Chapter 318

Chapter 318: Gradually Warped

For the next whole minute, Tyrian stayed sunk in the brief confusion and dullness brought on by that huge impact. His eyes could hardly focus. Countless noises surged in his mind, and his thoughts rose and fell like a lone boat in a storm—but even so, his reason stayed clear.

He knew it was those spirit form flames that had appeared in the darkness that had guarded his mind, keeping it from being corrupted by the power of the Abyssal Lord.

After a while, he slowly managed to steady his breathing. Since he had not suffered too strong a mental corruption, the visions in his head faded quickly. At the same time, he heard a calm voice from the other side: “Looks like you’ve recovered.”

Tyrian lifted his head and looked at the tall figure on the far side of the chart table: “Just now… you were the one who pulled me out?”

“You stared at it for too long. Vanna said you were falling into a nightmare,” Duncan said casually. “Luckily, I’ve been doing a bit of research on this whole ‘Dreamwalking’ state recently.”

“Nightmare…” Tyrian rubbed his brow without thinking. “Did I really look like I’d fallen into a nightmare just now…”

“It sounds like you had quite an unusual experience?” There was some curiosity in Duncan’s tone.

He had indeed made an emergency entry into Tyrian’s mental world just now, but it had been different from what he usually saw after using the power of walking the Spirit Realm to enter someone else’s dream. This time, after he intervened, he had not “seen” anything at all. Tyrian’s “nightmare” had been nothing but darkness.

It seemed the “source” that had created the nightmare had already left before his arrival. That only made him even more curious about what had just happened.

“I… met an existence that is hard to put into words,” Tyrian said with effort as he recalled what he had seen. He carefully described the images. “I can’t give its exact form, and I don’t dare recall all its details, but I suspect it was the Abyssal Lord…”

Tyrian told them everything he had seen and heard in that darkness, and added many details about what he had felt in his own spirit. Aside from being unable to clearly recall the full outline of that mountain-like mass of Shadows, he held nothing back.

After listening to Tyrian’s account, Duncan frowned at once: “You’re saying that being, which was most likely the ‘Abyssal Lord,’ said only one sentence to you, and it was to tell you to ‘run’?”

“Strictly speaking, it was the only sentence I could understand,” Tyrian said, spreading his hands. “It seemed to say a lot to me, but everything was drowned in the huge noise. In the end it seemed to give up and picked the shortest word. I only barely heard that word…”

Duncan sounded thoughtful: “So when a person’s inspiration is too high, they actually can’t hear the Elder Gods’ muttering…”

Tyrian did not react at first. “Father, what did you say?”

“Ah, nothing. It has nothing to do with this,” Duncan waved a hand and turned his attention back to the matter at hand. He thought for a moment, then looked at Vanna. “Do you think Tyrian met the Abyssal Lord? Do you think it told him to ‘run’ in order to protect him?”

“From Captain Tyrian’s description and his own feelings, even if it was not the Abyssal Lord, it was at least some kind of heretic deity,” Vanna answered at once. “But as for what that word ‘run’ meant… I am sorry, Mr. Duncan, I don’t dare make a rash judgment.”

She paused, feeling that answer was not responsible enough, then added: “Information on the Abyssal Lord has always been scarce. Even the data held by the four great Churches is limited.

“The mainstream view at present is that the Abyssal Lord is a huge single entity at the very center of the Abyssal Deep domain. It has no ability to move and does not actively project power into the Mortal Realm. It cannot communicate and seems not to think at all. It is like…”

Vanna tapped her temple, as if struggling to find the right word to describe such an existence. Seeing this, Duncan spoke offhandedly: “Like a lump of slime mold sunk in the Abyssal Deep, down in the Deep Sea? Alive and huge, but just a clump of fungus that doesn’t think or move?”

“…You might be the only person in the world who would describe the Abyssal Lord as slime mold,” Vanna said with a strange look, but she still nodded slightly. “Yet it is indeed as you say. If the information we wrung out of those demons’ souls and from the cultists’ mouths is correct, the Abyssal Lord is such a ‘silent heretic deity.’

“The only thing it does is constantly divide more Abyssal demons from its body, or absorb those Abyssal demons that die in their fights.”

Duncan could not help rubbing his forehead. “…Why does that sound exactly like some kind of fungal carpet tumor…”

The captain was talking in that incomprehensible “Subspace dialect” again.

But Vanna was already used to this. She skillfully ignored the words she did not understand and naturally let the topic go on: “Overall, the Abyssal Lord can actually be considered a relatively harmless heretic deity, because at least it has never shown any tendency toward corruption of the Mortal Realm.

“But even so, in the classification used by the Churches of the Four Gods, it is still placed in the category of ‘Eldritch Gods.’”

“So regardless of any subjective will, its very existence is a danger?”

“Yes. Whether it’s the Abyssal demons split from its body, or those Annihilators who sign pacts with the Abyssal demons and go mad in spirit, all of them are mortal enemies of the civilized world.”

Duncan did not speak. He fell into thought for a while.

For some reason, what he thought of at that moment was the “Black Sun” that had supported the False Corona and hung dying in the flames.

But he only made that connection in passing and did not make any judgment on the true nature of the Abyssal Lord. The reason was simple: he did not have enough evidence. He would not draw casual conclusions about something he had not personally come into contact with.

Tyrian rubbed his brow. All the noise in his head had faded. What remained was only a faint dizziness and a tiredness like he had stayed up several nights in a row. While Vanna talked about the information on the Abyssal Lord, he also had his own thoughts.

“No matter whether that word ‘run’ showed goodwill or not, one thing is certain. The condition of the Obsidian was clearly the result of being affected by the Lord’s power. Now Annihilators are already active in the Frostholm city-state, and they are most likely here because of this,” Tyrian said slowly. “If the influence I just suffered really has something to do with those who took part in that plan back then, then now even the Abyssal Trench Project has been pulled into it.

“Pushing the logic further, I think what we most need to pay attention to now is that ‘Dagger Island.’ It is the lingering aftershock of the Abyssal Trench Project that has continued to this day since half a century ago.”

“The eighth ‘Number Three Submersible,’” Duncan said in a low voice. “How much do you know about the situation on Dagger Island?”

“That place is now a military forbidden zone. Even with the strength of the Sea Mist Fleet, we can’t easily get close,” Tyrian said. “The Vanished should be able to force a landing by relying on its special nature, but even then it wouldn’t be easy to find that Submersible in a short time. The island is large, the research facilities are complex, and in a serious emergency the military personnel on the island might simply order it destroyed…”

The more Duncan listened, the more wrong it sounded. He quickly cut off the pirate lord: “Stop, stop. When did I say anything about charging straight in?”

Tyrian froze, then understood at once. “Sorry, Father, I thought…”

Duncan waved his hand, signaling that there was no need to explain. “Forget that. Just tell me in general what you know about Dagger Island’s situation. It might come in handy.”

“All right. About that little island…”

…

Belazov looked seriously at the diving bell hanging in the middle of the hall.

He had already been in this research facility for two days, and during those two days he had spent half his time in this hall, dealing with this diving bell.

He was not a professional researcher. He did not understand mechanical matters, and he did not know what meaning the long string of physical and chemical tests the scholars ran on the samples had.

He stayed here for one reason only: this mechanical device, wrapped in an air of mystery and with such a strange background, had stirred up his curiosity.

An irresistible curiosity.

As a Frostholm native not yet forty years old, he had not personally lived through that great event half a century ago. But as one of the upper officials of the city-state, he at least knew about the Abyssal Trench Project from the classified files.

The Number Three Submersible took the most important place in all those files. It was the part of the entire Abyssal Trench Project that made people’s skin crawl the most.

It was covered in rust. Filth filled both its inside and outside. It hung obediently from an iron hook like a chunk of scrap metal and looked very ordinary.

Professor Merson stood beside the General and explained the safety measures of this laboratory.

“…The sling below leads straight down to the Crucible. If an emergency happens, the hook will release at once. The Submersible will smash through the grating and fall into the Crucible.

“If, after the release device is triggered, the Submersible still doesn’t fall into the channel, a linked mechanism will start. This entire room will unhook from the ‘sealed chamber’ frame and slide along a chute into a cave behind the bay. That cave is filled with nitroglycerin.”

“And the people in the lab?”

“We have thirty seconds to evacuate. After that, the evacuation passage will lock,” Professor Merson said. “But if it really is the worst-case scenario… the highest person in charge, which is me, can also choose not to open the evacuation passage.”

Belazov gave a small nod and slowly walked to the front of the diving bell.

He looked at the round glass window covered in grime and curiously peered inside.

Murky dark red sludge churned faintly inside the Submersible. Something shaped like an eyeball pressed up against the window. Through the gaps between the smears of filth, it met Belazov’s gaze.

After a long moment, the General drew back his eyes. “It’s pitch-black inside. I can’t see a thing.”

“Yes. We haven’t opened its hatch yet,” Professor Merson nodded. “Naturally, we can’t clean its interior either.”

General Belazov smiled. “That is how it should be.”

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