The jellyfish felt the power of the gunshot and tried shedding its souls to block it. But no matter how many souls it released, they didn’t stand a chance against the attack.
The sacrificed souls still bought the jellyfish some time as it boosted itself higher, hoping to get out of the range of the shot.
While its main body managed to steer clear, one of the hanging tentacles was caught in the effect of Prelude to Elimination.
Angor could clearly feel the negative energy gathering on the tentacle being cleansed.
The jellyfish immediately decided to abandon the affected tentacle to keep its main body safe. But it did so too late—the special sound wave created by Prelude to Elimination might not travel very fast in the air, but once it reached the negative energy on the jellyfish, it almost instantly spread to its entire body and began erasing the dark energy at great speed.
“So it IS an undead after all?” Angor frowned while watching the strange creature visibly shrinking.
Prelude to Elimination was a specialized tool to kill undead creatures. In a matter of seconds, the giant jellyfish lost most of its mass.
In the last moment of its existence, the monster released a thick spirit energy beam from the center of its “umbrella” toward the sky.
Angor thought it was some kind of last-resort attack and quickly asked Toby to move away. Because of this, he failed to notice another tiny jellyfish following the energy beam and disappeared above their position.
He and Toby rushed until they were several kilometers away from the jellyfish before they looked back while preparing their defenses to fend off possible follow-up attacks.
But nothing happened. The energy beam never went their way.
They slowly returned and could no longer find the jellyfish, and the spirit energy was also gone.
“It’s dead? Just like that?” Angor frowned.
Killing the creature so easily did not help him figure out what it wanted to do. Was it trying to force The Limpet deeper inside Specter Basin? But what for? And why did it suddenly change its mind by showing up?
He gave up thinking since the creature died without leaving any traces he could see.
“I wonder how many bullets I got from that...” he muttered while flipping the cylinder of his gun. He then widened his eyes when he saw all six rune-enchanted chambers giving out a mysterious glow.
“It’s full?”
But how? There’s no way there are enough souls on that jellyfish. Or... did the jellyfish alone hold the same amount of energy as thousands of souls?
“Ugh. I’ll just note it down and ask my professor later. Good. Now I can find a chance and do a second experiment using the bullets.”
He put Prelude to Rebirth into his bracelet and was going to catch up with The Limpet.
But another powerful energy signature suddenly stopped him.
He took a moment to sense it and realized that it almost felt the same as what was displayed by the jellyfish earlier.
Malevolent, hateful, and ill-boding.
“Did it actually escape?” He looked at the source of the energy, confused.
The energy was so powerful that it even affected the weather in the distance. From his position, he saw dark clouds swirling in the sky while drawing up seawater. The sound of falling tides and thunder had created a majestic symphony of nature.
Curious, he asked Toby to slowly approach the strange spot. He felt confident that Toby’s speed could always get them out of danger in time.
But a strange sensation hit his mind.
He knew something was off, but he failed to put his fingers on it until Toby called him.
“Oh, right...” He comprehended Toby’s intention and put a hand on his head. “We just came from this way.”
By heading to the source of the turbulence, they were in fact going to the original position of The Limpet.
“Geez. Somehow, I can’t tell direction too well on the sea.”
Previously, he was planning to go to the Land of Revelation and Old Earth by himself by using his Gondola after The Limpet carried him to Ferran Land. But now, he began to worry that he might lose his way without a guide.
“Ahead of us should be one of the islands I cleaned out earlier—”
He suddenly stopped when he realized that he was pointing to the center of the energy source.
“But how did that happen? I killed all the souls there.”
He told Toby to keep heading to the said island and soon made sure that it was one of the islands they visited before.
Currently, the island was surrounded by roaring thunderclouds and occasional lightning.
As he looked, immeasurable souls rose from the sea and all gazed at the island with their hollow eyes.
Out of instinct, Angor used a nightmare illusion to cover up Toby so that they wouldn’t get caught. Since the cylinder of his gun was full, he had no reason to confront these things anymore.
The souls simply remained where they were quietly without looking away.
Is there something hidden on the island? Angor thought.
While The Limpet moved past several similar islands including this one, Angor searched them and found nothing other than creeper plants and hostile souls.
But the eager souls he was looking at suggested otherwise.
The lightning strikes slowly stopped and gave place to a malefic energy surge centered around the island.
Meanwhile, Angor finally saw something. At the center of the island, a particularly giant crab over a hundred meters in width slowly climbed out of the ground. However, its lack of color suggested that it was a soul.
The “crab” floated into the air and waved its pincers to release a series of energy signals into the environment, which attracted all the other souls who rushed at it and clung to its body.
The sight was exactly the same as what Angor saw from the jellyfish.
The same thing was happening to several islands at Specter Basin, including those purged by Angor before. The difference was that they had different “animal souls”, such as jellyfish, clams, starfish, or even seaweeds.
Similarly, they baited wandering souls from the sea onto their forms and then disappeared into the water.
Angor already left Specter Basin after looking at the strange crab thing. He sensed the energy waymark he left on The Limpet, which told him that the ship had safely retreated to Death Loop.
“Welcome back, sir!” Helen was more than glad to see Angor’s return.
The sailors still looked exhausted, but Angor’s presence combined with the bright sunlight at Death Loop was enough to help them recover.
“Mister Padt, is that... thing, dead?” Erwin joined them on slow steps. It seemed the captain wasn’t doing very well either.
Angor nodded. “It was already dead by the time you saw it. Guess I just killed it for a second time.”
The others didn’t fully understand what those words meant, but they were glad to know that the jellyfish wouldn’t be troubling them again.
“We’ll stick to the original plan. I’ll solve the temperature problem later today,” he said to Helen and returned to his cabin without giving the sailors a chance to ask more questions.