The battle that had lasted for hundreds of years finally came to an end with the transformation of the last human into a Naga. The way it ended was beyond the expectations of every human and the sirens.
In the end, the strange phenomenon of the Naga was an inexplicable accident for everyone. Humans could not understand its principle, and neither could the sirens.
In the deep sea, a deep-water shuttle with a streamlined shell quietly swept across the seabed. Petia stood by the porthole of the shuttle, her eyes sweeping across the dark and deep sea and the rugged seabed outside. In the dim light, she could see several temporary residences. The Nagas, who had just completed their transformation, were resting on the calm seabed. Sirens who were taking care of their "new friends" could be seen everywhere in the residences.
"I'm afraid we'll have to spend a long time studying the Nagas," the siren queen said softly. "This is an incredible phenomenon. A race, a race that has nothing to do with the sirens, has undergone such a huge change. And this change is obviously related to us. This world is full of secrets, Rosalia."
The Maid of the Deep Sea, Rosalia, floated beside Petia and nodded gently. "As you say, Your Majesty."
Petia nodded and asked casually, "What's the conclusion of the witches and the deep-water technicians?"
"There's no substantial progress for the time being. But after asking many of the awakened Nagas and reading books on human religions, the witches have some guesses. They think that this change may have something to do with the long-term 'spiritual beliefs' of these humans who call themselves the Children of the Storm."
"Oh? Tell me more. "
"These Children of the Storm believe in a god called the Lord of Storms. Obviously, it's our 'Big Squid.' According to the information shared by our Cecil allies, the faith of humans will create a power connection, and this connection will lead to a specific god. However, the god of the Children of the Storm has fallen many years ago, and we sirens … are very likely to have occupied the original position of this god. So all this time, the believers of the Storm of this era have been believing in us, or strictly speaking, the sirens as a whole. "
"Eva, huh …" Petia said softly, deep in thought. She slowly crossed her arms in front of her chest. "This is surprising. Judging from the time, we started digging the Big Squid many centuries ago. That is to say, the Children of the Storm had connected their faith to our race at the beginning of their religion. But we did nothing, and we didn't even know about it. "
"This is also one of the topics that the witches are studying." Rosalia nodded. "The 'faith' of humans seems to be something that operates automatically, and it was originally transformed from the reverence for natural phenomena or specific natural things. Strictly speaking, the original faith of the Storm should not have pointed to any god, but to the reverence of the ocean itself. In this case, according to the information shared by Cecil allies, the humans should have created a new 'God of Storms' from their faith, but this process was accidentally interrupted by us. Our digging behavior imprisoned an ancient god in a state of neither life nor death, and we occupied its position. Coupled with our substantial control of the ocean, the human faith began to point to the 'substantial controller of the ocean.' This process … happened naturally."
"Will this' pointing 'have any effect on the sirens?"
"I'm not sure yet. The 'religious concept' of humans is not easy for us to understand." Rosalia shook her head. "But judging from the current situation, this' pointing 'has been going on for many, many years. Even in the previous civilizations, there may have been mainlanders who revered the ocean who pointed their faith to the sirens, but it did not have any effect on us. So this' pointing 'is mostly harmless."
"It's harmless to us … but it unilaterally affects them." Petia retracted her gaze from the temporary residence of the nagas and sighed. "Now it seems that the long-term faith in the sirens has affected these humans, causing them to transform into a life form similar to the sirens. The power of the so-called 'faith' can affect matter. What an incredible change."
Rosalia replied, "The witches are studying this change, especially the opportunity of this change. The faith of the Children of the Storm has been going on for thousands of years, but their change only started recently. There was no gradual process in between, which is very puzzling. Lady Hathaway has a guess. She believes that this is the result of the recent actions of the Children of the Storm and the recent changes in the siren society.
"Since last year, the actions of the Children of the Storm have become more aggressive. They have built a large number of strongholds on the 'border,' which led them to be too close to the 'big squid' and the sirens, which strengthened the 'connection' between them and us. On the other hand, we have preyed on the 'God of Nature' created by the humans in the last 'hunt,' and the God of Nature seems to have a biological influence. This influence may be the reason for the 'Naga' phenomenon."
Listening to the report of the maidservant of the deep, Queen Petia was silent for a moment and pondered in silence.
After a while, the ruler of the deep looked up and sighed softly. "I can't eat anything in the future. This world is really dangerous."
The maidservant Rosalia nodded in agreement. "… Home is still the best. You can eat anything on the seabed."
"So, speaking of the research work of the witches, our human allies mentioned that they had captured a mysterious signal when we last contacted. Has Hathaway made any progress on this?"
"The Tidal Master Tyre also submitted the characteristics of the signal when he reported the situation. After comparison by the technicians, we can confirm that the signal was not released by Antavern, nor is it any of our communication bands," Rosalia immediately replied. "Master Hathaway is very interested in it. She thinks that the transmission method of the signal and the technology used by the humans in the magic network will be very helpful to us. For many years, we have been unable to sense and understand the magic environment of this world, and we have never been able to repair the main antenna array of Antavern. But now, there may be hope."
"Oh?" Petia raised her eyebrows slightly. "That's good news."
…
At the edge of Io under the sun, a magnificent steel starship crept on the coastline like a mountain. The waves gently undulated around the ship, licking the hull and deck of the immigrant ship.
At the stern of the Antavern, the technicians were busy on the platform where the antenna array was located.
At the edge of the platform, the Witch of the Deep Sea, Hathaway, with her long blue hair and scaly cheeks, looked away from the beach in the distance.
The ship had tilted and crashed on the planet, causing everything on the ship to have an angle of about 30 degrees with the gravity of the planet itself. The sirens could not move the ship, which had lost its power, but they could not abandon the massive amount of supplies and precious living space on the ship. So, after they had repaired some of the ship's functions, they first started and reset the gravity generator of the Antavern. By recalibrating the gravity, the sirens could stand on the tilted ship as comfortably as they did on the ground. This also gave them a wonderful feeling when they stood on the ship and looked out.
The whole world was tilted.
"I think we should set up a layer of optical filtering in all the viewing areas of Antavine." The blue-haired witch, Hathaway, reached out her hand and gestured between the sky and the earth as she said to her assistant beside her. "Let's' right 'this tilted view. Now the view is always making people dizzy. "
"… I think the main reason why you feel dizzy is because you drank too much of the Deep Sea Drink," the assistant said as he swatted Hathaway's hand away with his tail. "That's almost twice the amount we drank."
"I need to stimulate the mind and maintain the ability to think at a high speed," Hathaway said as she poked the alloy ground with the tip of her tail. "The recent research projects are so exciting, I don't want to stop for a moment …"
The assistant looked at the respectable but problematic deep sea witch and shook his head helplessly. "'Stimulating the mind' is a human term. Master, where do we get the brain?"
Hathaway looked at the serious assistant and shook her head. "Boring."
Then the deep sea witch, who had experienced the Great Crash and was of the same generation as the queen, slid her long snake tail and came to the antenna array not far away.
The massive ancient device stood solemnly, its streamlined shell covered with a superalloy frame, concealing the complex internal structure. Its end pointed to the high blue sky, and a set of highly sensitive sensor arrays monitored the possible signals from all directions.
It was designed to conduct interstellar superluminal communication to contact several other colonial ships that had fled the mother planet.
But today, only Antaverne was left alone on the planet. His compatriots who had fled with him had long disappeared into the depths of the dimensional turbulence. The advanced and powerful superluminal communication array had also lost its function on this planet with an abnormal environment. Only a set of the most basic sensors could barely function. Forget about receiving signals from space, even maintaining communication within the atmosphere required the use of various augmentative means.
Hathaway's gaze followed the antenna array's shell all the way up. About a hundred meters up, she saw that part of the shell had been opened. The deep-sea technicians were busy there, carrying out drastic changes to the ancient structure inside. The shimmering runic devices were being installed one by one into the original frame, and many additional cables and chains extended out from the 'access port.'
"Our human allies have generously shared many things with us," the Deep Sea Witch said softly. "We thought that the technology of the land was very backward, but it turns out that even on a backward land, the wisdom of the natives is still something to be desired."
The assistant's voice came from the side. "Master, do you think this modification will really work? After all, we have used various methods to modify other things before … "
"A year ago, the sirens were completely unable to understand and perceive what the 'magic' of this world is. It is something beyond our worldview, and even something that our physiological structure is not compatible with. This is the result of the conflict of rules," Hathaway said in a low and serious voice. At this moment, she was the deep sea witch who deserved the respect of all the sirens. Her words made every siren around her could not help but show a thoughtful and approving expression. "Many years ago, I predicted that if the rules of this world and the rules of our home world were one in ten thousand different, then we would be annihilated the moment we entered this space-time. But fortunately, we did not encounter that extra one in ten thousand deviation. We survived, but this survival is incomplete.
"Our perception and thinking ability are limited to our own life form. In this world, we are like a defective race that is born unable to understand addition and subtraction. We are born unable to perceive and understand part of the structure of this world. So no matter how hard we try, we can't fix the spaceship. Instead, we will be pushed back again and again by the magic wave of this world.
"We can't fix the antenna, not because of a lack of wisdom and technology, but because we are 'blind' and 'deaf' in the face of certain information.
"But this flaw has now been fixed.
"We can sense magic power now, and we can understand what magic power is. Human runes are no longer a mess to us, and the energy vibrations in the air are no longer incomprehensible noises. Based on this foundation, every repair work we do on the spaceship in the future will no longer be a messy trial and error like in the past.
"We have successfully restored a small part of the core fusion tower to normal operation. Now the energy supply rate of Antavine has reached 36%. This is an insignificant number, but it is enough to prove that we have indeed taken a step forward.
"Sisters, what we are doing now is meaningful. Let's start by fixing the main antenna."
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