Chapter 167: The Spirit World of the Berserk Sea

Chapter 167: The Spirit World of the Berserk Sea

“Desi pies use more filling than the ones in Backlund, but they like adding certain local spices. The first few bites feel a little strange, yet once you get used to it, it has a flavor all its own…”

Inside his hotel room, Klein sat with considerable comfort, sometimes biting into an oily pie, sometimes drinking a little cool, refreshing sweet iced tea.

After eating and drinking his fill, he did not immediately tidy up. Instead, he picked up the top hat resting on the nearby chair and placed it on his head.

At the same time, the glove on his left palm suddenly turned transparent. His entire person rapidly faded and vanished.

Klein entered the spirit world, intending to Travel to Bodo Harbor in the Berserk Sea and search for food for Creeping Hunger.

The Eskelson Harbor where he currently was did indeed belong to Desi Bay, but it did not sit on any point of the mainland coastline. This was an island—the southernmost island of Desi Bay. Crossing beyond it meant one was about to enter the Berserk Sea.

Therefore, after Klein had only traveled for one second toward his predetermined coordinates, an abnormal scene appeared before his eyes.

Nearby spirit-world currents took shape and coiled into wind, howling as they enveloped a vast region whose edges could not be seen. Within them, the light was dim, dark clouds piled upon one another, and lightning tinged with a deep, profound feeling streaked across again and again, illuminating the surrounding scene like the end of the world.

At that moment, Klein seemed to have arrived upon an ocean ruled by an unending storm. Yet he knew, clearly and truly, that this was the spirit world.

“As expected, just as many mysticism books mention, the power released when Death fell not only changed the climate and environment of the ocean between the Northern and Southern Continents, filling it with natural disasters and countless dangerous currents, causing it to be named Berserk; it also broke the barrier between reality and illusion, contaminating and damaging the corresponding spirit world, making the two sides influence one another… In the Berserk Sea region, if one holds rituals involving the spirit world, or uses abilities related to the spirit world, there is a high chance an accident will occur and unexpected changes will arise…”

Klein sighed inwardly, using what he had personally seen to verify the records in the books.

In his view, if not for this, the nations of the Northern Continent would not have needed to wait until Emperor Roselle discovered safe sea routes before they had the opportunity to invade the Southern Continent. After all, to many high-Sequence powerhouses, natural barriers in the ordinary sense could be bypassed directly.

Roselle’s safe sea routes were not merely geographical. They were mystical as well!

In other words, because the Berserk Sea and the corresponding spirit world influenced each other and overlapped, Klein could directly refer to local nautical charts and travel through the disasters within the spirit world.

Recalling the material he had read earlier, Klein found the correct position and entered that dark, dim spirit-world region.

The sound of howling winds came from all directions. Even though it was only the aftershock, it blew into Klein and produced a chill that seemed to rise from the depths of his soul or bone marrow. This made him believe that if he were moving about in spirit body form without using the Black Emperor card, the Tyrant card, or Azik’s copper whistle to reinforce and elevate himself, he might already have suffered rather serious injuries.

And if he were not on a “safe route” and faced the black storm brimming with the aura of death head-on, he felt that even with a physical body, he most likely could not withstand it.

Compared with the wild winds, the deep lightning was even more dangerous. Klein suspected that he could not endure even a single bolt. As for the hidden whirlpools and wandering creatures, those were separate risks altogether.

“There is no actual seawater here. I wonder what lies at the end of those whirlpools…”

Klein traveled along the safe route at a not especially fast speed, occasionally looking around and accumulating experience.

Suddenly, he saw a strange creature.

It dragged a gigantic scythe and stood within the black storm. Its body was composed of skull after skull, swollen and enormous.

Those skulls were gray-white or gray-black, varying in size and belonging to many different races. They layered over one another, building a torso, limbs, and head.

Almost the same instant Klein saw that strange creature, it also discovered him. All the skulls turned at once. Amid cracking sounds even the howling storm could not conceal, they looked over together.

Those deep eye sockets appeared one after another, stacked and compressed, too numerous to count.

Klein’s forehead twitched. Using Travel, he leapt directly past this place and entered the next stretch of the safe route.

Beneath the nearby illusory sea surface, bloody arms stretched upward one after another, while dark-green illusory tentacles waved toward the sky.

…

Outside the City of Silver, a black mausoleum stood inverted into the earth, like a pyramid that had flipped over.

At this moment, from every crack between the mausoleum’s bricks and stones, clusters of fine black plants had grown. Even the heavy door at the entrance had already been corroded.

Colin Iliad carried two swords on his back and stood outside the door with two other elders of the six-member council, examining the passage that slanted down into the earth.

Lovia, whose silver-gray hair hung curled and loose, quietly watched for a while before saying, “It should be possible now.”

Compared to the way she had once shifted unpredictably between different mental states, this Shepherd Elder was now deep and calm, without the slightest abnormality. Her pale-gray eyes were restrained and profound.

Colin lightly nodded. From two small compartments on his belt, he took out one potion bottle after another, twisted off the caps, and gulped them down.

His light-blue eyes quickly brightened. On skin otherwise lacking wrinkles, veins bulged outward and turned silver-white.

Immediately afterward, the Chief drew one straight sword and evenly smeared silver-gray ointment over its surface.

As he prepared step by step, another elder of the six-member council, Waite Chirmont, was doing something similar.

This burly man had shaved his head and tattooed a dark-cyan symbol upon the crown. He stood nearly 2.5 meters tall. On the surface, he looked no older than forty-five, yet his actual age was already close to eighty. He was likewise a Sequence 4 Demon Hunter, a half-human, half-god existence, and one of the main pillars of the City of Silver.

—In the City of Silver, because main ingredients were not especially lacking, because the residents understood acting methods, and because they possessed sufficient combat experience, advancement through the low and mid Sequences was relatively simple. Sequence 6 Beyonders were numerous. But from Sequence 5 onward, due to rituals and all kinds of other problems, the number of Beyonders dropped off like a cliff. By Sequence 4, where qualitative change began, even an entire generation might not produce one.

Waite Chirmont did not use the twin swords orthodox Demon Hunters tended to favor, which allowed different ointments to take effect simultaneously and handle more complex situations. What he carried was an iron-gray long hammer, while on his back was a gigantic bow that seemed enormous even in comparison with his height and physique, making him look like a miniature giant walking out of an oil painting.

That gigantic bow was a mystical item with negative effects that were not especially great. It was recorded in the history books of the City of Silver. Because it had once shot and killed a demigod-level dragon, it had been given a name:

Dragon-Hunting Bow!

After finishing his preparations, Waite slammed the iron-gray long hammer onto the ground in front of him. Then he took down the giant bow and slowly drew it back.

Crackling electric light suddenly appeared, gathering together, lengthening as he drew the string until a blinding, brilliant arrow formed between bow back and bowstring.

The instant Waite’s fingers loosened from the string, the lightning arrow directly leapt onto the mausoleum door overgrown with weeds like human hair.

Silently, the heavy door seemed to have long since been corroded. Amid the exploding lightning, it abruptly shattered into pieces, crumbling into residue and revealing a dark passage.

Inside this passage, pale flames flickered one after another, and no end could be seen at a glance. It gave off an eerie and chilling feeling.

Within Colin’s eyes, two complicated dark-green symbols appeared, reflecting the scene at the mausoleum entrance into their center.

A few seconds later, he held his straight sword at an angle and entered the mausoleum. Waite shouldered the Dragon-Hunting Bow, pulled up the iron-gray long hammer, and followed closely behind.

Lovia, draped in a purple robe, showed no change in expression. Empty-handed, neither fast nor slow, she passed through the shattered door as well.

As they followed the passage and stairs downward, the three members of the six-member council showed not the slightest impatience or unease within the completely silent environment. They allowed their footsteps to echo around them.

After descending another level, a river suddenly appeared before them: an illusory, dark river.

Beneath the water’s surface, countless skinned, blood-red arms, cyan vines bearing infant faces, and slippery tentacles covered in eyes crowded densely together, constantly leaping upward, attempting to seize anything passing by.

Near the edge of the river by the entrance, figures of different heights wearing old clothing stood with their backs to the three elders. They wandered back and forth as though troubled by how to cross the river.

Suddenly, one of them noticed that someone was approaching and slowly turned to look at Colin, Waite, and Lovia.

It was an old man. His hair had already turned entirely white. Deep wrinkles marked his forehead and the corners of his mouth. His eyes were light blue yet hollow. His expression was numb and lost.

Colin Iliad’s pupils abruptly contracted. He recognized who the other party was.

This was his brother. His brother who had been possessed by Amon. His brother whose life he had personally ended.

At that very moment, the other figures also turned around, revealing faces Colin, Waite, and Lovia found extremely familiar—yet all were abnormally numb.

Lovia’s expression still showed no obvious change. But behind her, at some unknown moment, a five-meter-tall illusory knight had appeared.

This knight wore ancient silver full-body armor. Its eyes were dark red like blood, burning like flames.

…

After carefully traveling along the “safe route” for over ten seconds, Klein arrived at Bodo Harbor in the Berserk Sea. This place lay away from the main routes and belonged to no country. It was a free city for pirates.

After stepping onto the surface of the rocks, Klein, who had casually pinched himself a stranger’s face, did not hurry into the small port city whose buildings were jumbled without order. Instead, he reached into his pocket and took out an iron cigarette case.

During the process of shuttling through the spirit-world “Berserk Sea,” he had sensed Azik’s copper whistle trembling faintly!

After removing the wall of spirituality, Klein opened the cigarette case and grasped the ancient and exquisite copper whistle.

The copper whistle had lost its usual cold gentleness, acquiring a slight burning sensation. But this abnormality was rapidly fading.