Shrouded Seascape

Sparkle made a sidelong glance at her father. "Isn't that normal? There are so many things in the sea that eat meat. Even if there are millions of corpses, I'm sure they can devour them all if given enough time."

"But what about the bones?" Charles pointed out. "Albion Isles had more than ten million people, so how come we have yet to see even a single bone?"

Charles had become much stronger than when the Albion Isles were sacrificed, but he still didn't feel at ease.

"Maybe they're all good children who aren't picky eaters, so they ate the bones, too? Human bones are quite nutritious, you know?" Sparkle replied. Compared to her tense father, she seemed indifferent to what was going on.

Sparkle's strength grew along with her age, and the number of beings capable of threatening her in the Subterranean Sea had been growing fewer and fewer as she grew older.

Charles did not bother retorting to Sparkle's nonsense. He cast a meaningful gaze at Bandages, signaling at him to ensure that the fleet was ready to respond against any attacks.

The fleet advanced slowly and eventually arrived at their destination—the Navy headquarters of the Albion Isles. The warships shone their searchlights on the sea surface, ensuring that the area up ahead was as bright as day.

The building had collapsed; half of it was sticking out of the water, while the rest was submerged. They weren't too deep, just about three meters below water. If one looked at them from up above, one could easily mistake them for green-colored tombs.

Bandages picked up a black walkie-talkie and whispered a few words into it. The next moment, the ships began to drop their anchor one by one. The Hope Island Navy lowered tiny boats and began to make their action.

The fleet split into two groups—one went to the seabed, while the other went straight for the island.

The sound of horns, whistles, and the rumbling of engines vanquished the deafening silence. The navy troops carefully identified everything inside the Albion Isles' Navy headquarters. The navy troops were here to find the blueprints for prosthetic hearts and a difference engine.

The reward of a two-rank promotion in exchange for finding the blueprints for prosthetic hearts was sufficient motivation for everyone. A scene reminiscent of a construction site soon appeared before Charles beneath the searchlights.

"Daddy, it's time to eat. Are you not hungry?" Sparkle asked. She took an apple out of her belly and offered it to Charles.

"You eat. I'm not hungry," Charles replied. When the perimeter was finally secured, Charles took out his diary from his chest pocket and opened it.

Charles felt his shoulder sink slightly. His daughter was sitting on his shoulder and was staring curiously at the text written in the diary.

"Edikth... Fhtagn... Tawil. Why did you write the name of these gods, Dad?" A fair and slender hand reached over and gently pushed Charles' hand away. "Wait, you're analyzing them?"

"If our goal is to obtain the power of the gods, then we have to know as much as we can about gods," Charles replied.

Sweeping his gaze across what he had written down, Charles couldn't help but be reminded of the Subterranean Sea's deep sea gods. For some reason, he felt like he could hear those jarring whispers again.

"Except for 005 Tawil, how come the other gods have yet to make any formal interaction with the humans here? Are humans really of no use to them at all?" Charles asked. "Will we become like them upon becoming a god? Must we abandon humanity to become a god?"

Sparkle looked down at her hand, her brows tightly knitted in thought. "I don't know. Maybe I'll know when I grow up a bit more."

The father and daughter both fell into deep thought as they stared at the former's notes.

Time ticked by slowly, and the navy troops hauled many things out from the naval base. Unfortunately, Charles couldn't find what he wanted among them.

At ten in the evening on the same day, the navy troops rotated shifts.

Charles got ready to rest as well. The sound of waves crashing against the hull and the slight rocking of the ship quickly put Charles to sleep. He had to admit that he was more used to life at sea rather than life on land.

On that night, Charles had several dreams. One of them was about how Anna became an existence that one couldn't stare at directly. Upon becoming a god, Anna walked up to the sealed God Fhtagn paying no attention to Charles' screams.

As soon as Fhtagn opened His eyes, Charles was startled awake.

Rubbing his throbbing head, Charles looked at Sparkle beside him. Sparkle was holding a book and was flipping through it.

Sparkle's facial features had vanished and had been replaced by countless eyes with cross-shaped pupils. With the help of her countless sensory organs, Sparkle's reading speed was unbelievably fast, averaging only two seconds per page.

"Did you have a nightmare? Was it related to me?" Sparkle asked. Her mouth popped up on her shoulder.

Charles shook his head. He lifted the blanket and walked out of his quarters, making a beeline for his restroom.

Upon washing up, Charles walked up to a porthole and looked outside. It was still bright with so many people working busily outside.

"Looks like finding the blueprints is going to be a bit troublesome. I don't even know if we can find it," Charles muttered to himself while walking down the corridor to his quarters.

He had just taken a few steps forward when a figure suddenly appeared at the far end of the corridor. The figure's uniform told Charles that he was one of the navy troops.

However, the figure's head was drooping in front of his chest, and he was standing quietly at the end of the corridor, making the entire corridor feel a bit eerie.

All of a sudden, the figure made a move. The navy troop's figure swayed left and right as he staggered toward Charles.

"What's wrong with that guy?" Charles opened his prosthetic hand, and an anchor hook popped out of his steel palm. He opened his palm toward the oncoming figure when his keen ears heard snoring from the figure.

The approaching navy troop was asleep.

Is he sleepwalking? Just as the thought popped up in Charles' mind, the navy troop stopped moving. He then raised both hands and began gesturing using flag semaphore.

"Leave, danger, leave, danger…" The sleeping navy troop gestured nonstop, repeating the same two signals.

Charles' brows furrowed. The navy troop before him was definitely not sleepwalking.

"Who are you? Who sent you here?" Charles asked. Hundreds of invisible tentacles filled up the corridor in the blink of an eye, surrounding the sleeping navy troop.

In response to Charles' inquiry, the sleeping navy troop began to undress. Soon, his pale chest appeared in front of Charles, and a pitch-black tattoo depicting a figure in agony.

The figure's limbs were knotted like braids while needles and thread riddled the figure's body aside from its mouth, which was wide open in agony.

Charles instantly recognized the tattoo. It was one of the projects that the first-generation Foundation had contained in that underwater city. There was even a short time when it was attached to Charles.

Charles retracted his tentacles and walked up to the tattoo, asking, "How did you get here?"

Back then, the tattoo and Charles had made a deal, and both sides ultimately parted with satisfaction. Moreover, the tattoo was friends with Tobba, which meant that it could be considered an ally.

Charles' words seemed to have awakened the navy troop. He looked down at his hands and saw that they were moving on their own, gesticulating frantically using flag semaphore.

"Go-Governor, what's happening to my body?" the navy troop asked, looking at Charles with both bewilderment and alarm.

However, Charles couldn't pay any attention to him. He was transfixed on the meaning behind the flag semaphores. "

Underwater. Creatures. Many. Coming… Charles' train of thought stopped there as his figure vanished from the corridor. He teleported directly onto the deck of the Narwhale and shouted at Bandages, "First Mate! Tell everyone to return to their ships! We're getting out of here! Now!"

In the end, Charles chose to believe in the tattoo.

Bandages did not ask any questions upon hearing the graveness in Charles' voice and immediately sounded the retreat. Unfortunately, they were still a bit too late.

A slanted, rotten utility pole sticking out of the seawater on the starboard side of the ship quivered slightly and stood up from the icy cold ocean water.

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