After some effort, Klein had a preliminary understanding of the " Sea God Scepter's" abilities:
It can create tsunamis, hurricanes, torrential rain, and Lightning Strike strikes; it can make people fly in the sky and walk on the seabed, with almost no restrictions.
It is nearly indestructible, capable of smashing an enemy's head; it allows its wielder to never get lost without the addition of other powerful factors; it provides unimaginable balance, commands numerous sea creatures, responds to the prayers of believers, and grants the user sea monster-like power, making them the ruler of an entire sea.
For Klein, this was truly godlike; even on Earth, he could fight against an aircraft carrier battle group!
Don't let his current Sequence 6 fool you; he possesses numerous practical and extraordinary abilities, making him a genuine powerhouse in the eyes of ordinary people—a figure straight out of legend. However, he remains fundamentally fragile and still closer to being "human." If the situation were right, a revolver could easily take him down. Of course, if he were to rise from the dead and emerge from his coffin, that would be a completely different story.
However, the " Sea God Scepter " possesses all of those qualities that transcend the level of "humans." It is the undeniable power of gods or Devil found in folk tales and in the minds of the people.
No wonder they've been called Demigod since Sequence 4; they really are more like gods than humans... Klein sighed silently, then chuckled self-deprecatingly:
"If I could use the ' Sea God Scepter ' normally, I could already serve as a high-ranking deacon of the Nighthawks, becoming one of the twenty-odd most powerful people in the church... If Ince Zangwill hadn't been '0-08' and was at sea, I could have taken my revenge on him immediately, and even had a good chance of success."
"But will I be able to use the ' Sea God Scepter ' normally?"
"Cannot..."
Klein had just discovered that the negative effects of the " Sea God Scepter " were astonishing. Within the Church of Evernight, it would easily be rated as a "Level 1" Sealed Artifact, and countless researchers would have to die before they could figure out the best way to seal and use it.
The " Sea God Scepter " has three negative effects:
First, it makes the holder irritable, easily angered, and prone to overreacting.
Secondly, it periodically freezes the consciousness of all living beings within a certain range and drains their blood, including the holder. As for the size of the range and the specific value of the period, Klein, who is not a professional researcher, could not give a precise description, but could only make a rough estimate, believing that the range is 600 meters to 1 kilometer and the period is 20 minutes to 35 minutes.
Third, it gathers and presents the prayers of believers, with both sound and visuals, which can easily cause non- Demigod holders with insufficient spiritual strength to collapse and lose control.
"The first one is alright. If it's only used for a short time, anger and irritability are acceptable. Simply put, with such a powerful Sealed Artifact, just go all out..."
"Thirdly, there is actually a way to circumvent it. The ' Sea God's' response to faith has a distance limit. In other words, as long as you leave the Rorsted Archipelago and the surrounding waters, you won't receive the 'signal' at all, and you won't be affected. Hmm... If you keep it above the Gray Fog, it seems that you can break the distance limit. However, the sound or image of the prayer will be blocked and restored to a point of light, which will not affect me at all. This allows me to freely choose whether to respond, who to respond to, and how to respond..."
"And when I respond, I am able to use the power of the ' Sea God Scepter '..."
"The biggest problem is the second one. I'm alright myself. When I transform into the Black Emperor, I'm Wraith with no blood, so I'm not afraid of being drained. But the creatures around me are in a terrible state. They don't distinguish between friend and foe, and the cycle is hard to predict... We can't just talk to the enemy and reschedule for another time and place when we encounter a dangerous situation, can we?"
Klein thought carefully and conceived several scenarios for using the " Sea God Scepter," but these all depended on the environment and accurate prior judgment, and were hardly feasible.
"Hmph... Is its Fate to remain above the Gray Fog, and when beings like Amon try to 'climb' up, to be met with a burst of bullets—no, a bolt of lightning...?"
"Oh, right, there's another use. When Miss ' Justice ' and Mr. ' The Hanged Man ' ask for help, I won't just have the Paper Angel as an option anymore. I can also provide rain, a little wind... Of course, this can all be done with the Paper Angel as a medium, just like the Purification ability of the ' The Sun Brooch '..."
"Thinking about it carefully, with the ' Sea God Scepter,' I can act like a true Demigod above the Gray Fog..."
Klein's mood gradually improved because he realized that the " Sea God Scepter " was not entirely unusable at the moment, which would allow him to pull off many more unconventional maneuvers.
He withdrew his attention and turned his gaze back to the short white bone staff, its top inlaid with turquoise "gems," and pondered another question: whether or not to respond to the prayers of the " Sea God " followers.
" Kavithua is dead; there's no need to provide those people with an object of worship anymore..."
"However, even if the surviving priests and high-ranking members of the resistance notice the anomaly and stop receiving responses, they won't truly accept the worst outcome for a long time. People always harbor wishful thinking, habitually comforting and Hypnosis themselves, especially when in a perilous environment with no glimmer of hope. Just like City of Silver, more than two thousand years later, they are still worshipping that ' Creator,' believing that they are merely despised and abandoned, and that one day they will receive a response again..."
"In other words, when the fanatical followers of ' Sea God ' do not receive a response, they will not only refuse to believe that Kavithua has fallen and thus stop the human sacrifice, but will also intensify their efforts in the hope of regaining the favor of the gods... It will be difficult to bring them to their senses without several years, or even more than a decade, of propaganda and suppression."
"When the rebels lose the support of the native deity Kavithua, they will likely have no choice but to side entirely with Feysac or Intis. At that time, driven by their radical beliefs, they may be compelled to commit inhumane acts, such as attacking places where civilians gather, or using children whose eyes still retain innocence to shield them..."
"I need to guide them, to tell them what the correct way of believing is, but I can't burden myself with that. I'll just offer help within my means... I'm not responsible for saving their Fate..."
Klein tapped his fingers lightly on the edge of the mottled long table, then suddenly chuckled softly:
"Aren't you going to do a real Acting? ' Sea God ' Kavithua would be a good candidate."
"I just don't know if this counts as being blocked by the Gray Fog, making it impossible to get feedback."
"Hehe, we have to try to figure it out."
Klein made his decision quickly and inexplicably felt refreshed.
He considered it for a moment, then first materialized the scene he needed, and then grasped the " Sea God Scepter," spreading his Spirituality and touching one of the points of light.
In a hidden cave deep within the jungle of Blue Mountain Island.
The bald-headed rebel leader Kalat, fell out of his wheelchair and crawled toward the self-shattering statue of Kavithua with a look of despair and confusion in his eyes.
He vaguely sensed something, but was unwilling to believe it, because it meant that all his perseverance, all his sacrifices, all his suffering would be meaningless.
No... he screamed silently, constantly whispering the name of the Sea God Kavithua, trying to get a response from the deity.
He braced himself on his elbows, his fingers digging into the mud, and inch by inch moved to the front of the shattered statue. He picked up the stone-carved sea serpent head and found that the eyes were strangely sunken into black holes, and the teeth had fallen out one by one.
Kalat was almost frozen in place, as if the light had vanished from his sight.
Just then, he suddenly saw a blurry figure, and behind the figure were deep blue waves surging into the sky and streaks of silver lightning branching out like tree branches.
Startled, Kalat instinctively lowered his head, a surge of unbelievable joy welling up inside him.
He saw that beneath the figure's feet were clusters of ocean waves, and around it were swirling hurricanes; the whole scene was majestic, sacred, lofty, and vast.
Then, he heard a faint yet grand voice:
I have returned.
As the sound echoed, Kalat inexplicably burst into tears.
About ten minutes after Klein left, inside the underwater ruins that were partially intertwined with the Spirit World.
The seawater that had been filling the area suddenly surged out with a loud crash, and in just twenty or thirty seconds, the Elf ruins became as dry as if they were on land.
A fresh hurricane blew in, bringing in breathable air.
One by one, figures fell in the hurricane. The leader was a tall and burly middle-aged man who looked to be only about forty years old. His face had strong, deep features, and his muscles were well-defined, which made his loose Storm priest robes look even bigger.
This was none other than Cardinal Archbishop of the Church of Storms, Archbishop of the Rorsted Sea, Senior Deacon " The Mandated Punishers," and " Sea King " Jahn Kottman.
He had deep blue eyes, and his hair, the same color, was twice as thick as a normal person's, resembling tiny worms or tentacles.
Behind Jahn Kottman followed a number of " Mandated Punishers " and military personnel, who were both expectant and cautious in examining their surroundings, not relaxing their standards just because Demigod was protecting them.
Just then, they heard a humming sound, and were immediately swept up by the hurricane, arriving at the entrance of the ruins hall in one breath.
They saw a huge sea serpent lying inside, its flesh and bones reduced to a bloody pulp, and nothing else.
"Who is it!" Jahn Kottman growled, suppressing his anger.
As he shouted those words, a wave crashed down from above.
The waves echoed in the half-collapsed hall, quickly calming into a still lake.
The lake reflected the scene from before:
An indistinct figure pulled up a white short staff inlaid with sapphire blue, causing the sea to surge and the ruins to shake.
Jahn Kottman took a breath and, with his back to the crowd, said:
"Find him."
At this point, Klein had selected about ten relatively important believers and responded to them one by one, mainly by giving a new covenant:
"I have returned, to forgive the past and redeem you."
"The First Commandment: You shall not sacrifice a human being; you shall not offer a human sacrifice."