Shrouded Seascape - Chapter 474: Discovery

Darkness was the sole color palette at the bottom of the trench. Even under the illumination of the Narwhale’s searchlights, the mud on the seabed appeared an inky black.

The expanse seemed vast with no visible walls in sight. The surrounding landscape was a barren stretch that went endlessly with no discernible boundaries.

The desolate scene set the crew’s nerves on edge. Their hands instinctively reached for their firearms and relics despite knowing that they might be of little use in their current situation.

On the deck, Charles turned and cast a glance at Anna. Her eyes, the size of basketballs, were now closed and her tentacles trembled as though she had been electrified.

“What’s wrong? Is everything okay?” Charles reached out a hand and gently patted one of her tentacles.

“Don’t touch me! Quickly find what you are looking for, and we’ll get out of here as soon as possible!” Anna roared with her eyes still closed.

It appeared that the closer they got to the seabed, the more intense the madness-inducing effects became. To protect the crew from falling into this frenzy, Anna was deeply focused and actively working to counteract these influences.

“Captain… The sonar… didn’t detect… the key… What do we… do next?” the First Mate reported as he peeked out from the cockpit.

“Keep moving forward at full speed. This place isn’t safe. The faster we find the key, the quicker we can leave.”

At Charles’ command, the Narwhale’s propellers spun rapidly. Creaking sounds emerged from within the vessel from time to time, inducing fear in the hearts of the crew.

Fortunately, the Type-3 Steel held up impressively and showed no signs of succumbing to the water pressure or any leakage.

Charles returned to the bridge and stared at the sonar waves radiating in circles on the display. If there were truly a key that spanned several hundred meters in length nearby, the sonar would surely be able to pick it up.

Soon after, a blip lit up on the sonar screen. Charles’ eyes lit up, and his heart raced with anticipation.

With palpable excitement, the Narwhale swiftly changed course and headed toward the signal. It didn’t take long for the object detected by the sonar to be revealed under the searchlight.

A hint of disappointment flickered across Charles’ face. It was a black submarine lodged diagonally into the seabed and its exterior was cloaked in thick, black mud. Clearly, it had been inundated with seawater, rendering it derelict.

Just how many submarines did the Pope send down here? This is already the— Suddenly, Charles halted his train of thoughts, and with a furrowed brow, his head sharply turned upward to look above him.

“Captain, what’s wrong?” Dipp asked as he manned the helm. He found his captain’s demeanor rather unusual.

After a moment, Charles lowered his gaze and shook his head. With a calm tone, he replied, “Nothing much. Keep moving forward. We have no time to waste here.”

Once Dipp turned his gaze away himself, a grave expression appeared on Charles’ countenance.

Something’s off. That thing is back again but what is it? It just keeps watching me. Is it a sea monster? But it doesn’t launch an attack on Narwhale directly? What exactly does it want? Charles wondered to himself.

The Narwhale pressed on, with the sonar occasionally picking up findings. The trench seemed to harbor more things than expected. There were submarines and unidentified giant bones, but the key Charles sought remained nowhere to be seen.

“Where could the key possibly be? Something that huge should be easy to locate. There shouldn’t be anywhere for it to hide…” Charles mused to himself; his eyes remained glued to the scene outside the porthole.

Soon, another skeleton covered in dust appeared at the bow, looking much like a giant’s rib bone embedded in the seabed mud. A collective sigh echoed inside the cabin. Everyone aboard shared the same desire— to find the key quickly and make their way home.

Just as Dipp was about to turn the wheel and return to their original course, a steel arm reached out and stopped him.

Dipp looked up at Charles in surprise. “Captain, what’s wrong? It’s just some bones and nothing more there.”

“I know. Don’t steer away. Move toward the edge of those bones,” Charles instructed; he seemed to have noticed something.

As the Narwhale slowly closed the gap, the other crew members began to notice something amiss as well.

“Look! Is that someone standing under that skeleton?”

“Yeah, it does look like it. What’s it reaching out for?”

“An underwater human?”

Everyone peered out of the glass window. They had collectively spotted a human figure coated in dust and standing motionless under the gigantic skeleton with an outstretched arm.

“Sound the whistle. Let’s see the reaction,” Charles commanded.

A long and two short blasts of the whistle sounded promptly. Charles was certain the unidentified figure could hear it, but yet it remained still.

With his brows furrowed in thought, Charles pondered for a brief moment before stepping out of the bridge,

“Second Mate, take over the wheel. Third Engineer, Boatswain, First Mate, Deck Cadet, A.B., O.S., come with me!”

Regardless of who or what that figure might be, it was at least a humanoid, and that suggested the possibility of communication.

With Charles’ command, the chatter ceased and those called upon hurried after Charles.

Very soon, the decompression chamber’s hatch was opened once more, and seven crew members in hefty diving suits emerged.

Landing on the sea bed, their boots immediately sank into the mushy sea mud, indicating an uncomfortable trudge ahead.

It didn’t take long for Charles to reach the humanoid figure. Though it hadn’t seemed large when he saw it from within the cabin, up close, the mud-caked figure appeared to be at least three meters tall.

The closer Charles got to the figure, the more he felt a nagging sense of familiarity. That stature looks like…

Charles had initially planned to initiate first contact with his tentacles, but he suddenly changed his mind and swiftly dashed forward. Grabbing the figure, Charles climbed to its top.

He forcefully wiped away the sea mud covering the figure’s face, and upon spotting the facial features beneath, a mocking smirk spread across Charles’s visage.

So it’s you, huh?

It wasn’t any human but a stone statue of the Pope. The stone face was utterly devoid of wrinkles and had most likely come down with the submarines decades ago. It was severely damaged and covered in cracks. Half of its right hand was sheared off by something and the statue seemed to have been long discarded.

Charles gave the statue’s face a pat, only for its head to come off completely under his hand.

So fragile… I guess it’s useless now and has been junk for ages.

Standing on the statue’s shoulder, Charles turned around and gestured to his crew with flag semaphore.

But just then, he caught sight of the expressions of sheer terror on his crew’s faces underneath their massive helmets. They hadn’t had the time to act and could only instinctively point behind Charles.

Charles turned around to see what had caused their horror, but before he could even catch a glimpse, a force along with a thunderous boom sent him flying away.

The very next moment, the sight before him was replaced by a gaping bloodied maw. He had been swallowed by some monstrous entity.

Cosyjuhye’s Thoughts

I thought it was a Haikor. It didn’t cross my mind that it could be the Pope.