Amidst the boiling and violently surging water, a giant object, far larger than the previous fish monster, suddenly rose from the mud beneath Sevrin's feet.
Carrying unknown tens of thousands of kilograms of immense force and a thick, heavy scent of salt, it charged from below with lightning speed, roaring as it rammed him toward the surface above.
In a flash, millions of tons of lake water and murky mud were churned by this suddenly appearing behemoth into a rolling torrent of sludge that swept in all directions, turning this area of the lakebed into absolute chaos.
During the brief period of this chaotic upheaval, the behemoth had already carried Sevrin along, charging upward for several thousand meters.
Sevrin, who was being forcefully pushed and carried upward while cutting through the heavy lake water, finally managed to clearly see the full appearance of this behemoth.
The opponent was actually a pitch-black ship about fifty meters long, covered in iron armor. Its surface was filled with countless eyes and arms of various sizes, densely packed like the back of a Surinam toad.
Sevrin was currently being pinned and carried by the bow of this pitch-black warship, cutting through the lake and slicing the waves as it charged toward the surface.
"HAHAHA, I completely didn't expect this!"
Under the violent battering of millions of water currents, Sevrin looked at this black ship just inches away and laughed, "You, the Salt God, are actually a ship."
Indeed, relying on his Wild Nature intuition and various clues, he instantly recognized the identity of this ship.
It was the Salt God of Ly Lake.
[ Character Name: Salt God
Level: Spirit-Anomalous → Sixth Rank
Mastered Skills: "Anomalous Life-Source" "Bronze Head, Iron Arms" "Salt Burst Heavy Cannon"
Special Traits: [Level 3 Robust Physique] [Level 3 Stamina] [Level 3 Iron Body] [Level 1 Self-healing]
Expert Shards: None ]
"A Spirit-Anomalous and a so-called Sixth Rank."
Sevrin sneered, "Who could have imagined that the Salt God was actually a warship that became a spirit and caused trouble."
Amidst his cold laughter, he learned all the skills of this ship-spirit.
However, he didn't upgrade any of them, keeping them all at Level 0.
This was because Sevrin had no desire to become a broken boat for the time being.
Diverging back, just as the Salt God was charging forward and pinning Sevrin to push him toward the surface of Ly Lake, Sevrin's form suddenly blurred, abruptly transforming into a hazy, intangible, and somber ghostly entity.
In an instant, the ship-spirit charged right through Sevrin's illusory ghostly body, and all alone, it sped toward the surface above at extreme speed.
At this moment, Sevrin shifted back to human form. Snapping the twin whips in his hands, he suddenly launched himself toward the Salt God of Ly Lake as it sped away.
RUMBLE ——
Trailing a long string of rolling bubbles, Sevrin kicked against the lake water, leaping tens and hundreds of meters in a second, and grabbed onto the long, pointed stern of the Salt God ship-spirit.
Immediately, using his steel whips as pickaxes and fighting against the downward torrents that were strong enough to shatter steel and wood, he swung left and right, carving out holes and handholds as he climbed all the way from the stern to the midsection of the hull.
Upon reaching this point, Sevrin grew intrigued and simply retracted one steel whip. His left hand gripped and pierced through the deck to stabilize his body, while his right hand continued to hold the whip, channeling surging force into each and every lash directed at the hull within his sight.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Dull thuds echoed continuously as flashes of light flickered.
With every lash from Sevrin, while creating clusters of deep-sea air bubbles and flickers of light, he smashed a part of the Salt God's external hull structure. Arms and eyes went flying, and large amounts of a pitch-black liquid with a foul, metallic stench sprayed out.
After just a few seconds, the Salt God's entire hull began to shudder violently as if having a seizure, and it started to rampage blindly through the lake with Sevrin still clinging to it.
Clearly, it was being driven to distraction.
Simultaneously, the numerous slender arms on both sides of the Salt God's hull attacked frantically toward Sevrin on its 'back', trying to pull him off.
But these arms, as hard as steel, were weak and clumsy like stiff deadwood in the face of Sevrin's steel whip, which danced as flexibly as a serpent; he effortlessly blasted away a large swath of them.
Perhaps driven to desperation, the Salt God finally couldn't hold back and unleashed its ultimate move.
CLACK, CLACK, CLACK ~
Following a series of muffled mechanical gear sounds, a row of grayish-white cannons rapidly emerged at the bow, over thirty meters in front of Sevrin. Immediately upon appearing, they all rotated 180 degrees and opened fire frantically toward Sevrin's position.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Facing this fierce, direct bombardment, Sevrin's whip shadows flashed wildly. In an instant, he swung forth hundreds of streaks of blood-red light, enveloping himself.
The shells attacking him one after another collided head-on with these blood-red whip shadows.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
In a flash, large swathes of the surrounding underwater area were blasted into a chaotic, surging mess by the Salt God's fire. Any passing shrimp or small fish suffered greatly, none leaving a whole corpse.
But Sevrin, facing this repeated bombardment, remained completely unharmed.
"No amount of noise will help you."
Amidst the chaotic currents, he gave several cold sneers and suddenly transformed from human to ghost. He burst apart into thousands upon thousands of writhing fingers that shot like arrows toward the bow cannon battery. Simultaneously, even more fingers divided and rapidly burrowed into the hull through various cracks and openings below.
Consequently, before long, the Salt God acted as if it were possessed by a ghost. It stopped its frantic diving and dashing and instead began to roll violently and shudder in place.
This was a normal phenomenon resulting from Sevrin burrowing around inside its body and causing widespread destruction; it would return to calm once the ship-spirit had been tormented to death.
Sure enough, after just a dozen or so seconds, the Salt God, which had been struggling violently, suddenly stiffened and could no longer move.
The Salt God was dead.
At the same instant this ship-spirit perished, an Expert Shard was added to Sevrin's personal interface.
Simultaneously, the Salt God's massive metallic body slowly collapsed, revealing Sevrin, who had returned to human form inside, along with various items and a large number of corpses.
Looking closely at these grayish-white, shriveled corpses, they were clearly children who had been thoroughly pickled by salt; there were about forty or fifty of them.
Evidently, these child corpses were the offerings presented by Lialod Village over these years.
"Forty-eight child corpses, exactly six years' worth. But why didn't the Salt God eat them, and instead pickled and preserved them? And also..."
Sevrin inspected these child corpses, his face showing doubt. "If the Salt God didn't eat the offerings and only collected them, where did the child corpses from before six years ago go? And why was it collecting them in the first place?"
Doubts mounted.
He then looked toward the clutter that was slowly sinking around him: silver coins, swords, shoes and hats, bows, iron boxes, bronze mirrors... a miscellaneous assortment of items.
"Eh? A strange aura."
Suddenly, Sevrin's eyes flashed, and he shifted his gaze toward the bow, iron box, and bronze mirror among the items.
From his slightly curved perspective, his Level 3 Intuition could clearly sense an extremely mysterious occult aura.
Therefore, these two must be special magical artifacts.
As for that square iron box, although Sevrin didn't sense any traces of occult arts, he felt an extremely heavy and thick ancient charm.
And this kind of ancient charm was something he had only ever encountered on that ancient monument in the cavern beneath Mount Pasha.
Sevrin first brought the iron box, which looked like a metal lump, before his eyes and began searching it over and over for any traces of characters.
Regrettably, there was no writing of any kind.
Not only was there no writing, but the keyhole of this iron box had perhaps undergone too many ages of time; it had deformed and been squeezed into a tiny slit, so small that even a needle couldn't prick through.
Not only the keyhole, but the seams of the iron box's lid had also clearly deformed, twisting and pressing against each other like ugly scars.
"Pry it open and take a look."
With that thought, Sevrin gripped both sides of the iron box and suddenly exerted force.
In an instant, two opposing forces of hundreds of thousands of kilograms were applied to both sides of the iron box.
BUZZ ——
For a time, a large expanse of the lake water around Sevrin sent out ripple after ripple of shockwaves under the vibration of this unparalleled giant force.
Yet despite enduring such monumental strength, the iron box remained entirely unchanged; it didn't even show a sliver of minute vibration, as if the force Sevrin applied was illusory.
From this, it could be inferred that this iron box was absolutely not made of ordinary steel, but of some unknown material beyond imagination.
"FUCK! Are you made of Mydrintium?! You're clearly so light, yet so hard."
After cursing through a grin, Sevrin ignored the iron box for now and picked up the bow.
"I'll deal with you later; let's look at the others first."
As he muttered, he cast a glance and discovered two ancient seal-script characters carved in a tiny corner of the bow's arm: Inverse Chaos.
"The Inverse Chaos Bow?"
A suspicion formed in his mind.
To verify this hypothesis, Sevrin grabbed the bowstring and gave it a pull.
WHOOSH ——
In an instant, everything in his field of vision became thoroughly clear.
No, it should be said, it became completely bright and entirely transparent.
Every area above, below, and in the four directions, every dead object and living being, was seen clearly by Sevrin.
For instance, looking toward the surface, his gaze could easily pierce through countless millions of tons of black, heavy lake water and layers of heavy rock. In a bottom-up view, he clearly saw the Lialod Village villagers on the lakeshore who had already stood up from the ground.
Looking straight down, he could see beneath the thick layers of mud and rock at the bottom of Ly Lake; he saw vast hidden caverns and wide tunnels connecting them all.
This total transparency only came to an abrupt halt when looking toward the extreme depths at a vast distance, where every direction was once again shrouded in shadow.
According to Sevrin's rough estimation, this extreme depth and distance reached perhaps tens of thousands of meters.
In other words, as long as he held this bow and pulled the string, his X-ray vision range extended ten thousand meters and likely further in all directions.
No solid matter within this range could obstruct his sight.
Truly terrifying.
"But what use is a bow without an arrow? Does it require dry firing?"
With that thought, Sevrin experimentally aimed the bow diagonally upward, targeting the old village chief on the lakeshore who was loudly shouting something to the villagers, and released his finger from the string.
SWISH ——
Suddenly, an invisible force that Sevrin could sense very clearly manifested out of thin air within the arrow groove. The instant it appeared, it shot out from the bow, heading straight for the old village chief on the lakeshore.
The next moment, the old chief was precisely struck by this invisible arrow. Simultaneously, his nose, ears, and limbs all swapped places and became twisted; his body lost balance, and he fell to the ground. Then, as if he had sat on something, he gave a pained HOWL and jumped up.
Sevrin, deep within the lake water, saw this scene and was hit by a sudden realization.
"So that's it. The so-called curse covering the entirety of Lialod Village was actually fired from this bow."
After discovering the truth, Sevrin couldn't help but shake his head and laugh, but then another question occurred to him.
"Then how do I lift this curse?"
Pondering, Sevrin picked up the Inverse Chaos Bow, aimed it again from afar at the old village chief on the lakeshore who was struggling to stand up with his swapped limbs and pulled the string to fire.
"..."
No invisible arrow appeared.
However, the old chief on the lakeshore instantly returned to normal.
The nose, ears, limbs, mouth, and anus swaps that had caused him such immense pain and discomfort vanished completely, as if they had never happened at all.
"Eh? What's the situation?"
Doubtful, Sevrin once again aimed the Inverse Chaos Bow at him and pulled the string again.
But the invisible arrow still didn't appear, and the old village chief, who had returned to normal, remained normal, with no anomalies occurring.
"What's going on?"
After his confusion, Sevrin aimed at the old chief and pulled the string over a dozen times in one breath.
Yet there was still no reaction, from either the bow or the old chief.
"I understand now."
Sevrin smirked, "This thing actually has a cooldown. After using it once, you have to wait a while before it can be used again. However, lifting the curse seems to have no such restriction, dry firing once at a cursed target will lift it."
At the same time, he also understood why that Salt God earlier hadn't used the Inverse Chaos Bow again after using it once, even until its death.
Simply because the bow's cooldown period hadn't ended yet.
Truly an unlucky boat.
In short, after thoroughly understanding the specific uses of this bow, Sevrin held it, preparing to put it into the Kiyou Grotto.
But suddenly...
"Wait!"
Sevrin's movements came to an abrupt halt. "Could I use the Inverse Chaos Bow's X-ray function to see exactly what is inside that iron box?"
At this thought, he immediately grew very excited. He held the bow and pulled the string, aiming directly at that excessively hard iron box.
"It worked! I can really see inside!"
Sevrin's face showed joy as he stared intently at the iron box.
Within his current field of vision, everything inside the iron box was suddenly laid bare.
And the situation inside this box was different from what Sevrin had previously imagined.
It contained no high-tech weapons or armor, there were only dozens of thin, multi-sided, disc-shaped objects of various colors, resembling large CDs.
These unknown multi-sided discs were all casually stacked inside the iron box, some were still intact, while others were already broken.
"They feel a bit like USB drives,"
Sevrin muttered, "Could they be used for storing data?"
While murmuring to himself, he saw rows of blurred or clear text on the surface of these discs, like labels.
Sevrin first looked at the few stacked on the very top. On the surface of these disc-shaped objects, it was written:
"Imperian Federation's Military Intelligence Research Office... Document Number One"
"Synchronous Sea Area's Prehistoric Civilization Number Four... Research Records"
"Cloud-Top Plateau's Prehistoric... Archaeological Ruins Research Records Number Eight"
"Bravops Mountain Range's Prehistoric Civilization Number Five... Research Records"
"Kuafu Riverbed's Number Six... Archaeological Ruins..."
"What is going on here?!"
Sevrin's face was filled with confusion and shock. "Isn't the Imperian Federation already a prehistoric civilization? How could there be other prehistoric civilizations before them?
And ruins number four, eight, five, and six, were there really that many prehistoric civilizations? Then where did they all go?"
Before his shock had faded, Sevrin impatiently used the Inverse Chaos Bow to look at the disc-shaped objects even deeper within the iron box.
He then saw several discs below with clear labels written row after row:
"...Death-Realm Ecological System... Investigation and Research..."
"Death-Realm Planning Bureau Number Six... Large-Scale Defense Installations... Proposal"
"Dissection of High-Rank Death-Realm Residents... Records"
"Death-Realm Ancient Civilization Ruins... Investigation and Research..."
"What are these now?!"
Sevrin was even more bewildered. "What is the Death-Realm? Is it a place? The Netherworld? The Underworld? The Yellow Springs?
This they could even establish a Planning Bureau in the underworld? Is the Imperian Federation that impressive?!
And what are these High-Rank Death-Realm Residents? Death-Realm Ancient Civilizations there are civilizations in the underworld too? And ruins? Those large-scale defense installations they couldn't be used to defend against them, could they?"
Great, it was bad enough this world had a massive pile of prehistoric civilizations, but now this Death-Realm pops up, just the name sounds eerie.
Sevrin, feeling somewhat dazed, instinctively looked further down at the discs buried even deeper.
He saw notes on these ones stating:
"Third High-Level Summit with the Interface Number Four Primary Civilization... Regarding... Discussion Records of the Proposed Topics"
"...Ninth Expedition into Interface Number Six... Exploration of Ruins Number 437..."
"...Interface Number Three Colonial Management Bureau... Suppression of Natives..."
"...Multi-Interface... Strategic Alliance... Communication Meeting... Records"
"Good, fine, great. After dealing with the Netherworld, your Imperian Federation goes and fights in other interfaces, right? And what exactly are these so-called interfaces? Other planes? Alternate dimensions? Alternate space-times? Parallel universes?"
Sevrin felt like the word 'bewildered' was about to grow on his forehead from all this information. He scratched his head, his face full of confusion.
"But really, why use a strange term like 'Interface'? Numbers four, six, and three, that's already three interfaces. Could the Imperian Federation truly have developed to the point where they could travel to alternate dimensions even to the degree of colonizing other universes?
And that so-called Multi-Interface Strategic Alliance why would they form an alliance? Is there some enemy that a single interface couldn't defeat alone, requiring everyone to fight together? Holy shit, this world is truly chaotic."
This made Sevrin instinctively think of a meme from Earth in his previous life.
Namely: if the US, China, and Russia suddenly one day resolved their conflicts and joined forces to cooperate, what would that signify?
For this question, there were usually a few answers.
For instance an alien civilization had arrived, or Cthulhu had crawled out from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
Regardless of which one it was, it signified death and despair.
So suddenly, the overflowing sense of security within Sevrin's mind, he who previously considered himself quite powerful, instantly plummeted.
Dammit, he currently couldn't even withstand an atomic bomb, yet so many divine and ghostly things were appearing.
To say nothing of those so-called Death-Realm ancient civilizations and alternate Interface civilizations, even if it were just the Imperian Federation's Mecha Brigades or space warships, Sevrin wouldn't stand a chance.
Let alone the unknown causes that led to the cyclical destruction of numerous prehistoric civilizations, or the unknown enemies that forced multiple Interface civilizations to form an alliance to respond, he was even less capable of dealing with those.
In short... this is truly fucking ridiculous ——
"Phew ——"
Sevrin exhaled a breath, feeling a bit dizzy, and whispered, "This should be the end of it, even the most dangerous, most perilous things are just like this. What more ridiculous enemies could there be? Could there be someone throwing Dual-Vector Foils around everywhere?"
Murmuring, he looked at the few discs at the very bottom of the stack in the iron box. He saw blurred notes on them:
"...Civilization Cycles... Theoretical Research..."
"...Spherical World Conjecture..."
"...Extra-Terrestrial Migration Plan..."
"...Despair-ism Sentiments..."
"General Index of Wills of All Citizens of the Imperian Federation"
"Civilization Seed Preservation Plan"
"...To those reading these fragmented texts... You must know that life and all things... are utterly meaningless... all and everything is sorrow... in the end, all will perish..."
"...The Golden Apocalypse... The End of All Truths... The Final Conclusion of All Metaphors..."
Just as Sevrin's eyes widened while scanning across each disc, his gaze finally came to rest on a certain disc labeled 「The Golden Apocalypse」 in a line of blurred small characters.
A sense of crisis so terrifying it felt like it would blast him apart from head to toe suddenly appeared, and it instantly transformed into a physiological, agonizing pain that flashed through every part of his body.
"Ah!"
Sevrin threw back his head and howled in pain. His cry suddenly sent waves upon layers of continuous, raging currents through the surrounding lake water.
But at this very moment, the System, which had been silent and still, suddenly issued a series of intense, continuous warnings within Sevrin's mind.
"Warning! The Host is in contact with a source of malevolent information propagation, which will lead to severe consequences."
"Warning! The Host is in contact with a source of malevolent information propagation, which will lead to severe consequences."
"..."
"To ensure the Host's safety, the malevolent nature of the information has been purified, and the propagation source has been completely shielded. Please do not touch it again."
After issuing this final notification, the System fell silent once more, and Sevrin finally let out a breath.
"Phew —— Phew —— Phew —— Fuck, what... phew... is going on?"
Gasping for breath and exhaling bubbles continuously, Sevrin said, gritting his teeth, "I just looked at a few words, how did it turn out like this?"
Sevrin didn't quite understand, but it didn't stop him from developing a massive, massive wariness toward those words —— Golden Apocalypse.
Just from a single glance, he got this kind of result.
What exactly... was this Golden Apocalypse?
Was it a phenomenon? Or a living being?
Or perhaps an unknown thing that was neither a phenomenon nor a living being?
And this iron box, which clearly belonged to the Imperian Federation, why did it contain a disc recording information about the Golden Apocalypse?
Could the thing that destroyed the Imperian civilization be that unknown Golden Apocalypse?
Sevrin had no idea.
He only knew that he absolutely, positively could not look at that disc at the bottom of the iron box again.
Because the sensation earlier, which was more painful than having his entire body crushed, was truly unbearable.
So, with a frown, Sevrin opened a portal and tossed the iron box into the Kiyou Grotto. He then reached for that small bronze mirror, which was likely a special magical artifact.
When he grabbed the bronze mirror and instinctively rubbed the frame a few times, it suddenly vibrated and emitted rays of light. These gathered about a palm's width above the surface of the mirror, weaving together to form an evening-yellow light screen about half the size of a person.
Once this clean light screen appeared, it began to ripple and undulate like boiling water, as if something were about to crawl out from within.
Just as Sevrin, in his confusion, was about to stick his steel whip in to stir it around, the screen suddenly became as still as a rippleless ancient well. Simultaneously, a clear, cold male voice drifted from within.
"Eh? Is it salt-slave? What business do you have with me?"