Ashes Of Deep Sea
Chapter 716 - Chapter 716 Chapter 713 Sherry Still Shaken

Chapter 716: Chapter 713: Sherry Still Shaken Chapter 716: Chapter 713: Sherry Still Shaken “The island… This island as a whole is part of the ancient gods, and everything on the island… stone, soil, those things that look like trees, are all the same…

“The heretics living on this island used its resources to build houses, manufacture ships, eat what grows in the dirt here, and day after day held ceremonies, summoning demons… binding themselves to the island…

“There are indeed no living people left on the island; everyone has been ‘eaten’ by ‘it,’ by the island… Those damn fools… the foolish cultists stirred something in the depths of the island, reviving it…”

Sherry, sitting on the ground at the edge of the square and holding her knees, relayed in discontinuous snippets what she had just witnessed. Her lingering fear and anxiety were deeply imprinted in her mind. The brief glimpse of “truth” had put immense pressure on her sanity, and although the captain had “pulled” her out in the nick of time, her mind still seemed to buzz with many fuzzy “memories” buzzing around.

Dog sat next to Sherry, gently brushing his ghastly skeletal body against her thigh, trying to calm her unnerved spirit–this was somewhat effective, and Sherry was slowly recovering.

Duncan sat next to Sherry, protecting her mind so it wasn’t influenced by the corrupt knowledge, while curiously asking, “Something in the depths of the island was stirred? What exactly did they do?”

Sherry hesitated, searching through her jumbled memories–there had been too much information flooding into her mind all at once, remnants of “memories” from this “living island,” so much so that she had no time to distinguish, think about, or even understand them–now, these chaotic memories were slowly churning out from the depths of her consciousness, and some useful fragments gradually became clear.

“They… they dug too deep.”

“Dug too deep?” Morris immediately frowned, “What were they digging for?”

“At the center of the island, there’s a passage to the underground…” Sherry furrowed her brows tightly, finally finding some useful memory fragments, “It was when the sun was extinguished…!”

“When the sun was extinguished?” Morris’s gaze shifted subtly as he repeated the words while unconsciously exchanging looks with Fenna and the captain.

Sherry suddenly perked up, aligning the voices she “heard” and the chaotic visuals she saw, and quickly spoke out, “Yes, that’s the time! After the sun extinguished, there was still Sky Light on Holy Land Island, and all the heretics remained ‘awake’… then they seemed to have received some revelation and started digging at the center of the island… There was already a cave there, filled with black rocks deep within, they just started to dig madly downward, then they found a chamber, but the chamber was sealed…”

Sherry paused, her tone somewhat uncertain, “They wanted to enter the chamber, but it seems they didn’t have the chance to break in, they hadn’t even touched the door when things went wrong…”

Amber came over, the young deep-sea Priestess highly interested in what Sherry had described, “So, the heretics on the island were killed because they triggered the island’s ‘defense mechanism’?”

Sherry blinked, about to nod, but then suddenly felt like she had forgotten something crucial and hesitated, shaking her head.

“… No, they weren’t killed by a ‘defense mechanism’…” she slowly recalled, piecing together the “information” swirling in her mind, and after several minutes of organizing and thinking, she finally grasped the “truth,” “They were killed by a… ‘knowledge’…”

She had just finished speaking when Morris immediately reacted, “Don’t say!”

Almost at the same moment, Amber already swiftly pulled out the Storm Goddess’s amulet from her bosom and pierced her own palm with its tip, while the taciturn Death Priest leading the way also took out the blessed bone ash casket, and over twenty marines also hurriedly used amulets, Sacred Relics to urgently protect themselves.

Morris quickly applied several layers of mental protection on himself, then wrapped Rahm’s amulet and the colorful stone bracelet around his wrist, and he slightly relaxed, nodding at Sherry, “You can continue now.”

Sherry, startled by the scene, asked involuntarily, “Is it really necessary?”

Fenna looked seriously at Sherry and nodded, “It is, because this is a ‘knowledge’ that instantaneously killed all the heretics on the island. Although according to your description, this relates to the rituals they habitually performed, this ‘knowledge’ might still be dangerous.”

Morris also added, “Usually, if researchers accidentally gather secret knowledge and survive, the safest and most professional response is to transcribe the content on Parchment using ‘secret language’ blessed by the four gods, as a way to alleviate and filter out the pollution carried by the information–do you understand ‘secret language’?”

Sherry thought for a moment, then honestly shook her head, “… Well, no.”

Morris spread his hands, “No worries, you can talk now.”

Sherry scratched her cheek, and this digression somewhat relaxed her tense nerves. Thus, after slightly organizing her thoughts, she recounted the words she had just “heard”–

“Humans, are a type of Profound Demons that emerged after high differentiation. The Profound Demons, unable to be infused with humanity and wisdom, are contained within the Mysterious Deep Sea as primitive molds.”

The square fell silent for a few seconds.

Alice was the first to break the silence, blinking and looking at Sherry, “That’s it?”

“That’s it,” Sherry nodded, “Just that sentence… But those heretics, after learning this ‘truth,’ almost instantly turned into this… disgusting and frightening state.”

Sherry spoke half-understandingly, and Alice listened half-understandingly, but beside them, Duncan’s face slowly revealed a contemplative and enlightened expression.

He slowly stood up, muttering as he thought, “This isn’t just a sentence… This sentence explains a lot.”

Amber lowered her head, tracing the Sacred Relic of Gomona on her chest with her hand, “May the Goddess have mercy…”

Morris’s mouth twitched, “Humans are a type of Profound Demons, this sentence seems a bit too extreme even for the theories of the Obliteration Sect.”

“We’ve already encountered this kind of ‘extreme’ information before, starting from when we first got the ‘Book of Desecration,'” Fenna said with a strange expression, shaking her head and then looking around at the marines dispatched from the Tide and the Restless.

Surprise, contemplation, confusion–but no one seemed shaken.

This was a unit specializing in border affairs–resilient will and stable mental states are indispensable qualities, considering the actual situation in the border seas, “Maintaining mentality in the face of unfathomable information and knowledge” might have already been ingrained in these people.

“No wonder those ‘human-shaped objects’ floating on the sea exude the aura of Profound Demons…” Amber suddenly said thoughtfully, “I did hear the rumor that ‘the Saint of Profound created all things during the third long night,’ but I never thought of understanding the connection between ‘humans’ and ‘Profound Demons’ from this perspective… But if it’s true, it might explain the ‘summoning’ abilities of those Obliteration Sect members and their symbiosis with the Profound Demons…”

As she spoke, her gaze involuntarily went to the dog lying beside Sherry’s legs.

The dog immediately noticed Amber’s gaze and lifted its head, “Don’t look at me like that. My situation with Sherry is different from those heretics–and I’m not like my brainless relatives either, I’m telling you, I’m at least at the level of high school completion, maybe even half a step toward City-State University…”

Sherry was taken aback by the dog’s last two sentences, “What are you talking about, dog?”

The dog muttered quietly, “I don’t know, the captain taught me…”

Amber opened her mouth, her expression subtle, “Even though I had heard about it, I couldn’t believe that there are Profound Demons with ‘hearts’ in this world until I saw it with my own eyes… Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by that.”

The dog mumbled unhappily, “You’d better not, I’m with the captain…”

Duncan ignored the dog’s muttering. After confirming that Sherry was stable, he broke the silence, “We can discuss the connection between humans and demons later. For now, we need to think about the next steps.”

As he spoke, he turned his head toward a certain direction inland of the island that Sherry had casually pointed at.

“Sherry, do you remember the exact location where they were ‘digging’?”

“Yes,” Sherry immediately nodded vigorously, “I remember that part clearly, I even recognize the path.”

“Then our next target is the ‘secret chamber’ that those heretics dug up,” Duncan declared, but his gaze quickly fell on Amber and the other marines, “But there’s a problem now–do you still want to continue deeper? The area ahead might not be as mild as this port area.”

“Captain Sir, we are not canaries that need protection,” Amber’s expression became serious, “We’ve always been dealing with ‘strange things’ at the border, including many dangerous and eerie entities like this island–we have our own experience and methods.”

Watching her serious expression, Duncan was silent for a few seconds and finally slowly nodded.

“Alright, then we’ll continue deeper.”