Free Web NovelIn the deepest part of the Shattered Isles, the waves seemed to lose their sound.
The entrance to the sea cave known as the Eye of Serenity stood quietly between the reef walls; the opening was long and vertical, its silhouette resembling a half-open pupil.
There was no wind inside the cave. Black seawater extended inward against the rock walls, as smooth as a mirror without a reflection.
The air was unnaturally deathly still.
Just as Louis stopped walking, a hurried and suppressed sound came from behind him.
"Please wait, Lord.‐ Weil had already blocked his path.
The knight knelt on one knee on the slippery rock surface, looking up directly at Louis.
It was a gaze mixed with fear, responsibility, and shame.
"The aura inside... isn't right." His voice was low and raspy, as if he were fighting his own instincts.
Weil clenched his teeth, the words almost squeezed out of his throat: "Please allow us to accompany you. Even if we just walk in front, even if... as human shields."
The Extraordinary Knights behind him also knelt on one knee. They didn't speak, but they simultaneously gripped their sword hilts.
To let their Lord walk alone into an unknown abyss was, to them, a failure of duty.
Louis unhurriedly adjusted his black gloves, his fingertips gently smoothing the small wrinkles on the leather. He smiled and said, "I'm well aware of your desire to stand in front, and I know you aren't afraid."
Weil's breath hitched slightly.
"But the things inside aren't enemies that can be resisted by will and courage alone," Louis continued. "It will silently invade your thoughts and make choices for you."
"If you are used by it, I must end you with my own hands." As he said this, his gaze did not waver. "That is not a price I am willing to bear."
The air remained heavy, but it was no longer sharp.
Louis's gaze fell back onto Weil, carrying an unquestionable entrustment: "So stay here. This is an order, and it is also my trust in you."
"Any living thing that comes out of there..." He paused, his voice dropping an octave, "End it."
Louis walked past Weil, his back showing no hesitation.
Only when his figure had completely vanished into the darkness of the cave entrance did Weil suddenly slam a fist against the nearby reef.
The dull thud echoed outside the cave.
Blood flowed from between his fingers, dripping onto the cold rock surface... The world inside the cave seemed completely cut off from the outside.
The moment Louis stepped into the cave, the light behind him seemed to be wiped away by an invisible hand.
As he walked deeper, the colors on the rock walls began to change.
Extremely faint pink light spots emerged on the originally pitch-black stone surface, like foxfire embedded in the rock, or like some slowly breathing biological tissue.
It was terrifyingly quiet here; Louis could clearly hear his own heartbeat.
That sound was infinitely amplified, appearing exceptionally abrupt in this dead silence, as if the entire cave were slightly contracting in rhythm with it.
The next moment, an odor hit him.
It was excessively sweet, thick and sticky, carrying a warmth that made one lower their guard.
With just one breath, the body would instinctively crave more, crave to stop walking, crave to stop thinking about anything... But Louis's pace did not falter in the slightest, and his eyes remained clear.
Inside his body, the primal heart vibrated slowly, separating one by one the components trying to seep into his consciousness through smell, emotion, and instinct.
The sweetness still existed, but it could no longer touch his will.
Amidst this decadent tenderness, Louis was like a piece of unmeltable cold iron, walking alone deeper into the cave.
After going about three hundred meters deep into the cave, the terrain suddenly opened up.
The black rock walls receded to both sides, and an underground beach formed by long-term seawater erosion lay across the path.
The ground was uneven, with fine bone fragments mixed among the damp rock sand, and low, hollow echoes reverberated in the air.
A dozen massive stalactites hung from the ceiling like inverted fortress pillars, cutting this space into a natural cage.
Almost simultaneously, they stepped out from the gaps between those stone pillars and the darkness.
Twelve massive figures stepped onto the beach, their footsteps making dull thuds as they crushed the rock sand.
Deep Sea Tyrant Warriors—each was clad in thick pink bone armor, the bone plates layered like shells stripped directly from abyssal behemoths.
Giant axes the size of doors were dragged on the ground, their edges embedded with serrated alchemical structures that made a piercing noise when scraping against the rock.
Their muscles were knotted and bloated, their chests rising and falling like bellows with every breath.
That sense of pressure was almost identical to the berserk Balke from before.
Behind them, four figures slowly rose.
Deep Sea High Priests hovered in mid-air, their withered bodies wrapped in robes, their bone staves thrust deep into the ground.
Faint but continuous pink-purple light lines lit up between the bone staves, connecting to one another and silently weaving a curse field that covered the entire beach.
On the surface, they would be called a natural disaster.
But now, they faced only one person.
Dozens of pairs of cloudy and greedy eyes focused on Louis at the same time, carrying a sense of cruelty; they were waiting for this human to show fear or attempt to retreat.
Louis did not stop. He sighed softly and simultaneously reached to his waist to draw that silver noble decorative sword.
The blade was slender and elegant, inlaid with sapphires, and the edge was so thin it was nearly transparent.
This kind of sword should have appeared at a ball to accentuate one's status, not to be used for slaughter.
Blood-colored mist was the first to coil around it.
It wasn't a gentle attachment, but rather like a high-voltage current tightly gripping the blade, forcibly stabilizing this mundane iron so it wouldn't shatter the moment power was poured in.
Immediately after, a purple eerie light extended from the sword tip, silently lengthening and transforming into an invisible light blade a full two meters long.
The air was sliced open.
The silver decorative sword let out a faint and piercing wail, the blade vibrating slightly as if it would melt under the high load at any moment.
The monsters moved.
The twelve Tyrant Warriors stepped forward simultaneously, their speed so fast they left afterimages on the retina.
Giant axes swung, the blades tearing through the air and kicking up heavy wind pressure.
The priests in mid-air raised their staves at the same time, and a mental shriek crashed down like an invisible tsunami.
This was an encirclement that sealed off all possibilities, leaving no room to dodge.
Louis looked up at this moment. In the depths of his pupils, that sliver of pure gold vertical pupil lit up completely: "Kneel."
The pressure was not directed at any single individual, but was like an invisible curtain directly covering the entire space.
In the next instant, time seemed to be forcibly paused.
The dozen or so figures charging at high speed all froze for a single frame in mid-air.
Axe blades stalled, incantations broke, and even the flow of air experienced an extremely brief lag.
In that one-frame blank, Louis's figure vanished.
A streak of red and purple light quietly wove through the group of monsters.
Two seconds later.
Louis's figure appeared a dozen meters away, his back to the center of the beach.
The silver decorative sword in his hand made a faint and crisp sound.
"Snap."
The blade shattered into countless tiny metal particles, spilling from between his fingers.
It had finally fulfilled its mission.
Behind him, the sixteen deep-sea monsters, each capable of dominating a region, still maintained their attacking postures.
In the next instant, fine and straight bloodlines simultaneously appeared on their bodies.
"Squelch—!"
The heads, arms, and torsos of the Tyrant Warriors slid off neatly, the cuts as smooth as mirrors.
The priests in mid-air didn't even leave corpses behind; they directly exploded into clouds of purple misty residue and were quickly consumed entirely.
The blood didn't even have time to gush out before it vanished into the air.
Louis let go of the remaining sword hilt, letting it fall to the ground. He stepped over the field of severed limbs and continued deeper into the cave... Past this still-steaming ground of minced corpses, Louis kept moving forward.
The ground beneath him was no longer hard stone, but a pale altar constructed entirely of piled bones.
Human skulls, merman spines, and the ribcages of behemoths whose species could no longer be identified were forcibly fused and compressed by some power, interlocking with each other to form a bizarre and stable structure. fгeewebnovёl.com
It was as if all emotion and life had long been drained away, leaving only the extracted husks.
And in the center of the altar grew that thing.
A massive, translucent pink crystal coral.
It was not static; a slow tide seemed to flow inside the coral, the light waxing and waning with it, opening and closing like lung lobes.
With every breath, pink mist was spat out into the surroundings.
The mist was not blinding; instead, it was soft and warm, carrying a sweet fragrance that made one instinctively relax.
Louis stopped walking, his gaze falling upon the coral.
In the next instant, ripples appeared on the coral's surface.
Countless faces emerged; peerless beauties reached out their arms, their skin flowing in the light;
There was no war, no responsibility, no coldness or loneliness, only infinitely extended peace and satisfaction.
The fragrance suddenly intensified.
It no longer stayed in the air, but followed the gaps in breath, skin, and emotion, attempting to burrow into the depths of Louis's consciousness.
Whispers rang out in his mind.
Not one voice, but countless overlapping murmurs.
"So tired..."
"Let it go..."
"Melt... become a part of us..."
"There is no pain here, only bliss..."
The voice was so gentle it was nearly merciful.
Within his sea of consciousness, pink tides came sweeping in from all directions.
They were not impatient or fierce, but rose slowly and steadily, attempting to completely submerge that lone island called "Reason."
Just as the crest of the wave was about to touch the edge of his consciousness, a platinum light shone.
The primal heart suddenly accelerated its rotation in the center of the sea of consciousness.
In the next moment, a grand platinum starlight fell from on high, lying across the path of the pink tide like a heavenly chasm.
And three forces responded simultaneously.
The crimson power transformed into blood-colored vines, growing from the depths of his consciousness and crudely tearing apart those illusions composed of desire.
The deep purple power surged out like a swarm of insects, greedy and cold, gnawing and devouring the pink energy, decomposing it into the most primitive mental residue.
And that sliver of pale gold hung high above everything, like a shadow cast by a throne.
The pink mist was forcibly pulled and rolled # Nоvеlight # back, transforming into a torrent of pure energy that surged into Louis's body, only to be purified and crushed under the radiance of the primal heart.
Then Louis's consciousness was drawn by a more ancient residual power, falling into time itself.
The first image emerged with extreme clarity.
In a dim hall, Balke knelt on the ground.
His eyes were closed, his expression peaceful, as if he were waiting for a long-overdue forgiveness.
A translucent brain jellyfish slowly descended from the shadows, its soft tentacles gently touching the back of his head; its movements were so gentle they were nearly pious.
The tentacles pierced in; the scalp and bone seemed to be melted by some warm solution, quietly parting to make way.
Balke's body relaxed completely, the corners of his mouth curling up uncontrollably into a child-like, innocent smile.
The light in his eyes went out at this moment. A single tear stopped at the corner of his eye, and before it could fall, it had already lost its meaning.
The image then shattered.
The second memory was like a compressed elegy.
On a sea shrouded in storm, a massive ark was slowly sinking.
Its volume far exceeded the fernando; the hull's lines were complex and elegant, covered with sophisticated magic arrays and armor of unknown material.
This was not a creation of this era.
The enemies besieging it were not mindless monsters.
It was a merman army, but completely different from the current crazed mermen.
They had orderly formations, knew how to cover, feint, and divide the battlefield, and used complex tools and tactical coordination.
On the bridge of the ark, a captain wearing an ancient uniform stood on the broken deck.
His face was full of exhaustion, but he was not hysterical.
"I'm sorry..." He spoke softly to the void, his voice torn apart by the wind and rain, "Teacher."
The next moment, he pulled out a short dagger and pierced his own heart without hesitation.
Pink mist overflowed from the wound, mixing with the sea breeze.
The third memory was the most blurred, as if separated by countless layers of water and eras.
A black-haired young man sat upon a throne coiled by massive tree roots.
In his arms, he held an infant still in swaddling clothes.
Despite being in the highest position, there was no glory on his face, only bottomless sorrow.
It was the expression of someone who had foreseen the future but was powerless to stop it.
The image became completely blurred here, as if forcibly cut off by some will, and all the illusions collapsed at once.
Louis snapped his eyes open.
The cave was still quiet, and the white bone altar was motionless, as if nothing had ever happened.
The purified pink mist was no longer restless.
It flowed obediently into Louis's sea of consciousness, transforming into a fourth halo, which slowly rotated around the primal heart alongside the crimson, deep purple, and pale gold ones.
Louis was only briefly dazed for a moment before regaining his footing.
He hadn't fainted, which meant his body and soul were already capable of bearing these remnants and memories from the old days.
The abilities brought by the pink power naturally surfaced in his awareness.
Normally, his words would carry an imperceptible mental suggestion, making people unconsciously lower their guard and develop trust and proximity toward him.
And in battle, with just a thought, he could detonate an opponent's sensory nerves, causing them to fall into a brief but fatal state of blissful paralysis, or create deadly cognitive biases.
After everything ended, Louis stood in the center of the deathly still cave and did not leave immediately.
He had finally pieced together a vague outline.
These powers did not exist independently; they were pieces of the corpse left behind after the death of some great being.
And the primal heart inside him... was perhaps the only key to reassembling this corpse or inheriting its legacy.
"Even my transmigration is related to these things," Louis whispered to himself, his tone calm but no longer light.
"There are three and a half left." He looked up, his gaze piercing through the darkness of the cave. "Once I have them all... the answer might just appear on its own."
