Return

On the other side, out at sea, Klein had already discovered the situation without needing a reminder from Nelisa or Diancie.

They had just finished clearing the fourth coordinate point.

When Ophelia struck with her sword, the monster's carapace split in two from the center, sending internal organs and shredded meat exploding outward to form a murky cloud in the seawater. Klein was about to expand the gravitational field for the final erasure—his hand was already raised, the first few nodes of the spell unfolding.

Then he stopped.

It wasn't that he didn't want to finish the job, but that something else had snatched his attention first.

Something was moving beneath the sea surface.

They weren't monsters. They were smaller things. Many of them. A vast multitude.

His perception delved twenty meters down.

Fish.

At first, there were only a few—small, silver scales flashing beneath the surface like ordinary scavenger fish attracted by the scent of blood. Then came a swarm. Then the entire surface of the sea was covered.

A dense mass of fish surged from all directions, crowding together and fighting to gnaw on the monster's remains. The water was churned white, the spray from fins and tails connecting into sheets that looked like boiling water in a pot from a distance.

Regardless of size or species, they were all squeezing in the same direction. Some fish were already being crushed beneath their kin, yet they still turned their white bellies and desperately burrowed forward.

Klein knew this was absolutely wrong.

While schools of fish at sea fought for food, there was ultimately an order to it. It was the same near a dead whale, under a fishing boat, or in a tide pool after the ebb. Large fish took their spots first, small fish waited on the periphery, maintaining a chaotic but effective competition between them.

This was different.

These fish weren't competing. They didn't look like they were fighting for food; they looked like they were executing an order.

An order from the deep sea.

The direction every fish swam was unwavering, charging straight for the location of the monster's remains without swerving or circling, no matter how many of their own kind blocked the way. It was as if something had shoved an instruction into their brains: Go eat. Go swallow.

“Stop them.”

Ophelia moved faster than his words.

Her sword left its scabbard, and golden battle qi swept out, carving an arc-shaped barrier around the monster's corpse. The battle qi expanded along the sea surface, thin enough to be translucent yet absurdly hard—the sword qi cut through the seawater, forcing a dry trench open on both sides of the barrier.

The schools of fish crashed into it.

The first wave. The second wave. The third wave.

Fish bodies slammed into the battle qi barrier and were sliced in two, their blood streaming down the barrier. The fish behind them continued to charge, trampling over the corpses of those in front. There was no hesitation, no detour, and certainly no turning back.

A silver fish the size of a palm slammed into the barrier, its head shattering completely and its eyes popping out to roll across the water. Three more of the same size followed immediately behind, lining up to crash and break.

Behind them was a swarm of even smaller fry, barely the length of a finger, their silver bodies nearly transparent. Lacking the strength to shatter themselves, they squeezed into the gaps of the battle qi barrier, their mouths opening and closing as they burrowed forward in vain.

Watching this scene, Klein opened his mouth, then closed it again.

It was truly... a grand suicide.

Ophelia's barrier blocked this area. But Klein turned his head to scan the surroundings—the monster's blood and shredded meat had already drifted some distance with the current. The barrier only enclosed the main body of the corpse. Those fragments that had scattered earlier had long since been swallowed clean by the fish on the periphery.

A very bad premonition suddenly rose in his heart.

Klein used magic to survey the nearby waters. The range of his perception wasn't large, but it was enough.

The result made him go quiet for several seconds.

Thousands upon thousands of fish were swimming at high speed in all directions from the spot where the remains had disappeared, their speed far exceeding their natural capabilities. A palm-sized silver fish was moving underwater at the speed of a sailfish, trailing a chain of white bubbles behind it, its fins pressed back by the sheer velocity.

Residual physical information from the monster lingered within the body of every single fish. It was faint, but it was certainly there.

The shredded meat swallowed into the fish bellies was fusing with the fishes' own tissues, becoming a part of them. And the anchoring effect—that signal that pulled at the real world and paved the way for the will of the deep sea—spread along with them.

It was proliferating even as it decayed.

One point had become a thousand points. And those thousand points were continuing to split.

Those monsters were never purely vanguards from the start—they were also seeds. While alive, they served as anchor points; after death, they spread the anchoring effect through the food chain. Killing them had actually accelerated the process.

Klein withdrew his perception and slowly stood straight.

The sea breeze blew past, carrying the stench of fish blood and the rot of the monster's internal organs. His fingers hanging at his side tightened for a moment, then relaxed.

“It's too late,” he said.

Ophelia sheathed her sword and turned to look at him.

Wet golden hair clung to her cheeks, and the battle qi barrier behind her slowly dissipated. The sea was covered in floating fish corpses cut into pieces, the scent of blood carried by the wind. A dense layer of silver fragments floated on the water, fish scales shimmering in the sunlight like a sea scattered with broken silver.

She didn't ask “what's too late.”

She had been Klein's partner long enough to understand the weight of those words.

Klein rubbed the bridge of his nose. The pressure of his fingertips against his brow was slightly heavier than usual, leaving two faint white marks on his skin when he let go.

“Truly nauseating, this Deep Sea Evil God.”

He paused, his gaze falling on the large patch of reddened sea beneath his feet. Fish corpses rolled in the waves, so dense they made one's skin crawl. In the distance, even more schools of fish were rushing this way, their silver scales flashing beneath the surface like stars surging in an undercurrent.

“The things inside those fish,” Ophelia spoke, her voice thinned by the wind, “what will happen?”

“Didn't I say it before? Even a dead monster will have an effect, and it's the same even if it's digested in a fish's belly.”

Klein gazed into the distance. The line where the sea met the sky was white in the afternoon sun, making it hard to tell which side was sky and which was water. The stench of fish corpses still clung to the air, unyielding to the wind.

“The shredded meat melts into the fish's bodies, the fish scatter throughout the entire sea, and every fish becomes a new anchor point. The more anchor points there are, the larger the contact surface between Him and this world becomes, and the stronger the pulling force grows.”

His voice was flat in the sea breeze, like he was reciting a solved derivation problem. But the weight of the conclusion pressed down on the final sentence.

“Without a doubt, His Divine Kingdom will descend here.”

Ophelia's gaze lingered on his face for a breath.

She didn't press for “when” or “how serious.” The last time she had faced that thing, she had seen with her own eyes what the boundaries of a “Divine Kingdom” looked like. The sky changed color, the seawater changed texture, and the air was filled with a low-frequency hum that didn't belong to the human world, as if the entire world were being soaked in the breath of another existence.

She looked down at her left hand.

The black scales had faded significantly—the result of Klein's continuous treatment—but they still extended from the back of her hand to the base of her fingers, glinting in the sunlight with a dull luster that shouldn't belong to human skin.

That was the price of the last time.

Ophelia shifted her gaze from her hand back to Klein.

Every piece of shredded meat swallowed by the fish was a seed, taking root in every corner of this sea. The monster corpses Ophelia had slain, the blood and meat that had scattered before Klein could erase them—all had become new anchor points.

Though the strength of a single anchor point was far inferior to the original monsters, the magnitude had jumped from single digits to an uncalculable level. Thousands upon thousands of fish were spreading in all directions at an unnatural speed.

It was like a drop of ink falling into water; you could fish out the drop, but you couldn't pull the color that had already spread back out of the water.

Ophelia sheathed her sword, the movement light, the lock clicking shut.

She was silent for a while.

The sea breeze blew her semi-dry hair into a mess again, several golden strands falling over her shoulder, but she ignored them.

“Then, should we continue?”

Klein closed his notebook and tucked it back into his pocket. He shook his head.

“There's not much point in continuing to kill them. Even if we could solve the diffusion problem, I suspect monsters elsewhere would simply commit suicide to spread themselves.” He thought for a moment and added, “Better to head back and meet up with Diancie first, then find Nelisa.”

“Find her for what?”

“To prepare.” Klein scratched the corner of the notebook's cover with his fingernail, an unconscious little habit. “Since we can no longer clear the anchor points, only one path remains—wait for Him to arrive, and then send Him away.”

Ophelia glanced at him.

Klein noticed her look, turned his head, and suddenly smiled.

There was no tension in that smile, no forcing it, and not even much heaviness. It was as if he had walked down a road, found it blocked, and naturally turned to find another—nothing more.

“Speaking of which, this is right up your alley.”

Ophelia was stunned for a beat.

Her hand was still resting on the hilt of her sword, and the seawater-soaked leather sword belt had left a dark water mark around her wrist. The sunlight hit her from the side, illuminating the salt stains and lingering water on her face, and her eyelashes could be seen fluttering.

Then she smiled too.

“Yes.” She nodded, her voice lightened by the wind. “Just beating Him back one more time.”

She spoke very calmly.

Like saying to remember an umbrella when going out tomorrow, or that the soup on the stove should be turned off.

But Klein remembered the price of “beating Him back” last time.

He wanted to say something, opened his mouth, but the words reached his throat and were swallowed back down.

Ophelia likely sensed his momentary hesitation. She didn't call it out, merely raising her hand, palm up, and reaching out toward him.

“Let's go.”

Klein didn't hesitate and placed his hand on hers.

Her palm was warm. Because he had helped maintain her hands earlier, they lacked those thick knots and felt much softer now.

Ophelia pulled him close by the waist, her grip tightening. Before taking flight, she looked down at him, her gaze lingering on his face for less than a breath.

Her eyes were a very pale gold, like diluted sunlight, but the warmth in them was unmistakable in that moment.

“You don't need to worry about me.”

Klein didn't deny it, merely patting the arm she had wrapped around his waist.

“I'll prepare a better plan for you,” he said. “Worry is a sign of incompetence; preparation is the real task.”

Ophelia gave a soft huff from her nose as her only response to this crooked logic.

The wind rushed in as the two pulled away from the sea surface, soaring toward the direction of The Voyager.

The sea beneath their feet receded rapidly. The crests of the waves shattered into white lines of foam beneath them, stretched out by their speed like chalk marks on a deep blue cloth. The sea breeze poured into the air membrane of the wind-breaking spell, producing a continuous, low, and monotonous hum.

Klein didn't look at her profile this time.

One thought was turning over and over in his mind.

Last time, Ophelia had carried everything alone. The price of beating back the will of the deep sea was the permanent pollution of one hand. If the situation had been just a little bit worse, she would have lost more than just a hand.

He hadn't been there then. He could do nothing.

This time was different.

He was here.

Klein closed his eyes slightly. The wind rushed past the air membrane, carrying the salt of the sea and the lingering scent of fish blood from afar. In the darkness, his mind had already begun to work at high speed—the physical structure of the monsters, the transmission mechanism of the anchoring effect, the informational characteristics of the deep sea will's descent, the interaction between Ophelia's battle qi attributes and the deep sea's power...

The prototype of a plan was slowly taking shape in his mind. It was still blurry, with many details needing verification.

He didn't need to worry about her.

He was going to prepare everything for her.

This time, he wouldn't let Ophelia get hurt.

...

Meanwhile, in the Realm of the Inverted Starry River.

There was no distinction between day and night. The starry river overhead was full, its light falling downward, drop by drop, slowly and silently, trailing long, thin wakes in mid-air. When they hit the ground, they shattered into small patches of fluorescence, only to reconsolidate back onto the firmament after a few breaths. The cycle repeated endlessly, like an hourglass that would never stop.

The alchemical workshop occupied most of this space. To call it a workshop was a stretch; it was more like a warehouse where the owner had given up on the idea of tidying—vials and jars were stacked three layers high, the copper pipes of distillers wound from one end of the racks to the other, and a few black robes that had been washed but not dried hung in the middle. A dozen notebooks were spread across the workbench, each flipped to a different page, with ink of varying freshness, the top one weighted down by half a piece of dry bread with two bites taken out of it.

The black-robed girl stood up from the pile of clutter.

A water mirror hung in the center of the workshop, taller than a person. Its surface reflected the sea reddened by fish corpses, showing two figures soaring away along the wave crests, their silhouettes growing smaller and smaller.

She stared at the mirror for a while.

The black-robed girl tilted her head.

She shifted her gaze to her side—the man who had been standing quietly, leaning against the workbench, held a cup of tea that had long since gone cold, also watching the water mirror.

“Do you need me to go over?”

She asked directly.

The hand holding the tea cup didn't move as the man shook his head.

“No, just leave it to them.”

“...”

The black-robed girl was silent for two seconds. She looked down at her hands—her fingertips were still stained with dust from rummaging through things. She wiped them on her robes, the movement not exactly elegant, even a bit rough.

“Then why did you have me practice so much space-time magic?”

It wasn't a question. Her tone was flat, pressed down, and the end of it even carried a hint of grit.

The man looked at her expression and smiled. He set the cold tea down, the bottom of the cup making a soft clink against the table.

“If you want to go over, I won't stop you.”

The black-robed girl's shoulder twitched—it was subtle, but in this quiet space, nothing could be hidden.

“However,” the man hadn't finished, reaching over to naturally flip back a section of her robe's collar that had folded inward, “once you're there, don't do anything unnecessary. Let them solve it themselves.”

She didn't dodge his hand.

The black-robed girl gave a huff, turned around, and faced the water mirror once more. The image on the surface had switched—the two were landing on the deck of The Voyager.

She raised a hand and traced a line along the edge of the mirror. The image zoomed in, making everyone on the deck clearly visible.

“I'm just going to take a look,” she said. “I won't do anything.”

The man nodded.

“Mm. Go on.”

His tone was too calm. So calm that the black-robed girl stopped after two steps and looked back at him, feeling that something was off.

“...Did you calculate long ago that I would go?”

The man picked up the cold tea, took a sip, and didn't answer.

The black-robed girl stared at him.

The light from the starry river dripped from overhead, one drop falling exactly at her feet and shattering into a small patch of silent fluorescent blue.

“Goodbye, Papa.”

Leaving those words behind, she turned and walked into the depths of the workshop. From behind her came the sound of a tea cup being set down and a very soft laugh caught in a throat.