[Vol. 9] Chapter 36: Kids Fight, Mom Breaks It Up
Like undead beings eaten away by some parasitic species, or like twisted, mutated creatures from the deep sea. Feet not quite feet, webbed but not webbed, clutching rotten steel forks or spears covered in rust. Some still had scraps of cloth or broken pieces of armor stuck to their bodies. They moved in groups, staggering and twisting across the shoreline. Just looking at them was enough to make one’s skin crawl and heart tighten with fear.
The moment Moraya saw these strange creatures, her years of battle instinct made her want to strike first. But the next second, she caught sight of the calm black-haired girl still standing steady and unshaken, and remembered the warning she had given before. Moraya’s body froze slightly.
“Don’t attack no matter what you see… right?”
She only hesitated for a brief moment before forcing herself to calm down from the shocking sight. The icy magic swirling around her faded into silence.
If the other girl wanted to harm her, she wouldn’t need to go through such roundabout tricks.
“Miss Violet, you already knew these things existed?”
“I’ve had some… contact with them, you could say.”
The priestess noticed the young girl’s every move, nodded slightly in approval, but still gave no further explanation. She simply kept walking forward.
“Follow me.”
Along the seabed exposed by the receding tide, the two of them kept moving forward, step by step. As the distance between them and the staggering, eerie creatures shrank, even with mental preparation, Moraya still felt nervous. She feared they might suddenly rush forward and tear them apart.
But to her shock, she soon realized not only did the creatures not attack. On the contrary, as the two approached, it was as if they sensed something. They all knelt down one after another, bowing low in worship, letting out deep, prayer-like murmurs!
Moraya’s eyelids twitched hard. Of course, she knew these monsters weren’t worshiping her. Then the only explanation left was…
Wait—no, it didn’t seem to be Miss Violet either.
Following the line of their gazes, the snow maiden suddenly saw the strange little wooden doll walking proudly in front with its hands on its waist, and she froze in shock.
Just what on earth is this little thing!?
And not only were the creatures’ reactions beyond belief, as they walked further, even the vast ocean itself seemed unwilling to offend. The seawater split open to both sides and behind them, slowly creating a clear passage that stretched straight into the deep sea!
One impossible scene after another crashed down on Moraya’s worldview, built over more than ten years, leaving her mind almost blank. At this moment, aside from following the black-haired girl’s instructions and obediently tagging along, she found she couldn’t think of anything else at all.
Shock, nothing but shock.
As they went deeper beneath the sea, the little wooden doll bouncing along at the front began to glow brighter again.
Its light lit up the darkening waters around them, and by that glow, Moraya finally noticed countless more creatures drifting in the deep. They looked just like the ones above: corpses long rotted away, parasitized by countless fine tendrils. There were so many of them, filling nearly every corner of the ocean. The ones revealed earlier at low tide were just the tip of the iceberg.
They walked for who knows how long, until the vacuum-like passage behind them stretched out of sight. Finally, the two women reached the deepest part of the seabed. There were no longer those eerie rotting creatures here. Instead, what filled the area were enormous tentacles, like tree roots crawling across the ocean floor, each dozens to hundreds of meters wide, stretching out farther than the eye could follow.
On those giant tentacles, countless suction cups, like rolling eyes, kept turning. They seemed to whisper to anyone who dared look at them. Almost after just a single glance, Moraya felt a stabbing pain deep inside her head again. She quickly turned away, not daring to look any longer.
But that brief glimpse was enough for her to recognize the truth.
These things, weren’t they the same giant tentacles that had appeared from beneath the icy sea before, the ones she fought against?
Back then, outside Nofenburg, there had only been a single tentacle. Even after she used a forbidden spell, sealing it back into the sea with the [Divine Ice and Snow Seal], she had not seen any other traces of it. But now, deep under the sea, there were not just one or two of these monstrous tentacles tangled together. There were at least hundreds, maybe even thousands!
“Be careful…”
The snow maiden had just wanted to warn about their danger, but Violet simply waved her hand to signal it was fine. Under Moraya’s nervous gaze, Violet stepped forward alone, tapping the hard surface of the nearest tentacle with the tip of her long staff. With a dull thud, she spoke calmly.
“[Oktavier], the person you wanted is here. Are you going to keep pretending to be dead?”
“Wng~!”
It was just a short, casual sound, yet it carried some kind of mysterious power, spreading invisible ripples through the sea.
“Wng wng wng wng wng wng!!!”
All of the massive tentacles resting on the seabed froze. The countless eyeballs attached to them twisted wildly, like a swarm of disturbed bees, sending out trembling sounds like buzzing flies, as if answering that unique voice.
That was Its True Name, the key bridge tied to the essence of a god.
At that moment, the gaze of a god fell upon them.
“Urgh…!”
The whispers and murmurs that had filled the ocean before, faint but ever-present, suddenly multiplied a hundredfold. The overwhelming mental pollution made Moraya groan uncontrollably. Darkness surged into her once-clear eyes, and she stumbled to the ground, as streams of shadowy energy seeped faintly from her body’s surface.
Along with this change, strange little bulges began to rise beneath her pale skin, as if something inside her was about to take root and grow. But at the same time, the eight-petaled snowflake-shaped mark on her forehead flared with icy blue light, forcibly stopping the mutation at its very beginning.
The two powers clashed fiercely inside her body, like an old master who had long claimed the place and a domineering outsider that just arrived, fighting over the only vessel. Blue-white light and dark light intertwined, refusing to give way to each other. It was as if they didn’t care whether her body could withstand such a battle of divine powers.
Cracks soon spread across Moraya’s skin, and blood mist seeped out. Her bones let out a chorus of breaking cries, blood flowed from her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. Her body looked like it could collapse at any moment…
“Are you two done? Still fighting like children?”
A golden light suddenly flashed out with a calm voice, rushing straight into the body of the snow maiden who was on the verge of breaking apart.
Even though it was nowhere near as huge or overwhelming as the other two forces, in just an instant, all of Moraya’s cracks and blood mist vanished as if time itself had reversed. The bulges under her skin and the glowing mark on her forehead both went quiet, fading without a trace, as though nothing had ever happened.