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[Translator - Night]
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Chapter 141
Ever since she opened her eyes, it felt like things had only gotten worse.
The information flowing in from the Forbidden Zone was utterly bizarre.
It was an empty space, yet some kind of information was surging in.
It was so chaotic and mixed that it was hard to grasp what it even was, making me question whether this was the ocean I knew at all.
If not for the divine relic, we might have faced trouble the moment we entered this place.
However, that only made it even more confusing.
An empty space.
The only thing found in the Forbidden Zone so far was the enormous grotesque fish we had seen before acquiring it.
Even now, the ground beneath our feet was nothing but dirt—completely devoid of any life.
"Are we even sure we can find it? We don't even know if it's actually here, and this place is way too vast."
It wasn't just a complaint—Melissa's words were entirely valid.
"I'm picking up something."
It was true that the search was proving more difficult than expected, but that didn’t mean it was impossible.
The information was too mixed up to confirm anything without seeing it firsthand, but I could sense something that seemed like bones.
Other than that, everything was too hazy to discern, yet it was clear that numerous fragments of information were merging into something massive.
"Follow me."
After deactivating the Machine God's Heart, I held my throbbing head and quickly descended again.
Melissa and Luna cautiously followed behind me, keeping a vigilant watch on our surroundings.
The distance wasn’t far.
Though it was hidden, the entrance wasn’t specifically designed to prevent entry, so we were able to locate and break through it quickly.
When we arrived, an unexpected sight unfolded before us.
"What... is all this?"
"A nest."
We had arrived at a mass grave filled with countless bones.
Among them were the remains of grotesque fish-like creatures, as well as a significant number of human skeletons.
"What the hell is this?"
"If it made sense, it wouldn’t be a Forbidden Zone. All known rules are warped here. You know the Black Forest, right? This isn’t like the usual dimensional rift incidents—it’s on a completely different level."
It might belong to the same category of magical anomalies, but this Forbidden Zone far surpassed anything of that nature.
The divine relic protected only the three of us—nothing else.
That meant everything here was the result of the bizarre phenomena within this Forbidden Zone.
"But then, where did these human bones even come from?"
"Let's check."
By examining the bones, we might be able to estimate when they died.
Walking through the grave of bones, I placed my hand on a seemingly well-preserved skeleton.
At that moment, a flood of information surged into me once again.
Considering the state of the bones and various other details, I estimated the time of death to be...
"Four days?"
"What?"
"This person... has only been dead for four days."
It was already strange that only bones remained in such a short time.
Even more puzzling was why a human corpse was here in the first place.
The skeleton was male, with no signs of having been enhanced by aura or mana.
"Wait, but a normal corpse takes a long time to turn into a skeleton…"
"In water, it would take even longer. Unless something ate the body, that is."
Judging from the condition of the bones, it looked as though they had been completely stripped away, leaving nothing but skeletons.
Out of curiosity, I checked the state of other bones nearby.
The result was the same.
After finishing our investigation, we could only reach one conclusion.
Most of these skeletons were relatively recent.
However, the skeletalization process had happened abnormally fast.
"Luna, do you know anything about this?"
"It looks like a distortion of the space-time axis. Other than that, I can’t say for sure."
It was likely that these individuals had actually died a long time ago, but their bodies had been preserved while only their skeletalization had progressed abnormally fast.
And then—
Gurgle…
A strange noise echoed through the darkness as something massive drifted into the depths.
Unlike the other skeletonized remains, this one was a large, seemingly intact fish-like monster.
Sensing something was clearly off, we held our breath and carefully moved over the bone-covered ground, slipping deeper into the darkness.
And then we saw it.
"...What the hell is that?"
"Hmm?"
The sight before us was even more grotesque than the mountain of bones.
Like before, there was a massive pile of human and monster corpses.
But unlike earlier, these bodies were perfectly preserved.
Hundreds of human corpses and marine creatures were stacked like a mountain.
As the large fish-like corpse we had followed fell onto the heap with a dull thud, something in the darkness began to stir.
Melissa instinctively drew her sword, aura flaring.
But the massive tentacles showed no interest in us.
Instead, they silently coiled around several intact corpses scattered about and disappeared back into the shadows.
Even with the divine relic’s power and the necromancer’s sight, the darkness remained impenetrable—something highly unusual.
"I have no idea what's going on here."
"These bodies... I don’t think they’ve been dead for even an hour."
"Are you saying all these creatures died at the exact same time? There are way too many of them!"
"My guess is, their actual deaths happened long ago, but their bodies are frozen in time."
If that were true, then Luna had been right.
This space was a distortion of both time and space.
We couldn’t be certain whether these corpses had come from outside or if they had died here in the Forbidden Zone.
But one thing was clear:
Every single corpse here existed under the same conditions.
There was nothing in this place capable of decaying or damaging the bodies—or perhaps, there was another reason.
Judging by what we had seen earlier, one thing was certain.
Even the pressure of the deep sea here defied the natural laws.
Just then, Melissa grabbed my sleeve with trembling hands.
"O… brother…"
Her voice, shaking with fear, called me "brother" instead of my name, Leon.
When I turned to look at her, tears streamed down from her bloodshot eyes.
Mermaid magic was strange—it allowed movement and even made expressions like hers possible.
"Why are you calling me that in such a creepy way, you damn platyp—"
My words trailed off as I followed her gaze.
Before I could even think, my body was already moving, stepping forward into the mountain of corpses.
The existence presumed to be the king of this forbidden land, stretching out from the darkness, no longer registered in my perception.
Honestly, I had expected this.
I thought I would find them soon.
Or maybe, I thought I might never find them at all.
But right now, there was only one thing occupying my mind.
Amidst the mountain of corpses, two figures lay still, their eyes gently closed.
As if they had just fallen asleep moments ago.
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[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
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One hand grasped a sword, while the other held tightly onto his mother’s body—preserving the moment of their final stand.
“…Ah… Dad, Mom. Ah, aaaaaah…”
Then, Melissa finally burst into tears and rushed toward the bodies of her parents.
She frantically pulled their corpses from the mountain of the dead and began sobbing uncontrollably.
Perhaps it was because she never imagined she would find them this way, but I felt as though my emotions were being crushed.
What should I say first?
Should I say, “I’m glad we found them quickly”?
Or, “Why are you here like this?”
The words wouldn’t come out.
The only thing running through my mind was that we needed to retrieve their bodies as soon as possible.
“Huaaaaaa! Mom… Dad…”
I gently patted Melissa’s head as she wept, her emotions pouring out.
Normally, she would have snapped at me, calling me crazy, but this time, she didn’t resist at all.
She simply held onto her parents and let her tears flow.
“Leon. That creature… It wouldn’t be wise to provoke it right now.”
“It’s too late. If it’s like a beast that just had its meal stolen, it’s going to be pissed.”
BOOOOOM!!!
At that moment, dozens of writhing tentacles slithered out from the darkness.
Was it reacting because we had touched the corpses—its food—within its domain?
Even though it hadn’t directly seen us, the tentacles shot toward us, knowing our exact location.
However, before they could reach us, chains of black shadow surged from beneath my feet, wrapping around the tentacles, binding them in place, and scattering them in all directions.
THUUUUD!!!
“Muyeong, take them and fall back.”
At my command, the spectral wolf, Muyeong, emerged from my shadow.
“We still need to find Arsha, so let’s take this thing down.”
“Think we can?”
“We’ll find out. If I bind it, you hit it. If you bind it, I hit it.”
“Understood.”
Luna cracked her fingers with a loud snap, then unfolded her hidden halo and a pair of wings.
At the same time, another pair of shimmering, ethereal wings flickered into existence, appearing and disappearing intermittently.
[The memories of the New Hall are transferring.]
Right on cue, the librarian’s text smoothly appeared before me.
[The memories of the Hall of Truth have been fully transferred.]
‘Status window.’
As I murmured the command, the librarian’s strings of text rapidly reorganized themselves before my eyes.
Name: Leon Cascadia
Age: 17
Gender: Male
Abilities:
(Hall of Swords)
Sword Master (Highest Rank)
The ultimate [Aura] is preserved.
(Hall of Martial Arts)
Fist Master (Highest Rank)
The fierce [Aura] is preserved.
(Hall of Necromancy)
Great Necromancer (7th Circle)
Deathlord’s necromantic mana is preserved.
The dominion over death is preserved.
Authority [Death] Thanatos is bestowed.
(Hall of the Sages)
[Gate of Truth]
The heart of the Machine God and all its memories have been transplanted.
(Hall of Truth)
No Circles Held ×
The Demon God’s elemental mana is preserved.
The language of spirits has been acquired.
The memories I had just obtained from this new hall.
It seemed to be a hall centered around magic, as an overwhelming amount of magical knowledge was forcefully crammed into my head in an instant.
The absence of spell circles didn’t matter much.
But what concerned me was this ‘language of spirits’ mentioned in my status.
Spirit language… If I recalled correctly, it was a power I had gained at the very end after surpassing the realm of a Demon God.
At the very least, it was unfamiliar to me.
It wouldn’t be useful in this situation.
“Luna, I have a question.”
“What is it?”
“How many wings do you have?”
She hesitated for a moment before flashing a playful smile.
“Two.”
At the very least, she should hide those flickering, ethereal wings beneath her real ones before saying that.
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[Translator - Night]
[Proofreader - Gun]
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