Industrial Cthulhu, starting from the island lord

Chapter 248 Dreaming
Chloe's heart skipped a beat, and she had a very bad feeling. She pushed the lookout aside and rushed to the window to observe.

Unknowingly, the airship was already quite close to the Martha Islands, and those busy ports and ships were exposed to Chloe's eyes.

She was a superhuman, and her vision was much stronger than that of an ordinary person. Even without a telescope, she could see that something was wrong below - there were indeed people coming and going on the island, all in an orderly manner, but as the lookout had just said, those people didn't look right.

too big.

The proportions looked weird no matter how she looked at it, so Chloe quickly took the telescope and looked down carefully.

The sailors unloaded cargo from the ship, the patrols of the Pirate King's Court shouted and maintained order, and the natives of the archipelago sold snacks and drinks. Everything was normal.

There's only one thing wrong: the people doing these things aren't humans, but fishmen.

Chloe's pupils shrank to the size of needles and trembled constantly.

She moved the telescope and looked at the distant outpost, where fishmen were standing guard with scimitars. In the distant market, fishmen were selling sea fish and vegetables - other fishmen were carrying baskets and shopping, bargaining as they picked and chose.

Turn to the other side, murloc, turn again, murloc, murloc, only murloc.

The entire island is full of murlocs, not a single human being!!!

"What's the name of this island?"

Tula Island

Tula Island, a not very important island. There are more islands in the Martha Islands. Maybe there is a problem here. This thought came to Chloe's mind.

There must be no problem with other islands!

The people on the airship quickly unanimously decided to go to other islands first. They seemed to be escaping and headed to another nearby island at a faster speed.

"They're all murlocs."

Chloe muttered to herself, and the people on the airship looked at each other.

In silence, the airship changed direction and headed for the next island.

Strictly speaking, the speed of the airship was not slow, and was even faster than that of a ship. It didn't take them long to travel across most of the Gem Bay, where all the important islands were.

Every island is very "normal" and there is nothing strange at all - except that fishmen have replaced humans to live on the island.

The fishmen worked hard, drank, gambled, cheated, and made loud noises.

It can be said that as long as the appearance is changed, no one will feel anything unusual. This is exactly what Gem Bay should look like.

This made the Fire Moths even more confused. Chloe even performed several brief purification rituals to prevent them from being contaminated and hallucinating, mistaking humans for fishmen.

But after all the trouble, the island was still full of fishmen, and there was no human at all.

The people on the airship fell silent.

The scene before them was too disjointed. There was really no difference between those fishmen and humans. They were completely unaware of the problem, but what they saw were terrifying monsters. The sense of disjointedness was so strange that it made people feel a chill in their hearts.

These people had all seen murlocs before, both alive and dead, and most had even performed autopsies. Once these monsters reached land, their combat effectiveness was pitifully low, a mere joke in the face of an army equipped with firearms. But the sight of the murlocs on the island acting like humans filled them with a shudder, a sense of inexplicable fear welling up from the depths of their hearts, dragging them into a dark, cold abyss.

If it were just a monster, no matter how hideous or disgusting it was, Chloe wouldn't be afraid. But these creatures on the island below, were they really monsters? Or were they humans?

Chloe couldn't tell.

Looking at the various expressions on the fishman's face that were no different from those of a human, Chloe felt an indescribable fear. When the boundary between monsters and humans blurred, even normal behavior would become terrifying.

Chloe took several deep breaths before she managed to calm herself down. She turned around to look at the others, only to find that they were all terrified and standing there motionless.

Chloe's eyes became fierce, and she hit and kicked several people to wake them up. They were too frightened and their wills were broken. The wills that overflowed at this time were likely to be contaminated by the sea of unconsciousness.

Those who are not firm enough are easily contaminated, while those who are too firm contaminate reality.

"Wake up! It's not time to sink yet—Castel is still waiting for news from us!"

After they came to their senses, they all broke out in cold sweats.

They were cultists of the Fire Moth, and they had actually lost their minds. This strange situation was indeed beyond their imagination.

"Chief, what should we do? Should we go back and report the news first?" The lookout said with a grim expression. He was the first to notice something unusual, and he was also better at perception and was particularly sharp. This was the reason why he was chosen as the lookout.

However, this sensitivity also harmed him. He was out of control for the longest time and was therefore polluted the most. Although he was still a mortal and the impact of the pollution was not as great as that of a transcendent, it still made his condition extremely bad.

"No, we can't go back. Castel doesn't have much time left. We have to investigate something!" Chloe gritted her teeth and stared at the ground. "Write our findings into the black box and find a place to descend. I want to go to the ground and take a look!"

"chief!?"

Several people were shocked. Although the people below were all fishmen with little combat power, there were too many of them. Even if she was a transcendent, she would be killed by the numbers!
"Then do you have any good ideas?" Everyone was stunned.

Chloe's tone softened. "Look at our current altitude. They can definitely see us from this position, but the monsters haven't reacted at all. I just looked through the telescope and saw quite a few murlocs scanning the sky, but none of them lingered on us!"

Several fire-chasing moths looked at each other with strange expressions.

These people were all selected by Chloe as subordinates who have researched secret history.

Knowledge related to secret history is extremely dangerous and often does not improve combat effectiveness much, so few people choose it. However, the advantages of this direction are reflected at this moment.

One person hesitated for a moment and asked tentatively: [Enter the dream]?
"Yes, it's very similar to [Entering a Dream]." Chloe nodded.

Falling into a dream is a very common occurrence during a mutation. The reality of this world is not stable, and if one's will is strong enough, it has a chance of penetrating the high walls of reality.

And [entering dreams] is the most common manifestation of this situation.

Whenever a change occurs, ordinary people are most likely unable to perceive it. They cannot discover the changes in the Sea of Consciousness and cannot recognize the occurrence of the change.

Therefore, mortals often become affected by the mutation and stubbornly believe that everything is still "normal". Their will interferes with reality, forcing them to live a normal life in the mutation.

But why do these people below perceive themselves as mermen?

(End of this chapter)