Night Journey

Chapter 9 The Sea of ​​Origin
The tranquility around me shattered, replaced by the chaotic and noisy sound of the ocean waves.

Upon waking, Cillian clearly observed that he was in a deep and boundless sea, surrounded by phantoms wrapped in cocoons.

Indistinctly visible.

Ciri stared at the dense array of illusory figures, barely able to make out the distinct faces of each one.

Each phantom corresponds to a soul, a mortal living in the mortal world.

They slumber in the dream of the soul, becoming part of the masses, drifting in the Sea of ​​Origin, enjoying peace, but unable to control their own destiny.

Now, Cillian has emerged from his cocoon, taking his first step towards becoming a superhuman.

"Then we will ascend to find the so-called [Bound Source Long Step]."

Ciri looked up, and a faint light shone down from above, only to be fragmented by countless illusory shadows, like a shattered, brilliant starry sky.

Stepping on the cocoons that were somewhere between reality and illusion, Ciri used them as steps to rise step by step toward the surface of the sea.

"It wasn't as dangerous as the teacher made it out to be."

After climbing a certain distance, Ciri felt relieved.

Aside from the difficulty of waking up from the dream of the soul, so far, Cillian has not encountered any danger; all he has is this monotonous deep sea and the distant horizon.

Suddenly, a chilling sensation that penetrated to the bone spread from Cillian's spine, as if he had unknowingly stumbled into some unknown ocean current.

A burning pain spread from Cillian's left palm.

Ciri raised his hand, and the ouroboros sign that had appeared in the desolate night reappeared, radiating a molten golden light.

hiss--

Before Cillian could figure out the cause of this series of strange occurrences, a sharp, low voice cut through his eardrums like a dagger.

The intense pain caused Ciri to clench his teeth, but years of training allowed him to remain calm and silent even in this extreme state.

Wow.

The seawater churned above Ciri's head, and a huge shadow slowly enveloped him.

Ciri instinctively held his breath, even though he didn't need to breathe in this surreal sea of ​​souls and power.

Slowly raising his head, Cillian saw it.

It was an enormous moray eel.

The jagged spine pierced through the gelatinous skin, and the body was covered with protruding tumors. Upon closer inspection, one would find that they were translucent egg sacs, in which were immersed deformed bodies that resembled human figures.

The eel was so close to Cillian that Cillian could even see the details of each of the deformed bodies.

The swollen skull clung tightly to the sac membrane, hundreds of disproportionately large pupils stared downwards, and deformed fingers scratched blasphemous trails in the mucus.

Every time the moray eel twists its body slightly, its egg sacs are ruptured, and pus and blood meander along the grooves of the fleshy growth, throwing out deformed bodies.

Like corpses, they remained motionless, slowly sinking into the boundless, dark seabed below.

A body fell beside Ciri, unaware of Ciri's presence, but Ciri clearly saw its entirety.

Its hideous and terrifying appearance perfectly matched the monster in Cillian's memory—a demon.

"Since the Great Calamity of No Day, the Sea of ​​Origin has been filled with chaotic power, the sea has been boiling, and the raging winds and waves have been ceaseless all day long."

Nunn's words echoed in Cirien's ears.

It was only then that Cillian realized that the giant eel in front of him was actually a colossal chaotic creature, and this was one of the many crises existing in the Sea of ​​Origin.

Ciri seemed frozen in place, afraid that the slightest movement would attract the other party's attention.

Nunn didn't mention this terrifying existence in detail, which is understandable. Nunn became a transcendent from the Silent River, the only remaining pure land in the Sea of ​​Origin. Under the protection of the Mystic Philosopher, it was untouched by chaos and naturally had no way of knowing about such a terrifying existence.

"no, do not want!"

A woman's scream suddenly reached Cillian's ears.

The moray eel became restless, like a shark that had smelled blood, frantically writhing its body, accompanied by the countless appendages on its surface.

These were not appendages at all, but countless semi-dissolved human bodies, with pale pink mist spraying out between the opening and closing of their gills. This mist was blood mixed with countless pieces of flesh.

The demons swam frantically toward one place, and even the sea eels opened their mouths wide, their heads splitting open vertically, their long, curved fangs layered like ribs.

The woman's cries faded into the sea, and the place returned to silence.

Cillian's pupils narrowed to a single point; even if he was slow to realize, he understood what had just happened.

It's unclear which unlucky soul awoke from the dream of the soul, but before it could even rise to the surface, it was spotted by the chaotic creatures and torn to pieces.

Where the sound disappeared, a strange vortex appeared out of nowhere, swallowing up a large amount of seawater and the demons that hadn't had time to escape, turning it into a vacuum zone.

Somewhere in the real world, a woman torn apart by demons transforms into a demon herself. The demons, swallowed by the vortex, also use the woman as an anchor point in reality, descending out of thin air and invading reality.

Swallowing non-existent saliva, Cillian remained silent until the eel swam away from the area.

They only attack those who awaken from the dream of the soul; those who are wrapped in cocoons are as if they do not exist in their eyes, and will only pass by.

While praying for his luck, Cillian slowly shifted his position, concealing himself behind a series of shifting cocoons. The moray eel gradually disappeared from his sight, leaving only a blurry shadow that lingered for a long time.

Ciri breathed a sigh of relief and looked up, where a series of hideous faces floated above his head.

The surging currents pushed aside the few remaining cocoons that shielded them, completely exposing Ciri to the demons' view.

hiss--

The piercing screech rang out again, and the moray eel twisted its body like a giant serpent traversing the world, its terrifying jaws opening as it swiftly devoured Ciri.

No matter how strong Cillian's mental fortitude was, his mind inevitably went blank for a moment. It was during this moment of blankness that Cillian's body inexplicably began to spin.

It wasn't Ciri that was moving; it was the seawater that was churning. This churning not only affected Ciri but also dragged all the nearby demons and cocoons along with it.

Go with the flow.

It's hard to imagine what kind of enormous creature could be moving at such high speed in the deep sea to cause such a terrifying phenomenon.

Cillian saw it.

Just as the moray eel's enormous shadow completely obscured its body, a towering mountain suddenly rose from the dark seabed and easily pierced through the eel's body.

The eel twisted back in agony, its tail tangled into a giant knot.

Within the rapidly spreading blood mist, a terrifying tentacle appeared inside the eel's body. It burrowed and crawled rampantly, its thousands of suckers contracting and expanding repeatedly, accompanied by a dense, tearing sound, as if hundreds of mouthparts were chewing on rocks.

With no chance to resist, the giant eel was completely pulverized into huge pieces of flesh and blood with a gentle flick of its tentacle, falling into the darkness of the seabed along with countless broken limbs of demons.

After clearing the sea area, its tentacles slowly sank into the darkness of the seabed.

With just a brief glance, Cillian was certain that this tentacle, at least a thousand meters long, was also a terrifying chaotic creature. What made Cillian even more uneasy was that if just one tentacle was so enormous, then what about its main body?
It must be tens of thousands of meters high, shaped like a mountain range.

Before he had even fully stepped into the extraordinary world, Cillian had already brushed with death. Now, looking around the Sea of ​​Origin, Cillian no longer felt that this was a sacred place that nurtured all souls and powers.

Compared to hell, it only lacks flames and lava.

Cillian clung to the cocoon beside him and floated toward the surface of the sea.

Having just experienced this, Cillian moved much faster, eager to climb the stairs and return to reality.

"Ok?"

Ciri swam upwards, but his body remained stationary.

He lowered his head, and an arm bound Cillian's lower body, its end disappearing into the darkness of the seabed.

"My goodness, Ava!"

As Ciri cursed, his wrists and feet suddenly exerted force, dragging him into the darkness.

The altitude decreased rapidly, and the surrounding pressure increased rapidly.

Cillian's mind was being squeezed by forces coming from all directions, and a large number of hallucinations erupted in his mind.

In a daze, Cillian saw countless ghosts rushing towards him, and as he fell deeper, the outlines of the ghosts became clearer and clearer.

A mournful shriek pierced Ciri's ears, and his nostrils were filled with a salty, fishy, ​​sour, and foul-smelling pus mixed with sulfur.

Through his blurred vision, Cillian saw cities that had sunk to the bottom of the sea, cities that were still breathing—spires covered with vascular coral, swollen eyeballs floating behind each broken glass window, and city gates pieced together from gears and whale bones opening and closing with the tides, spewing out black streams of breath carrying gold coins and human teeth.

A school of mutated fish swam by, and in the distant shadows lurked an unknown behemoth. Deeper still lay the remains of countless skeletons straddling the seabed. A head the size of a mountain was giving birth amidst the coral reefs, and tender tentacles, like the fingers of a baby, peeked out from the split skull…

What terrified Ciri was the sand and gravel on the seabed itself.

Each grain of sand is a piece of bone debris that has been corroded and polished, piled up into a mountain, covering the boundless expanse.

Cillian screamed in a daze, her mind rapidly teetering on the brink of collapse under the sudden surge of pollution and pressure, while the drag on her wrists continued downward.

This place is far from being the seabed.

"asshole……"

Sirius forced himself to stay conscious, and a molten gold color, the same as that of the Ouroboros Seal, appeared in his eyes.

He clenched his left hand into a fist, raised it high, and then brought it down heavily.

"Cillian shouted."

"let me go!"

The weak punch landed on the wrist and foot.

A miracle happened.

The tendrils released Cillian, and as if losing all their strength, sank into the darkness.

An unwilling howl came from the darkness, transcending all the senses, and erupted in Cillian's brain like a frenzied storm, shattering and crushing cognition and memory, then roughly piecing them back together.

Before his consciousness faded, Cillian heard the rumble of thousands of taut iron chains coming from the seabed.

(End of this chapter)