There is no greater courage for mortals than to challenge the sky and the sea.

The salty sea breeze blows from the east, blowing across the long coastline of the east coast, blowing over the port houses with black sloping roofs and ancient spire towers, and the black crown and shield flag flutters over the main castle of the port city "Morbius", and the flag greets the endless sea, on the sea, the sun rises.

Earl Owen Dyson, with short black hair and dark blue eyes, and a long black trench coat, stands in front of a window facing the sea, and from the vantage point of this castle, he quietly looks out over the thriving city below, and the sparkling calm sea beyond.

This is the port of Mobius, the largest seaport on the east coast of the Typhon Empire, and a must-stop for people from the east to visit the sea.

It used to be.

The Dyson family has ruled the land for hundreds of years, and the ancestors of Earl Owen have led the first lords to reshape the fortified coastline of the eastern part of the empire with the power of boulders and magic, and with the thriving Eastern Continental Route to maintain the flow of materials in the southeast and northeast of the empire, the port of Mobius as the hub of all this, for a time the status of transcendence.

However, the prosperity lasted only a short time.

The fall of the three dark sects has cut off humanity's qualifications to challenge the ocean - the departure of the Storm Child, so that humanity can no longer perceive the storms and magical turbulence on the endless sea, and can no longer calm the wrath of the ocean, and the sea area that can be safely navigated is only a dozen nautical miles next to the land, and these "safe routes" are still intermittent and cannot be connected at all.

Initially, the brave captains and scholars tried to maintain those routes with experience, courage, and alternative transcendent spells, but the high cost and the embarrassment of Typhon's early state made the brave challengers finally choose to give up, and the colonial islands in the far sea were forced to be abandoned, and the production of minerals, plants, and marine life from the sea was also interrupted, and the short-lived and prosperous port of Mobius was also in a difficult situation for hundreds of years.

From a bustling port city, it became a hub for offshore fishermen, a stopover for nearby merchants, and the city has survived to this day on sluggish offshore fishing and toll taxes.

And then, to this day, it's thriving again.

Earl Owen's gaze swept over the edge of the city, over the towers that towered near the shoreline and the smoke that rose faintly.

That's the Burning Rock mining site.

No one could have imagined that it would be the gray-white stones that were once considered useless and worthless compared to silt that would finally bring the Port of Morbius back to life.

The shoreline is littered with burning stones, the raw material for the production of bountiful dust and spar substrates, and new technologies have turned them from worthless to scorching, and Port Möbius, the largest city on the East Coast, miraculously came back to life overnight, and in just a few years, it has flourished again.

And as quickly as the port of Morbius is changing, there is also the entire Typhon Empire.

Her Majesty the great Rosetta Augustus brought prosperity and change to the Empire, and although he brought many "changes" that made some of the stubborn nobles very unhappy, these dissatisfied nobles did not include Count Owen Dyson, the lord of Morbius, who had experienced a great transformation from hardship to wealth, and His Majesty Rosetta brought him an absolute turnaround.

What made the border count even more excited, and even a little excited, was that after making the empire rich and powerful, His Majesty the Emperor finally set his sights on the endless sea again.

The sparkling sea was slightly undulating in the distance, the morning sun shone with fine phosphorescence on the sea, and Count Owen knew that the seemingly calm sea was actually extremely dangerous, and the chaotic storms and magical turbulence more than ten nautical miles away would bury even the most powerful transcendents in the deep sea, and those turbulence and storms also cut the originally intact coastal routes to pieces, hundreds of years ago, the nascent and weak kingdom of Typhon failed to recapture those routes, but today, the reborn Typhon empire may have the ability to challenge the sea again.

Owen Dyson was awakened from his musings by the sound of footsteps from far and near, and he heard the voice of his attendant coming from behind him: "My lord, the creature is awake." ”

Earl Owen turned his head: "I see—lead the way." ”

"Yes, sir."

Owen Dyson left the room facing the sea, walked through the long corridors of the castle in the company of his attendants, entered the deep corridors, and came to the deepest part of the family castle, where he saw what the attendants called "that creature" in a secret room inscribed with many runes and reinforced with a large number of sacred and magical materials.

Wrapped in somewhat shabby black robes, he lay quietly on the stone bed in the center of the chamber, where a large number of rune chains and sacred talismans imprisoned him, suppressing the supernatural powers he might possess.

In fact, Owen could see at a glance that this should be a human being, but he had mutated beyond recognition.

The "human's" exposed arms, face, and neck were covered in chilling, fine scales of pale teal, eyes with golden pupils like snakes, and his hair had faded in favor of a seaweed-like greasy cortical growth, his palms twisted and elongated, webbed between his fingers, and even more terrifying, his legs—

The flesh and blood of the legs were blurred together as if they were the product of some kind of chaos, indistinguishable from each other, they were close together, their joints bent, their skin sticky, and their scales clumped together.

It looked like some kind of unfinished Transfiguration, or ...... It's in the middle of mutating from human beings to some strange shape.

The "monster" had awakened, and when Earl Owen approached, he saw the other's eyes roll, and the terrifying golden vertical pupils swept towards him, while the other's body was still lying quietly on the stone bed, only with a slight heaval in his chest.

Earl Owen frowned, and next to him, a mage in a moon-patterned robe stepped forward.

"My lord, I have stabilized his mental state with a sedation spell and the leaching solution of the moon sleeping grass, and this monster is safe for the time being."

Owen Dyson nodded, and looked at another figure not far away—a knight, of medium build, with a thick beard and deep-set eyes.

"Tell me more about the details of when you discovered this 'creature.'" He said to the knight.

"Yes, my lord," the knight nodded, "we found him in the south near the desert - the locals had reported unusual storms and howling on the sea, and we feared that it was a magical turbulence that had invaded the land, so we went to check and found this 'monster' on the rocky beach of the coast.

"He didn't have anything like ship debris with him, and there were no boats running on the reef nearby, so I guess he didn't come by boat, maybe he swam over......

"He was semi-unconscious and wilted from the sun, but when we got closer, he quickly woke up, and was very aggressive, he attacked us with some kind of spell similar to acid arrows, but luckily we brought two mages with him and subdued him with a spell counter.

"He fainted from exhaustion, and until he passed out, he had been muttering sentences that no one understood, and the soldiers were a little frightened when they heard them, and some said that they were curses spoken by the fishermen, the language of the dead who were swallowed up by the waves......

"There was nothing on him that would prove his identity other than a half-broken amulet, but his clothes were definitely from a human...... I guess he's a poor man cursed by the terrible forces of the deep sea, and of course, that's just my judgment. ”

Earl Owen snorted and looked at the mage beside him: "What is the name of the talisman?" ”

"I don't see it, my lord," said the mage, picking up the cracked amulet and handing it to Earl Owen, "it's completely damaged, the magic is gone, the remaining spell model is not of reference value, and there is a very strange point - the decorative pattern on its surface seems to have been deliberately polished, and it is completely unrecognizable. ”

Count Owen took the amulet, which was only the size of half an empire's old gold coin, and glanced at it in his hand.

It was the remnant half of a circular amulet, probably made of Mithril, apparently once a transcendent item, and as the mage had said, it had obvious polishing marks on one side, and the technique was rough, but it had completely worn away the recognizable patterns on the amulet.

Owen casually threw the amulet into the hands of the attendant beside him.

"You were once a human...... "He came over the scaly and webbed humanoid, bending down to stare at the unsettling pair of eyes, "Really?" ”

"Hiss...... Heh......"

From the humanoid's throat came a hoarse voice that was difficult for humans to make, like some kind of amphibian, chaotic and low, indistinguishable.

"You have been in the sea for a long time...... The smell of fish, the stench of silt, and the magic of the storm," Earl Owen still stared at the other, "what's in the far sea?" What made you look like this? ”

In response to him, there was still a chaotic and inexplicable voice, and listening to the strange voice, Owen even faintly had the impression of the waves rolling in his mind.

"Some unknown supernatural power has distorted this poor man," said the mage beside him, "My lord, I have communicated with him many times before by hypnosis and the like, and this poor creature has completely lost the ability to speak humanly. ”

"No, it's your wrong approach." Earl Owen said, and casually removed a pendant from his wrist that emitted a faint blue light.

He held the pendant close to the "monster" lying on the stone bed, and the latter's eyes suddenly widened slightly as he stared at the mysterious blue light.

"Once upon a time, when the city of Morbius was a bustling harbor, the Dyson family was close to the Church of the Storm," the count said slowly, "and we have many artifacts related to the storm, such as a pendant that was blessed by the Lord of the Storm...... Now, tell me, Stormchild, what happened to you? ”

Even if there was nothing to identify on the other party, even if the lines on the surface of the amulet had been polished, Owen Dyson could still guess the origin of the man from the far sea in front of him.

After all, he and his family have been watching over the seas for hundreds of years.

The black-robed "monster" on the stone bed stared at the pendant in Earl Owen's hand, and suddenly took a deep breath, and in a hoarse voice like a bellows, he said slowly in a certain dream-like tone: "You...... Heard of the ...... of the deep sea Calling? ”

"The call of the deep?" Earl Owen frowned, "What are you talking about?" ”

The black-robed monster's voice became more and more ethereal, as if its mind had gradually escaped: "Ah...... In the dark and deep seabed...... The throne has changed...... The flesh-devouring one, calling out with the sound of the tide...... Listen carefully, can you hear it......"

"It looks like your mind has been completely polluted," Earl Owen shook his head regretfully, ready to put away his amulet, "but I still thank you, thank you for reminding me once again of the dangers of the ocean, reminding me that I should be cautious about it. ”

The blue light amulet gradually moved out of sight of the black-robed monster, who breathed violently, but suddenly, his breathing calmed down, and an eerie smile of calm and joy appeared on his face.

The fine scales make this smile even more terrifying.

Earl Owen heard the last syllables of the monster come out of his throat:

"I heard, I heard...... She's calling...... Eva is calling us...... Get back on track ......"

The monster on the stone bed let out a long sigh, and then, as everyone watched, his body suddenly shattered into a liquid like murky water.