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 power…

“The biggest problem is the second one. I myself am still fine. When transformed into the Black Emperor, I am a Wraith. I have no blood, and I do not fear being drained dry. But any living beings nearby are in for disaster. This effect does not distinguish between enemy and ally, and its cycle is difficult to grasp… I cannot exactly encounter danger, then discuss with the enemy whether we can change the time and place before fighting, can I?”

Klein carefully considered several scenarios for using the Sea God Scepter, but all of them depended on the environment and accurate judgment beforehand. In practice, they were not very feasible.

“Whew… Is its fate to remain above the gray fog and, when someone like Amon tries to ‘touch’ his way up here, give him a burst of fire—no, a bolt of lightning…

“Right. It has another use. When Miss Justice, Mr. Hanged Man, and the others pray for help, I no longer have only the paper angel option. I can also provide rainwater, stir up some wind… Of course, all of that can be carried by a paper angel, just like the Sun Brooch’s purifying ability…

“Thinking about it carefully, with the Sea God Scepter, above the gray fog I can now behave like a true demigod…”

Klein’s mood gradually improved, because he realized that, in its current state, the Sea God Scepter was not completely unusable. It would allow him to add many more flashy maneuvers.

He withdrew his attention and once again focused on the white-bone scepter whose top was embedded with blue-green “gemstones.” He began considering another question: should he respond to the prayers of Sea God’s believers?

“Kalvetua is already dead. There is no need to provide those people with another object of faith…

“But even if the priests and rebel leaders who are still alive notice the abnormality and receive no more responses, they will not truly accept the worst result for a very long time. People always cling to luck. They are used to comforting and hypnotizing themselves, especially when they are trapped in a cruel environment where no dawn can be seen. It is just like the City of Silver. More than two thousand years have passed, and they still sacrifice to that Creator, believing that they have merely been hated and abandoned, and that one day they will receive a response again…

“In other words, after receiving no response, Sea God’s fanatical believers not only will not believe that Kalvetua has fallen and stop their live sacrifices; they will instead intensify their efforts, hoping to once again receive their deity’s favor… Without years, perhaps more than a decade, of propaganda and suppression, it will be very hard to make them sober.

“And once the rebels no longer have the support of Kalvetua, this indigenous deity, I fear they will have no choice but to fully lean toward Feysac or Intis. At that point, carrying an extremist faith, they may very well be driven to do inhumane things—for example, attacking places where civilians gather, or forcing children whose eyes still retain innocence to stand in front as shields…

“They need some guidance. They need to be told what proper faith looks like. But I cannot create a burden for myself either. I will offer some help only within the limits of what I can manage… I am not responsible for saving their fate…”

Klein tapped the edge of the mottled long table with a finger, then suddenly gave a low laugh.

“Am I not supposed to carry out real acting? Sea God Kalvetua is a rather suitable target.

“I just do not know whether, after being isolated by the gray fog, this will still let me receive feedback.

“Heh. I will only know after trying.”

Klein quickly made his decision, inexplicably feeling refreshed.

After some consideration, he first materialized the required scene. Then he gripped the Sea God Scepter, extended his spirituality, and touched one of the light points.

…

Deep within the jungle of Blue Mountain Island, inside a hidden cave.

Bald Kalat had fallen from his wheelchair. Despair and confusion filled his eyes as he crawled toward the shattered statue of Kalvetua before him.

He vaguely sensed something, yet refused to believe it, because that would mean all their persistence, all their sacrifices, all their pain, had become meaningless.

No… he screamed soundlessly. He kept murmuring the honorific name of Sea God Kalvetua, trying to receive a response from his deity.

Supporting himself on his elbows, his fingers digging into the soil, he inched toward the broken statue. Lifting the sea-serpent head carved from stone, he discovered that the positions of the eyes had strangely sunken into black holes, and the teeth had fallen out one after another.

Kalat nearly froze. It felt as though the light had vanished before his eyes.

Just then, he suddenly saw a blurry human figure. Behind that figure was a deep-blue tsunami rising into the sky, and silver-white bolts of lightning branching like trees.

In astonishment, Kalat instinctively lowered his head. An unbelievable joy surged within his heart.

He saw that beneath the figure’s feet clustered ocean waves, and around him coiled hurricanes. His entire presence was majestic and sacred, lofty and vast.

Then he heard an indifferent, magnificent voice:

“I have returned.”

As the voice echoed, tears inexplicably flowed down Kalat’s face.

…

Inside the undersea ruin that was half fused with the spirit world, more than ten minutes after Klein left, the seawater filling the area suddenly roared and poured outward. In only twenty or thirty seconds, the elven ruin became as dry as if it stood upon land.

Fresh hurricanes blew in, bringing breathable air.

Figures descended within the hurricane. The one leading them was a tall, sturdy middle-aged man whose outer appearance looked just past forty. His facial lines were hard and deep, and the blocks of muscle on his body distinctly propped up the loose robes of a Storm priest.

This was Church of Storms Cardinal, Archbishop of the Rorsted Seas, high-ranking deacon of the Mandated Punishers, Sea King Ain Kottman.

He had deep-blue eyes, and hair of the same color that was twice as thick as a normal person’s, like tiny worms or tentacles.

Behind Ain Kottman followed numerous Mandated Punishers and military personnel. They examined the environment around them with anticipation and caution, not relaxing their requirements merely because a demigod was protecting them from the front.

Just then, they heard a cold snort. A hurricane immediately swept them up and carried them in one breath to the entrance of the ruin’s hall.

They saw, lying inside, an enormous sea serpent whose flesh and blood had rotted into mud, exposing white bones. Apart from that, there was nothing.

“Who?” Ain Kottman suppressed his anger and roared.

As he shouted the word, a surge of seawater fell from above with a crash.

The seawater echoed through the half-collapsed hall and quickly calmed into the surface of a windless lake.

Reflected in that surface was the earlier scene:

An indistinct figure pulled up the white short scepter embedded with blue-green gems, triggering the churning of the seawater and the trembling of the ruin.

Ain Kottman inhaled. With his back to everyone, he said, “Find him.”

…

By then, Klein had already selected a dozen or so relatively important believers and responded to them one by one. Primarily, he gave them new holy covenants:

“I have returned, and I shall pardon the past and redeem you.

“The First Commandment: You shall not perform live sacrifice. You shall not use humans as offerings.”