Chapter 42: The Shadow of Oblivion

She witnessed countless tribespeople being turned to dust under the enormous tentacles that overshadowed the sky, unable to even scream in despair. The strong, the mages of the royal court, and even the legendary royal guardians tried to rise up in resistance, but all efforts were futile against a terrifying power that could hardly be described as a disaster.

No attack could injure the tentacles in the slightest, nor could any effort shake them or attract the attention of the being behind them. It was as if the entity was merely going through the motions, harvesting the numerous seaweeds that had grown, utterly indifferent to their existence.

On that day, the East Sea Pearl was utterly destroyed, and no one survived.

When Nitira awoke again, she found herself unharmed, lying in the royal bedroom, bathed in the bright morning sun streaming through the window.

But at that moment, she had lost all memory of that disaster, not even sensing anything amiss, just like all the tribespeople who had reappeared as if the East Sea Pearl had been restored to its original state.

Because those were the memories belonging to the dead “them.”

And after that, the terrifying presence did not spare the beings living in this diorama—the Emerald Sea Region.

Every year, the Great Whirlpool would slow its activity during the climactic months of winter, the two coldest months, while the rest of the time, the entire Emerald Sea remained completely sealed.

If merchants from outside wanted to avoid getting trapped in the sea for an entire year, they would hurry to leave before the end of those two months, allowing them to escape, unaware…

Whenever the Great Whirlpool ended its slumber and soon sealed the entrance to the sea, countless enormous tentacles would surge up from the deep sea, annihilating all the beings in the Emerald Sea, only to restore everything the next day.

Every year, every creature within the sea would undergo this process; nothing could be spared. Those outsiders would never know that the local beings they interacted with annually were, in essence, not the original existences anymore.

Nitira was just over twenty years old, and in her recollections of death, she had experienced this at least a dozen times.

Sometimes she would stay in the royal court, crushed in her sleep without awareness, and other times, after growing up, she would witness the same terrifying tentacles obliterating entire islands and everything on those islands during missions to other tribal islands.

She had seen a variety of situations, but regardless of the environment or how many strong individuals were present, nothing could shake the absolute obliteration and bizarre reset.

However, the princess was slowly beginning to understand that what she had experienced was likely just a small reflection of the countless resets that had happened since ancient times in the Emerald Sea Region. For over a thousand years since the era of the gods, this sea had endured at least a thousand similar calamities.

If it weren’t for the time still flowing in the world, it was likely that even if such a process repeated countless times, the beings in this diorama would never realize—they were already countless ghosts that had died many times.

“Ha… Haah… Ha…”

The intense shock from repeated deaths caused the princess to pale, gasping for breath like a drowning victim just pulled from the deep sea. Her once bright and lively eyes lost their focus, seemingly tainted, darkened like they were being eroded.

Something was eroding her body, everything about her, and this process… was best resisted as little as possible.

“Now, do you understand?”

Watching the girl’s reaction, King Willipol returned to his earlier indifferent demeanor, quietly flipping through the Book of Truth in his hands as if waiting for something, slightly pitying as he continued to explain.

“Poor child… You seem to have been trying to trace the reasons for my disappearance, hating the ghosts, believing them to be the culprits leading to the devastation of all beings in the sea, but you must know that many things are not simply black and white.”

The former king of the mermen, now contorted into a bizarre shape, slightly lifted his head, as if recalling the past.

“Over five years ago, the Pirate King Rashid Bachiri came to the royal court to find me and discussed long with me. This matter was the fuse for everything that followed.”

“Rashid is a strange fellow; despite not possessing the ancient bloodline of our Merman Tribe, he benefited from the gods’ grace. Honestly, I was very surprised when he revealed the Book of Truth.”

“Until then, I believed the Book of Truth was the only sacred object, and only our Merman Tribe could know the dark secrets beneath this diorama, but clearly, the existence of Rashid Bachiri shattered that viewpoint.”

“To this day, I still don’t know his origins. The Book of Truth cannot uncover the secrets of others who hold it, but that’s irrelevant now.”

“When Rashid came to the royal court, he aimed to persuade me to ally with him. He said that the terrible existence hidden beneath the deep sea had prepared sufficiently through centuries of brutal plunder and was about to enter its final stages.”

“The being awakened would regain its fearsome power from its height of glory, perhaps even surpassing that. By then, the Emerald Sea, this diorama it hand-crafted, would face complete annihilation.”

“That is a true evil god, once an enemy of the god my tribe served.”

“When I heard such news, the shock in my heart was almost beyond words, not only because Rashid easily revealed secrets known only to our Merman leaders but also because his prophecy was not even shown in my Book of Truth before.”

“But he, through some means, proved that what he said was undeniably true. A mere outsider could acquire more truth than our Merman tribe, which has served the gods for generations? What a disgrace!”

As he said this, a dark cloud suddenly stained the deep, ocean-like eyes of King Willipol, even the fine tentacles that formed his face seemed to writhe more intensely at that moment.

“This must be because our Merman tribe has languished under the rule of the evil god for a thousand years, even year after year contributing sustenance, making the true god protecting us—the God of the Azure Sea and Truth—feel disappointed.”

“We must rectify everything and atone for past mistakes, mustn’t we?”

“To do so, we must find the power to confront it before the evil god who stole the name of the sea god revives.”

“Rashid told me that the Great Evil God in the deep sea had entered the final slumber and metamorphosis stage; in as soon as five years, or as long as ten, it would awaken completely.”

“But during this period, it would also lose all supervision and control over the diorama, hoping I could organize forces to quickly relocate the millions of beings within the Emerald Sea to avoid the complete destruction when the diorama collapses.”

“Hmph, he wishes to escape, fleeing like a frightened dog! Cowardly, foolish! He completely failed to understand the true intent behind the truth granted to him by my god!”

   

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