Chapter 464: A Far Away Tale. The Seascape Left Behind
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 464: A Far Away Tale. The Seascape Left Behind
It was as if an abyssal being was staring at Kavila from a crack in the world. A writhing mass of flesh filled the room. Eyes moved bizarrely between the bursting chunks of meat. Tentacles, forcing their way through the gap, squirmed.
Fear is born from learning. Humans fear tigers because history and experience have taught them to. Thus, those who saw this being for the first time simply grimaced, feeling a mix of bewilderment, wonder, and disgust.
The same was true for the creature. A moment of silence. The eyes visible amidst the mass of flesh darted about.
Kavila stared at a giant eye and muttered.
“An octopus. Kraken-class.”
Its shelter destroyed, the octopus brandished its tentacles in a rage. Through the windows, the gaps in the roof, and the cracks in the walls, sucker-covered limbs shot toward Kavila.
The heavy, tough tentacles were weapons in and of themselves. A mere graze was enough to bring a stone wall crumbling down. Kavila threw her bone needles and murmured.
“They’re sea beasts that live among the rock crevices. Because of their size, they’re only seen occasionally near the Island Whale and almost never appear along the coast. I can’t even remember the last time I saw one.”
Dragonfang Puppets, sprouting from the bone needles, rushed to protect Kavila. Bone knives and bone saws swung at the octopus’s tentacles. However, the tough, slimy limbs were resistant to blades. As the Dragonfang Puppets faltered, the octopus crushed them in the grip of its suckered tentacles. Having shaken off the nuisance, it snatched Kavila with another limb.
Crunch. The octopus’s tentacle squeezed Kavila as if to crush her. An ordinary human would have been pulverized. But Kavila, even as her body was being mangled, remained unfazed.
“Though, it’s not much of a threat now that it’s on land.”
Snip. A pair of giant claws appeared from nowhere and crushed the octopus’s tentacle. It was Kavila’s lobster puppet. The octopus’s tough limb maintained its shape even under the pincer’s attack, but as the claws, following Kavila’s command, relentlessly opened and closed, chunks of the tentacle’s flesh were torn away. When the Dragonfang Puppets’ bone knives joined in, the octopus’s limb was finally severed.
Kavila, now on the ground, manipulated her blood energy. The severed tentacle tried to move on its own and reattach itself to the main body, but Kavila’s blood energy seeped into the wound, obstructing its movement. As the impurity invaded its body, the octopus’s tentacle convulsed and shriveled. Then, in an instant, crimson blood seeped into it, and the tentacle became Kavila’s faithful servant.
Valdamir, who had been silently watching Kavila fight, asked again.
“The conclusion?”
The moment the octopus had settled on land, its fate was sealed. While the Dragonfang Puppets and the lobster puppet dismembered the fleeing creature, Kavila turned to Valdamir with a weary expression and answered.
“…There was a clash between an Island Whale and a Cloud Manta. Otherwise, a tsunami of this magnitude wouldn’t have struck during the ebb tide.”
“Is that so.”
“Is that so? Is that all you have to say? I’m not your subordinate! You need to produce results commensurate with my efforts! You keep ordering me around as if it’s a matter of course, but don’t you forget that you and I are equals!”
Of course, even as she said it, Kavila knew it wasn’t true. Valdamir was stronger than her, a hero who had even thwarted a rebellion against the Progenitor. Valdamir was, in name and in truth, second only to one and above all others in the duchy.
If Tyrkanzyaka had been in a slightly worse mood… no, if not for her knowledge of the King of Humans, Kavila herself might have become a meal for the Shadow. Realizing her position, Kavila asked in a much more subdued voice.
“So. Isn’t it about time you confessed? How did you know a tsunami was coming and evacuate the humans in advance?”
“I had information.”
“Information? About something happening so far out at sea? Who, how, and why?”
Valdamir chose his words for a moment.
He knew who. But he didn’t know how, or why.
No, he couldn’t even be certain of the ‘who.’
He had encountered them once in Claudia. But ‘it’ had been different when it came to him. Like the deep-sea creature he had just seen, it was a different class of being from any he had ever known.
While Valdamir organized his thoughts, Kavila spoke.
“Don’t tell me. It couldn’t have been the Saintess. The Floating Castle? Was it the ‘Observer’ from the Mage Federation?”
It was a logical deduction. The Saintess was the vampires’ mortal enemy. Just as vampires hated the Sanctum, the Sanctum despised vampires. It was unlikely they would provide a helpful prophecy.
Well, it wasn’t entirely impossible if it ultimately benefited the Sanctum. But for the Sanctum, ‘benefit’ meant the annihilation of vampires.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? You’re not one to lie, so you must really not know. And you moved people based on words you couldn’t trust?”
“Because I didn’t know, I couldn’t just dismiss it. Besides, as you said, I was busy with the Progenitor’s matter at the time. There was no harm in granting a request from an unknown entity for the time being.”
Kavila was puzzled.
Valdamir was cold and rational. If he hadn’t trusted this unknown being, he would have captured them and extracted the information.
In other words, the fact that he hadn’t used that ‘rational’ solution meant…
“The great Lord Sanguine was unable to determine a victor?”
Valdamir answered Kavila’s suspicion honestly.
“We didn’t fight.”
“Hah? The Lord Sanguine Valdamir, who looks down on all the other Elders and lives for his own greatness, got scared? You’ve really mellowed out. What were you going to do if your source was a Saintess trying to endanger us?”
Come to think of it, the possibility of it being the Saintess was the highest. Valdamir nodded and replied.
“Indeed.”
“Indeed? You act like you can do anything with words, but when it comes down to it, you’re so irresponsible…”
Letting her resentful criticism go in one ear and out the other, Valdamir moved his greatsword. The sea beasts washed ashore from the Sea of Leviathan were powerful and dangerous, but not as much as Valdamir. Leaving only corpses for the humans to clean up, Valdamir cleared the coast as he advanced.
As he neared the original shoreline, his eyes caught sight of… something, an unnatural landform.
“What is that?”
“What am I, an instruction manual for you? I’m not telling you, so figure it out yourse—what is that?”
Even Kavila was left speechless at the sight of ‘it.’ The black mage, who had watched over the Sea of Leviathan longer than anyone, knew the sea better than anyone else in the world. Of course, one had to consider how little the world knew about the vast ocean, but Kavila’s knowledge was nonetheless deep and varied.
Even she had never seen the structure before her.
It was so large it felt unreal. There were still several kilometers to the coast, but ‘it,’ with its navy-blue splotches, looked as if a thin slice of land had been torn off and placed there. It was far too large to have been washed ashore by a tsunami.
“Blood?”
…If they hadn’t seen the dark red blood flowing from its cross-section, both Kavila and Valdamir would have mistaken it for an island swept in by the tsunami. Kavila sensed the alien blood energy and spoke.
“Is that a living creature? No, a piece of one? Which means…”
“A Leviathan. Is that the fin of a Cloud Manta?”
It was large enough to fill the entire coastline. The blood flowing from the severed part supported the fact that it was once part of a living being. It was unbelievable, but it was the only possibility. The dark blue splotches and the vertically running cartilage proved it belonged to a Cloud Manta.
What could have happened to such a massive and majestic Leviathan? Kavila muttered.
“Did it really fight an Island Whale? Sea beasts are still beasts, foolish as ever. Their sizes are completely different…”
“No. That cut is not the mark of a beast.”
Valdamir fearlessly walked toward the fin. Kavila hurriedly followed him.
What was originally tidal flats was now submerged in thigh-deep seawater after the tsunami. The boundary between land and sea was a difficult place even for an Elder, but Valdamir paid it no mind and pushed through the current. In this domain where neither human nor Ain could tread, only Kavila, riding her lobster, followed him.
“Are you trying to get killed? There’s seawater here! I know you’re feeling high and mighty right now, but a threat approaching from under the water is dangerous even for you or me!”
Kavila’s sincere warning fell on deaf ears as Valdamir finally reached the Leviathan’s remains.
The remains were a disaster for humans, but a feast for others. Thousands, tens of thousands of fish were gorging themselves, tearing at the Leviathan’s remains. Predators, drawn by the hunt, snatched their prey from the periphery. Hundreds of gulls circled in the sky, and hundreds of remoras attached to the fin enjoyed the windfall.
With tens of thousands of creatures swarming and devouring it, the cross-section was an unreadable mess. Some fish had even burrowed into the flesh to live inside. Finding any clues here would be next to impossible.
However. Valdamir, a swordsman, sensed the trace of a blade amidst this grand carnage. He looked at the perfectly straight cut and muttered.
“A single strike?”
“Valdamir! Watch out!”
Kavila’s sharp warning rang out.
Something was approaching through the water. A sea beast, mistaking Valdamir for prey, shot toward him like a bullet. He couldn’t detect it with his Bloodcraft in the seawater, but he read the flow of the current and swung his greatsword below the surface. Clang! Under the sea, the beast’s maw clashed with his greatsword.
Unbelievably, it was Valdamir who was pushed back. Unable to properly utilize his Heaven and Earth technique in the water, he was thrown back as if he’d been struck in mid-air. The predator, targeting this unfamiliar prey, thrashed its tail and pressed its assault on the greatsword.
Scrape, scrape. Its powerful teeth scratched the greatsword. The bite force was immense. Having roughly gauged the predator’s strength, Valdamir spun his body. Planting one foot firmly on the ground, he twisted his shoulder and waist slightly to gather power. He then unleashed his body’s rotation in a single, fierce swing of his greatsword.
The sword energy cut through the sea, leaving a great wound. The far-reaching slash dissipated, and a pitiful sea beast that had failed to properly assess its opponent was split in two. The fish that had been hunting a delicacy had become a delicacy itself, food for other fish.
Despite the amazing feat of slaying a sea beast underwater… Valdamir’s expression remained dark. Because even the sword energy he had unleashed with all his might was less than a speck of dust compared to the single strike that had severed the Leviathan’s fin.
And this was a Leviathan of immense size. Even a fish slightly larger than a man was incredibly powerful in the water; a primordial Leviathan would be beyond comparison. To sever a fin that had remained intact even after causing a tsunami, and in a single blow?
This was not a realm that could be reached through strength and skill alone. It was the work of one who had touched the Axiom, or perhaps approached the Divine. Only a Sword Saint or a Mage King could even be considered a possibility.
But… was it really them? Valdamir couldn’t jump to a conclusion.
“Something is happening.”
Tyrkanzyaka’s shadow. The King of Humans. And now, ‘something’ that had attacked a Leviathan. In this series of strange events, Valdamir sensed a great current.
The world was changing. And the vampires who lived in it had no choice but to change with it. No matter how much they wished to remain the same, the mercilessly flowing world would not let them be. Valdamir confirmed once more that his choice had not been wrong.