Chapter 816 (1/2)
Chapter 816: [Deep Sea Demons]
Translator: TransN Editor: Meh
Now everyone in the Third Border City knew that a God’s Punishment Witch could regain her appearance and feelings when she entered the Dream World by cutting off her consciousness. Roland had repeatedly heard Phyllis describe their enthusiasm for the Dream World. According to her, every time she got back to the underground, they would follow her and keep asking about her experiences in that world.
He wondered whether they would still be eager to merge with shells when they found out this new method to restore their feelings.
However, it was not a perfect solution to their problem, as they could only regain their appearance and feelings in their sleep. By contrast, being in shells, they could always have some feelings, and these shells were almost immortal unless they were heavily damaged.
It would be difficult to make a choice between these two alternatives.
He thought of another possibility for them. If they had kept the news about the Dream World a secret, they would have been able to send the instrument and God’s Punishment Witches there to carry out their Soul Transfer. This way, the volunteers would never be able to go back even if they regretted afterwards. However, he believed that Pasha would not delude her witches into accepting the shells. Based on his observation in the past month, though the Taquila witches had lived in seclusion for hundreds of years, they did not turn into a conservative organization. They were still open to new things and had abolished class inequality in their group. Apparently, the sacrifice of the Three Chiefs had deeply moved them, and the threat posed by demons had kept them working to make greater progress.
Pasha seemed to read his mind. “You don’t have to worry about this problem. With more shells, we’ll be better equipped to defeat the demons. Original carriers can operate the magic core, and devouring worms can speed up the construction of the defense line. They’ll do everything to win the upcoming Battle of Divine Will without hesitation. In fact, the volunteers have decided to go to the Great Snow Mountain together with the instrument.”
“Volunteers aren’t afraid of any sacrifice…” Roland thought while biting his lips. “It seems that I’ve worried too much. I’ll send ships to transport the instrument for you when the exploration has finished.”
“Thank you for helping us,” she said happily.
He nodded and laid Soraya’s pictures on the table. “All the information I’ve sent you before were written materials. I finally received these pictures of the ruins today. I would like to know your thoughts on this monster.”
“Please wait for a moment.” She waved her tentacles to summon Celine and Alethea, who had been repairing the Instrument of Divine Retribution. Three blobs came to the light curtain to study the pictures together.”
With their tentacles connected, they remained silent for an unexpectedly long time, and communicated though their minds. As they were not able to show any expression on the outside, he felt as if this video call had already disconnected.
After a long time, he finally heard Pasha in his head again. “Sorry to have kept you waiting. We’re shocked by some pictures, so we have to discuss them thoroughly.”
“It’s neither a demonic beast nor a demon, right?”
“Yes,” said Celine, “and the skeleton that fell into the water has appeared in Lady Natalia’s description about the Divine Land.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. We’ve stayed underground for hundreds of years, but we would never be so foolish as to forget such an important piece of information. In fact, carriers have a much better memory than human beings,” said Alethea, grumpily. “Lady Natalia saw the sea and skeletons in the third painting scroll. This thing in the pictures matches her description. More importantly, this lake is connected to the sea. We can be sure it’s the thing mentioned by Lady Natalia.”
“So, now we can say it’s from the unknown civilization?” He asked while touching his chin. He was not surprised at their conclusion. When he had found the devouring worm also swallowing things in the Devil’s Town, he had suspected that it must have been sent by some neutral party who had decided not to help anyone in the Battle of Divine Will. Alternatively, it could also have been the unknown enemy in the upcoming battle. He had made up this exploration plan not only to help the Taquila survivors but also to eliminate hidden threats for Neverwinter and spy on the unknown enemy.
He had read a similar description in Zero’s memory fragment, but it was vague. Now, as the Taquila witches also thought the monster belonged to the unknown enemy, he could confirm that suspicion.
“It’s highly possible, but…” Pasha hesitated for a while and continued. “There’re still many things we don’t understand, such as the demonic beasts.”
“These beasts across the Land of Dawn are mutated animals. They should have been affected by the Erosion of magic power, just like witches. But why did they follow this monster’s orders? It’s different from the demons who enslave the demonic hybrids. The beasts seemed to willingly obey this monster’s orders.”