Ch.183183. The Full Story

After the failure of the United Galaxy, the Freedom Union that was established had been doing quite well for a while.

Of course, being a kind of international organization, it couldn’t completely avoid the tendency of collective intelligences to become stupid, but nevertheless, it was functioning surprisingly normally.

Despite not being led by anyone behind the scenes like the Human Federation, the fact that it was this functional was something to greatly welcome, but…

That’s not to say that accidents don’t happen in the Freedom Union—

This is the story of the greatest incident that occurred after the establishment of the Freedom Union, among such accidents.

One day, a planet that had been popular as a tourist destination due to its unique natural environment suddenly disappeared without a trace.

While the Freedom Union took steps such as dispatching investigation teams in response to this bizarre, ear-doubting news of an entire planet evaporating, the speed at which news of this planetary disappearance spread was even faster.

Planets began to vanish as if some entity was consuming them one by one in a specific orbit, and this phenomenon eventually reached the level of extinguishing stars.

For some unknown reason, however, this phenomenon stopped after 41 planetary systems and 25 nations of the Freedom Union had been annihilated, which happened to be around the time the Freedom Union investigation team arrived.

And after that.

According to what the Human Federation Intelligence Agency belatedly investigated after a considerable amount of time had passed, the following events had occurred.

※ ※ ※

Within the Freedom Union (FU), an alliance of alien species, there is a planetary nation belonging to a species called Dolpinmen in human language.

This Dolpinman species, true to their name, are humanoid beings resembling dolphins, indigenous animals from humanity’s homeworld, and are often compared to dolphins with arms and legs.

Of course, unlike animal dolphins, Dolpinmen are complete alien lifeforms that would technically be closer to fish if one had to classify them, but that’s not the important part, so let’s move on.

Anyway, this species has developed an underwater civilization centered around their mother planet, where 94% of the surface is covered by oceans. This underwater civilization has evolved in quite an abnormal way.

Their technology is so peculiar that they cannot even produce black gunpowder, yet contradictorily, they are one of the rare species capable of near-light-speed interstellar travel on their own.

They also fought each other in medieval times with weapons that shoot heat rays instead of lasers, and they replace most machinery with their abnormally advanced biotechnology.

This clearly incongruous development stems from the fact that they spend most of their lives underwater, and that the Dolpinmen have evolved as a civilization with advanced psychic abilities.

They worship a psychic entity called the “Huge Ocean”—a deified psychic being formed from collective emotions—which serves not only as an object of worship but also as the actual leader of the Dolpinmen.

As a result, the Dolpinmen, who exhibit characteristics of a totalitarian religious state, regularly conduct religious ceremonies to inspire faith and create a unified emotional state.

These religious ceremonies are not meaningless, as they serve as a medium through which their supernatural worship object actually intervenes in the physical world.

In fact, their monthly fishing festival has been statistically proven to promote the growth and reproduction of the fish-like indigenous creatures that serve as their staple food, and the blessing ceremony performed before interstellar travel actually increases the success rate.

Consequently, all their actions, though appearing irrational, possess an underlying rationality, which is why the Great Divine Festival (Daesinaje) held once a year (by mother planet standards) is of paramount importance to the Dolpinmen.

During this festival, they report their activities over the past year to the “Huge Ocean,” their god and leader, and receive advice, future tasks, and guidance on how to govern their nation for the coming year.

Although occasionally revised guidelines are issued through temples, the basic annual plan is entirely determined by the “Huge Ocean,” making the importance of this event comparable to a presidential election in a democratic nation.

Inevitably, the scale of such an event has become quite massive and elaborate.

Therefore, the Great Divine Festival, which consumes more budget and yields more returns than any other event, was scheduled to be particularly magnificent this time.

Thanks to a budget allocation five times larger than usual, they were able to build an entire city specifically for this festival, and they even painted the blue parts of the city with the “Tears of the Ocean”—legendary jewels said to have formed from the solidified tears of the “Huge Ocean.”

Moreover, this event included a procedure to directly summon and receive a portion of the great “Huge Ocean” through complex psychic rituals, making the importance of the event self-evident.

And on the day of the much-anticipated event.

[♤♧☆☆&♧♧☆\☆\♧♧=♤♧……..]

Following psychic rituals passed down from ancient secret scriptures, they attempted to summon their god using 500g of psychicite—and this attempt did succeed in calling forth something.

…………….Gurgle!?

However, the entity summoned was fundamentally different from the “Huge Ocean” that the Dolpinmen had expected.

Tentacles, tentacles everywhere.

Infinite yet finite tentacles clumped together, endlessly writhing, contracting, and expanding, while countless things nestled between the squirming tentacles.

There are countless eyeballs. There is a maw that could devour everything. Arms, legs, torsos, faces, souls of all kinds of creatures struggling, bound by tentacles between the tentacles.

Something approaching the infinitely transcendent, but essentially simpler than any living being—a life that is not a lifeform.

This undefinable, amorphous individual and collective, like the embodiment of chaos, was of unknown exact identity, but it certainly was not the “Huge Ocean” that the Dolpinmen had expected.

That fact, at least, could be instinctively felt by all Dolpinmen who directly beheld this entity.

And everyone who was watching the ritual at the scene—moreover, everyone who directly witnessed that scene, whether directly or indirectly, gradually realized that it, it, it ititititit—!!!!

Madness, riot, chaos—no word would be inappropriate to describe the confusion that erupted among the mentally panicked Dolpinmen.

As a reaction to witnessing something overwhelming, they fell into panic, attacking parents, children, friends, colleagues, everyone in sight, harming themselves frantically or destroying anything they could see.

What happened to the priests conducting the ritual near the entity and the high-ranking Dolpinmen gathered in prime positions was even more horrific—

“Ah, aaaaa■aaa■a■■a■aaa■■■■aaa■■■a■a■■■■■■—!!!!”

“I am, I am, I am I am■■I■I am I■■■■amI■■■I am■■■■■■■—!!!!”

The bodies of nearby Dolpinmen directly exposed to the unknown psychic energy waves emitted by the entity underwent mutations, transforming one by one into terrible monsters.

Dolpinmen who were farther away and thus less exposed to the waves only grew ivory-like horns or a few tentacles from their bodies, but the closer they were to the entity, the more severe the mutations became.

Having tentacles growing abundantly from specific body parts was just the beginning—some had all their body hair transformed into tentacles, while others became immobilized due to abnormally large horns that had grown deformedly.

Even these terrible mutations seemed mild compared to what happened to the priests and the Dolpinmen at the very front, which was grotesque.

Arms and legs mutated into forms resembling crustaceans or insects, insect-like jaws grew from shoulders, and jawbones mutated to open vertically, resulting in appearances that seemed fused with monstrous lifeforms—

But even worse were the changes to the priests.

Beyond simple fusion or mutation, the priests who were directly exposed to enormous amounts of psychic energy during the summoning ritual mutated to the point where monstrous lifeforms erupted from their bodies.

By this point, it would not be strange to say that parts of what used to be priests were attached to the bodies of monstrous creatures, screaming and attacking each other in this pandemonium—

Flash!

The “thing,” which had been frantically rolling its eyeballs observing its surroundings, finally began to move on its own.