dream shattered like a crushed crystal ball, breaking apart, teetering on the brink of collapse.
Luo Shengyue let out a cry of alarm. In her blood soaked eyes, all things twisted and crumbled at a terrifying speed and her vision gradually blurred…
Just like the last time she woke from a dream, that overwhelming sense of vertigo once again swept through her mind, dizzying and consuming, until Luo Shengle could no longer support herself and collapsed forward onto the ground.
Even though she had already pressed her body as close to the floor as she could, she still felt as if she were being hurled high into the air and spun around endlessly. Her heart pounded harder and faster under an unbearable pressure, until the frantic rhythm nearly robbed her of breath.
Soon, from the distant vault of the sky to the walls and floors right before her eyes, everything within her sight was covered in cracks.
Luo Shengle reached out instinctively, trying to grab hold of the wall for balance. Her fingers dug deep, leaving deep gouges but she could not resist the pull. The next instant, she fell helplessly into one of those gaping fractures and left the dream behind.
The Son of the Tides let out a low, drawn out cry. It seemed immersed in the desperate joy of impending escape, eager to flee beyond the sight of its hunter.
Through the dream that was already splintering apart, Yi Fengchu saw through its relief, his voice echoing with quiet amusement.
“All right,” he said softly, “now that the unrelated parties have left the table, I can finally enjoy my meal in peace.”
He had always abided by human etiquette. For instance, before a meal, one should first tidy up the dining table.
“…?”
The raised tendrils froze midair and the Son of the Tides gave no sound yet its confusion was clear.
Before its eyes, the dream had already shattered completely, breaking into countless suspended fragments, like blackened cinders left after a great fire burned out.
Its dream was broken. It should have ended but it had not awakened.
In that instant, this divine being, who had lived under the protection of the Mother of Tides and had never known fear, felt a terror and despair beyond words. The tremor began at the tips of its tendrils and spread rapidly, as though freezing its whole skeletal body from within.
A shrill scream tore from its throat, raw with panic but even as it cried, the enormous serpent before it unfurled an endless tail and coiled in slow, measured circles around its prey, protective, possessive, enclosing.
This being that once ruled the ocean, vast beyond mortal comprehension, now appeared small and fragile when placed before the fully revealed serpent, as delicate as a dainty dessert placed neatly upon a plate.
The serpents hissed in low, eager tones, their whispers like a hungry audience’s murmur of approval.
Trapped within that encircling wall of scales, the Son of the Tides had no time to cry again. Its white bones and flailing tendrils were drowned beneath the tide of silver serpents. The giant serpent’s massive head lowered, swallowing every trace of struggle and crying into the darkness of its jaws.
Yes, this was how it should be.
As Yi Fengchu dined upon his feast, satisfaction gleamed faintly in his golden eyes. Good food, after all, should never try to leap off the plate on its own.
The silver white scales completely engulfed the remains of the divine creature. The serpents relished their rare delicacy; even their tails curled upward in visible delight, quivering with pleasure.
When the feast finally drew to its end, the silvery tide receded. Yi Fengchu gazed down in faint confusion at what was left behind, a single remnant, gleaming faintly amid the ruin.
It was a treasure the Son of the Tides had desperately shielded with its tendrils, a single golden eye, its pupil a narrow black slit, wholly unlike a human’s.
Around that eye floated several faint golden rings, rotating slowly and rhythmically, like the graceful orbits of celestial bodies.
Such a familiar eye…
Still sluggish in thought from the lingering dream haze, Yi Fengchu pondered with unusual seriousness. He was sure he had seen this very eye not too long ago.
He lowered his head and met the many golden eyes beneath his own scales, then suddenly froze in realization.
Wait a second.
Wasn’t this his own eye?
How had it ended up in the little dessert’s possession?
He had many eyes across his body, true but it wasn’t as if they simply dropped off and rolled away while he was walking!
Some instinct whispered that this eye was important, more so than any of the others beneath his scales.
So, with lingering doubt, the giant serpent bent low, gently took the lost eye between his fangs and began to swim back along the path from which he had come.
Inside the instance, Luo Shengle’s eyes flew open. She jolted awake from the dream.
She took a few deep breaths, steadying herself. “Well,” she muttered under her breath, “this isn’t exactly a bad outcome. At least I don’t have to worry about getting caught in the crossfire between two higher beings.”
Recalling the scenes she had witnessed, she frowned slightly. “No… that wasn’t a battle. It was more like a one sided hunt.”
✦ ✧ ✦
Nycreth
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
(╯°□°）╯︵ ☕ — deploy caffeine!
☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
✦ thank you for reading ✦
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ChaptersChapter 1 · Mysterious letterChapter 2 · Divine MessagesChapter 3 · Gamer ForumChapter 4 · Invitation from GodChapter 5 · JudgeChapter 6 · TerminalChapter 7 · Destruction of recordsChapter 8 · Whale Bone Aquarium (1)Chapter 9 · Whale Bone Aquarium (2)Chapter 10 · Whale Bone Aquarium (3)Chapter 11 · Whale Bone Aquarium (4)Chapter 12 · Whale Bone Aquarium (5)Chapter 13 · Whale Bone Aquarium (6)Chapter 14 · Whale Bone Aquarium (7)Chapter 15 · Whale Bone Aquarium (8)Chapter 16 · Whale Bone Aquarium (9)Chapter 17 · Whale Bone Aquarium (10)Chapter 18 · Whale Bone Aquarium (11)Chapter 19 Part 1 · Whale Bone Aquarium (12)Chapter 19 Part 2 · Whale Bone Aquarium (12)Chapter 20 · Interlude: His ApostlesChapter 21 · Echoes in the pupa (1)Chapter 22 · Echoes in the pupa (2)Chapter 23 · Echoes in the Pupa (3)Chapter 24 · Echoes in the Pupa (4)Chapter 25 · Echoes in the Pupa (5)Chapter 26 · Echoes in the Pupa (6)Chapter 27 · Echoes in the Pupa (7)Chapter 28 · Echoes in the Pupa (8)Chapter 29 · Echoes in the Pupa (9)Chapter 30 · Echoes in the Pupa (10)Chapter 31 · Echoes in the Pupa (11)Chapter 32 · Echoes in the Pupa (12)Chapter 33 · Echoes in the Pupa (13)Chapter 34 · Interlude: Investigation by the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs (1)Chapter 35 · Interlude: Investigation by the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs (2)Chapter 36 · Interlude: Investigation by the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs (3)Chapter 37 · Small World: God’s Chessboard (1)Chapter 38 · Small World: God’s Chessboard (2)Chapter 39 · Small World: God’s Chessboard (3)Chapter 40 · Small World: God’s Chessboard (4)Chapter 41 · Advertisement Coming Soon (1)Chapter 42 · Advertisement Coming Soon (2)Chapter 43 · Advertisement Coming Soon (3)Chapter 44 · Advertisement Coming Soon (4)Chapter 45 · Advertisement Coming Soon (5)Chapter 46 · Advertisement Coming Soon (6)Chapter 47 · Advertisement Coming Soon (7)Chapter 48 · Advertisement Coming Soon (8)Chapter 49 · Advertisement Coming Soon (9)Chapter 50 · Advertisement Coming Soon (10)Chapter 51 · Advertisement Coming Soon (11)Chapter 52 · Advertisement Coming Soon (12)Chapter 53 · Advertisement Coming Soon to EndChapter 54 · Interlude – Tonight No One Sleeps (1)Chapter 55 · Interlude – Tonight No One Sleeps (2)Chapter 56 · Interlude – Tonight No One Sleeps (3)Chapter 57 · Interlude – Tonight No One Sleeps (4)Chapter 58 · Childhood Ghost Stories (1)Chapter 59 · Childhood Ghost Stories (2)Chapter 60 · Childhood Ghost Stories (3)Chapter 61 · Childhood Ghost Stories (4)Chapter 62 · Childhood Ghost Stories (5)Chapter 63 · Childhood Ghost Stories (6)Chapter 64 · Childhood Ghost Stories (7)Chapter 65 · Childhood Ghost Stories (8)Chapter 66 · Childhood Ghost Stories (9)Chapter 67 · Childhood Ghost Stories (10)Chapter 68 · Childhood Ghost Stories (11)Chapter 69 · Childhood Ghost Stories (12)Chapter 70 · Childhood Ghost Stories (13)Chapter 71 · Childhood Ghost Stories (14)Chapter 72 · Childhood Ghost Stories (15)Chapter 73 · Childhood Ghost Stories (16)Chapter 74 · Childhood Ghost Stories (17)Chapter 75 · Childhood Ghost Stories (18)Chapter 76 · Childhood Ghost Stories (19)Chapter 77 · Childhood Ghost Stories (20)Chapter 78 · Childhood Ghost Stories (Complete)Chapter 79 · Interlude: His Kingdom (1)Chapter 80 · Interlude: His Kingdom (2)Chapter 81 · Interlude: An Epic of Faith (1)Chapter 82 · Interlude: An Epic of Faith (2)Chapter 83 · Interlude: An Epic of Faith (3)Chapter 84 · Interlude: An Epic of Faith (4)Chapter 85 · Interlude: An Epic of Faith (5)Chapter 86 · Interlude: An Epic of Faith (Complete)Chapter 87 · Fate casually rolls the dice (1)Chapter 88 · Fate Casually rolls the dice (2)Chapter 89 · Fate Casually rolls the dice (3)Chapter 90 · Fate Casually rolls the dice (4)Chapter 91 · Fate casually tosses the dice (5)Chapter 92 · Fate casually tosses the dice (6)Chapter 93 · Fate casually tosses the dice (7)Chapter 94 · Fate casually tosses the dice (8)Chapter 95 · Fate casually tosses the dice (9)Chapter 96 · Fate casually tosses the dice (10)Chapter 97 · Fate Casually tosses the dice (11)Chapter 98 · Fate casually tosses the dice (12)Chapter 99 · Fate casually tosses the dice (13)Chapter 100 · Fate casually tosses the dice (14)Chapter 101 · Fate casually tosses the dice (15)Chapter 102 · Fate casually tosses the dice (16)Chapter 103 · Fate casually tosses the dice (17)Chapter 104 · Fate casually tosses the dice (18)Chapter 105 · Fate casually tosses the dice (19)Chapter 106 · Fate casually tosses the dice (20)Chapter 107 · Fate casually tosses the dice (21)Chapter 108 · Fate casually tosses the dice (The End)Chapter 109 · Interlude