Ch.263263. Temple of the Sea (1)

After hearing the news that a group of Northern Raiders who worship ‘Fear’ had attacked the ‘Mausoleum’.

‘······They’ve crossed the line?’

In my divine realm, I was so instantly enraged that these mere vermin-like barbarians had dared to attack the Mausoleum that I smashed the surrounding furniture in my fury.

The ‘Mausoleum’ and the Abominations inside it are······a particularly painful subject for me.

Children who volunteered to devote their entire remaining lives to war for my sake, only to be transformed into monsters due to the side effects of my power.

How could I dare to casually comfort or treat such children carelessly?

That’s why, despite all of them possessing mid-level combat abilities, I chose to give them rest rather than exploit the Abominations. The result is that massive stone structure, my makeshift temple—officially named the Mausoleum of Honor.

It’s a building created to provide peace to those who have not only become horrifically disfigured but transformed into beasts, and for those who wish to remain devoted even in such a state.

The Abominations’ corrupted souls gradually deteriorate even when they’re inactive, and if they’re not careful, their souls could mutate into monsters after extended periods of activity.

In other words, even after death, they would have no choice but to remain in a monstrous state in the divine realm. To prevent such corruption of souls, they are kept in the Mausoleum with minimal activity.

And yet······some mere band of raiders dared to attack such a Mausoleum?

And followers of ‘Fear,’ whose favorability has been rapidly declining recently, at that?

So as I burned with inner rage while contemplating my next move, I ultimately decided that if nothing else, I would definitely punish that evil god Horus who serves Fear.

Especially since recently, ships belonging to the Dawn Empire have increasingly been attacked by pirates who worship Horus, and the frequency of raids by Horus-affiliated raiders in the northern territories of the Dawn Empire has dramatically increased.

At some point, I needed to completely break his momentum and punish him······No. Let me just be honest.

I simply wanted to beat the crap out of that dried squid bastard.

I needed to properly crush these kinds of beings who have been repeatedly provoking me lately, so that at least among the evil gods, none would have the guts to carelessly mess with me.

※ ※ ※

It didn’t take much to create war sentiment.

“Extra! Extra! Special news!”

“Delivery boy, what’s the special news?”

“The Vengeance Order has received a divine oracle about a holy war!!!”

Simply by issuing a divine oracle in this straightforward manner to shape public opinion, the entire Dawn Empire was ablaze with preparations for the ‘holy war’ I had declared.

However, since this ‘holy war’ required deploying a fleet targeting maritime objectives rather than primarily ground troops, there weren’t many fanatical volunteers or self-proclaimed holy warriors gathering as there had been previously.

Anyway, while I issued this divine oracle to the empire to prepare for the holy war,

I began the work of searching for their ground bases.

After the recent demon invasion, Horus not only moved his main base underwater but relocated it to the deep sea, which could be considered his domain.

But······perhaps due to some lingering attachment from once being part of the Pantheon?

Horus couldn’t let go of his attachment to the surface and periodically planned surface invasions, somehow coming up to establish forward bases for surface attacks.

Of course, to counter these, I had established friendly relations with the sea gods of the Pantheon and neutral gods.

We shared information to destroy them on sight, and I was diligently smashing them.

Since divine aspects like war or anger rarely show themselves openly and few people know about them, I was able to do this by creating several alternate identities······something like secondary characters under those names.

But back to the main point.

While I was focused on hitting Horus by any means necessary, one day I received some information through my War God identity from Neptunia, the sea goddess of the Pantheon.

It was merely a simple, almost absurd statement that somewhere in the sea, her influence was slightly weakening in a certain area.

Even Neptunia was uncertain at the time and assumed it was likely just a natural phenomenon, but just in case, she passed the information to my other aspect (which was set up to) hate Horus······.

‘······So this is where you were?’

Thanks to this, based on the information, I was able to discover another of Horus’s main bases he had established on the surface.

A sea area located in a corner of the ocean between the Western Continent and the New Continent.

The ‘Sargasso,’ known among sailors as the Sea of Death, was the location of Horus’s surface headquarters.

Due to ocean currents circulating around this area, it naturally formed a windless zone filled with countless reefs and living seaweed monsters that entrap ships······.

Because of this, many vessels passing through drift and eventually sink, and these sunken ships frequently resurrect as undead vessels in this sea of death.

In this region, where the term “ghost ship” couldn’t be more fitting, tattered undead vessels float about. These ghost ships, with missing parts filled in with spiritual matter, are crewed by ghost sailors whose souls are bound to the ships or corpse-undead sailors.

These undead sailors remain bound to the ghost ships even after death and simply resurrect. Even if the ghost ships are destroyed, the damaged parts are filled with spiritual matter or debris forcibly reattaches.

Additionally, some ghost ships gain supernatural powers, allowing them to submerge or fly, and their cannons and guns fire ammunition infused with the essence of necromancy instead of gunpowder.

As a result, ships that accidentally enter this area frequently sink and become ghost ships, which is why Horus built his second headquarters here······.

‘········Insane. Wait, what?’

During my more detailed investigation, I discovered something truly shocking and appalling.

The revelation was that more than half of those ghost ships were actually created by Horus’s own hand.

He claimed the Sargasso Sea itself as his domain, creating fog or manipulating currents to unknowingly guide nearby ships into the area.

Then he would use seaweed and other ghost ships to sink these vessels he had lured in, dragging them to the deep sea.

Afterward, his followers would modify these ships and turn them into ghost ships.

In other words, this bastard had not only sunk at least hundreds of ships so far but forcibly resurrected them as undead to serve him!

Undoubtedly, at least a few of those ships must have been vessels operated by my followers····which means he has essentially stolen souls that should have come to me.

‘········.’

Therefore, in my anger, I observed its structure in detail to thoroughly crush it.

As a result, I was able to properly understand what this base actually was.

Horus’s maritime base, a reflection of his lingering attachment to the surface,

consists of structures carved inside reefs or rocky islands in the middle of the sea.

Inside, it swarms with servant species that Horus created by corrupting fish with his blood. These fish-people closely resembled the Deep Ones from Cthulhu mythology.

A species with gills and webbed appendages that normally lives underwater but also has separate lungs allowing them to function perfectly well on land.

These fish-people possess quite massive bodies and superior physical abilities—ordinary soldiers stand over 3 meters tall, while higher-ranking individuals are almost giant-sized (5 meters).

They also appear remarkably skilled at taming various sea monsters. These fish-people ride giant seahorses like horses and use sea creatures resembling plesiosaurs for cargo transport.

What’s most annoying is that they are an aquatic species.

On land, they would never stand a chance against my forces, but

these creatures, specialized exclusively for aquatic environments, would be extremely troublesome in guerrilla warfare if I were to invade.

Moreover, since the current airships have limited range due to fuel efficiency issues, and in this situation where I would eventually need to deploy warships, I······.

‘······Alright, I have no choice.’

I reluctantly decided to use one of the secret weapons I had been saving.