Chapter 56: Dispelling

Chapter 56: Dispelling

What is going on?

Danitz could hardly believe what he had just seen.

It did not make him feel awed. Instead, it left him inexplicably terrified, as though, after getting drunk, he had leaped into a bucket filled with ice water, with bone-piercing chill seeping from the soles of his feet all the way to the top of his head.

What exactly happened? How did everything become so bizarre? Danitz drew in a breath and forced himself to turn his head back, chasing after Gehrman Sparrow’s back.

He discovered that this mad adventurer was walking faster and faster, to the point that Danitz had to break into short, quick steps just to keep up.

They crossed a street and passed through an alley. Suddenly, Danitz saw a blue-green shadow drop from a tree.

Pa! It was covered in scales, twisting its slick body, lifting a triangular head, and flicking a long, thin, scarlet tongue. It was a venomous snake of no small length!

Shit! In this season, in this weather, how can snakes be out and about? Danitz was not afraid of such creatures. He had even roasted snake meat before. What truly stimulated him was how abnormal this situation was.

After circling around the venomous snake coiled in place, Danitz instinctively looked left and right. In the drainage ditches on both sides, at the broken corners of houses, and inside the rusted surfaces of water pipes, pairs of cold, vertical pupils of various colors stared outward.

Danitz instinctively shuddered, feeling as though someone had pricked his scalp with countless fine needles.

He did not dare stay behind, nor did he dare leave. Once more, he quickened his pace, closely following behind Gehrman Sparrow.

When they entered the Azure Wind Inn and climbed the wooden stairs, Danitz could not help lifting his head, wanting to ask a question.

Suddenly, his chest tightened, and his breathing became sluggish.

At that instant, he felt as though he had dived to the bottom of the sea, squeezed from every direction by heavy currents.

Splash!

Faintly, Danitz heard the roaring of tides and saw illusory layers of rippling light surge around Gehrman Sparrow, as though they had formed a boundless, bottomless blue ocean.

Within that ocean, an enormous blue-green figure stood like a towering pillar, propping up everything.

This… Danitz’s right foot stopped in midair, unable to step down.

He was no stranger to a similar sensation. During the last pirate conference, the King of the Five Seas, Nast, had been even more majestic and terrifying. Almost all the pirates had been unable to lift their heads; only admiral-level powerhouses could barely resist it.

Danitz knew very well that this was absolutely not Gehrman Sparrow’s own performance.

If that man had already reached the level of half-human, half-god, he would never have needed to bring in the Mandated Punishers when hunting Steel Maviti!

Ocean… tides… Those two words flashed through Danitz’s mind, and then he immediately connected them to the rebels’ primary faith in Sea God Kalvetua.

“Could—could Gehrman Sparrow have suffered Sea God’s curse due to some unknown factor when he touched that bone sword just now? Was that completely dehydrated believer’s corpse one condition for activating the curse? Did the coachman kneel, prostrate himself, and kiss the ground because he sensed Sea God’s aura?

“Hiss… Gehrman Sparrow may die here today… Should I run farther away to avoid being caught in the aftermath? At most, at most, I can come back afterward to collect his corpse…

“Maybe there is still hope. I can use the Spirit Descent Ritual to ask the captain. She knows so many strange and bizarre mysticism arts; perhaps she can solve this problem… No, Lord above. The condition for the Spirit Descent Ritual is within five hundred nautical miles, and they still need to sail at least a day and a half before entering that range…”

While desperately thinking of a solution, Danitz grew less terrified. His steps became steady again as he followed Gehrman Sparrow into the luxury suite.

Klein still did not speak. His deep-brown eyes seemed dyed a thick blue so dense it was nearly black.

He headed straight for the bedroom and locked the door with a click.

Danitz stood outside. One moment, he wanted to run; the next, he felt there was still a chance to rescue the other man.

Inside the bedroom, Klein closed his eyes, waiting for the right opportunity.

Suddenly, he took four steps counterclockwise, each accompanied by an incantation.

His ears were swiftly filled with frenzied or shrill ravings. His spirit body turned illusory and rose straight into the gray fog.

Soundlessly, he heard a shrill, agonized howl beyond the power of language to describe.

Klein appeared in the ancient palace, at the very head of the mottled long table.

Within the quiet, motionless gray fog below him, the shape of an illusory, enormous blue-green sea serpent appeared.

It was inside an ancient, dim ruin, coiled around a half-collapsed pillar. Its ferocious head was raised, its bloody mouth open, revealing curved fangs longer than a human forearm.

Layer upon layer of blood covered the milky-white fangs, and mucus dripped from them.

The sea serpent lashed its tail madly, stirring terrifying waves and exaggerated ripples, making the entire ruin shake as though it would collapse.

The scene swiftly shattered and swiftly dimmed. No matter how the unimaginably gigantic sea serpent struggled, it could not reverse the process. It could only let out a pained, drawn-out hiss as it turned into specks of light and was obliterated within the gray fog.

Klein sat in The Fool’s high-backed chair, quietly watching everything without making any additional movement for a long time.

The gray fog spread soundlessly. The scenery here seemed unchanged since ancient times.

After dozens of seconds, Klein leaned against the back of the chair and sighed softly. He spoke the other party’s name:

“Sea God Kalvetua…”

After touching the bone sword, he had already sensed the abnormality. During his conversation with “Bald” Kalat, he keenly discovered that, at some unknown point, a tiny and weak but extremely high-level cold, sinister power had infiltrated his body and was slowly corrupting his soul.

Klein decisively turned and left. Then he realized that this sinister power was establishing a connection with the surroundings, gradually growing stronger, linking bit by bit to some unknown location.

Therefore, while splitting his attention to resist that erosion, he controlled himself and avoided interacting with anything around him.

Klein believed that as long as he reacted to the abnormalities along the way, the erosion would intensify and might even become irreversible.

His original idea was to find a nearby washroom and, with the gray fog’s shielding and isolation, dissolve that sinister, cold power. But after careful consideration, he still decided to first move away from that district. There were too many Sea God believers around, and an accident was very likely.

During this process, Klein also grasped another point: if he “expelled” it ahead of time, some portion of Sea God Kalvetua’s projected power would remain within his flesh and blood. The consequences and influence were unknown.

He had no choice but to wait patiently for the proper opportunity, waiting for that cold, sinister power to fully penetrate his spirit so he could “purify” it in one stroke.

After reviewing the entire matter, Klein tapped the edge of the table with one finger and murmured softly, “It is not strong…”

Sea God’s level was quite a bit lower than he had imagined!

His original plan had been to use the set of methods he had prepared to receive Amon’s avatar against the projection of Sea God Kalvetua, who was attempting to erode his soul and seize his body. Yet, before he even merged with the Black Emperor card or tossed out a paper angel, the other party had been directly dispelled by the gray fog, leaving no trace behind.

From this, Klein concluded that Sea God Kalvetua’s level was below that of Amon the Blasphemer—although the latter was perhaps more skilled at invasion, and had only been an avatar at the time.

Was he beaten down by the Lord of Storms until his level fell, or was he never at the angel level in the first place, merely a comparatively powerful demigod capable of responding to believers within a certain range? Puzzled, Klein recalled what he had seen and discovered that Sea God Kalvetua’s state had been very abnormal.

“The foundation of this evil spirit’s existence is rather fragile. It seems as though it might collapse and disintegrate at any moment…

“And it, together with the ruin it inhabits, felt fused with the spirit world. Is that how it escaped the Church of Storms’ encirclement and suppression in the first place?”

Klein leaned back against his chair and vaguely formed a guess.

“What happened today was no coincidence. It all originated from the archaeologist Leticia taking some important object from that forgotten temple, causing the barely surviving Sea God Kalvetua’s condition to suddenly worsen, making it difficult for him to maintain his existence for much longer.

“On one hand, he is having believers retrieve that object. On the other, he is making preparations to survive by possessing someone. That bone sword should originate from his demigod body and hide a small amount of projected power. As long as the target is suitable, it invades the toucher’s body, corrupts the soul, establishes coordinates, and lets his own spirit transfer over before it dissipates.

“But he is clearly not skilled in this area. Hm, he is not a Mercury Serpent, incapable of creating a self-sustaining loop and reincarnating. Nor is he like Amon the Blasphemer, able to reside inside someone else’s soul. If he truly occupied this body, he would only cause the flesh and blood to collapse completely and create a terrifying monster.”

Following that logic, Kalvetua, who is on the verge of truly falling, will carry out many more insane actions next… Klein frowned slightly and delayed no longer. He dropped through the gray fog and returned to the real world.

He unlocked the bedroom door, pulled it open, and entered the sitting room, startling Danitz, who had been pacing back and forth.

Danitz looked him up and down several times, then cautiously and warily asked, “You… are all right?”

Maintaining Gehrman Sparrow’s persona, Klein answered calmly, “It is resolved.”

Resolved? Danitz looked left and right, then glanced toward the bedroom, suspecting that everything he had sensed earlier had been an illusion and that there had never been any so-called Sea God’s curse.

What did he do inside the bedroom? He lifted Sea God’s curse in only one or two minutes? Hiss… This fellow’s secrets are not small… Danitz backed away two steps, clearing the path.

…

Beside the table covered in miscellaneous objects, Bald Kalat, seated in the iron wheelchair, said with a regretful expression to the tattooed Edmonton, “What a pity.”

“It was only a little short… He did not pick it up. He only touched it,” Edmonton likewise sighed.

Kalat gazed at the slightly curved bone sword and murmured fervently, “When an outsider picks up this holy sword, God shall reappear upon the earth…”

Edmonton then knelt, as though confessing to his deity.

Time passed second by second. Suddenly, Kalat and Edmonton heard two screams.

They lifted their heads and saw two companions collapse straight to the floor. Their skin was like weathered stone, utterly drained of moisture.

Kalat and Edmonton exchanged a glance, sensing that something about the atmosphere had changed.

Both men straightened at the same time and looked toward the table.

With a crack, the milky-white holy sword split open and shattered into countless small fragments.