The timeline shifts slightly, moving to another fate line disturbed by the intense fate waves of the Kalmar Union.

The collective subconscious sea of Iron Anchor Bay.

The water here is much clearer than the pitch-black Sea of Origin Matter outside.

The light of the Silver Code shines here, causing the surface to shimmer, and each ripple reflects the dreams of many Iron Anchor Bay residents.

But due to the interaction between the collective subconscious and humans, many people will likely have not-so-pleasant nightmares tonight.

All because a legendary warship, the Dragonhead Ship Valhalla, is performing a Black Mass Ceremony, summoning the faith anchor chain of the Old God Slumbering God Kraken to re-anchor this sea.

On the deck, a group of deep-sea kin are still busy.

They are all of fish-head human-body, half-human half-fish half-frog, with their main color being gray-green, their bellies smooth and white, limbs with webbed fingers, and their bodies covered in scales.

Their fish eyes protrude without eyelids, and gills on their necks tremble and emit sounds from time to time.

The whole ship is filled with a wet, pungent fishy smell, even the Dragonhead Ship Spirit couldn't help but wrinkle its nose.

Even without being a neat freak, it's impossible to bear these indescribable non-humans fouling their bodies day in and day out for hundreds of years.

They've been marinated to the core, impossible to clean.

On the deck, the deep-sea kin have painted a pentagram array resembling a goat's head with blood.

A total of several hundred kin were driven out of the ship's cabin, lying around the array, forming a large altar resembling a circular doorway.

However, not a single face shows fear; instead, they all are overjoyed.

"Through this ceremony, we will ascend, return to our master Slumbering God Kraken's embrace, and truly become a member of the Great Clan."

"Indeed, we will attain immortality with our master."

"I wonder if my ancestors lived well in the divine realm? I can't wait to see them."

Another raven arrived here half a month earlier, perched atop the Dragonhead Ship's mast, silently watching the kin perform the ceremony. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Seeing the kin joyously sacrificed, it shook its head with a complex expression.

Besides the Abyssal Horror Dagon and a few mythical creatures, no one understands this tribe's "life cycle" better than Byron, back when they were in the Southern Continent:

"Hunt mainland natives, make them 'blindly eat fish,' producing 'Mermaid's Tear' to be offered to Dagon in exchange for gemstones, gold, coral, whale oil technology, and inexhaustible fish harvest;

Each person works no more than eight hours a day, able to inherit a town property, worry-free, living decently;

Must marry by eighteen at the latest, with the god arranging a partner, solving marriage issues.

Spouses must be mixed blood offspring with bayfolk lineage from other islands, each couple having at least four children before forty;

The more children born, the greater the welfare received.

Live peacefully to forty, then retire, no longer working.

The body gradually 'ascends,' after several months of transformation, shedding human form and entering the sea to become deep-sea kin to follow the gods... "

It all sounds beautiful, but essentially high-end predators are breeding humans.

Their "Deity Cycle," "Social Clock" is the feeding schedule for Slumbering God and Dagon and a series of gods!

These bayfolk and native hybrids link to the bayfolk on one end, linking to the native tribes of the New Continent on the other, serving to provide Mind Wish Power and anchoring.

Spending almost a lifetime being slowly consumed by the god they worship.

By around forty, there's little left but beastly residue, unable to maintain human form.

In life's final stretch, serving as cannon fodder for Abyssal Horror Dagon.

For example, their role in this sacrifice is to serve as "fuel" for the ceremony.

"If there really is such a thing as everlasting life with the Slumbering God, it can only be inside their belly.

Compared to these spiritually imbalanced, fundamentally disavowing their humanity, treating kin as food Old God Church, Creator's Church is practically a white lotus."

The deep-sea kin lying on the deck had actively infected themselves with coral disease.

The parasitic coral rapidly differentiates, quickly digesting away the human flesh and blood, intertwining to form a massive circular reef full of coral and various parasites.

On it, divine light flashes, as a pillar of illusionary light shoots skyward, connecting through human collective subconscious to an existence beyond the material world.

"Gurgle, gurgle..."

Incomprehensible murmuring filled the legendary warship in a blink.

Everyone couldn't help but feel nauseous, as if something slick crawled through the brain's grooves, trying to pull their emotions, memory from every cranial opening.

The murmuring began to reverberate within the cranium, becoming clearer.

"With the arrival of Luanyan Epoch, all beings perish, within the eternal abyssal abode, though dead, dreamed Slumbering God waits... enter the dream, enter the dream..."

That is precisely their chief god, Slumbering God Kraken!

Before the kin, illusions grew chaotic, as if some massive indescribable entity had entirely filled the altar, quietly peering into the material world through the door crack.