’What sort of...’
Lazarus narrowed his eyes at the shattered water before him. It lay in fragnts, like a broken mirror splintered into thousands of shards, each reflecting his image from a different angle.
From within the fragnts, Lazarus saw several dozen scenes until his eyes focused on a certain fragnt where he saw a certain silhouette. At first, he was lost, but getting a better look, he recognized the silhouette.
It was that of Noel.
Though his back was turned, his way, Lazarus was certain that the figure within the fragnt was Noel. He stood above the crimson sea, his entire presence seemingly warping the space around him as another figure stood next to him.
She was radiant.
Just the re sight of her made Lazarus want to look away.
She felt too bright.
Almost as if he were staring at the sun itself.
The two stood floating on top of the crimson sea, staring in a particular direction.
Lazarus couldn’t tell what they were looking at.
From the fragnt in front of them, there didn’t appear to be anyone or anything in front of them.
’Is this it...?’
The fragnt remained like that.
It rely displayed the two of them standing on top of the water, ripples forming beneath them.
Lazarus scanned his surroundings, his eyes falling towards the other fragnts.
He could see all sorts of images within the fragnts.
From the calm waters, to several monsters jumping out of them and eating whatever ca their way. It also displayed several boats passing by.
In general...
A lot of useless stuff.
’If my guess isn’t wrong, it’s displaying everything that had happened during them ti before the Maw ford.’
These fragnts beneath... They were all records of the past.
In that case, Lazarus was certain that if he looked hard enough, he’d find a fragnt that would allow him to get a better idea of what happened and about the eye.
’The eye did get lost during the fight, so if I look hard enough, I might be able to find sothing...?’
Lazarus felt that his plan was solid, but he quickly ca to realize just how wrong he had been.
An hour passed before he knew it.
In that hour, he wasn’t able to find a single thing. All he saw were the sa boring and mundane scenes. From the calm waters to the monsters and boats. There was nothing that could help him at all.
"This is harder than I thought."
He looked around, staring at the Owl in the distance, alongside the cat and the crab. At so point, he had also asked them to help him find anything.
The fact that the efforts of the four of them combined still didn’t produce any result displayed just how difficult it was to find what he wanted.
There were simply way too many of them.
Not only that, but the darkness also made it hard to look further ahead.
Thankfully, wobbles was able to produce enough light for them to see around, and it wasn’t long before soone finally saw sothing.
"I found sothing!"
The first one to find sothing was surprisingly Pebble, who looked rather smug as Lazarus moved in his direction.
"Here."
Pebble tapped its paw over the water surface, and Lazarus carefully looked in the direction of its paw, where he finally caught a glimpse of another scene regarding the fight that had happened between the two gods and the Outer Being.
’What...?’
But as he looked into the fragnt, Lazarus was completely taken aback.
Not because of how intense the battle looked, but because...
"Where is the Outer Being? I can’t see anything."
Noel and the Panthea both appeared to be fighting the air before them. Lazarus... couldn’t see the Outer Being at all. It was as if its entire presence was erased from the fragnts.
Explosions occurred, and blood spilled onto the sea.
The fight looked incredibly intense, but at the sa ti, it was incredibly hard to keep up with it. Not only was the scale of their attacks massive, but they were all incredibly fast.
The fact that they both appeared to be fighting the air didn’t add to the situation.
It made it incredibly hard to keep up with the fight. But then... on careful observation, Lazarus realized sothing.
’Shadow! I can see a shadow...!’
Indeed, looking at the surface of the crimson sea, he caught sight of a massive shadow. Lazarus’s expression changed at the sight as he caught sight of the shadow. Not because the figure looked scary or anything like that, but because... the shadow was blurred.
It looked exactly like the blurred figure within the mural of the church.
Could it be...?
Lazarus’s mind snapped a few seconds after as he saw a change occur in the fragnt. As both Noel and Panthea combined forces, the thing that stood out the most to Lazarus was the long gold sceptre that was on Panthea’s hand, as a large eye appeared to be embedded on top, its pupil glinting under the white sun above.
Lazarus felt his breath pause at the sight of the eye.
’Oracle eye.’
He was almost certain that the eye on top of the spectre was none other than the thing he was looking for as Panthea raised the sceptre and attacked the shadow.
Her attacks were fierce and quick, unlike Noel, who was a little bit slower. Nonetheless, the two appeared to work well together, feeding off each other’s strengths while covering each other’s weaknesses.
It wasn’t long before they managed to inflict an injury on the shadow, and black blood spilled onto the sea.
It was the subsequent scene that left Lazarus wide-eyed.
Right as the blood spilled onto the sea, rather than fading into it like Noel’s and Panthea’s blood, the blood appeared to expand within the water’s surface, forming so sort of black ink coating that felt eerily similar to an oil spill.
’What is going on? Why is the blood expanding?’
The sight left Lazarus at a total loss, but before he could even figure out what was happening, the fragnt stopped, and the scenes reset to what they were at the start.
"Wait, that’s it...?’
He didn’t see enough.
He didn’t even get to see the sceptre of the Goddess break.
It was supposed to break in the fight. However, the scene where it occurred didn’t appear.
"There must be more."
Lazarus looked towards Owl-Mighty and the others, his mouth opening as he prepared to tell them to keep searching. However, right as his mouth opened, he noticed a subtle change coming from the water beneath him, and as he looked down, he saw several thousand sharp teeth appear beneath him, circling all over his body as a gaping black hole appeared in the middle of the teeth.
His calm expression changed subtly as he pressed his foot onto the water’s surface.
[Step of Suppression]
Whatever was coming at him suddenly stopped moving as Lazarus looked down with a serious expression.
Then...
Tapping his foot onto the ground again, the massive fra of a monster burst out from the water.
Splash!
Water splashed all over Lazarus as he looked up to see a gigantic shark-like monster, its presence seemingly towering over him by large amounts.
It was towering, and Lazarus appeared insignificant at the sight of the monster.
And yet...
Under Lazarus’s cold gaze, the monster appeared completely helpless as it tried to thrash in the air. However, regardless of how much it tried to act, Lazaurs’s control over it didn’t falter in the least bit.
Staring at the floating monster in front of him, Lazarus’s lips curled slightly as Pebble appeared not long after.
"Finally..."
The little dragon said, its eyes falling on Lazarus.
"...I can’t believe it took you so long to finally gain this much control over the skill. You were seriously neglecting it!"
Ah, there it was.
Pebble’s nagging.
Following the evolution of [Veil of Deception] to [Lant of Lies], Pebble’s jealousy knew no bounds. It nagged every day, telling him about how its skill was better and how he wasn’t using it correctly.
Lazarus never had ti to properly master [Step of Suppression] due to all the things that he had to train, but following the past several months, he took his ti to properly train the skill, and now... He had managed to gain good enough control over it.
A new world opened up to him after that.
Not only was he now capable of controlling the gravity of small radii and certain areas, but he could now... also reverse it.
In so way, he could now use ’Telekenis’. Although it wasn’t as good, with more practice, he could probably reach a level that was almost the sa as it.
The only issue with the skill was Pebble.
It had beco a little too smug about it.
"Kekeke."
Looking at the Owl with a provocative look, Pebble crossed its paws. Lazarus shook his head before turning his attention towards the monster and summoning threads, directly killing it.
"Oh...?"
Monts after killing it, Lazarus had originally planned on tossing the body away, but he was shocked to find a certain sothing within the body of the monster as he retrieved it.
"A bone? A terror-ranked bone? This is... pretty good."
No, this was in fact, really good.
Lazarus was well aware that he could sell this for good money. His mood imdiately improved, and he tossed the monster away before continuing his search for the right fragnt again.
He continued like this for the next several hours.
From ti to ti, monsters would appea,r and he would kill them each ti.
Everything looked and felt normal at first glance, but after a certain point, Lazarus stopped. Lowering his head to look at the nurous bones in his hand, he paused.
What sort of...
He had a total of fifteen bones in his hand, which was the sa as the number of monsters he had killed. Each ti he killed one, he found a bone within the body of the monster he killed.
At first, Lazarus thought it was luck.
However, after the third ti, he realized that sothing was up.
By the ti he had collected fifteen, he was very well aware that sothing was up as he finally realized why so many pirates loved this place.
This place...
It was a massive treasure trove.
With all monsters containing bones, how could it not be a treasure trove? It was no wonder that the seven lords wanted to monopolize this place.
"But how is it possible for the monsters to all have a bone? How does this make sense?"
Lazarus frowned, thinking about the situation, but soon, his brows rose.
He suddenly realized sothing.
"This place isn’t just a regular place. The blood of an Outer Being and two gods fell on this place. Could it be that this is the reason for the bones to be present in the bodies of all the monsters?"
Lazarus’s heart skipped a beat.
Lowering his head and retrieving a small egg from his ring, he licked his lips as he looked towards one of the corpses he had tossed away.
A sudden thought occurred to him as he looked at Pebble, who also appeared to share the sa thought as him.
"I think... it might work."
"...It’s possible, human."
Lazarus licked his lips, staring at the egg once more and taking out a mirror.
Maybe.
Just maybe.
He could finally get Pebble its own body.
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