Ancestral Lineage-Chapter 304: Beneath the Inverted Sea (2)

The world around him breathed like a living organism.

Ethan walked with measured steps, hands still tucked into the pockets of his crimson sweater, his gaze steady as he passed beneath a colossal arch of stone wrapped in bioluminescent vines. The terrain shifted subtly here — the gravity felt strange, as though each footstep echoed slightly upward. Overhead, the sea above pulsed with alien currents, its mirrored tides casting fractured beams of light down through the transparent sky like liquid constellations.

He moved through a narrow pass lined with jagged coral trees, their branches humming faintly. A herd of glass-skinned quadrupeds darted across the rocks nearby, their translucent bodies refracting the sea-light. Ethan barely gave them a glance — his senses were spread like a fine net, drifting over the land, dipping into shadows, curling around ridgelines and burrowing through the ambient energies of the region.

The Psychic resonance was still there. Subtle. In motion. He adjusted his path slightly.

He came to a great cavernous rift — a sinkhole that seemed to drop forever. The air here shimmered with vapor. Strange flora clung to the cliffside, glowing with colors he couldn't name. A low, rhythmic hum echoed up from the depths — not mechanical, not organic. Somewhere in between. It brushed against the edges of his mind, like a half-formed thought.

With a soft step, Ethan launched himself off the edge.

He hovered midair, descending slowly, deeper into the chasm. The resonance grew stronger — not in power, but in clarity. More defined. Like a whisper sharpening into a voice.

At the base of the sinkhole was a hidden glade — not of plants or beasts, but of memory. Time itself felt... softer here. Folded. He stepped forward, eyes narrowing.

Markings covered the walls — etched in claw, not chisel. Runes that twisted when you looked at them directly. They pulsed with faint psychic rhythm, as if trying to remember something long lost.

He brushed his fingers across one of the symbols. For a moment, his thoughts weren't his own.

A single word formed in his mind, not spoken, but remembered.

"T'Shalari."

Ethan exhaled, the corners of his mouth curling slightly.

"So I was right…"

He looked upward, back toward the winding cliffs and the surreal ocean above.

The Psychic presence was still moving — slowly. Still unaware of him. But this place had been shaped by the same frequency. Like an echo of that being's will. Or its ancestors.

He stepped back from the wall and leapt, soaring out of the sinkhole in a streak of silent gold.

The exploration was far from over.

But he was getting closer.

Ethan emerged from the sinkhole and glided silently above the uneven terrain, weaving through jagged cliffs and crystalline ridges that jutted upward like the bones of a dead god. The sea above him churned, casting long shadows across the land as distant aquatic leviathans drifted just beneath the surface. Occasionally, droplets of the sea would fall upward — a surreal inversion — vanishing before they ever reached the sky below.

Then he saw it.

Not far ahead, half-submerged in the base of a broken cliff, was a monolith.

It was unlike anything else in the region — not grown, not weathered, but placed. Smooth, dark, and humming with barely-contained energy, it stood tall and narrow like a standing shard of obsidian, with angular carvings that pulsed faintly in rhythmic intervals. Faint psychic vibrations whispered through the air around it — not speech, but presence.

Ethan landed a few meters away and observed it carefully, his eyes glowing faintly as his Saint Realm aura resonated with its frequency.

"…you're not just decoration," he murmured.

Upon closer inspection, the monolith bore the sigil of a coiled serpent with two eyes — one glowing blue, the other violet, surrounded by a crescent of linked glyphs. The glyphs shimmered when he focused on them, rearranging themselves with every breath, as if aware of his gaze.

Then the ground beneath the monolith pulsed.

A ripple of psychic force spread across the soil — gentle, like a heartbeat. It wasn't an attack. It was a signal.

"Someone knows I'm here now," Ethan said calmly.

The Grimoire of Order pulsed at his side but did not speak — even it was observing.

Ethan circled the monolith once, his senses still extended across the region. The unique Psychic resonance he'd been tracking was growing closer now — or more focused. It was still distant, still veiled, but there was no longer any doubt.

The T'Shalari were aware.

And they were watching.

As Ethan turned to continue, a gust of wind passed — not natural wind, but a mental breeze, brushing against the edge of his consciousness. Not hostile. Not invasive. Just… curious.

Ethan smiled faintly to himself.

"They're clever," he muttered, pulling his hood up.

And with that, he vanished once more into the warped, beautiful wilds beneath the inverted sea — the sign behind him still glowing softly, like a door waiting to open.

...

Ethan floated upward, ascending toward the inverted sea.

The moment his form pierced the translucent veil separating earth from sky-water, a strange stillness overtook him. Gravity felt altered — not reversed, not absent, just different. Like his presence was being tested, weighed.

The sea above was vast, slow-moving, and dreamlike in its flow. Schools of luminous fish glided between floating corals shaped like glass trees. Vast kelp forests undulated lazily, and luminous currents coiled like rivers in the sky.

Then everything stilled.

The fish scattered. The water grew colder. He felt it before he saw it.

A presence — massive, ancient, and aware.

From the mist of the deeper sea, something emerged.

A Leviathan.

It was vast — easily the size of a cathedral. Its long, sinuous body rippled with silver-blue scales etched with bioluminescent lines. Six glowing eyes blinked in synchrony along its flattened head, and fins like jagged wings spread behind it like trailing banners of living steel.

Ethan stilled, hands still tucked in his pockets. The Leviathan slowed as it passed, its form coiling like a serpent around a drifting mountain of coral. It didn't attack. It didn't flee. It simply watched.

And then it spoke — not in words, but through resonance.

A deep thrumming echoed through Ethan's mind. Not a language, not a message… more like a question. A pressure wrapped in silence.

Ethan exhaled. "No aggression. That's good," he muttered, then allowed his Saintly aura to rise — only slightly — and tuned it, channeling his stabilized harmonics from his spirit beasts. Earth. Alchemy. Necromancy. Curse. Sound.

The Leviathan responded in kind.

It shimmered — shifting colors across its body like a ripple of thought, and as it passed overhead, its tail sent gentle waves cascading through the water.

Then, it moved past him.

But as it did, one of its massive, violet-lit eyes focused directly on Ethan. Not threatening — recognizing.

Acknowledging.

The psychic pressure faded. But in its place was a mark — a mental trace left in the water like scent in air. Ethan could follow it if he wanted.

He lingered for a moment in silence, watching the creature vanish into the deeper fog.

"…not a threat," he murmured. "But definitely a guardian. Or a scout."

"Possibly both," the Grimoire said at last. "That trace it left behind… it's familiar. Not in essence, but in intent. The T'Shalari likely ride alongside such creatures — or are born near them."

Ethan nodded slowly.

Then, with the psychic trail glowing faintly in his mind, he shifted his form and followed — deeper into the inverted sea, and deeper into the realm of the T'Shalari.