Chapter 1304: Rising Tide

In the boundless sea sculpted from water elementals, currents surged and swirled. Deep beneath the waves, a powerful tide took shape, swiftly stabilizing into the form of a woman.

The Sea Witch Queen Petia flicked her fish tail gracefully as she approached the rushing “Deep Blue Current” alongside her guards and the deep-sea sorceresses. Her eyebrows lifted slightly as she turned to the Abyss Commander beside her. “Sentinel Korolin fell here, didn’t she?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” the commander bowed respectfully. “It was an accident. A rapidly moving cube suddenly appeared in the current. Korolin didn’t notice it, and after it struck her battle blade, she lost her balance…”

“Your Majesty!” Sentinel Vera stepped forward anxiously. “Is Korolin still alive? Has she returned?”

“We haven’t found her at the rendezvous point yet,” Petia said slowly, shaking her head. “It’s possible she was swept too far away and has respawned in another body of water on this planet. But no matter what, she can’t leave this world. She will come back.”

As the deep-sea sovereign’s words faded, a massive figure swam over—a Water Elemental Lord who had just finished treatment at the outpost. He stopped a short distance from Petia, eyes filled with a mix of awe and caution as he regarded this “foreign water elemental leader.” “Great Devourer, what exactly happened here?”

“We suspect those who’ve been throwing things into the Deep Blue Network have begun to act,” Petia said calmly. “This might be a test—or perhaps a critical mass of those cubes has triggered an inevitable change. Either way, we’ve sent warnings to our allies. Hopefully, no more uncontrollable incidents will occur…”

The Water Elemental Lord rolled his eyes inwardly. “Hopefully no more uncontrollable incidents? What on this planet could be more out of control than these sea witches?!”

…

The cold wind howled, sand swirling through the air. The atmosphere was thick with the acrid scent of magic reacting with the air. Through the heavy, polluted clouds, a faint, feeble sunset bled over the jagged mountain ridges in the distance, like a dried bloodstain glaring painfully. In a deep valley depression, the sisters Filna and Relna stood silently on the observation platform beside the Deep Blue Rift, brows furrowed.

“The rune stones we deployed yesterday have lost contact again,” came the rasping voice of High Priest Borken as he approached, his tall frame and withered, twisted face casting a grim shadow. “Almost every fourth stone goes ‘offline,’ and the losses cluster around two or three specific node intervals…”

“That means there’s a problem with one of the Deep Blue Currents,” Filna interrupted before he could finish. “That current might be passing through an extremely unstable boundary layer—or… something is actively intercepting and sabotaging the ‘foreign objects’ in the current.”

Borken’s yellow-brown eyes fixed on the elven twins with a sinister gleam. “Are there really things in this world you can’t figure out?”

“Hmph,” Relna snorted. “Omniscience is a foolish concept. We just know more than you in most fields. Forget about those lost rune stones for now. Stop deploying to those problematic nodes temporarily—we have plenty of alternative routes.”

“More important than the lost stones is the ‘test’ we just completed,” Filna added. “Yesterday, we used existing control nodes to perform a low-power ‘release.’ High Priest, you witnessed the energy field spreading through the atmosphere. Surely you no longer doubt the knowledge we’ve shared.”

“Our theoretical model is sound, clearly so, High Priest,” Relna said, locking eyes with Borken. “A controlled Deep Blue Network can create a planetary ‘Eden Barrier.’ Selected evolved beings inside the barrier will have permanent protection—no more magical tides, no more gods. An eternal, safe world, just as we promised.”

“…Let’s hope so,” Borken said, his deep brown eyes narrowing. “But don’t forget, the energy field from yesterday’s test was far from standard. We haven’t deployed nearly enough rune stones, and the Deep Blue Network isn’t as easy to ‘tame’ as you claimed. This planet resists our control—and now we face the embarrassment of rune stones disappearing one after another.”

“Patience, my High Priest. Great things require patience,” Filna smiled calmly. “You’ve waited here for centuries, haven’t you? You’ve watched your foolish, shortsighted kin suffer crushing defeats from impatience. You don’t want to repeat their mistakes…”

Borken snorted, about to retort, when suddenly a loud, brash young female voice interrupted from nearby: “What are you guys talking about?”

The elven twins and the treant leader froze, then all three pairs of eyes snapped toward the voice. The next moment, even the cult leader and the “Sentinel” who had intruded into the mortal realm couldn’t hide their shock. From the Deep Blue Rift beneath their feet, rippling water currents had suddenly surged, and from the intangible magical flow emerged a female figure.

She had pale purple hair, wore strange, form-fitting armor unlike anything seen on land, and wielded a weapon that looked like a fusion of a trident and a spear. Her skin shimmered with a faint blue glow, and her eyes brimmed with curiosity as she looked up at the platform.

“What did you just say?” Korolin, who had been tossed dizzy in the Deep Blue Current and barely found an exit, asked again, noticing the strange figures staring blankly without answering. “What does ‘taming the Deep Blue Network’ mean? Controlling the planet? Who are you people anyway? What the hell is going on here?”

She craned her neck, looking around. She realized she was at the bottom of a large pit. Then her gaze landed on another platform nearby, where several black cubes covered in intricate runes were neatly lined up, seemingly waiting to be activated.

The sea witch sentinel, still dazed moments ago, suddenly snapped to attention. “Damn it, I get it now! You’re the ones who keep throwing stuff into the Deep Blue Network!”

Only then did Borken, still half-shocked, fully register the situation. He didn’t pause to consider the strange woman emerging from the Deep Blue Network or how she managed it. Like any conspirator whose plan was about to be exposed, his first instinct was to silence her immediately.

He didn’t even consider capturing her alive. She had only half emerged from the current, and it was clear she could move freely through the energy flow. Hesitate for a moment, and she’d vanish through the network in an instant—then it would be too late.

His mind raced, decision made in a flash. Borken spread his gnarled, branch-like hands, unleashing a powerful wave of corruption and decay that formed a gray-white spike piercing through the air. He held nothing back, aiming to kill this seemingly human but impossible-to-be-human creature instantly.

But at that moment, the faces of the Relna and Filna sisters changed dramatically. They seemed to realize something and shouted in unison, “Don’t kill her!”

Their warning came too late. The lethal gray-white spike, launched with the full force of a legendary warrior, flew straight at Korolin. Still reeling from the tumbling in the Deep Blue Current, she barely had time to raise her battle blade and cry out, “Ah—” before she was struck down instantly.

A splash of shimmering blue water erupted, then vanished into thin air. The mysterious intruder left no trace, as if evaporating before their eyes.

Borken stared in disbelief at the twins who had shouted moments ago. “What did you say?”

“We said don’t kill her! Damn it, you…” Relna glared fiercely. In all her years inhabiting this mortal shell, she rarely felt such anger. But she quickly realized her fury was useless now. This unreliable freak was their only “ally” at the moment. She forced herself to suppress her rage and said in a restrained tone, “Our base here has been exposed, High Priest. Prepare yourself—or rather, there’s no time to prepare. All plans must be set in motion immediately!”

“I don’t understand,” Borken said harshly, clearly displeased with the elves’ attitude. “I killed that intruder completely—no trace left. Don’t doubt my power. On this planet, almost no mortal can survive my Decay Spike. Not even dragons!”

“That’s exactly the problem, High Priest!” Filna raised her voice. “That was a sea witch! Only a very limited number of soul-based powers can kill such a creature. Your Decay Spike only temporarily disintegrated her body. She’s already returned to her deep-sea lair, carrying all the secrets she uncovered here! Now it’s clear—these days, it’s the sea witches intercepting our rune stones. For whatever reason, this ancient alien race has taken a stand against us. High Priest, do you understand the situation?!”

Sea witches?!

Borken finally snapped out of his anger. The unfamiliar word “sea witch” triggered faint memories—stories about the deep abyssal seas, songs echoing among reefs and islands, and the mad, terrified accounts of sailors who barely survived the surging tides. He inhaled slowly. “You mean the sea witches—the Children of the Storm from centuries past…”

“Begin everything early, High Priest,” Filna interrupted the treant leader. “There’s no point in hiding and waiting any longer.”

“But… we’re still nowhere near ‘taming’ the Deep Blue Network!” Borken couldn’t help but say. “And is the situation really that dire? Our previous tests already triggered observable phenomena worldwide—there’s no way our enemies could have noticed—”

“Exposing your existence and revealing your hand are two completely different things, High Priest,” Laelna interrupted sternly. “The civilization of those sea sirens is far more advanced than you realize. That ‘scout’ has already seen many of the things we set up here. The truths they can deduce far exceed what the weaker surface races could grasp. And I’m deeply worried… those deep-sea creatures may have already formed alliances with the surface’s weaker races without us knowing.” Her tone was grave. “We have to start the plan early. Though it means losing many advantages we should have had, it’s better than letting the entire operation collapse.”

The ancient rogue AI, inhabiting a replicated body, ground her teeth as she spoke, her expression darkening. This sudden turn of events had severely disrupted the plan, preventing some of her arrangements from being completed on schedule. But then, beside her, Filna seemed to find a new thread of reasoning from another line of thought. “But it’s not all bad. Those mortal kingdoms beyond the wasteland are probably unprepared. If we act early, we should be able to catch them off guard—”

“Wait,” Borken suddenly interrupted, as if sensing something. He shook his withered, twisted crown of branches and spread his two arms, formed from entwined, curved vines. His deep brown eyes were sharp with alertness. “Do you feel it… the moisture in the air is increasing?”

“Moisture?” Filna frowned. The body she now inhabited was limited by mortal physical form, and her senses were no stronger than an ordinary elf’s. The High Priest, now a half-plant being, was clearly more sensitive to ‘moisture.’ After a few seconds, Filna finally understood what he meant.

The air was growing damp. A faint, briny scent drifted into her nostrils.

In this barren wasteland far from the sea, she smelled the ocean.

The sound of waves echoed like a hallucination in her ears—so vivid it felt as if the entire sea was right before her eyes. But the sound wasn’t a mere vibration in the air—it resonated within her soul and mind, creating a sensory bridge between reality and perception. The moisture thickened. The dry stones and cliffs in the surrounding valley had somehow begun to weep droplets of water. The salt-laden wind stirred the withered branches and leaves of the treants. Then, suddenly, a soft, gentle song rose from the waves.

That song began to link the minds of everyone present, planting thoughts of longing for the deep sea, for diving down, for merging with the dark abyss.

It was the unique psychic song of the sea sirens—

Queen Petia was singing.

The deep ocean was descending into this valley through her voice.

Without hesitation, the sisters Filna and Laelna raised their hands, pointing toward the spatial rift lying in the pit nearby. Layers of shimmering halos appeared around them, manipulating the boundaries of the rift.

“Blow this passageway to hell!”

They shouted in unison.

(End of chapter)