WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 459: A Story from Afar. A View of the Sea Left Behind

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It was as if something from the Abyss were staring at Cabilah through a crack in the world.

The room was crammed with writhing masses of flesh. Eyes moved grotesquely between chunks of meat that looked ready to burst, while tentacles squirmed through gaps in the walls.

Fear was learned. Humans feared tigers because history and experience had taught them to. Those seeing that creature for the first time frowned in confusion, awe, and disgust.

The creature was no different.

After a brief silence, the eyes visible between the masses of flesh darted about.

Cabilah looked at the enormous eyes and muttered.

"An octopus. Kraken-class."

Its hiding place had been destroyed, and the octopus lashed out in rage. Tentacles lined with suckers shot toward Cabilah through the windows, gaps in the roof, and cracks in the walls.

The thick, tough limbs were weapons in themselves. Even a glancing blow brought stone walls crashing down. Cabilah threw bone needles as she spoke.

"They're sea-beasts that live in rock crevices. Because of their size, you only see them around Whale Island now and then. They almost never come near the coast. I can't even remember how long it's been since I last saw one."

Dragon Fang Soldiers sprouted from the bone needles and rushed forward to protect Cabilah. Bone blades and bone saws swung at the octopus's tentacles, but its tough, slimy flesh resisted their edges.

As the Dragon Fang Soldiers hesitated, the octopus wrapped them in its sucker-lined tentacles and crushed them. Having shaken off the interference, it grabbed Cabilah with another limb.

Crunch.

The tentacle squeezed Cabilah as though it would crush her apart. An ordinary human would have been reduced to pulp, but Cabilah remained calm even as her body was mangled.

"Once it's come onto land, it isn't much of a threat."

Snip.

An enormous claw shot out from somewhere and crushed the octopus's tentacle. It belonged to Cabilah's puppet, the lobster. The tentacle retained its shape despite the claw's attack, but every time the claw opened and snapped shut under Cabilah's command, chunks of flesh were sliced away.

Once the Dragon Fang Soldiers joined in with their bone blades, the tentacle was eventually severed and fell to the ground.

Cabilah landed on the ground and manipulated her blood energy. The severed limb moved on its own, trying to reattach itself to the body, but Cabilah's blood energy seeped into the cut and disrupted its movement. As the foreign substance entered it, the octopus's limb convulsed and curled up.

Then dark red blood seeped into it.

The octopus's tentacle became Cabilah's loyal servant.

Valdamir watched Cabilah fight in silence before asking, "So, your conclusion?"

The octopus's end had already been decided the moment it settled on land. While the Dragon Fang Soldiers and lobster tore apart the fleeing creature, Cabilah turned toward Valdamir with an irritated expression.

"...An island whale and a cloud ray must have collided. Otherwise, a tidal wave this large wouldn't have struck while the water was receding."

"Is that so?"

"Is that so? Is that all you have to say? You aren't my sister! If I'm giving you information, you should give me results too! You keep ordering me around like it's only natural, but don't forget that we're equals!"

Of course, even as she said it, Cabilah knew that was not true.

Valdamir was stronger than she was, a hero who had even stopped the rebellion against the Progenitor. He was, in name and reality, second only to the Progenitor in the Duchy.

Had Tyrkanzyaka been in a slightly worse mood... No, had Cabilah not possessed knowledge of the King of Humanity, she might have become a bite-sized snack for the shadow.

Recognizing her position, Cabilah asked in a more subdued voice.

"Anyway, isn't it about time you confessed? How did you know a tidal wave was coming and evacuate the humans beforehand?"

"I had information."

"Information? About something happening in the distant open sea? From who, how, and why?"

Valdamir chose his words carefully.

He knew who.

But he did not know how or why.

No, he could not even be certain of who it was.

He had encountered it once in Claudia. Yet when that thing came looking for Valdamir, it had been different somehow. Like the creature from the deep sea he had just seen, it was a kind of human unlike any he had known before.

While Valdamir gathered his thoughts, Cabilah spoke.

"Don't tell me it was a Holy Maiden. The floating castle? Was it an Observer from the Mage Kingdom?"

It was a natural conclusion.

The Holy Maiden was the vampires' sworn enemy. Just as vampires hated the Sanctum, the Sanctum despised vampires. There was no reason it would offer a prophecy that could help them.

Well, it might if it ultimately benefited the Sanctum. But the Sanctum's benefit was the extinction of vampires.

"I don't know."

"You don't know? You wouldn't lie, so you really mean it. You pulled everyone back based on that?"

"Because I didn't know, I couldn't dismiss it lightly. 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 being, at least for the moment."

Cabilah found that strange.

Valdamir was cool-headed and rational. If the unknown being had not seemed trustworthy, he would have captured and imprisoned it, then extracted its information.

Which meant that he had been unable to use that rational solution...

"The great Duke of Crimson Blood couldn't settle the matter by force?"

Valdamir answered her suspicion honestly.

"We didn't fight."

"What? Crimson Duke Valdamir, who considers every Elder beneath him and lives for his own greatness, got scared? You've softened up quite a bit. What if it was a Holy Maiden trying to put us in danger?"

Come to think of it, that was the likeliest possibility.

Valdamir nodded.

"You're right."

"You're right? You acted as though you could do anything, yet you're being so irresponsible yourself..."

Valdamir let her resentful criticism go in one ear and out the other as he moved his greatsword.

The sea-beasts washed in from the Sea of Leviathans were powerful and dangerous, but they were no match for Valdamir. Leaving behind only corpses for the humans to clear away, he advanced along the coast.

As he drew closer to the original shoreline, something unusual came into view.

"What is that?"

"Am I supposed to be your guidebook? I won't tell you, so figure it out yourse... What is that?"

Even Cabilah could not close her mouth at the sight.

The black mage who had watched over the Sea of Leviathans longer than anyone knew the sea better than anyone else. Of course, the world knew very little about that vast ocean, but Cabilah's knowledge was still broad and deep.

Even she had never seen a structure like the one before them.

It was so large that it did not feel real. The coast was still several kilometers away, but the dark blue-spotted thing looked as though someone had sliced off a thin piece of land and placed it there. It was far too large to have been swept in by a tidal wave.

"Blood?"

...Had they not seen dark red blood flowing from its cross-section, both Cabilah and Valdamir might have mistaken it for an island swept in by the tidal wave.

Cabilah sensed its unfamiliar blood energy and spoke.

"Is that a living thing? No, a piece of one? Then..."

"A sea-beast. Is it a cloud ray's fin?"

It was large enough to fill the entire coastline. Blood pouring from the severed surface proved that it had once been part of a living creature. It was hard to believe, but there was no other explanation.

The dark blue markings and the cartilage running lengthwise both proved that it belonged to a cloud ray.

What could have happened to such an enormous, majestic sea-beast?

Cabilah muttered.

"Did it really fight an island whale? Sea-beasts are still beasts, so I suppose they're stupid. Their sizes aren't even comparable..."

"No. That cross-section wasn't made by a beast."

Valdamir fearlessly walked toward the fin. Cabilah hurried after him.

The place had once been tidal flats, but seawater now rose to their thighs after the tidal wave. The boundary between land and sea was burdensome even for an Elder, yet Valdamir ignored it and pushed through the current.

In territory where neither humans nor Ains could set foot, only Cabilah, riding atop her lobster, followed behind him.

"Do you want to die? There's seawater here! I know you've gotten arrogant lately, but even you and I would be in danger from something approaching beneath the water!"

Cabilah's sincere warning did nothing to stop Valdamir. He reached the sea-beast's remains.

The remains were a disaster for humans, but a festival for someone else.

Thousands, tens of thousands of fish tore at the sea-beast's flesh and filled their bellies. Predators that had come to hunt them snatched prey from the edges whenever they could. Hundreds of seagulls circled overhead, while hundreds of remoras clinging to the fin enjoyed the feast as well.

With tens of thousands of creatures devouring it so ravenously, the cross-section had been reduced to an unrecognizable mess. Some fish had even burrowed into its flesh and begun living inside.

Finding a clue here would be nearly impossible.

Yet Valdamir was a swordsman. Amid that immense devastation, he sensed the trace of a blade.

Looking at the perfectly straight cross-section, Valdamir muttered.

"One strike?"

"Valdamir! Watch out!"

Cabilah's sharp warning rang out.

Something came through the current.

A sea-beast that had mistaken Valdamir for prey shot toward him like a bullet. He could not sense it through bloodcraft in seawater, but he read the flow of the current and swung his greatsword beneath the surface.

Clang!

The sea-beast's jaws collided with the greatsword underwater.

Unbelievably, Valdamir was the one being pushed back. Unable to properly unleash Heaven and Earth in the water, he was driven back as though the clash had taken place in midair. The predator, which had targeted unfamiliar prey, whipped its tail again and again as it forced the greatsword farther back.

Crunch, crunch.

Its powerful teeth gouged the greatsword. Its bite strength was tremendous.

Having roughly measured the predator's power, Valdamir spun. He planted one foot firmly on the ground, twisted his shoulders and waist slightly, and gathered his strength.

Then he released the rotation of his body at once and swung the greatsword with all his might.

Sword energy split the sea, leaving behind a huge wound. The blade energy traveled far before fading, and one unfortunate sea-beast that had failed to understand its opponent was split in two.

The fish that had sought a delicacy became one itself, food for the other fish.

Valdamir had accomplished the remarkable feat of cutting down a sea-beast underwater, yet his expression remained grim. Even the sword energy he had launched with all his strength was not a speck compared to the strike that had severed the sea-beast's fin.

And that sea-beast had been enormous.

A fish only slightly larger than a person possessed immense strength underwater, so an ancient sea-beast would be beyond comparison. Something had severed a fin that remained intact after creating a tidal wave in one stroke?

That was not a realm attainable through strength and skill.

It had reached the principles of the world, or come close to the Demon God. Only beings such as the Sword Saint or the Demon King could even be considered capable of something like that.

But... was it really them?

Valdamir could not reach a hasty conclusion.

"Something is happening."

Tyrkanzyaka's shadow. The King of Humanity. And the something that had attacked the sea-beast.

From those successive anomalies, Valdamir sensed a great current.

The world changed. The vampires living within it had no choice but to change as well. No matter how much they wished to remain as they were, the mercilessly moving world would not leave them alone.

Once again, Valdamir confirmed that his choice had not been wrong.

Footnotes:

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