Chapter 677: 155. Divine Language
“Boom boom boom”
After Fisher used the Fluid Sword to seal the gap above the dock, although they could still hear terrifying tremors from outside, the chilling terror had already receded. It was as if one moment it was chasing Fisher, and the next, upon losing sight of him, it simply forgot about the chase and fell silent.
Fisher gasped, clutching his growing severed arm, while at the entrance of the dock, David, who had an angelic appearance, quickly floated over and asked with concern, “Mr. Fisher, are you alright? The entire shelter just experienced an unexplained tremor, and the system seems to have been adversely affected. I attempted to reach you, but received no response.”
Fisher, wincing in pain as he held his right arm, knew that every part of his body contained a part of his soul. Moreover, Fisher was already at a Mythical Rank, where body and soul were one. The soul pain from his severed arm caused him some dizziness, but he still looked at the tilted and overturned ship nearby and instructed David, “I’m fine. Captain Alagina is on the ship next door; go check on her.”
“Okay, I’ll go now.”
David nodded, floated up from where he was, and headed towards the ship. Before long, a reply came from that direction, “Mr. Fisher, Miss Alagina is fine; she seems to have just fainted, but has suffered serious burns on her back. Did a fire break out here?”
The burn on Alagina’s back was indeed real.
Fisher was momentarily stunned, recalling the “private” character he had consumed earlier.
Initially, he had thought the bizarre scenes formed by the Crimson Mist were merely illusions, but it now appeared otherwise; those things were indeed real.
After the sudden attack they had just experienced, it was hard to deny the established connection between the spirit realm pollution and Tang Zeming Asuka; the language of the Trans and the various otherworldly scenes were all showing Fisher the inner imagery of the person he had known a thousand years ago.
Judging by the way the spirit realm pollution had quieted down after he sealed the shelter, it matched the characteristics of a soul that Heilson had described in his notes.
It lacked consciousness, just empty chaotic power.
This meant that Tang Zeming Asuka’s soul was now missing, and this spirit realm pollution was the chaotic power she had left behind?
After going back and forth in his thoughts, Fisher had a sense of clarity within him; he probably already knew that Tang Zeming Asuka’s attempt to return to her world had failed.
Renee had mentioned that the barrier had been locked tight, turning into a cage that allowed entry but not exit, with only beings possessing Azanros’ power able to leave. The only known person who knew Azanros was the Subhuman Girl Enthusiast.
But if the Subhuman Girl Enthusiast was familiar with Asuka, then the entire Creation Society would not be completely ignorant of her. So, it seemed that Asuka had traveled to the spirit realm without the blessing of Azanros; she might have believed Margaret’s method of leaving this world, which involved the power of the True God. Years ago, Margaret’s attempt to awaken the authority of Death was indeed aimed at using that power to return to her world, but now it seemed like mere folly.
Unfortunately, this is how the pursuit of the correct truth often is; besides the favor of luck, there is no such thing as prophecy. It requires countless trials, costs, and even lives to inch closer to even a bit of an answer.
Standing a millennium later, Fisher easily knew the corresponding answer and had obtained the key to unlock this lock but could no longer hand it over to the group of Trans who had been toyed with by fate and left in a dilemma.
His expression darkened as he was deeply worried about the plight of the poor Tang Zeming Asuka but quickly steadied himself and focused on the matter at hand, saying, “There was a breach in the dock; the spirit realm pollution intruded and attacked us. We almost had an incident.”
“What?” David peered out from the deck, incredulous. “But David and Captain Alagina already checked every corner of the shelter; many breaches were personally sealed by us; it can’t be that way.”
“Do you still believe in the Mother?”
“Why would David believe in the Mother?”
“Then it’s fine.”
Fisher let out a sigh of relief and stood up; at this moment, his severed arm had completely regrown. He shook his newly grown fair arm, looking at the Fluid Sword transformed into the wall, and explained, “That spirit realm pollution seems to be able to alter reality based on inner imagery, and it truly changes things. The breach may have always been there; it just made you unaware of its existence. I’m unsure if there are other undiscovered breaches in the shelter; we better check again.”
“That sounds very subjective and idealistic; David merely knew the outside was dangerous before, but didn’t realize it could be this way. What should we do next?”
Fisher leapt up onto the overturned ship, looking at the unconscious Alagina on the deck. He picked her up and then glanced at David, who seemed somewhat melancholic. “Let’s do what we were supposed to do; I want to try to contact Dalasgon. I might need your help.”
In the center of the shelter, where Alagina had set up the design workstation and where David monitored the entire shelter, Fisher first placed the unconscious Alagina down. To prevent David from being affected by the Crimson pollution and failing to detect the breach, he personally walked around the shelter and found nothing else amiss but did discover the Mother God statue that Alagina seemed to have brought.
He still didn’t understand why they would worship the Mother after being affected by spirit realm pollution; it might be related to the friendship between Tang Zeming Asuka and the Mother.
Additionally, he replicated the process of calling Dalasgon in the Northern Region, trying to make contact with Him. Unsurprisingly, there was no response, not even a bird.
Just as he had suspected, the previous success in the Northern Region was because Dalasgon had been watching him closely; now, with the clay Buddha crossing the river, it was evident He could not continuously watch over Fisher, so the call failed.
“Mr. Fisher, did you find any other breaches?”
“No, it should be safe for now.”
But what about his Fluid Sword? It had wilted earlier, and now was used to patch a wall; ever since following Fisher, it hadn’t had a single good day.
He arrived at the data console where David stood; it was filled with neatly arranged light screens, which displayed rolling phantom angelic text. This broadcast method was the same as the subtitles in the Supplement Handbook for Sub-Humans. Fisher wondered if the Subhuman Girl Enthusiast had plagiarized when making the handbook.
Looking at the monitoring data above, Fisher quickly found a surveillance panel marked “External Situation,” with live changing data, and pointed to the light screen, asking David, “Can the shelter detect conditions in the spirit realm?”
“Previously it seemed possible, but some of the detection instruments had been damaged long ago and require someone to go out and repair them. Currently running is only the signaler, which can transmit and receive mechanism signals. The light screen shows the signals we are currently receiving.”
Fisher glanced at David, seeing him gazing intently at the data above without blinking. “This signal might be information related to the angel Michael and Mikhail, right? Earlier, Alagina told me she wanted to help you find your parents in the spirit realm; the ships in that dock can sail in the spirit realm. What does this received message say?”
David blinked human-like and then said, “It says nothing; it’s a line of garbled text.”
“Garbled text?”
David nodded and provided Fisher, who was unfamiliar with the mechanisms and history, with some knowledge, “Actually, there may be more than one shelter in the spirit realm, given the substantial number of Holy Spawn that have migrated from reality; ours is likely just one of them. The links that the mechanisms rely on for communication in the spirit realm are affected, so the Holy Spawns have opted to project signals to establish communication between shelters.
“The signal does not only come from the mechanisms; the spirit realm is mysterious and vast, inhabited by beings beyond imagination from reality, Chaos Races, Chaos, the Sea of Souls, and deities. Therefore, to identify the messages to be sent, the signals emitted from the shelters have a special decoding format, so that when received, they only display signals emitted by other shelters.”
After listening, even though it was his first time encountering this concept, Fisher accurately understood what David wanted to express, “So this means that the garbled line we just received is indeed from another shelter; we just don’t know why it’s consistently emitting this garbled text, right?”
“Exactly, Mr. Fisher. The detection record shows that for nearly a thousand years, the only signals we’ve received from other shelters are from this one. David is unsure what happened there, but doesn’t want to give up any opportunity related to his parents. However, as you can see, Mr. Fisher, the spirit realm is extremely perilous; David believes it is not yet time to search for them.”
Fisher stroked his chin, and sensations surged in his mind, “Hmm, wait. You mentioned earlier that this instrument can actually receive signals from other existing entities in the spirit realm; it just shows only the shelter’s messages because of the special code, right?”
“That’s correct, Mr. Fisher.”
“Then, can we pull out the other messages we received? Can we emit signals hoping to get responses from other entities?”
“Mr. Fisher, are you trying to contact deities in the spirit realm through the shelter?”
“Is there any risk?”
David considered for a moment, suddenly contemplating something. He then noticed his usually human-like eyes shining with a hint of blue light, a phenomenon Fisher had seen in Mikhail, seemingly a sign that they were scanning for messages.
Fisher chose not to disturb him, waiting until some time passed when the blue light in David’s eyes dimmed and his gaze refocused. “Retrieval successful. Mr. Fisher, it seems my database has records of Holy Spawns communicating with the main god Ramastia through signal communicators. Since demigods cannot directly perceive deities, and the main god’s voice cannot be grasped by races other than the Whale Folk, the Holy Spawns decode the main god’s signals under the guidance of Lord Heavenly Lock, which allows simple communication with the main god. Would you like David to call up this data?”
Such a good thing; why didn’t you say this earlier?
“Yes, let me see.”
David presented the rough coding and also extracted signals received over the past several hundred years from other than shelters, which Fisher noted numbered around ten thousand, all from unknown sources.
It was unclear how deities communicate with each other; he hadn’t heard Renee mention this before, but relying entirely on remote signal calls felt rather abstract.
Yet among those ten thousand signals, there were indeed several dozen that could be definitively identified as coming from Ramastia, for the Holy Spawns could only recognize His signals, albeit not completely.
Fisher read through them, all jumbled; for instance, a couple of phrases would appear, followed by a single word, with the rest entirely garbled. The order of appearance of these words made Fisher somewhat perplexed; one random example would be something like, “Horse. White gravel you. He. I. Return to the stars.”
Roughly like that, with no grammar, no logic, subjects in disarray—completely incomprehensible as a means of communication.
Fisher frowned, looking at the dozens of these similar phrases, feeling some doubt, “Are you sure this wasn’t interpreted incorrectly? Is this how He usually speaks to the Whale Folk?”
“Mr. Fisher, you may have misunderstood; the main god certainly communicates using the Whale Folk’s language to ensure they understand. But here in the spirit realm, the main god is speaking in His own language, divine language, making it difficult to comprehend.”
“Does a god also have a language?”
“Of course, and based on my observations, each deity’s language is unique. The language they use may be a specific type of message, a type of wave, containing a logic and method of usage that ordinary beings find difficult to understand. Each god’s language is vastly different, even more so than languages between completely unrelated civilizations. The Angel Gabriel once attempted to decode all gods’ languages but ultimately failed. Even Lord Heavenly Lock cannot fully comprehend the language of the main god, which is why the decoded content is fragmented.”
As David continued speaking, he suddenly remembered something, turning to Fisher, “Speaking of this, the Angel Gabriel once proposed an interesting hypothesis; she said that the Mother God’s language is the same as that of the main god Ramastia. Although deities can clearly grasp the languages of all life within this world, the Mother God is no exception, but it seems that deities also possess a concept of ‘mother tongue,’ namely the language they mastered first. Since the Mother God’s divine language is the same as the main god’s, she speculated that the enmity between the Mother God and other gods has not always existed.”
“…”
Fisher nodded, then considered whether he could ask Renee about this matter.
The idea that divinities themselves have languages was still intriguing for him; based on sociological knowledge, the existence of language emerges from the need for communication with other beings, a demand propelling beings to convey messages through various mediums like sound and text. In other words, if there were only one individual, there would be no necessity for such things to exist.
This brought forth the question—if deities each used different languages, this implied that their mother tongues were not meant for communicating with other deities. At least it was clear that Ramastia’s language was not designed for interaction with other gods like Dalasgon, so who was this language intended for?
While thinking of these seemingly unimportant matters, Fisher did not forget his task of inquiring about this.
He intended to try and communicate with Ramastia using this information; since he couldn’t reach Dalasgon, he would switch strategies and see if he could contact Ramastia to relay or reveal some information.
Thus, Fisher transcribed the meaningful coding he could discern from the light screen, hoping to piece together a coherent sentence to communicate with Ramastia.
This truly puzzled Fisher; the names were filled with completely unusable terms like “Horse” and “Gravel.” There were hardly any verbs; yet, perhaps if it could attract His attention, letting him know Fisher had arrived in the spirit realm and hoped to know some news should suffice.
Under the intense brainstorming of Fisher and David, a question for the deity, condensed from the combined intellect of artificial intelligence and humanity, leapt onto the page, as follows:
“I, come, I, do not, know, you, say.”
This was just pulling out words and rearranging them according to angelic grammar; it was uncertain whether Ramastia would comprehend it.
After preparing the content, Fisher anxiously transmitted the signal. Watching the light screen display “Transmission Successful,” he glanced at David, who blinked and smiled, saying, “Mr. Fisher, we might be the second batch of beings after the Holy Spawn to communicate with a deity in their language.”
“…Is that something to be proud of? I would rather communicate fluently using a language that both He and I understand. By the way, this signal should not disturb the external spirit realm pollution, right?”
“It won’t; I had sent messages when I received unknown mechanism signals before, and there was no noticeable change in the pollution. He lacks intelligence, and besides the main god and the Mother, no one else can comprehend the information we emit.”
“That’s good.”
“Beep beep beep!”
Just as Fisher sighed in relief, the data on the light screen suddenly surged, capturing the attention of both him and David.
“Mr. Fisher, we have received a signal; it should be a reply from the main god!”
Fisher’s heartbeat quickened as he quickly opened the received signal; the content was simple, to the point of having no objections—a symbol in the deity’s language that David and Fisher had recently attuned themselves to. Translated, it was roughly like this:
“?”
Well, it was simply a question mark.
Fisher and David exchanged a glance and suddenly felt a headache; it seemed that even the wise main god could not comprehend the abstract divine language they had pieced together.
David, however, was optimistic, reassuring Fisher, “Mr. Fisher, this is good news; it at least means we successfully contacted the main god!”
“…That’s right, but I think there’s a high probability He won’t come personally, as the location of the shelter seems very close to the spirit realm pollution. I’ve heard that deities are on high alert near the barrier; I wonder what the situation is like over there.”
“Does Mr. Fisher know much about the movements of the gods? Who did you hear that from?”
“A woman… mine.”
“Oh, okay. Then we’ll stay here,”
“Beep beep beep!”
Just as David was about to send another refined message, the signal receiver chimed again with a reply from Ramastia.
Fisher hurriedly opened it again. This time, it was even more ridiculous—filled entirely with garbled text, not a single recognizable word or punctuation in sight.
“…Ridiculous; back then, dozens of the sentences we looked at at least had one or two identifiable words; now there isn’t a single one.”
“Not right, Mr. Fisher; there can’t be none unless—”
David pondered for two seconds and suddenly realized something, hastily knocked on the light screen, and changed the signal decoding code.
“Unless the main god’s reply signal is no longer in His language. He knows we don’t understand His language, so He used our shelter’s signal format!”
Fisher raised an eyebrow, looking skeptically at the screen. When David changed the signal decoding, the previous garbles suddenly transformed into a clear line of angelic文字 that read:
“Within the barrier, the only way for the chaotic being to successfully assassinate Dalasgon is to enter His scarred body.”
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(End of this Chapter)
