Shrouded Seascape

The Narwhale hovered in place within the deep, dark space, seemingly waiting for something. Charles looked down at the Foundation's communicator with his brows furrowed.

He pressed his thumb lightly on it, but Feuerbach didn't appear, even though he was supposed to appear the moment the button was pressed.

This shouldn't be happening. Earlier, we may have been too far from them, which resulted in poor signal reception, but that issue should be resolved with our current position. How come there's still no response?

Did something happen to them? At this thought, a hint of unease arose in Charles' heart. They were at a critical juncture, so he was hoping that nothing would go wrong.

The Narwhale was already directly below the center of the darkness. He just had to order the Narwhale to ascend, and they'd stumble upon the darkness. However, Charles was forced to prepare for the worst-case scenario upon realizing that he couldn't contact the Foundation for some reason.

"Governor… Charles... Can… you… hear… me? This… is… Captain Icke… of the Maiden's Love. In response to your order… every single exploration vessel… from the outpost down below… has ascended!" A male voice echoed from the speaker nearby.

There seemed to be a lot of interference, as there was a ton of static with the voice.

Charles took two steps out of the bridge and saw a massive pitch-black airship approaching their portside.

Two pink hearts stuck together were painted on the airship's colossal gasbag, and its searchlights vanquished the darkness. Charles deduced that the airship had to be the Maiden's Love that had just contacted them wirelessly.

Charles looked down and saw more airships floating toward them. This was the result of Charles' order; he had told these people to come up.

It had been years since the expedition started, so the majority of the surviving explorers at this point were top explorers of the Subterranean Sea. They were like members of the surface world's elite armed forces, and Charles reckoned that they could handle just about any turn of events.

Their visit here is a formality at best, and it'd be great if it stays that way, Charles thought. He took out his diary from his chest pocket and flipped to the latest page. He wanted to take advantage of the diary's prophetic ability and see whether there was any danger above them or not.

His diary's special ability had been immensely helpful during their exploration for the past year. Its prophecies were a bit biased—primarily around Charles—but it was still useful.

However, Charles was disappointed to find not even a single new entry. Charles stared at the empty page before him, and his heart abruptly sank. Sometimes, a blank page conveyed a ton of information, and this wasn't the first time it happened.

This happened when they stumbled upon 005-3 a year ago, but it happened two more times afterward. Unfortunately, whenever the diary produced a blank page, the trouble was always related to Divinities.

"Bandages, don't let them get too close!" Charles exclaimed, turning to look at Bandages. "Tell them to come up here in batches. We can't let all of them be annihilated at once!"

Soon, the 139 remaining exploration ships were divided into four groups. As usual, the Narwhale was in the first group, and she directed the first batch of exploration ships, numbering a total of twenty-three, toward her current location, which was the center of the darkness.

Charles entered the bridge and grabbed the microphone from Dipp's hand, saying, "Is everyone on the public channel here? This is Charles. There's a high possibility of encountering a Divinity-level danger up above. Please be prepared."

No one responded; the captains simply listened in silence. They wanted nothing but to find and retrieve the darkness. The people of the Subterranean Sea had become fearless, as death had become the norm down below.

Charles wanted to say a few encouraging words, but in the end, he decided against it and simply assigned tasks to every group. These people no longer needed any encouragement; what they needed was the long-awaited victory.

"Mr. Charles, are we really going to succeed?" Lily asked with a hint of confusion in her eyes as she hopped onto Charles' arm.

Charles put the microphone away and stroked Lily's fur. His eyes were unusually firm as he said, "Yes, we definitely will succeed."

Just like that, the Narwhale rose amidst the tension and anxiety in the cabin.

They encountered no issues or any abnormalities on the way. There were neither monsters nor floating islands in the darkness, which greatly surprised Charles. They were supposed to have encountered something at their current altitude.

Generally speaking, they were supposed to encounter more bizarre entities the higher their altitude.

Maybe the Foundation has already cleared everything out for us? What if they've already found the darkness and have started retrieving it? But if that's the case, how come I haven't heard anything from them? Charles mused.

Charles was still suspicious of the Foundation despite everything that the Foundation had done for them so far. However, he just couldn't find any reason for the Foundation to make a move against them at this critical juncture.

He had also witnessed the losses that the Foundation had suffered to locate the boundary of the darkness. He had long lost count of the number of fallen aircraft that he had encountered so far.

Hooonk! A piercing steam whistle abruptly tore through the air. The animated cables on the deck twisted and pointed upward. The Narwhale was warning her crew of incoming enemies from up above!

"Hard to port!" Charles exclaimed.

"Hard to port!" the helmsman exclaimed and frantically turned the steering wheel. The Narwhale rapidly turned right as the tiller was turned to port. The other exploration ships next to the Narwhale mimicked the Narwhale's evasive maneuver.

Charles was no longer inside the bridge and was standing on the Narwhale's massive gasbag. He was frozen in place, shocked to see an eyeball as large as an island falling downward.

The eyeball was emitting an eerie light, and there were some unidentified tissues behind it, but Charles couldn't pay attention to anything else aside from its fall.

The eyeball was so massive that its fall was guaranteed to be dramatic, but the eyeball was falling as if it were a jellyfish. It made no sound at all.

The eyeball evoked a special feeling in Charles' heart, and it was a feeling that gradually disappeared as the eyeball vanished from sight. Charles was stupefied just then. The eyeball was from a Divinity! Something had gone wrong above them!

"Full speed ahead, everyone! Go up as fast as you can!" Charles exclaimed. The exploration ships responded quickly, floating upward at flank speed.

At first, the airships weren't really that fast compared to sea vessels. However, the airships became faster and faster the higher they went up. They were moving so fast that Charles felt like the airships had been taken over by an entity.

Just then, an idea came to Charles. He took out a pen from his chest pocket and hurled it into the air. The pen rose in the air and took twice as long to fall back down.

This is it! No one is controlling those airships. Gravity has only gotten weaker!

The abnormality made Charles even more anxious about what exactly had transpired above. He felt like everything was spiraling out of control.

Soon, they encountered more things in addition to the colossal eyeball. The second thing they stumbled upon in this place, where gravity was getting weaker the further up they ventured, was a deceased Feuerbach. It seemed that this Feuerbach had died long ago, as his corpse was covered entirely in a purple color.

Then, they stumbled upon two more Feuerbachs, followed by damaged fighter jets. They even encountered a massive aerial fortress that was inexplicably split in half. Eventually, everything around them was floating around freely.

They had gotten so high up that there was almost zero gravity.