Chapter 68: Negative Effects of a Sealed Artifact

Chapter 68: Negative Effects of a Sealed Artifact

After a period of experimentation, Klein gained a preliminary understanding of the Sea God Scepter’s abilities.

It could create tsunamis, summon hurricanes, produce torrential rain, and bring lightning strikes. It could let a person fly through the sky and walk along the seabed with almost no restrictions.

It was nearly indestructible and could directly smash an enemy’s head apart. Under the condition that no other powerful factor interfered, it could prevent its holder from ever losing their way. It could provide unimaginable balance, command numerous undersea creatures, respond to believers’ prayers, and grant its user the strength of a sea monster. It was equivalent to the ruler of a stretch of sea.

To Klein, this truly already belonged to the level of a god. Even on Earth, it could stand against a carrier battle group!

Although Klein was now Sequence 6 and possessed many practical Beyonder abilities, making him a true powerhouse in the eyes of ordinary people and a figure that belonged in legends, in essence, he was still fragile. He was still closer to “human.” If the situation was right, a single revolver could end him. Of course, reviving after death and rising from his coffin was another matter.

Yet the powers possessed by the Sea God Scepter all surpassed the level of “human.” They were, in folk tales and in the hearts of the populace, undeniably powers belonging to gods or devils.

No wonder Beyonders from Sequence 4 onward are called half-gods and half-humans. They really are more god than human… Klein sighed soundlessly, then laughed self-mockingly.

“If I could use the Sea God Scepter normally, I could already serve as a high-ranking deacon of the Nighthawks and become one of the twenty-some people with the greatest authority in the Church… If Ince Zangwill did not have 0-08, and if he were at sea, I could take revenge on him immediately, with quite a decent chance of success.

“But can I use the Sea God Scepter normally?

“No…”

Klein had already discovered just now that the Sea God Scepter’s negative effects were astonishingly severe. Within the Church of Evernight, it would absolutely receive an easy Grade 1 evaluation, and who knew how many researchers would have to die before its best sealing and usage methods could be found.

The Sea God Scepter had three negative effects in total.

The first was that it made the holder irritable, easily angered, and prone to having their blood rush to their head.

The second was that, periodically, it froze the thoughts of all living beings within a certain range and drained their blood, including the holder’s. As for the range’s exact size and the cycle’s specific value, Klein was not a professional researcher and found it difficult to provide precise numbers. He could only estimate roughly: the range was somewhere between six hundred meters and one kilometer, while the cycle was twenty to thirty-five minutes.

The third was that it gathered and presented the prayers of believers, complete with voices and images. This could very easily cause a non-demigod holder whose spirit was not strong enough to directly collapse and lose control.

“The first one is still fine. If I use it only for a short time, anger and irritability are acceptable. Put simply, when holding such a powerful Sealed Artifact, one might as well just charge straight ahead…

“The third can actually be avoided. Sea God’s responses to faith have a range limit. In other words, as long as I leave the Rorsted Archipelago and the nearby seas, I cannot receive the ‘signal’ at all, and thus I will not be affected. Mm… If I leave it above the gray fog the whole time, the distance limit seems to be broken, but the voices or images of prayer are shielded and reduced to points of light, with not the slightest influence on me. I can freely choose whether to respond, whom to respond to, and how to respond…

“And when I respond, I can use the Sea God Scepter’s…