Chapter 708

Chapter 708: Knock Knock

The “elements” Rough Husks that had once appeared in the Deep Sea beneath Frostholm now showed up in this border sea, near the “Holy Land” of the Annihilators. This fact gave off an eerie, terrifying air, but it was not all that surprising.

After all, the “Abyssal Lord” was the thread that tied all of this together.

Morris squatted beside the humanoid Rough Husk. He took out a slender metal sampling spike and carefully pushed it toward the thing’s arm. The spike met an outer layer that was extremely tough – obviously much tougher than the skin of humans, elves, or Senkin – yet still a bit elastic, like some kind of dense, heavy-duty rubber.

He pressed harder and broke through that tough “skin”. The sampling spike turned half a circle inside the humanoid Rough Husk’s arm, and when he pulled it out, it brought with it some black, sludge-like material.

It was the familiar black sludge, but it seemed to have lost its activity. There was no sign of wriggling or reshaping at all.

“I’m starting to feel a little sick…” Shirley frowned hard. Those filthy clumps of black sludge gave her goosebumps. She could not help thinking of the chilling things that had happened back in Frostholm – the replicas that had grown in the fog, the Elder Gods’ tentacles that had kept spreading upward from the Deep Sea, the living sludge surging through pipes and sewers…

Yet Dog, who stood beside her, seemed completely unfazed. The Abyssal Hound moved closer to the humanoid Rough Husk with curiosity, circling it and sniffing all around. It looked as if Dog had found something, even pausing now and then as if lost in thought.

Shirley stared at him with open disgust: “Dog, what are you doing? You don’t think this stuff is gross at all… hey, don’t rub your head on it…”

“Dog, did you discover something?” Vanna asked seriously from the side.

“It doesn’t count as a discovery. This is my first time seeing this thing with my own eyes. Before this I only heard the captain describe it…” Dog shook his head. “I just feel like its scent… is a bit familiar.”

Duncan raised his eyebrows at that: “A bit familiar?”

“…Smells like ‘home’,” Dog muttered. “But I’m not too sure… it’s very faint. It just feels kind of familiar.”

Duncan’s expression slowly grew more solemn, but he did not speak for the moment.

Back then, in the Deep Sea under Frostholm, he had found a great number of “elements” Rough Husks. To fully burn away the hidden danger beneath Frostholm and prevent the Elder Gods’ replicant from waking, he had set fire to the Elder God tentacle that served as the “pillar”. That fire had then ignited all the Rough Husks in that section of the Deep Sea as well. Because of that, he had brought no samples back from that place. So until today, Dog had never truly come into contact with this kind of “replicant half-finished product” made by the power of the Abyssal Lord.

And now, Dog smelled the scent of the Abyssal Deep Sea, from these “half-finished products”.

Duncan faintly felt there was some kind of “problem” hidden inside Dog’s discovery.

Lucretia noticed the change on Father’s face and asked, a little worried: “Do you think something is wrong?”

Duncan’s expression was serious: “Why do these humanoid Rough Husks carry the scent of the Abyssal Deep Sea?”

“Is that actually wrong?” Lucretia asked, puzzled. “All these things were born from the power of the Abyssal Lord. It seems normal that they carry the scent of the Abyssal Deep Sea…”

Duncan turned his head: “From the information we have so far, ‘humans’ were also created by the Abyssal Lord. So why has Dog never smelled ‘home’ on any human body?”

The area fell silent at once. Lucretia blinked and finally realized what kind of “problem” Father had sensed.

Her gaze fell on the Rough Husk lying on the deck, that featureless lump without a face, fingers, or toes. Her expression slowly grew more serious.

Duncan spoke softly, still deep in thought: “All mortal races are derivatives of the Abyssal Deep, and the Abyssal demons are also creations of the Abyssal Lord. We treat ‘humans’ and ‘Abyssal demons’ as the two ends of a scale. So these humanoid Rough Husks… are they closer to ‘human’, or closer to ‘Abyssal demon’?”

“…I remember you said before that these clay-doll-like Rough Husks are probably the ‘half-finished products’ from when the Abyssal Lord first created the mortal races. Or you could say they are rough products processed according to some original blueprint. The Elder God tentacle in the Deep Sea under Frostholm was only a partial replica of the Abyssal Lord, so it could only produce this kind of Rough Husk. But if things went a step further, these Rough Husks might become real humans…”

Lucretia slowly spoke while recalling what Father had once told her about the Frostholm incident.

“And now Dog feels that these Rough Husks carry the scent of the Abyssal Deep Sea. Or in other words, he feels that these Rough Husks… are a lot like his own kind.”

“I never said that!” Dog muttered at once, but then he dropped down, sounding much less sure. “Uh, fine… they do feel a little bit like it…”

Shirley blinked, looked at Dog, then at the captain. Her gaze swept around them all, and she still looked confused: “What are you all talking about?”

Duncan glanced at the young lady, then raised his hand and pointed at the Rough Husk on the deck: “We’re talking about the point at which ‘humans’ first split away from Abyssal demons. Or, for these Abyssal demons that already have humanoid shapes, at what point they turn into ‘humans’.”

Shirley needed a moment. Then her eyes suddenly flew wide: “What the hell?!”

Duncan did not explain further. He only nodded lightly, then turned, ready to head back to the steering platform at the stern. They were already very close to the critical line at six nautical miles. Going farther required extra caution. He planned to move the Vanished forward just a little more to confirm the situation ahead.

But just as he was about to step away, a light knocking sound came from the outer side of the hull, cutting him off and breaking everyone’s train of thought.

Right after that, more knocking sounds reached all their ears.

Something was hitting the hull. At first there were only two or three impacts. Then more – a lot more.

Vanna’s face changed slightly. She strode to the edge of the deck in just a few steps and leaned over to look down at the sea.

Black Humanoid Husks, Rough Husks shaped as if molded from mud, bobbed all around. At a glance there were at least dozens, maybe hundreds, bumping again and again against the hull of the Vanished. They rose and sank on the calm sea as if pushed by unseen waves. Knock. Knock. Knock, knock…

What lay farther out was even more chilling.

Ahead of the Vanished, out across the distant water, more blurred shapes were slowly drifting in from the misty surface. Countless humanoid Rough Husks rolled and heaved like dead logs in the water. They drifted along in the same direction, one after another slamming into the side of the Vanished. Each impact gave off a dull thud, and then they rolled away, changing their drifting path and continuing on toward the rear, toward the Radiant Star…

On the foredeck of The Rest, Polly, a goddess-officiant in the black robes of the Death Church, stood at the rail. Dark gold curls framed her tense face as she stared down at the sea. Those humanoid Rough Husks drifting in from afar like blackened driftwood filled her vision with a chill, uncanny horror.

A junior priest stood at her side, looking very uneasy: “Bishop Polly, what exactly are these things?”

“They are things born from the power of the Abyssal Lord. They probably drifted here from that so-called ‘Holy Land’,” Polly said casually. At the same time, a voice was speaking in her mind, telling her details about these humanoid Rough Husks. That voice came from the Vanished, from the “Lady Agatha” who followed Captain Duncan in the form of a shadow: “Ignore them. These things are dead. As long as we don’t touch them on purpose, they will not threaten our ironclad ships.”

“Yes, Bishop.”

The junior priest bowed his head and withdrew, but he had barely been gone for long before he hurried back to Polly again.

“Bishop! The bottom of the ship – there are some down at the bottom too!”

“The bottom of the ship?!”

Polly rushed to the lower decks. There she heard the knocking sounds echoing almost through the entire lower hold.

The impacts came in a constant stream, as if from all directions at once. Countless hard objects were drifting in the water and striking the steel hull. The sound echoed through the compartments, dull and unsettling. Polly even felt a strange illusion.

It was like countless people were outside, each holding a sledgehammer, knocking on the hull on purpose and sending a rolling echo through the ship.

Images rose in her mind without her wanting them. She pictured countless faceless humanoid Rough Husks floating in the waters around The Rest, not only on the surface but underwater as well. Hundreds and thousands of Black Mud Homunculi clung to the ship’s underside, slamming against it again and again, clawing and scraping, trying to punch through the thick steel and sink this uninvited guest that had intruded on the Holy Land…

She shook her head hard and forced those “associations”, which might cause unpredictable trouble, back down. Then she turned to the technicians who had come down with her: “Will the hull be damaged?”

“At the current level of impact, the hull won’t suffer any damage,” the artificer answered at once. “These are just collisions. The force is no more than floating driftwood in the sea… but honestly, the sound is extremely disturbing. And ever since ‘those things’ started hitting the hull near the engine room, the steam engine has been making irregular noises while running…”

Polly’s eyes sharpened: “Have the machines been bewitched?”

“Not to a serious degree, but the machines do feel disturbed. I hope you can ask a priest from the Cathedral to come down and perform a calming mass for the boiler and the Sorting Engine.”

“Fine, I’ll notify the Cathedral and have them send someone,” Polly said at once.

Just as she finished speaking, a hoarse and blurry voice suddenly slipped into her mind. It blended with the constant knocking all around, wove through the echoes in the lower decks, as if it had condensed directly from the cold seawater outside the hull, then seeped into her heart.

“You… will become like them… just like we did…”

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