Robert brought the conversation back on track as he saw it drifting further away.
“There is one more unusual circumstance you need to keep in mind. When the dying magical beasts in the sea begin to sing, do not respond to them.”
“No matter how mournful their dirge may be.”
“No matter how beautiful their siren-like song sounds.”
“Turn a deaf ear to them and pay them no mind.”
Robert spoke as if recounting an ancient tale.
...
Night.
The four of them patrolled the shore.
Tide Town truly lived up to its name. Massive surges of water rushed in from far away, washing over the ankles of the four patrollers.
Splash—
The seawater receded, exposing the bare, pale beach.
Cecia took a look at her waterlogged shoes. Great. They had been patrolling the beach for barely half an hour, and her shoes were already completely soaked.
Miss Potato walked beside Cecia.
After leaving the church and stepping away from the barrier, Potato seemed like a changed person.
She was no longer eating continuously.
Wrapping herself in her cloak, she silently walked beside Cecia.
She seemed to have regained some of her clarity, no longer appearing so dazed.
Lan walked at the front, her long sword unsheathed.
Her gaze drifted across the vast expanse of the horizon.
Mia was in the middle, as Lan intentionally kept her in a relatively safe position.
The night grew deeper.
Cecia’s talent, 【Favored of the Dark Night】, began to take effect.
Even without lighting a fire, Cecia could see everything happening along the long coastline.
The sound of splashing waves drew Cecia’s attention.
In the distance, Cecia spotted something resembling a sea anemone. At first, she paid it no mind.
It was nothing unusual for strange things to wash ashore.
Until Cecia saw it stand up.
Its body was radial in form, covered in gray, shell-like armor.
Beneath were tentacle-like and root-like structures—pink and resembling muscle fibers.
Cecia whispered, “Enemies on the coastline are here.”
Lan didn’t ask what the enemies were.
She unsheathed her long sword, which reflected the moonlight like flowing water.
“How many?”
Lan couldn’t see. She could only smell the salty, damp sea breeze and sense the erratic mana in the distance.
Cecia didn’t answer right away. To her, there was no noticeable difference between day and night.
She narrowed her eyes and peered into the distance.
The sea monsters along the coastline were rapidly growing in number.
Most of them still maintained a hybrid form of plant, shell, and octopus.
The waves acted like a factory assembly line, washing those sea monsters ashore batch after batch.
Then it began to rain.
A relentless downpour fell from the sky without warning, hammering the coastline.
It made vision even murkier.
The sea monsters in the ocean had originally been exposed to the dry air, but now that the rain came, it filled them with vitality instead.
“There are too many to count,” Cecia finally said calmly.
“Troublesome,” Lan remarked nearby, her voice finally carrying a trace of emotion.
It was indeed troublesome.
The already pitch-black night, combined with the sudden downpour, made it impossible for normal people to see anything clearly.
Cecia could see clearly, but she didn’t think seeing clearly was a good thing.
Because those creatures blooming with flowers and growing plant roots were far from pleasant to look at.
They moved using octopus-like tentacles at a slow speed; clearly, the ocean was their home turf.
Cecia narrowed her eyes, suddenly recalling what these creatures were.
People during the Imperial Era called them the “Starfolk.”
The origin of the Starfolk was unrecorded, known only to be inextricably tied to Kraken, the familiar of the Sea God.
In the year 655 of the Old Calendar, the Starfolk set foot on land for the first time.
That was a catastrophe.
The vast numbers of Starfolk nearly swallowed up more than half of the Empire’s territory, forcing the Pope—who had been severely wounded during the purge of the Abyss Cult—to personally lead the army to quell the disaster.
It wasn’t that Cecia was particularly good at history.
Rather, the illustration on the book cover was simply too ugly.
Cecia had even asked her teacher why they were called Starfolk.
Because they were radial in form and didn't look like creatures that belonged on land at all—they were practically like aliens.
There were records stating they had cities, languages, and technologies of their own.
Unfortunately, when the nations of the world settled scores with imperial tyranny, all those records were burned.
Now, right in front of Cecia, the foremost Starfolk suddenly stopped. It drove its tentacles into the earth to absorb nutrients.
Then its mouthpart began to sing, sounding like an offensive battle horn blown from a bull’s horn.
And so, the confused, aimless Starfolk suddenly seemed to find a target, moving toward the land.
There was no trampling, no chaos—they moved in unison like disciplined soldiers.
Lan held her long sword horizontally across her chest, gesturing for Mia, the only healer in the group, to fall back.
The rain swept past the tip of the blade, and Lan’s eyes lit up.
“You seem quite happy and excited,” Cecia said.
“Mm, a little bit.”
She answered so quickly.
“You could die.”
“I won’t as long as you all are here.”
Before Cecia could even feel touched, the next horn blew, its sound urgent.
Omm—
With that, the movement speed of the Starfolk suddenly accelerated.
Dozens of pink tentacles slapped the ground rhythmically as they charged at the patrol group.
Launching an attack.
Lan was the first to rush into the curtain of rain, stepping over the crisp waves.
Her sword light flashed like lightning.
Her long sword pierced through the Starfolk from inside its shell, though the roots planted in the dirt were still breathing and throbbing.
Immediately after, a graceful reverse stroke sliced through the roots in the soil.
The process felt a bit like preparing seafood while chopping wood.
As one Starfolk fell, Lan didn’t stay for long, darting straight toward the next one.
From an outsider’s perspective, she was like a white shadow flashing past.
This was a Rank One Martial Artist.
Pure speed and immense lethality.
Unfortunately.
Starfolk were never creatures that could be counted individually.
The Starfolk whose shell Lan had split open was still alive.
There were no internal organs inside, only something aggregated like muscle fibers and plant fibers.
The Starfolk that Lan had chopped into pieces was actually hopping back together.
Acting independently?
A bit interesting.
Lan prepared to turn back and land a finishing blow.
Yet a soft voice suddenly reached her ear.
“Don’t bother.”
Lan paused slightly. Oh, right, it was Nightingale, that easily overlooked girl.
Lan chose to trust her, swinging her long blade to hack away at the thrashing Starfolk, leaving behind a ground covered in debris.
Holding Flintfire in her left hand and Starhunter in her right, Cecia ignited the Starfolk that had been turned into fragments.
Forcing fire element magic to burn on a rainy day was no simple task.
But it didn't matter; Cecia’s mana was more than sufficient to play around with.
The flames scorched the Starfolk, giving off the scent of grilled octopus.
Truth be told, it smelled quite delicious, but creatures contaminated by the Abyss were definitely inedible.
No matter how much one craved food, one shouldn't joke with their life.
The flames wrapped around the Starfolk, completely carbonizing the biomass and causing it to lose its vitality.
Rate on N.U.
