Inside the ancient palace.
On the Golden Throne, Hughes slowly raised his head.
He was dazed for a mont before realizing what had happened.
"I... I returned?"
"Huh?"
Hughes scratched his head.
The situation was rather strange.
He took a deep breath and tried to analyze it.
"This return is a bit inexplicable."
"In the past, aside from actively returning, the only other ti I would be forced back was when my vessel died."
"Mm, returning after death—that’s perfectly normal. I never doubted that."
"But then I discovered that even a dead vessel could descend again, which ans ‘death’ itself is not necessarily a required condition for returning."
"What exactly happened before I returned this ti?"
He woke up in the storage room.
He searched for clues inside the cabin.
He secretly sneaked onto the deck.
He examined the figurehead of the ship—then everything went blank.
Wait.
Hughes suddenly furrowed his brows.
After looking at the figurehead, he did one more thing.
At that mont, he had breathed a sigh of relief.
He instinctively glanced around and realized that he was at sea, not at a port.
Was that unique in any way?
Just looking at the sea... could that be the reason for his forced return?
"No, not just this ti."
"I seem to have been forcibly returned to the Golden Throne once before."
Hughes squinted his eyes.
He rembered.
Previously, when he descended at the site of Chloe’s ritual to summon a heretical god, they had conversed for a while.
Then Chloe beca convinced that he was an Outer God.
She did sothing to him, and he was forced to return.
What exactly did she do?
It seed like she made him drowsy.
Then, inexplicably, he returned.
Hmm...
Thinking about it this way, if the reason for passive return wasn’t death, could it be... losing consciousness?
No, that couldn’t be it.
After signing the Symbiotic Contract with Ash, he had also fallen unconscious.
Yet he hadn’t returned imdiately.
When he woke up, he even thought he had already returned to the palace.
It must be a similar situation, such as... losing control over the vessel?
Hughes felt like he was getting close to the truth.
This loss of control must be severe and difficult to break free from.
If it were rely a brief unconsciousness, he wouldn’t have been forcibly returned.
If this was true, then he shouldn’t be able to descend into the worker Hughes’ vessel again!
Hughes’ heart pounded.
He took a deep breath, cald himself, and turned to look at the worker Hughes’ vessel.
Worker Hughes stood motionless, like a puppet, making no eye contact with him.
It was real!
A flash of excitent crossed Hughes’ eyes.
Then, he rembered sothing else.
He had another vessel—a White-Robed Priest.
And it was in the exact sa state as worker Hughes!
He imdiately shifted his gaze to the White-Robed Priest.
As expected, that vessel remained still.
"I see, I see."
Hughes muttered to himself, smiling.
"This vessel must also be under so kind of control."
"Perhaps, just like worker Hughes, it saw sothing it shouldn’t have."
What was in the deep sea?
Hughes didn’t know.
But he was sure sothing was wrong.
In Castel, the deep sea was filled with pollution and monsters.
Even the Banshee had been forced onto land.
Yet, aboard the Black Pearl, the waters were eerily calm.
That in itself was suspicious!
The Black Pearl was still in the Storm Ocean.
Based on Hughes’ earlier calculations, given the speed of the Polluted Serpent’s advance, the entire Storm Ocean should now be swarming with monsters.
There was no reason the Black Pearl should be this peaceful.
Unless... had it fled to the Lightless Sea?
Hughes imdiately turned to his Lord vessel.
Soon, he lifted his head from the long table inside the cathedral.
Sothing was happening to the sea.
This was an important clue.
Next, he needed to—
『Lord? Lord, are you there?』
Suddenly, Nini’s urgent voice echoed through the Mind Link.
Hughes’ heart tightened, and he quickly responded.
『What’s wrong?』
『Thank goodness, Lord. We’ve been trying to reach you for so long! We thought sothing had happened to you too!』
『Too? Did sothing happen?』
Nini fell silent for a mont.
When she spoke again, her voice was trembling.
『Lord... just now, the coastal watchtowers reported that the sea suddenly began to churn!』
『Murlocs and Sea Urchin Monsters are erging from the waters!』
Hughes stood up.
The sea—again!
He had just lost control of his vessel after looking at the sea from the Black Pearl.
Now, back here, the sea was undergoing a drastic change.
It was impossible not to connect the two events.
What exactly was happening in the sea?
『Where?』
『...』
『Nini? What’s wrong?』
『Everywhere.』
Hughes swallowed hard.
『All of our outposts have sounded the alarm.』
『The entire coastline is being overwheld by enemies.』
『There are too many to count. They’re surging up like a tidal wave. We’re surrounded.』
Hughes’ pupils contracted instantly.
Jeremiah stood at the bow of the ship, his expression dark.
He had stood there the entire night.
Kenn and the sailors were equally exhausted, with heavy dark circles under their eyes.
They had spent the whole night searching for the body that had fallen into the sea.
They had tried fishing it out.
In the end, they found nothing.
That corpse had eerily leapt into the sea and vanished.
After a restless night, Jeremiah finally ordered the ship to turn back toward Blood Harbor.
The sailors breathed a sigh of relief.
Only Kenn knew Jeremiah wasn’t giving up.
He would never let this go.
Kenn was right.
Jeremiah planned to get so iron cages and trawl nets at the port for another attempt at retrieval.
Searching for a needle in the sea might be a saying, but Jeremiah had so confidence.
He roughly knew where that eerie corpse had fallen—near where Castel’s original volcano had been.
When they had previously lowered a line into the depths, he had reviewed Kenn’s records.
Castel’s forr location was not just an ordinary seabed.
It was a vast, flat seafloor.
The depth there wasn’t extre.
There was a real chance of retrieving it.
No, not just a chance.
He would retrieve it.
He must!
Jeremiah clenched his teeth.
His expression was twisted, like a drowning man desperately grasping for a lifeline.
Before long, the Black Pearl reached Blood Harbor.
Jeremiah hurriedly instructed the sailors to lower a small boat to head ashore.
Later, they could use it to transport the cages.
He paid no attention to the sailors whispering and pointing below.
On the dock, a crowd had gathered near the water.
They were murmuring anxiously, even a few tax officers had co to check.
Jeremiah had no ti for nonsense.
He shoved his way through the crowd, intending to leave the port imdiately.
But just as he passed through, a passing remark made him stop in his tracks.
"The seawater... why is it so low?"
"It’s like it’s draining away..."
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