Ashes Of Deep Sea
Chapter 409 - Chapter 409 Chapter 413 The Next Record

Chapter 409: Chapter 413 The Next Record Chapter 409: Chapter 413 The Next Record Although Maurice and Fenna had been old acquaintances for many years, in Fenna’s view, Maurice had always been just a gentle and refined scholar–that was when they were still in the Plunder City-State. The old gentleman spent most of his energy on school lectures, and the remaining time was either soaked in the library or being pulled away by some school to deliver speeches.

Fenna had little opportunity to uncover the “extraordinary” aspects of this elder in the Transcendent domain.

But since they boarded the Homeloss, she finally started to see another side of Maurice and realized what those seemingly harmless scholars, who follow the God of Wisdom Rahm, relied on to complete their work–

It was one of the most dangerous jobs in the world: the pursuit of knowledge.

But when she thought about it, it made sense. Scholars should possess unique and powerful abilities. After all, there were many entities in this world chasing after knowledge, from Profound Demons to Spirits Realm phantoms, but most knowledge ultimately fell into the grasp of mortals. And what did they rely on? The strong and powerful academic prowess of mortal scholars…

Fenna rubbed her forehead, trying hard to control the random thoughts in her head, and muttered, “So you’re that amazing… Had I known, I might have paid more attention in class back then, maybe…”

“No, you’re far behind,” Maurice said with an expressionless face as he shook his head, “Training seriously suits you better.”

Fenna felt a bit embarrassed: “At least I graduated smoothly from the City-State University…”

Maurice glanced at her: “One third of your credits are from physical education, one third from Church supplementary courses.”

Fenna fell silent and after a brief few seconds of silence, she cast her gaze towards the dense fog around them, abruptly changing the subject, “The heretics you eliminated, they should be the controllers of those fake monstrosities, right?”

“At most, one of the controllers,” Maurice shook his head, “Do you hear the commotion from the other blocks? Now, such monsters are spread throughout the city-state, it’s unknown how many heretics have already taken advantage of the dense fog to enter the real world… It’s unlikely that we can eliminate them all on our own.”

Fenna nodded gravely, but just as she was about to say something else, something caught her eye in the corner of her vision, and she let out a soft “huh.”

She approached the side of the deceased heretic, squatted down, and inspected the corpse, reaching out to grab and tear open the collar of the garment.

Beneath the clothes, the flesh was melting and writhing, looking as if it had been stained and soaked by black mud, and with the death of the body itself, the movement of the mud slowed down visibly and gradually started to dry up.

“…This is also a fake!?” Fenna widened her eyes in shock, finding it hard to believe, “These heretics… even turned their own people into fakes?!”

“No, it’s not that simple,” Maurice furrowed his brows. He, too, was carefully inspecting the heretic’s corpse and recalling the details of the recent battle before he slowly shook his head, “I sensed his thought waves, they are different from the fakes–the fakes have apparent discontinuities in their thought processes, unusual for humans, and even if they can act indistinguishably from normal people, they cannot maintain a stable consciousness due to the instability of the Prime Element. But this heretic didn’t have that problem.”

With that, he pointed a finger at the area on the heretic’s chest that was covered by the black mud.

“And more importantly, this part. Look, he is not made up of the Prime Element–Prime Element and normal flesh coexist, which looks more like a symbiosis, or… self-pollution.”

Fenna stared at that spot for a while, her brows gradually knitting together: “These heretics intentionally polluted themselves with Prime Element? Even replaced parts of their own flesh with it… This is quite disgusting, even for cultists, it’s an impressively perverse level.”

Maurice’s tone was relatively calm: “I don’t think it’s much different from those cultists who transform themselves into Profound Demons. These madmen despise the mortal flesh of this world, and they’ve always been unrestrained in using the most insane methods to alter themselves.”

Saying so, his attention was diverted elsewhere.

He looked at the large black book that the heretic had been holding in his hands.

After a moment’s hesitation, the old scholar reached out and forcefully pulled the book from the dead fingers clinching it.

“Be careful,” Fenna immediately warned upon seeing that, “That book might contain blasphemous and unclean content! With the sun’s power already weakened, touching it rashly…”

“Scholars always open new and mysterious books; for us, every reading is a process of challenge and adventure,” Maurice gently shook his head, “Don’t worry. The sect of Rahm has specialized training and techniques for reading under such conditions. You just need to stand guard for me, and if anything is attracted by this book, help me deal with it.”

Fenna hesitated for a moment, then nodded solemnly, “…Yes.”

Morris hummed softly, finished a quick prayer in his heart, and then took out a small bottle of herbal powder from his bosom. He poured half on the ground and lit it on fire, while sprinkling the other half on the book before him. He then checked the condition of the string of colored stone beads around his wrist before seriously sitting cross-legged and placing the book on his lap.

The cover of the book was pitch black, with no text or symbols on the surface, only faint and intricate web-like patterns embossed on the hard shell cover that made it impossible to determine its origin.

Morris opened the cover of the book and looked at the contents of the inner pages.

Fenna, on the other hand, shifted her gaze away, trying to avoid being influenced by the book.

Some messy lines and symbols entered Morris’s view.

At first, he couldn’t understand what he was seeing, those jumbled symbols and lines didn’t match any language or ancient script he knew, but as he tried to turn the next page, the marks on those pages suddenly started moving–the ink stains turned into living, wriggling entities, swiftly traversing the paper’s constructed prison, darting characters stimulating the old scholar’s vision. In just a few seconds, he felt he had begun to understand the narrative contained within the pages.

The symbols and lines were twisting rapidly, everything on the pages trembled before his eyes, and “knowledge” mapped itself directly into his brain!

Morris’s heart stirred, the protective measures and reactive strategies he had pre-set in his sea of consciousness instantly activated. The next second, his main consciousness withdrew, his reasoning solidified, and he became like a bystander, adopting an aloof and illusory perspective standing behind the “self” in the real world, reading the content that emerged in his own mind with calm and clarity.

“…The councils of the forgotten kings were convened again and again, and the original plan was determined…

“Those abandoned, their flesh shall melt in the light…”

After reading only two lines, Morris’s ethereal “self-projection” suddenly frowned.

This was what that young scout known as “Crow” had brought back during the captain’s first expedition exploring the second waterway! It was that vague and unclear text, a dark origin, seemingly an ancient record documented in “sacred script”!

Morris’s gaze shifted slightly, and he immediately controlled his body to flip through the pages, letting his eyes read those profane, twisted words, forming corresponding knowledge memories in his mind. Then, as a bystander, he read the content that emerged in his brain.

He saw more of the sacred script narratives, and indeed, after the passage copied by Crow, some fragmented sentences appeared:

“…After the abandoned clans departed, the creation of all things continued as planned, the forgotten kings began designing the original and ultimate blueprint…

“However, the first blueprint was quickly discarded because the aftershocks of the great obliteration swirled endlessly in this mortal world… The kings gathered dust into stone, and stone into stars, yet the stars crumbled and broke apart, unable to endure…

“The King of the Pale Giants, ‘Salmier,’ thus fell during the first prolonged night of Creation…

“…The kings then began designing the second blueprint, they chose one from among themselves to be the creator–the first chosen was the Dreaming King, also known as the towering ‘King of Knowledge and Memory,’ for this colossus had indeed demonstrated miracles of creation…

“But the second blueprint too was not successful, so during the second prolonged night of Creation, the Dreaming King was torn apart, His vestiges drifting on the edges of the real world…

“The third blueprint was entrusted to another king, named the ‘Crawling King,’ also known as ‘Lord of the Swarm.’ He is the sovereign of countless unseen, minuscule beings, holding the authority of creation and its counter part as well, and was hailed as the ‘Elder of Wisdom.’

“…The Crawling King then commenced His work. During the third prolonged night, He bestowed the blueprint upon the Swarm, and sought support from the surviving clans, to avoid repeating the fate of the Dreaming King and the King of the Pale Giants. He broke up that blueprint, so that the mortal world would no longer have kingdoms, but instead be split into one thousand two hundred City-States, granting the original ten cities to the clan to govern, naming them ‘Crete.’

“The third prolonged night thus passed in tranquility. This was good.

“However, the forgotten kings were dissatisfied with the Crawling King’s alteration of the blueprint and obstructed His return to the Holy Seat. The clan of the ten Cities-State expressed gratitude towards the Crawling King, but dared not praise this king in front of the others. Instead, they gave Him another revered title–they called Him Saint, also known as–

“The Profound Saint.”