188: Chapter 185 Pierre Saw God

A few minutes ago.

On a patch of sea within Yang Hang's operational zone, three or four Bronze Grade Houseboats were connected by cables, forming a small settlement.

A few pieces of clothing hung on the deck of a Houseboat, flapping loudly in the sea breeze, and an iron pot sat on a makeshift stove, still containing the remnants of lunch's fish soup.

Inside the cabin, a Gaulish young man in his early twenties had just exited the consciousness space of a personal Sequence Battle.

His name was Pierre Duwa.

Before his Transmigration, he was a junior at Henry University, studying philosophy. On the Magic Sea, the only use for philosophy was to let him curse with more flowery sentences when he was in despair.

"Putain de merde... Lost again." (Damn it... Lost again.)

He rubbed his temples and sat up from the straw mat on the floor, intending to go to the freshwater barrel on the deck to scoop a ladle of water to drink, and then take out half a piece of bread he had exchanged at the food god shrine this morning from his Spatial Backpack to pad his stomach.

Then continue matching.

He had just stood up—

The entire Houseboat suddenly tilted nearly forty degrees to the right.

Pierre stumbled, falling face-down onto the cabin floor, his nose bridge hitting the edge of a wooden plank, the pain making him see stars.

"Bordel!" (Damn!)

He climbed up from the floor, cursing, and steadied himself by holding onto the cabin wall. A storm? No, that wasn't right; the weather today should have been fine, based on past experience—

The cabin door was slammed open.

A young Gaulish woman with a ponytail rushed in, her face pale, her lips trembling.

"Pierre! Hurry, go! Outside—a giant whirlpool and sea waves have appeared on the surface! The captain sent me to notify you! Quickly, steer the boat and escape!"

Her French was so fast it almost blurred together; after speaking, she turned and ran, not giving Pierre any time to react.

He heard the sound of her jumping back into her own Houseboat, followed immediately by the characteristic hum of the semi-mechanical propulsion System starting up.

The Houseboat shook violently again.

Pierre couldn't even stand steadily, his hands gripping the door frame for dear life. His brain hadn't fully recovered from the exhaustion of the Sequence Battle, but his body's instincts already drove him to rush toward the deck.

The moment he stepped out of the cabin.

He saw a scene he would never be able to forget for the rest of his life.

A wave—no, one couldn't use the word "wave" to describe it.

It was a wall.

A wall composed of seawater, broken wood, shattered planks, tumbling metal fragments, and occasionally visible... limbs.

It blotted out the sky and sun.

It was at least several hundred meters high.

Looking sideways, he couldn't see the end.

It wasn't a sea wave. Sea waves have curves, spray, and broken white foam.

This thing had none.

It was a solid, vertical precipice of water, crushing toward him with unstoppable momentum.

Pierre's pupils shrank to pinpoints.

His legs went weak.

It wasn't fear that made them weak—it was despair.

With something of this magnitude, run? Where could he run?

In his peripheral vision, he saw the Houseboat of the girl who had kindly come to notify him—Marianne. She was desperately driving the semi-mechanical propulsion System to escape, leaving a white wake at the stern.

Then, a whirlpool with a diameter of over fifty meters opened silently beneath her boat.

The Houseboat was gripped by an invisible hand and sank while spinning.

Three seconds.

Not even a scream came out.

"Marianne—"

Before Pierre's shout could even leave his throat, the hundred-meter-tall tsunami wall in front of him had already arrived.

He could see the debris tumbling within the wall. He could see half a fishing net nailed to one of the planks. He could see a severed palm tumbling through the water curtain.

Shadow enveloped him.

The wind stopped.

All sounds disappeared.

All that remained was the dull, low hum of air being squeezed as the wall collapsed downward.

Pierre closed his eyes.

Then—

A sonic boom.

It didn't come from the distance. It exploded from directly below—from beneath the sea surface—from the abyss.

Pierre was shaken into opening his eyes by the shockwave of the sonic boom.

He saw it.

A golden light pierced out from the very center of the sea.

The seawater was torn open by that light, creating a circular gap dozens of meters in diameter, the water curtain exploding and splashing to both sides, steaming into thick white mist.

The light did not stop.

It shot straight into the sky at a speed that defied the laws of physics, hovering suddenly dozens of meters above the hundred-meter-tall tsunami wall.

The golden light dissipated.

Pierre saw clearly.

It was a person.

A humanoid silhouette hovered there. Against the light, he couldn't see the face, only the faint golden halo flowing around the body, and—

That person raised a hand.

The movement was very light.

It was like casually brushing a speck of dust off a tabletop.

Then, countless distorted golden ripples exploded and expanded outward from the figure's body.

The speed was so fast that Pierre's eyes couldn't keep up at all.

He only felt a blur before his eyes, and a layer of golden light screen appeared above his head, thin as a cicada's wing, yet covering the entire sky within his field of vision.

The super tsunami wall in front of him, a hundred meters high, extending to the end of his vision, carrying countless wrecks and death—

Stopped.

It wasn't blocked.

It directly—disappeared.

It was as if someone had pressed the rewind button.

The hundred-meter-tall water wall receded downward in a way that defied all physical laws, the seawater returned to the sea surface, the debris sank into the water, the waves calmed, and the ripples dissipated.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

The sea area in front of Pierre returned to calm.

Sunlight spilled onto the water surface, a breeze blew, creating fine, shimmering golden light.

It was as quiet as if nothing had ever happened.

Like that small lake in Henry Park at his doorstep.

Pierre's legs went weak, and he knelt on the deck.

He gasped for air, his heart pounding so hard it felt like it was about to jump out of his chest.

Then he looked up.

The figure was still there.

Hovering a hundred meters in the air.

The afterglow of the twin suns shone from behind him, plating his silhouette with a golden edge. Shadow and light intertwined, his face hidden in the backlighting, making it unclear.

But that feeling—

Pierre had studied philosophy for three years, read Nietzsche, read Sartre, read Camus.

He never believed in God.

But at this moment, only one word remained in his brain.

Dieu. (God.)

He opened his life ring, trembling all over, his fingers shaking as he frantically tapped to take screenshots.

One. Two. Three.

The continuously captured images recorded every frame of that figure hovering high in the sky.

Then—

The fourth screenshot.

The figure in the sky raised a hand again.

This time, the movement was even lighter.

It was like a light wipe in the Void Realm.

Pierre widened his eyes.

He saw it—

On the sea surface, those missing Houseboat fragments were gathering together again.

Not floating up from the seabed.

But from nothingness—out of thin air—reconsolidating.

The shattered wooden planks assembled themselves, the broken cables re-wound, and the scattered metal parts flew back into place.

Marianne's Houseboat.

That Bronze Grade Houseboat that had been swallowed by the whirlpool, disappearing completely along with the person—was on the sea surface, bit by bit, as if the rewind button had been pressed, reassembling from fragments into a complete hull.

On the deck, a wet figure was lying there with confused eyes.

Ponytail disheveled, clothes soaked.

But alive.

Alive and whole.

Pierre's screenshots continued, even more frantically. His hand was no longer shaking—not because he was calm, but because he was completely frozen.

He saw the Houseboats of his other companions nearby also recovering synchronously. Shattered ones reassembled, sunken ones floated up, disappeared ones reappeared.

A few seconds later.

Everything returned to how it was.

As if that world-ending disaster had never happened.

Pierre slowly looked up at the golden figure in the high sky, which had begun to fade.

His mouth opened.

He couldn't close it.

He could fit a whole apple inside.

"Putain de..." (Damn...)

His voice was hoarse, as if his throat were blocked by something.

"Je viens de rencontrer un putain de Dieu, non?" (I just met a fucking God, didn't I?)

He looked down at the images he had just continuously screenshotted in his life ring.

Golden light. Silhouette. Time reversal. Resurrection of the dead.

All captured.

Clear as day.