Chapter 1009: Sailing the Sea of Shadows

<WOOO! It’s been ages since we’ve been down in the [Abyssal Lands]! Man, this place still smells like rotten fish and depression.>

=Nostalgic, isn’t it?=

<Yup!>

=Now then, let’s get to work in scanning the area to find that grave...huh. That’s...weird.=

<What’s weird? You can’t find the guy with Grand Blue’s arm?>

=No, I managed to find it incredibly quickly, and confirmed Kit’s and Rodenia ’s report about a turtle kaijin being active.=

<Then what’s the issue?>

=The issue is that I’m picking up way, way higher levels of [Chaos] than what we anticipated.=

<...because of our Lord and the Kaijin being present?>

=No...=

<Oh...>

...

Smack

"What the heck?"

"Nothing, just...sudden shift in air pressure. Made me woozy," Zhen Liu lied to his bewildered cousins. In reality, he had smacked his head against the ship’s wheel out of frustration due to being blindsided by even more voices popping into his head. Although, this particular voice didn’t seem particularly...lively. Or sentient.

If anything, it reminded Zhen Liu of a digital assistant.

[Current weather: Mild. Nearest possible threat: 700m below. Destination: Unknown. Overall Status: Unlikely for anything exciting to occur.]

[Huh...this is odd,] Spring Brawler commented. [It sounds like us, but it’s lacking a...spark.]

[You mean a core?]

[Not exactly, Razorstella. By spark, I mean...you know how the zakos aren’t exactly sentient but aren’t exactly inanimate either? This boat is somehow lower than them in terms of intelligence.]

[Oh...wait a minute, it’s a Chaos treasure. Damn things should be more lively than your average aether treasure. So what gives?]

[I don’t know.]

’Hmm.’

Zhen Liu had an inkling of an idea. He believed that the galleon was damaged due to being underwater for so long and that damage was a bit more than physical.

However, now that the ship has been extracted from the bottom of a very textured swamp and was now back in its home environment, the ship shoule be able to to make a full recovery.

[Landing is imminent, I repeat, landing is imminent.]

"Oi! Hold on tight guys," Zhen Liu instructed his cousins. "We’re about to land."

"Right on."

"Wait, do we have to worry about this stuff splashing on to the deck?"

Regardless, as the [Storm Queen’s Galleon] prepared to land on the surface of the [Abyssal Lands] waters, the branch clan scions braced themselves for impact. Which turned out to be pointless.

The galleon’s sudden development of parachutes has slowed down the massive vessel, just enough for it to lightly land on the water’s surface as opposed to impacting it hard enough to cause a splash.

The branch clan scions (and the kaijin) couldn’t help but be slightly disappointed about that.

"Is it weird that I anticipated getting soaked?"

"Not really, but I think this place is causing my formula to become way more active," Zhen Hai commented. "I guess grandfather was right about this place being beneficial for my formula."

"Sweet."

[Speaking of crazy old people,] Hurricroak interjected into Zhen Liu’s mind. [Do we got any idea where Matriarch Zhen Xun Tian went-]

<<Ahoy there kiddos! Welcome to the [Abyssal Lands] proper!>>

[Never mind.]

Shortly after the branch clan landed their vessel, the familiar sight of the armored head of the [Luminescent Ark Serpent] had popped out from under the water and appeared right next to the branch clan’s galleon.

Both means of traversing the [Abyssal Lands] glowed with aether empowered light designed to keep both the [Shadow Water] and those who live in it, far and away from their squishy occupants.

Sitting atop the head of the aformentioned serpent was Matriarch Zhen Xun Tian, who was looking much more relaxed now that they had finally arrived to this place.

Evidently, this was the demeanor that the branch clan scions were much more used to seeing than the rank-and-file professional they saw earlier.

<<Good to see y’all landed in one piece without losing any limbs,>> Zhen Xun Tian commented as she looked over the scions. <<Nice boat.>>

<<Thanks, it almost cost me a leg,>> Zhen Liu retorted in a joking manner.

<<Ha!>>

The galleon did almost cost Zhen Liu his leg, but nobody but himself, the kaijin or his consorts had to know that.

Regardless, Zhen Xun Tian wasn’t just sitting in the serpent’s head for no reason.

<<Heads up lads, but it’s gonna take us a few days to catch up with the Fallen Clan. I can sense which direction those bastards are, but I’m unable to fully gauge the distance,>> Zhen Xun Tian informed the scions. <<So unless y’all have a way of tracking them, be sure to stick close to the serpent, kay?>>

When she asked that last question, her eyes were focused more on Zhen Liu than just the galleon as a whole. Granted, the surrounding area was so fucking dark that nobody could really see pass a certain point from either vessel, so nobody could really see Zhen Xun Tian looking elsewhere.

Regardless, the branch clan scions received the message and responded appropriately.

<<Yes ma’am!,>> the branch clan scions agreed while snapping off a salute. Unsurprisingly, even Zhen Liu’s "puppets" joined into the salute.

<<Haha, good! Now make sure to keep pace, otherwise, who knows what kind of nasty nasties will rise to the surface in order to eat ya!,>> Zhen Xun Tian declared before tapping the top of the [Radiant Ark Serpent]’s head with her foot. This small action prompted the serpent to about face and begin swimming away from the galleon.

"Alright, let’s get this thing moving!"

[Aye!]

"Wait a minute, this is a sailing ship and we’re underground. How the heck is it going to-"

FWOOSH!

"Ah, right."

Just as Zhen Hai was about to point out an obvious flaw with the piloting a sailing galleon on an underground ocean, Nepherage and Frosttusk coordinated together to propel the ship forward.

The former simply placed her hand on Frosttusk’s back, while Frosttusk dialed back the power of his cold air blasts. This resulted in the galleon being able to sail forward as it was being propelled by pure kaijin power.

Well...pure [Chaos] power to be more precise.

[Huh...that’s interesting.]

[Hmm? What’s up, Frosttusk?]

Due to Nepherage constantly feeding heat into Frosttusk, Frosttusk was able to talk at a more normal pace.

[Nothing, it’s just...this is taking a lot less out of me than I thought it would.]

[Isn’t that a good thing?]

[I guess...]

Regardless of this strangeness, the kaijin appreciated not having to put in as much effort as they were originally planned to do. Because this meant that they could focus on more important things...like finding the Fallen’s location before their lord’s great grandaunt and figuring out a route to the Undertow Kingdom.

All while hoping they weren’t in the same direction.

...

’Aight, you heard my crazy tattooed great grandaunt. Do y’all have any ideas on how we can track down the Fallen?,’ Zhen Liu asked the kaijin, alongside Logos and Pathos. ’Side note, do you guys have any idea as to which direction the Undertow Kingdom is exactly?’

Having some this before, Zhen Liu expected Logos and Pathos to provide a straightforward answer that would inevitably involve him getting a headache due to a sudden influx of information being downloaded into his brain.

However, that didn’t happen.

<=Well...=>

’Oh no.’,

And whenever that happened, it meant that Zhen Liu was about to be informed of something that was going to suck to deal with.

A lot.

’What’s wrong?’

<Well...the good news is that we can definitely track down the Fallen’s location. Their War Elder still has Grand Blue’s arm attached to him and it gives off a distinct enough [Chaos] that we can easily track it now.>

=And we have already gauged the distance between your group and them, so we can challenge them whenever.=

<Or we can just pivot over to the Undertow Kingdom, we figured out the mapping for that because we found Tortallion’s [Chaos].>

’Okay, that’s good...so what’s the problem?’

<=To put it bluntly, the [Chaos] levels in both directions are higher than we anticipated.=>

’...higher like both of those aforementioned sources are stronger than we anticipated?’

<No...>

=Higher in the sense that, there are multiple, individual, contributing sources of [Chaos]. In both directions.=

’Oh...that’s...worrying. That’s a worrying implication.’

<=That’s not the worst part.=>

’There’s more?’

=If our measurements are correct, the additional source of [Chaos] coming from Undertow is similar to that former slave girl with the regenerative physique, and has been cultivating it like Japser and Janice.=

’Okay, not terrible but not good either...’

<As for the other direction, we are picking up several different sources that are built similarly to War Elder, but with vastly different affinities.>

’Vastly...how?’

<=We’re not sure how or why, but it appears that Grand Blue wasn’t the only kaijin to have his remains desecrated by outside forces. We’re picking up the kaijin signatures of at least.. five previous Lords.=>

’Oh...’

Evidently, shit just got real interesting.