"The land here is even more desolate than Kazdel. It clearly has not experienced war, yet the desertification is severe. Did something happen here?"
Caelus walked across the land of Iberia. He had been traveling through Iberia for the past few months, but he had barely encountered anyone. He had not come across any towns, large herds of beasts, or swarms of insects. The entirety of Iberia seemed truly dead. Even the land itself could barely nurture life.
Continuing forward, Caelus estimated that he would soon reach the coast of the continent. He could already smell the salt carried by the sea breeze.
What exactly had happened to Iberia to transform it from the glorious nation described in old records into its current state of near-total silence?
Caelus had yet to locate Iberia's government. Its location was not marked on any map or mentioned in any records. Information concerning Iberia was vague and general in every respect, and so much time had passed that the records themselves were likely unreliable.
Moreover, because of the desertification of Iberia's land, other countries had no interest in this territory. Or perhaps that was not the only reason. It was also possible that Iberia itself was entangled with something, causing other countries to avoid interfering with it, even though the country now appeared extremely weak.
No country had ever invaded this territory.
After crossing another long stretch of desert, Caelus arrived at the coast, where he found a small town nearby.
He walked through the town. Everyone was extremely poor, and most of the people showed clear signs of malnutrition. There was undoubtedly a severe shortage of food.
Everyone here was unusually silent. Even when accompanied by others, they never spoke. They were like statues, sitting or lying inside their homes, or simply settling in random places throughout the town and maintaining the same posture the entire time.
They resembled soulless corpses, dazed and listless, with no light in their eyes, as though they were already dead.
Caelus walked around the entire town without seeing a single person who stood out. Everyone maintained the same dazed and deathly silent appearance. He then turned and looked toward a church-like building standing on a small cliff outside the town.
"To think there would be a church under these circumstances. Is it a building left over from earlier times? No, the sea breeze causes severe erosion, yet that church looks relatively new. It has either been carefully maintained for a long time or was built recently."
"With food so scarce in the town and the residents' clothes so tattered, where would they find the money or the inclination to build a church? This church definitely has something wrong with it."
Caelus thought this and was about to investigate the church when a loud bell rang out from that direction.
The moment the townspeople heard the bell, they moved like wind-up dolls. A faint light flickered in their eyes as they rose from the ground and walked toward the shore.
Caelus followed behind the crowd. Night was approaching, and the final rays of sunlight had completely vanished, allowing the silent darkness to envelop the world.
The people gathered by the shore, each of them silently staring out at the sea.
They knelt on the beach with their hands clasped together, muttering something while keeping their eyes closed.
One person, whether chosen beforehand or acting voluntarily, stood at the very front of the crowd. He did not kneel and pray like the others. Instead, he simply stood in the seawater, as though quietly waiting for something.
Caelus smelled a strong fishy odor. Then, a heavy dampness filled the surroundings, a sensation even more humid than the ocean itself.
Several strange creatures soon crawled out of the sea. They were impossible to describe in detail, resembling grotesque beings forcibly pieced together from bones and blue, fleshy tentacles. They immediately began tearing apart the person standing in the water.
The man's flesh was repeatedly ripped away, spilling blue blood. His screams could not escape his throat because the tentacles had already crushed it.
Once the man's limbs had been completely torn apart, something inside his abdomen appeared to mutate. A tiny, grotesquely shaped fish-like creature crawled out of his stomach before rushing into the sea.
As the waves washed away the pieces of the man's body, a large number of fish were thrown onto the beach.
The people stopped praying and stared at the fish lying on the shore. Hunger had robbed them of their ability to think. Driven by instinct, they threw themselves onto the fish and ravenously devoured their organs and flesh without any preparation, behaving like savages.
Caelus could clearly see that with every mouthful of fish meat and organs they swallowed, slight mutations occurred inside their bodies. Once enough of those mutations accumulated, perhaps a brand-new existence would be born within their flesh and organs, just like the man who had been torn apart.
"Are those strange creatures the reason Iberia has become like this? They seem rather Lovecraftian. They did not want to kill and devour that man. Their only goal was to free one of their kind from his body. If that man had continued eating this fish meat for a while longer, those creatures probably would not even have needed to act. He would have transformed into a new monster from the inside out."
Caelus stood in the seawater, toying with a grotesque little fish in his hand. Completely unaware that it had been separated from its school, the fish continued swimming endlessly in his palm, though it had no way to escape.
"No sapient consciousness, only pure instinct. Hmm, its mental connection extends quite far. It is a life form similar to a swarm, so there should be something resembling a queen. Its flesh is rapidly adapting to various changes, and its evolutionary capabilities also seem quite formidable. It should be able to adapt to the surrounding environment within a short period of time. However, they do not actively evolve. Instead, they passively adapt to their surroundings."
After curiously examining it for a while, Caelus released the fish. He then returned to shore and prepared to investigate the church.
Upon arriving at the church, Caelus directly accessed its memories and soon learned that it had been established four months earlier.
He pushed open the door and walked inside, immediately smelling an exceptionally strong fishy odor.
There was no one inside the church. Already familiar with its layout, Caelus found a hidden compartment and opened a secret passage leading underground. He walked through it as naturally as though he were returning to his own home. He easily opened a concealed chamber and found various documents and records inside.
However, although records had been left behind, the author's mental state had clearly been unstable. The wording and descriptions were chaotic in many places.
"Since they knew they needed to preserve the information, they should have done it properly. Some of the paper documents are even stuck together because of slime. Do these people not know how to handle things carefully?"
As he spoke, Caelus directly restored the damaged materials to their intact state, then began organizing and reading through them.
(To be continued.)
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◇ One bonus chapter will be released for every 200 Power Stones.
◇ You can read the ahead chapter on Pat if you're interested: p-atreon.c-om/Blownleaves (Just remove the hyphen to access normally.)