Chapter 359: Preparing for the Endless Sea

"Hm... And this is the Tidewall? I suppose the only way through would be this breach left behind by Morningstar's detonation. But as things stand, the risk is enormous. It's quite possible that the Church of Dragonkind is stationed there, prepared to sink every ship that approaches. Professor, how does the route you've marked pass through this place?"

Wang Yu's hand traced a route across the massive map, his gaze lingering on a vast irregular patch of azure ink. Though it was colored like the sea, it was encircled by a sharp boundary and was clearly separated from the rest of the Endless Sea.

This was one of the great wonders of the world: a region where gravity and countless other known and unknown forces became twisted and chaotic.

Within this region known as the Tidewall, gravity itself was reversed. Waters that flowed into its boundary streamed upward rather than downward. At this point, the Endless Sea overturned upon itself, resulting in a vast, tidal barrier.

The border of this zone was the surface of the sea. Any vessel sailing straight into it would be torn apart at the seam where the normal and the inverted gravity clashed—and that was just part of the danger. There was a reason the Tidewall had earned its terrible reputation.

The upper edge of this inverted sea pressed directly against the dissociation layer. In other words, the Tidewall's zenith connected seamlessly to the world's annihilating boundary.

Worse still, the dissociation layer fluctuated wildly at this height. Any ship flung upward by the Tidewall's chaotic currents risked being seized outright by the dissociation layer and shredded without any hope of resistance.

In truth, death by dissociation was the least of a sailor's worries; to go that high in the first place required surviving an impossible ascent through leagues of inverted sea.

There were far more immediate dangers. For one, the gravity in the Tidewall shifted at random, often reversing without warning.

The water pressure fluctuated violently: one moment, it was little more than a shallow tide, the next, it bore the crushing weight of the deepest abyss.

All in all, the Tidewall harbored many dangers—and that wasn't even including the alien ecology spawned by such extreme conditions. Few vessels ever attempted passage. It wasn't worth it.

The treasures birthed within the Tidewall, though unique and powerful, were few and far between. No sane sailor would be willing to gamble on such a fate.

Before the Morningstar explosion, only one expedition had ever succeeded: the Explorers, an organization that mustered a fleet crewed by knights of the highest rank, with a legend at its helm.

Through raw might, they had forced their way across the barrier, recording glimpses of the sea beyond. No other fleet had ever returned with similar knowledge.

In practice, the only navigable route across was through the breach in the Tidewall. When Morningstar's catastrophic detonation swept across the continent and reshaped the very laws of the world, even the Tidewall had been sundered. A single fissure opened up within its titanic body. Through that gap, the sea behaved normally, permitting ships to cross unmolested into the unknown.

The Explorers' expedition eventually returned, their records describing strange lands beyond. There were no continents of comparable size, only sprawling archipelagos teeming with life quite unlike that of the mainland.

Yet for all their strength, even the Explorers' expedition turned back. The farther they sailed, the smaller they felt. An inarticulate terror bloomed in their hearts until their will to explore withered.

Even grand knights and legends found themselves crushed by the sheer, suffocating solitude of the endless horizon.

A few exceptions remained, outliers who felt no fear but exhilaration. They broke away, continuing to press on into the vast expanses of the Endless Sea. And though centuries had since passed, no word had ever got back to the continent of their birth.

"In the end," sighed Sieg, "our grasp on the world we live in remains so very narrow. Vast swathes of the Endless Sea are still a blind expanse for us, despite the possibility of an abyssal incursion into their unknown depths..."

Sieg stirred, catching himself as he chuckled lightly. "Forgive me. I seem to be going off-topic. I simply waded through too many records while trying to chart this course. What matters is this: I found evidence of another passage through the Tidewall besides the breach."

"This passage is little-known and almost entirely overshadowed by the breach's fame. Few ever dared to investigate the Endless Sea, so the knowledge never spread widely.

"Fortunately, Skyborne City is host to hidden archives holding vast records of information from all over the world. I only learned of this hidden passage after a careful, exhaustive search. If we want to avoid the Church of Dragonkind, this passage through the Tidewall might be our best choice."

Sieg explained how the marked passage he had identified was distinct from the breach in the Tidewall, and likely beyond the surveillance of the Church of Dragonkind.

Wang Yu studied the marked junction where Sieg's proposed route met the Tidewall. His memory stirred. "This is merfolk territory, isn't it?"

The merfolk, much like the "mermaids" of Earth's fairy tales, had human forms above the waist and tails of shimmering scales below. Beautiful to behold and gifted with melodic voices, they matched Wang Yu's first impressions perfectly.

The reason the merfolk were never counted among the Five Races was simple: they could not survive beyond the coastal shallows of the Endless Sea. The depths of the sea belonged to leviathans, colossal creatures of the deep sea, against which no mortal strength could hope to contend.

Nor were the merfolk's own powers particularly impressive. Though they could manifest legs to walk upon land, doing so weakened them further. And unlike the elves' Roland or the humans' Sulla, no merfolk genius of world-shaking renown had ever appeared. Thus, they had languished like the gnomes—those same gnomes who were now living amidst the dwarves.

By the way, fishpeople existed as well: human-bodied, fish-headed abominations with a litany of deficiencies and no redeeming gifts. Except for the fact that they could breathe in water and run clumsily on land, they had nothing to offer.

Witless and feeble, they spent their days roaming the shores of the Endless Sea, bashing one another with sticks from dawn to dusk. Even a giant crab might be able to take on three or four of them at once. When Wang Yu first learned of them, he could not help but question the very point of their existence.

Later, discovering that these hopeless creatures survived only through the favor of the Lord of Sea and Storm, he began to question himself. Given the Lady of the Night's... unique aesthetics, he concluded at last that the Lord of Sea and Storm was probably a fish-head himself. What else would explain His lavish blessings upon the fishmen, blessings even the merfolk had never enjoyed?

"Yes, right here," Sieg confirmed, tapping the map. "This account was written by merfolk scholars themselves. Given their natural affinity, their race is the only one capable of limited movement within the Tidewall. It was their observation that allowed us to glean this knowledge: at a certain time each year, the Tidewall shifts.

"Every year, as the moon of magic turns red, a corridor will open up within the merfolk's domain. By the time the blood moon is fully upon us, the corridor will pierce through the Tidewall completely.

"And while the blood moon is full, the corridor will remain open, fading only as the crimson light does. The merfolk have traversed it before. Their records suggest that it is safe enough."

Sieg concluded his proposal.

"The moon of magic is currently a deep, sapphire blue," Avia murmured, gaze drifting toward the window. Night had fallen. In the night sky, the moon of magic glowed in a profound sapphire hue, radiant and strange. "In half a month, it will turn crimson. If we want to cross the Tidewall this year, we must be at the shores of the Endless Sea by then."

𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

"Is it the moon's gravity that causes this?" Wang Yu wondered silently, but he let the thought pass.

The science of Earth didn't apply in full here. The mere fact that the moon changed color was bewildering enough.

In the span of a year, the moon of magic would change color thrice. It was golden for ninety percent of the time, blue for nine, and crimson for just a single percent.

Gold was relatively innocuous. Blue could occasionally stir up tides of magic, sometimes a boon, sometimes a bane.

Crimson, well... that was when things best left unnamed crawled into being. Certain lifeforms, even among the Five Races, fell mad beneath its crimson glow, while the Nightborn grew to the acme of their strength.

Still, the people of this world had dwelt under it for centuries, and its mysteries were well-known. Even the fabled blood moon had proved underwhelming when Wang Yu had experienced it firsthand. The werewolves howling like rutting beasts had struck him more as comical than terrifying.

"Professor, do you know any merfolk? We'll need their ships and seamanship—our own experience at sea is far too lacking."

Wang Yu lifted his head, glancing at Sieg. Given how much time he had spent on the continent, Wang Yu thought that there really might be a chance that he did. He even had elven elders among his friends, after all.

Sieg offered up a rueful smile. "I'm afraid not. I owe my very life to my older sister, who fled with Noelle and me to the mainland from the Endless Sea. Do you think I would dare linger near its shores after that? I have never so much as spoken to a merfolk."

He had brought this chart with him to discuss various possibilities, not to entangle Wang Yu and Avia further with the affairs of dragons. Once they left the relative safety of land, danger would mount swiftly. If that could be avoided...

"Well, that might be troublesome..." Wang Yu shook his head before his eyes suddenly widened. "Selwyn lies beyond the St. Anna's Snowpeaks, doesn't it? It's right by the Endless Sea. And the Church of Nightfall has had success proselytizing there. There may well be merfolk among their flock. If so, we could simply take a detour."

At last, the negligent Archbishop remembered the value of his own devotees.