Chapter 873: The Sea Witch’s Endeavor

The centuries-long conflict finally drew to a close when the last human was transformed into a naga—an ending that took every human by surprise, and even the sea witches themselves.

At its core, the “naga” phenomenon was an inexplicable anomaly for all involved. Neither humans nor sea witches could fully grasp its underlying principles.

Deep beneath the ocean, a sleek deep-sea shuttle glided silently over the seabed. Petia stood by the viewport, her gaze sweeping across the dark, mysterious waters and the rugged ocean floor. Amid the dim shadows, several makeshift settlements came into view. Newly transformed nagas rested quietly here, tended to by sea witches who moved among them like caretakers watching over “new friends.”

“I fear it will take us a long time to truly understand the ‘naga,’” the Sea Witch Queen murmured. “It’s an incredible phenomenon… a whole species, one with no biological ties to us sea witches, undergoing such a profound transformation—and it’s clearly connected to us somehow. This world is full of secrets, Rosalia.”

Rosalia, the deep-sea attendant, floated beside Petia and nodded softly. “As you say, Your Majesty.”

Petia gave a faint hum and casually asked, “Have the witches or deep-sea technicians reached any conclusions yet?”

“Nothing concrete so far,” Rosalia replied. “After questioning many of the nagas who have regained their senses and poring over human religious texts, the witches have formed some hypotheses. They believe this transformation may be linked to the long-standing ‘spiritual faith’ of a group of humans who call themselves the Children of the Storm.”

“Oh? Tell me more.”

“These ‘Children of the Storm’ worship a deity known as the Lord of Storms—obviously, that’s our ‘Great Squid.’ According to information shared by our allies in Cecil, human faith creates a power connection that points to a specific god. But the god of the Children of the Storm fell long ago. We sea witches… have likely taken that god’s place. So, for all these ages, the storm worshippers among humans have been unknowingly worshipping us—or more precisely, the sea witch collective.”

“Eva, huh…” Petia murmured thoughtfully, folding her arms. “That’s surprising. Judging by the timeline, we began excavating the Great Squid long before many of their civilizations even existed. So from the very birth of their religion, the Children of the Storm linked their faith to our species… yet we never did anything about it, nor were we even aware.”

“That’s one of the puzzles the witches are studying,” Rosalia said. “Human ‘faith’ seems to operate automatically, originally born from awe of natural phenomena or specific natural forces. Strictly speaking, the earliest storm worship wasn’t directed at any god, but at the ocean itself. According to intelligence from our Cecil allies, humans should have created a new ‘Storm God’ from their faith, but that process was interrupted by us. Our excavation trapped an ancient deity in a state between life and death, and we took its place. Plus, we control vast stretches of the ocean. So human faith naturally shifted to the ‘true rulers of the sea.’ This happened organically.”

“Does this ‘connection’ affect us in any way?”

“That’s still unclear. Human religious concepts are difficult for us to comprehend,” Rosalia shook her head. “But so far, this connection has lasted for many thousands of years. Even in previous civilizations, land-dwellers who revered the sea may have directed their faith toward us, but it never affected us. So it’s probably harmless.”

“Harmless to us… yet it’s influencing them,” Petia said, withdrawing her gaze from the naga settlements with a sigh. “It seems that this long-standing faith in the sea witches has caused these humans to transform into lifeforms resembling us. The power of ‘faith’ affecting physical matter—what an incredible change.”

“The witches are investigating that—especially what triggered it,” Rosalia replied. “The Children of the Storm’s faith has endured for millennia, but their transformation only began recently, without any gradual progression. That’s puzzling. Lady Hathaway currently suspects it’s the combined effect of the Children’s recent actions and changes within sea witch society.”

“Since last year, the Children of the Storm have become more aggressive, establishing many outposts near the ‘border.’ This brought them dangerously close to the Great Squid and to us, strengthening their connection to us. Meanwhile, during our last ‘hunt,’ we consumed a ‘Nature God’ created by humans, which seems to have biological influence—this influence might have triggered the naga phenomenon.”

Listening to Rosalia’s report, Queen Petia fell silent, lost in thought.

After a while, the deep-sea ruler lifted her head and sighed softly. “We must be more careful about what we consume… this world is truly dangerous.”

Rosalia nodded in agreement. “…Home is best. On the seabed, you can just pick up whatever you want to eat.”

“Speaking of the witches’ research—our human allies mentioned a mysterious signal they captured during their last contact. Has Lady Hathaway made any progress?”

“Tide Master Tyr submitted the signal’s characteristics along with his report. After comparison by the deep-sea technicians, it’s confirmed that the signal neither originates from Antavian nor matches any of our communication frequencies,” Rosalia answered promptly. “Lady Hathaway is very interested. She believes the signal’s transmission method and the technology humans use in their magic network communications could help us. For years, we’ve been unable to perceive or understand the magical environment of this world, so we haven’t been able to repair Antavian’s main antenna array. But now, there may be hope.”

“Oh?” Petia raised an eyebrow. “That’s excellent news.”

…

At the edge of the Io Continent, under the shining sun, a majestic steel starship lay prostrate along the coastline like a mountain. Gentle waves lapped at the ship’s hull and deck, caressing the immigrant vessel.

At the stern of the Antavian, on the platform housing the antenna array, deep-sea technicians bustled about.

At the platform’s edge stood the blue-haired deep-sea witch Hathaway, her cheek scales prominent, withdrawing her gaze from the distant beach.

The ship had crashed onto this planet at a steep angle, causing everything aboard to be tilted roughly thirty degrees relative to the planet’s gravity. The sea witches lacked the power to move the now powerless giant vessel, but they couldn’t abandon the vast supplies and precious living space onboard. After painstakingly restoring some ship functions, they first reactivated and recalibrated the Antavian’s gravity generator. By adjusting the gravity, the witches could stand comfortably on the tilted ship as if on solid ground, creating a strange sensation when looking out:

The whole world was tilted.

“I think we should install optical filters in all the Antavian’s observation areas,” the blue-haired witch said, gesturing between sky and ground as she spoke to her assistant. “To ‘straighten’ this tilted view. Right now, the scenery makes me dizzy.”

“…I think the main reason you feel dizzy is because you’ve had too many ‘Deep Sea Specials,’” the assistant said, swatting away Hathaway’s claw waving in the air. “That’s almost twice what I’ve had.”

“I need to stimulate my mind, keep my thinking sharp,” Hathaway replied, tapping the alloy floor with her tail, making a soft clicking sound. “The recent research projects are so exciting—I don’t want to stop for a moment…”

The assistant gave a helpless look at the respected but somewhat eccentric deep-sea witch. “‘Stimulate the mind’ is a human phrase, Master—we don’t even have brains.”

Hathaway glanced at her serious assistant and shook her head. “Boring.”

Sliding her long serpentine tail, the deep-sea witch who had survived the Great Crash and was a contemporary of the queen moved toward the antenna array nearby.

The massive ancient device stood solemnly, its streamlined shell covering a superalloy frame, hiding a complex internal structure. Its tip pointed toward the distant blue sky, and a set of highly sensitive sensor arrays constantly scanned all directions for incoming signals.

It was designed for interstellar faster-than-light communication, to contact other colony ships that had fled their homeworld.

But now, only the Antavian lay crashed and alone on this planet. The other refugees had long vanished into the chaos of spacetime. The advanced FTL communication array had lost its function in this strange environment, leaving only a basic sensor system barely operational. Receiving signals from space was out of the question; even maintaining communication within the atmosphere required various auxiliary enhancements.

Hathaway’s gaze followed the antenna’s shell upward. About a hundred meters high, she saw a section opened up, where deep-sea technicians were busy making sweeping modifications. Glimmering runic devices were being installed into the original framework, with numerous extra cables and drag chains extending from the “maintenance hatch.”

“Our human allies have generously shared many things with us…” the deep-sea witch whispered. “We once thought the technology on land was primitive, but it turns out even the so-called backward land dwellers have wisdom worth learning…”

Her assistant’s voice came from beside her. “Master, do you really think these modifications will work? After all, we’ve tried various methods to modify other things before…”

“Until a year ago, sea witches couldn’t even perceive or understand the ‘magic’ of this world. It’s something beyond our worldview, even incompatible with our physiology—that’s the result of conflicting rules,” Hathaway said in a low, serious tone. Now, she was the deep-sea witch respected by all sea witches. Her words made those around her nod thoughtfully. “Many years ago, I predicted that if the rules of this world differed even by one ten-thousandth from those of our homeworld, we would have turned to ash the moment we entered this spacetime. Fortunately, we didn’t encounter that extra deviation. We survived—but our survival is incomplete.”

“Our perception and thinking are confined within the limits of our own life forms. In this world, we’re like a species born incapable of grasping even simple addition and subtraction. We’re inherently unable to sense or understand part of this world’s structure. No matter how hard we try, we can’t fix the ship. Instead, the magical storms of this world keep knocking us down again and again.

“We can’t repair the antenna not because we lack intelligence or skill, but because, faced with certain information, we are effectively blind and deaf.

“But now, that flaw has been corrected.

“We can sense magic. We understand what magic is. The human runes no longer look like a chaotic jumble of symbols to us, and the energy vibrations in the air are no longer incomprehensible noise. With this foundation, every repair we make to the ship from now on won’t be random banging and guesswork like before.

“We’ve already managed to restore a small part of the core fusion tower to normal operation. Currently, Antavien’s energy supply rate has reached thirty-six percent. It’s a modest number, but it proves we’ve truly taken a step forward.

“Sisters, our efforts now have meaning—so let’s start by repairing the main antenna.”

(End of chapter)