Sorrow of Darkness

How long had I been living like this? I could no longer remember. The past was too distant, while the future held no hope in sight. Every day began in darkness and ended in darkness. In my world, a chaotic black mist hung over everything. Countless beings dwelled within it—ah, perhaps beings was not the right word for them. They had long since died. Yet I still stubbornly protected them. Because I vaguely remembered that some of them had once been my people. Of course, that had been a long time ago. Back then, the sea had still been a thriving paradise of life. Back then, I had been called the Guardian. Just as the name implied, I protected all the lives around me, great and small, and watched them grow, until one day. They touched the gates of taboo, and the indescribable Shadow Black Mist emerged like demons from Pandora's box. From that day on, everything changed. The ocean became a filthy black mire. I, so closely connected to the Spirit of the Ocean, suffered deeply as well. I became wrathful and no longer as patient as before. I did not remember what exactly I had done, but by the time I barely regained my senses, there was nothing left around me to protect. Civilization had been utterly destroyed, and living things lay in ruin. The only things surrounding me were a group of grotesquely distorted monsters. In truth, I did not want to call them that, because I could sense a familiar presence from them. They were the little ones I had once protected. They were still alive, but I knew that was only an illusion. The Shadow Black Mist had devoured their wills and turned them into this. Yet for some reason, they had not merged into the shadows like their kin. They merely stayed around me, quietly waiting for something. I spent a long time thinking about what I should do. In the end, I decided to do the only thing I knew how to do. I wanted to protect them, just as I always had—but this time, I had to use a new method: black mist. Yes, the same kind of thing that had spread from the gates of taboo. I soon came to understand my own condition. In fact, I too had long been infected by that Shadow Black Mist. But for some reason, not only had I retained my consciousness, I had even stolen part of its authority. My enormous body could also release black mist on a certain scale, and unlike ordinary lifeforms, I would not be assimilated by the Shadow Black Mist and become part of it. I began to realize that this was an opportunity. I tried releasing a cloud of black mist, then hid deep beneath an oceanic rift together with those gathered around me. I thought that there, we would no longer need to hurt anyone, and no one would have to see ugly creatures like us.

What followed was a wait so long that even my memories had begun to blur. I grew increasingly unwilling to move my body, but the little ones under my protection were the opposite. They became more and more violent, remaining in a hysterical frenzy for long stretches of time. Something above the trench left them restless and agitated. Gradually, I could no longer suppress their aggression. Perhaps my consciousness, too, had slowly been influenced by them through our long coexistence. I began allowing them to rush out of the abyss and attack the Continent People passing over the sea—honestly, they were a lifeform I did not quite understand. They only had two legs and no fins? How could they possibly stand steadily? Of course, regardless of what I thought, the Continent People of this era had gradually established themselves on land and begun expanding toward the ocean. These fresh, living creatures held a fatal attraction for my little ones. As they attacked the people of the continent, the number of dwellers around me also increased. Almost all of them were continent people or other marine creatures who had been devoured and assimilated. These newcomers seemed able to bring me fresh biomass, adding a little negligible vitality to my aged body. To be honest, for an old thing that had lived for who knew how long, the feeling was not bad. Even so, I had never followed them out of the abyss to attack the continent people. Most of the time, I hid beneath the abyss, feeding them with black mist and my endlessly regenerating flesh. Until a few days ago, when a continent people's ship came nearby and poured a great deal of inexplicable medicine into the seawater. Those things spread through the sea, and my children instantly became even more violent than before. They involuntarily chased after it. Even I could not suppress that urge, moving my enormous body out of the abyss to pursue those impulsive children. Until we all involuntarily stopped before a ship. I could sense that the medicine seemed to be trying to lead us farther away, but there seemed to be something even more alluring aboard that ship. It faintly restored a trace of clarity to me. My children, however, crazily launched an attack on that continent people's vessel. To my surprise, the continent people, normally helpless in the ocean, displayed astonishing combat power this time. Many of my children died beneath their cannon fire and magic. Even Xiao Mo—a whale that had accompanied me for a long time—was cruelly killed by one of them. It filled me with rage. I looked at the Purple Figure upon the sea and finally could not restrain myself from acting. She had little ability to resist my attack and was quickly captured by my tentacles. I had intended to eat her, to have her accompany Xiao Mo in death. But suddenly, I felt an unfamiliar energy unlike anything I had ever encountered emanating from her body. It was as though I glimpsed a corner of an indescribable world through her—a world bathed in purple light, overflowing everywhere with unimaginably powerful energy. That energy made me tremble. Even the Shadow Power within me began to tremble. I did not know what I had seen, but I knew it was something even the shadows that had once destroyed us could not rival. I looked at that continent person... no, perhaps that was no longer appropriate. I looked at that inexplicable existence with the appearance of a continent girl. She herself was clearly not very powerful. If I wanted, my black mist could even devour her. But after glimpsing what the world she belonged to was like, I could no longer entertain such thoughts. I began to think: she was still weak now, but what if she grew stronger? Would she grow as powerful as that corner of the world I had glimpsed? If—if I had the help of such power, could it help us escape this eternal nightmare of darkness? I could not be certain, but without question, this was an opportunity. The only opportunity I had seen in all this endless time. No matter what, I had to do something. Yes! I should do something!

I drove away the children who were salivating over her. Then I wove those slender tentacles into the shape of a flat bed, allowing her to lie down steadily. I wanted to get a little closer, but I found my enormous body rather inconvenient. So I modeled a clone after her appearance—though my lower half was still a mass of tentacles. Then I gazed at her for a long while, until I felt I should not waste any more time. I lowered my head and gently kissed her neck. When I raised my head again, a dark mark had appeared on her neck. A moment later, it vanished beneath her skin.

That would do. One consciousness of my clone dwelled within that mark. It would normally remain dormant, but if something beyond control occurred, the consciousness within the mark would awaken and use a portion of my power according to the circumstances. For her as she was now, this should count as a gift, but it could also be a fatal danger—the clone consciousness within the mark had clearly been infected by the shadows just as I had. If she could not resist the shadows' erosion, then her fate would be the same as my children's. A shadow without consciousness, knowing only how to devour. I was not contradicting myself. If she could not even resist my clone consciousness, then she certainly could not help us escape this eternal nightmare.

I had done all I could. I did my best to call my children back, then slowly raised my tentacles and sent her toward the surface. As for the rest, it could only depend on her. I hoped to see her grow and step into this sea once more.

I hoped that when the time came, she would remember that beneath the sea abyss shrouded in shadows, Tiraliir Andak, the Guardian of a lost ancient civilization, was still waiting bitterly for the dawn that could shatter the shadows.