Chapter 751 — Deep-Sea Intelligence

If only we could crack the technology the sirens use to cross the Endless Sea and communicate by way of magic ripples...

A few scattered thoughts flashed through Gao Yang's mind, but his attention quickly settled on the water sculpture suspended in midair.

The naga's appearance was even stranger than he had imagined. Scaled and finned, webbed and gilled, bearing every distinct amphibian trait, yet still preserving a considerable degree of human upper body and face, it was a posture that would surely leave a deep impression on every witness.

Looking at the clear fin-like structures and the long tail somewhere between sea serpent and sea fish rendered in the water sculpture, Gao Yang let out a soft breath. "Very obvious deep-sea characteristics..."

Tyr nodded. "Yes. They have mutated enough to survive perfectly well in the deep sea. The Storm Children of before could never have managed that. Those humans were skilled in ocean-related magic, but they still had to settle on land."

Gao Yang frowned. "So we still can't be a hundred percent certain that these naga are mutated Storm Children?"

"In my view the evidence is already quite obvious, but the Great Witch is a scholar, and she and her deep-sea witches insist on rigor. Supposedly they have not yet found the key evidence that the Storm Children mutated into the naga, nor observed the actual process of mutation, so for the moment they cannot draw a conclusion."

"Then let us assume the naga really are mutated Storm Children," Gao Yang said. "You said some of the naga, once calmed, claimed they had entered siren territory to make a pilgrimage?"

"That's right."

"And you mentioned 'Eva's call'..." Gao Yang frowned. "I've heard you use the word 'Eva' now and then, but what does 'Eva's call' actually mean?"

"First, about Eva. It's a term of ours, used to refer to the collective consciousness formed by all sirens on a planet," Tyr said, weighing her words as she tried to make the concept easier for Gao Yang to grasp. "You might think of her as the sirens' 'god,' but as you know, we don't believe in any concrete deity. This Eva... just think of her as the will of the siren race. But according to our theories, the racial will that is Eva ought to be a virtual, conceptual product. She exists in an intangible way and acts upon our species in an abstract manner. In theory, there shouldn't be any such thing as 'Eva's call'..."

"But a group of deranged cultists claim they heard the 'Call of Eva,' and it may even have triggered unimaginable mutations in them—driving them to make pilgrimage into the siren's domain," Gao Song's expression grew gradually more serious. "It cannot exist out of nowhere, can it?"

"...Yes, I think so too. The Queen and the Great Witch must be thinking the same," Tyr frowned with some consternation. "But how is it that we sirens ourselves feel nothing at all of this so-called 'Call of Eva'?"

Gao Yang looked at this visitor from the deep sea, while in his mind he was rapidly assembling all manner of intelligence and clues.

The first thing that deserved the most attention was the identity of those Storm-born before they became so-called "nagas."

They were mad cultists.

Their actions were inextricably bound up with "gods."

Whether they sought to defy the gods, like the Congregation of the End of All Things, or whether they burned with the fervor of ordinary cultists eager to please the gods, their actions were nine times out of ten rooted in "god."

Then what did the "Call of Eva" have to do with god? Or rather, what did the sirens—the people Eva represented—have to do with god?

In an instant, a host of wildly far-fetched phrases flashed through Gao Yang's mind: food chain, sashimi of the Lord of Storms, hungry salt-fish spirits, food and diners.

He could not resist rapping his temple. Once he had gathered up all those words scurrying amok in his head, everything converged to a single point: the sirens had eaten the God of Storms.

As a transmigrator who had devoured every story in his previous life, and as a satellite spirit with rich experience in observation, a faint, shadowy answer quickly surfaced from the depths of his heart.

That answer seemed horrifying and bizarre, seemed inconceivable—yet it fit the logic of this world.

The divine seat, it seemed, could be usurped.

The Congregation of the End of All Things dared to manufacture a counterfeit god, and that alone was enough to show that the so-called seat of a god was not as indestructible as mortals imagined.

Gao Yang could not help casting a strange look at Tyr.

That strange look left Tyr briefly dumbfounded; the tip of her tail rose and swayed. "Hey, what have you thought of?"

"You sirens... how many of you are there? Er, or should I say, how many fish-heads..."

Tyr thought for a moment. "A few million, I suppose. We do control our population size."

The corner of Gao Yang's mouth twitched.

If things really were as he imagined, if it really was this bunch of deep-sea salt fish who had unwittingly, by some strange twist of fate, usurped the divine seat of the Lord of Storms, then the picture was truly a bit uncanny.

Who had seized the divine seat of the Lord of Storms—the sirens, a people numbering in the millions, or Eva, who was closer to a concept?

If the former, then what exactly was the state of this "new Lord of Storms," who only counted as a "god" when millions of people were added together?

If the latter...

Then would the conceptual Eva become a substantiated Lord of Storms? Where would this newborn deity appear—the real world? The world of the water element? Or that mysterious, distant realm of the gods? Would She... still be the collective will of the sirens?

Either way, the secret of the gods might well be hidden in this—the mystery of Their birth and Their destruction.

With his mind racing at full tilt, Gao Yang looked at Tyr, and Tyr returned a bewildered gaze, while idly fiddling with the tip of her tail.

This really was a deep-sea comic god...

(Mother of God!!)