Enforcer Manual
Chapter 758 - 756: Journey Afar_1

Chapter 758: Chapter 756: Journey Afar_1

Fallen ones?

The "Emperor" did not agree with this label.

In his eyes, he had always been walking on the correct path.

It was the terrorists, who regarded human life as insignificant and ceaselessly incited strife around the world, who were more suited to this title. Since the Dark Age, he had been searching for the true source of the Whispers, and this time, he realized he was getting closer to the answer.

At this very moment, only one thing stood between him and establishing communication with the Whispers—sleep.

The "Emperor" could hardly remember how long it had been since he last slept properly. After undergoing extensive prosthetic implantation and having an operating system embedded into his brain, he had lost some of the basic human abilities, one of which was sleep.

He suspected that these Whispers were using dreams to sway people’s hearts.

Manipulating dreams indeed fell within the category of interference-type Psychic Abilities. The United Government had on record Psychics capable of intruding into dreams and altering the subconscious perceptions of the Dreamers.

Without hesitation, the "Emperor" quietly entered the room next to Diago’s, lay down on the bed, and closed his eyes.

For someone with prosthetic implantation, the first step to sleep was to disconnect the operating system and let it go offline, which also had clear consequences—during the process of the operating system going offline, he would lose all autonomous defense systems.

But if he could face the source of the Whispers directly, the risks were worth taking.

In the midst of this peculiar sensation, darkness quickly enveloped him.

He didn’t know how long he wandered in this lengthy darkness, the world around him silent, yet his consciousness and thoughts were highly active.

Eventually, he felt as if his consciousness had embarked on a journey, and other sounds emerged from the depths of the darkness.

Those were the sounds of waves.

He was clearly lying in bed, yet he felt the sensation of rocking.

It was as if he was floating on the turbulent sea atop an ancient capsized boat.

Then, a faint light penetrated this world, and the "Emperor" took a deep breath, the salty and damp air filling his nostrils.

He opened his eyes and saw the only source of light in the room.

A candle.

The flame of the candle flickered with the movement of the waves, as if it could go out at any moment.

This was an experience he had never had before, but strangely, he seemed to know where he was.

The source of the Whispers had not shown itself, and as soon as he regained control of his body, he rolled out of bed and pushed open the door of the room.

The narrow and dim corridor was empty, the next torch was about tens of meters away from the room, standing like a signpost, guiding him in the direction to go.

At the end of the cabin, the "Emperor" finally encountered the crew of the ship, who wore grey robes that marked them as both the crew and the most devout Believers of the Lord of Tides.

The Believers ignored the presence of the "Emperor." They were engrossed in the task at hand.

They needed to offer a sacrifice to the Lord of Tides to ensure their safe passage across these seas. The sacrifice was prepared as usual, they led a skinny figure onto the deck who looked like those orphans, a sack covering her face.

The sacrifice did not utter a sound, seemingly silenced by the Believers, and from her trembling body, it was clear she was engulfed by intense fear.

The "Emperor" did not stop the Believers as he had already guessed the identity of the child.

Diago’s companion had mentioned one of their own—a child who was a suspected Psychic, who had conveyed images of what she had seen through dreams to her friends back at the port just before being tossed into the waves by the Believers of the Tidal Church.

But this also meant everything he was seeing had already happened.

Even if he possessed great power, he couldn’t travel through time to prevent a tragedy that had already occurred.

The "Emperor" followed at the end of the procession, as the Believers of the Tidal Church boarded the deck while the sky outside was engulfed in darkness. The oil lamps in their hands barely illuminated the path ahead.

He looked up at the sky, where the clouds seemed to have stopped flowing and were frozen in place.

Instead of an endless ocean, there was a range of mountains appearing and disappearing in the darkness before the ship. When he looked at the mountains, his heart palpitated with fear.

The Believers brought the sacrificial offerings to the side of the ship, mumbling as if they were performing some ancient Ceremony.

They formed a circle, kneeling devoutly on the ground, facing the mountains deep in the darkness.

It was then that the "Emperor" vaguely saw the true nature of the mountains.

They were alive; they were living beings.

This was the true face of the unknown seas, and he finally understood what the United Government’s expeditionary fleet had encountered in these waters, and why those well-trained naval soldiers were lost forever at sea, never to return to land.

The towering peaks watched over him, also awakening a familiar feeling in the "Emperor".

When he arrived at Silvermoon Harbor and stood on the dock looking out into the distance, he felt watched by something from the depths of the ocean. Now he knew the owner of those gazes, enormous unknown creatures as large as a small town, with no records of such beings in the history of mankind so far.

They were even larger than the sea monsters he had encountered in the deep sea.

The Believers on deck completed the pre-sacrifice ritual, and two of them dragged the frail body of a girl, slowly lifting her above their heads.

Then they threw her off the ship, letting her plunge into the turbulent waves.

Before she fell, a tentacle sprang from the waves and caught her.

The tentacle was covered with eyes, thick and numerous.

In the face of this hair-raising scene, the Believers prostrated themselves before it with utmost reverence, watching as it wrapped the girl’s body and sank her into the seabed.

The sea surface was pitch black.

The "Emperor" couldn’t see what lay beneath those black waves, but what he could see was that after the sacrifice had disappeared, the rolling sea waves visibly subsided, and the clouds in the sky seemed to resume their flow. The looming figures in the darkness were receding.

This seemed to suggest that it was very pleased with the offering presented by the Believers.

What was displayed before him appeared to be the only way to the Misty Archipelago.

The old capsized boat was still drifting slowly on the sea, an invisible force guiding them toward their destination.

The "Emperor" suddenly realized he hadn’t gone far with the ship; he had been thrown off the boat as well.

Or more accurately, he had been abandoned by the world itself.

The distant ship and the boundless ocean had both become mere backdrops; in reality, he had never reached the deck.

He was sitting in a theater.

As a member of the Audience, he witnessed a Ceremony that had taken place in the past.

And now, the performance had ended.