Chapter 308
They had many different names: the mimic race, doubles, or doppelgangers. They had no such thing as an appearance since birth or a sense of identity. Hence, they always asked themselves who they were.
They found their answers not from within themselves, but in others. They imitated those who were radiant, beautiful, and had great lives, because they wanted to be like them.
This imitation process was known as exemplar. The more vivid the subject’s identity was and the more powerful they were, the more time it took to imitate them. Once a doppelganger successfully became an exemplar of someone, they pretended that the subject’s appearance and identity were their own.
However, two identical beings couldn’t exist in one world. The doppelganger and the subject of the exemplar couldn’t bear that they weren’t the only one. Hence, they fought to the death, and one emerged victorious.
If the subject of the exemplar survived, most of them grew stronger after experiencing mastery over oneself. However, if the doppelganger survived, then they lived on as if the subject’s life were their own.
It was practically parasitism, just like a baby cuckoo born in a lark’s nest dropping the fake mother’s babies and eggs from the nest to monopolize the food and the nest.
Hence, discerning the doppelgangers was difficult. Even if a doppelganger killed one’s neighbor or family member, the doppelganger had the exact tendencies and memories of the exemplar subject the neighbors and family members were familiar with. Because of this, only a select few knew about doppelgangers.
However, everyone in the Mirror World discovered their existence because of an incident decades ago, a single Akasha Message.
[The race Mimic will gradually become extinct, being reborn as the race Chaos.]
***
Seong-Hwi listened to his air bubbles in silence as he examined the change occurring in the man before him.
“Urhhh... Ahhh...” the hammerhead shark merfolk groaned as his face glitched like a TV screen, repeatedly becoming clear and blurry.
“A mimic,” Seong-Hwi mumbled.
He had heard of the race but had never met one before. No, he doubted he would have noticed even if he had met one. However, one of such mimics had their identity revealed before him.
I would never have been able to discern him if not for the Cosmos, he thought.
In truth, Seong-Hwi had not even discerned him as a mimic. He had simply thought the hammerhead shark merfolk was a Chaos Merfolk who had accepted Chaos Mana. Just like how humans could accept Chaos Mana, he simply thought the merfolk had done the same.
Hence, he had used the Cosmos as bait and slowly dropped it in the water for any fish to bite. He had once heard that the beauty of fishing was that you never knew what you would catch, and he had ended up catching a giant fish far outside his expectations.
If they’re mimics, that explains what has been going on in Gurzes.
The machine that was his thought process began to move once the cog that was the mimic race had been placed inside his head.
The plan to divide Pontus. The pisciceps incidents. The civil war between the placoid and ganoid scales. Vipera Anguis’s claim that Natantes became a Chaos before she killed him.
All the cogs lined up, and the small cogs of the mimic race were inserted in between to make them move as one.
“Pontus was being played,” Seong-Hwi mumbled with certainty.
The mimic race—to be more specific, the Chaos—had been the ones to incite the civil war. The pisciceps incidents had been the work of doppelgangers that had become exemplars of ganoid and placoid scale tribesmen.
Why would they incite the civil war and divide the ganoid and placoid scales?
The answer was simple. The Chaos only wanted one thing: to turn all other races into Chaos. In other words, they planned to use the pandemonium of the civil war to get their hands on the merfolk Race Stone and turn the whole race into Chaos monsters.
“If that’s the case, Vipera Anguis’s claim might not have been a false accusation... Wait, that’s not it. Could it be?” Seong-Hwi frowned at the hypothesis that had flashed inside his head like lightning. He shook his head as he immediately pushed it to a corner of his mind and began thinking about matters at hand instead.
First, he had to find the doppelgangers that had infiltrated each faction, especially those in high positions. If such individuals existed, the civil war would not stop, no matter how hard he tried. He thankfully had a way to discern the doppelgangers. It was technically a way to discern the Chaos, but it was practically no different.
Then, he had to meet Carcharocles. There were two central figures in this civil war. If either Natantes or Carcharocles were a doppelganger, there would be no stopping the civil war. If that were the case, he would have no choice but to use his right to expel one of the tribes from the Sēmen.
But what if they’re not doppelgangers?
“I’ll have to persuade them. I have the materials for it, after all,” Seong-Hwi mumbled, staring at the hammerhead shark merfolk as he unsheathed the Knox Stiletto like lightning.
He pierced the merfolk’s forehead with the stiletto like a bee sting, scrambling his brain.
[Activating Star Power: Gluttony.]
“Eat up,” Seong-Hwi said.
A giant invisible mouth devoured the merfolk corpse, and Akasha Messages appeared one after another.
[Gene of the race Chaos, absorbed.]
[Gene of the race Merfolk, absorbed.]
[Gene of the race Mimic, absorbed.]
...
[Converting Sixteen Wings to Eighteen Wings.]
[Available Stats: Battle Force, Sorcery Force, Harmony Force, Draconic Mana, Demon Force, Wraith Force, Kinetic Force, Holy Force, Chaos Mana, Mineral Force, Beast Force, Seismic Force, Nature Force, Blood Force, Titanic Force, Stream Force, Template Force.]
...
He gained two wings at once by absorbing the genes of a merfolk and a mimic, giving him access to Stream Force and Template Force.
Seong-Hwi smiled brightly and mumbled happily, “Talk about killing two birds with one stone.”
***
Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish.
Ovid
***
“You want me to let you meet Lodon?” Natantes asked.
“Yes, and please help set up a meeting with Carcharocles for me as well,” Seong-Hwi said, not averting his eyes from Natantes’s gaze.
“Wha...” Natantes trailed off, dumbfounded.
“This is absolute nonsense! This man is suspicious, Father!” shouted Mushveli, the first of the Illhveli.
He glared at Seong-Hwi with his bright yellow eyes. “Not only did you smuggle away the Front Tooth soldier who ran wild in the Central Merfolk Town, but you want to do the same to Carcharocles’s eldest son?!”
Seong-Hwi glanced at him and said, “I told you, the soldier died while I was interrogating him.”
“Where was his corpse, then?!”
“I ate it.”
“You... You damn land mammal!” Mushveli mumbled, believing Seong-Hwi was playing with him. He then turned to the man covered in brown and grey scales, standing like a totem, and shouted, “Sverdvalur!”
“His claim cannot be confirmed. He was already alone when I arrived at the Ocean Prison,” replied Sverd, also staring at Seong-Hwi suspiciously as his grey eyes glinted. Earlier, he had arrived at the prison to monitor Seong-Hwi.
“Father!” Mushveli shouted.
“Be quiet, Mushveli,” Natantes ordered.
Mushveli’s lips quivered, dying to say something, but he couldn’t defy his father.
“You want to meet Lodon, huh?” Natantes mumbled as he stared intently at Seong-Hwi, but couldn’t read any emotions or thoughts in his serene black eyes.
What is he playing at? he wondered.
“He is a first-class pisciceps who killed hundreds of our people. He is what started this civil war, and above all else, he is Carcharocles’s eldest son,” he said.
“I know. That is why I want to meet him,” Seong-Hwi replied.
“And do what?”
“I have something I want to ask him.”
“What will you ask him?”
Instead of answering, Seong-Hwi turned to look at Mushveli and Sverdvalur one after another. They understood the meaning of his gaze.
“Bastard!” Mushveli said.
Sverdvalur remained silent.
“They are my sons,” Natantes said.
“So?” Seong-Hwi asked.
“I have nothing to hide from my sons.”
“But they might have something to hide from you,” Seong-Hwi said meaningfully.
Natantes’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean by that?”
“Please send them away. I wish to talk to you privately.”
“Father! I am certain he has connections to the placoid scales. He wishes to meet not only Lodon, but Carcharocles!” Mushveli shouted as he clenched his fist, a whirlpool forming around it.
Seong-Hwi turned to him and smirked mockingly. “How stupid could you be? As an arbitrator, I need to hear the positions of both sides.”
“Arbitrator? Enough excuses! You plan to help Lodon escape and bring him to Carcharocles, aren’t you?”
“Why would I ask so blatantly to meet him if I wanted to do that?”
“You must’ve realized after visiting the Ocean Prison that you won’t be able to reach the deeper floors of the Bottomless Deep. That’s why you’re trying to pull this farce!”
“Why would I even go out of my way to do something like this if I already joined forces with the placoid scales? It would be done and over with if I exercised my right to expel.”
“Bastard! You dare threaten us? Sverd!” Mushveli shouted, his aura becoming more ferocious.
Sverd also unsheathed about half of his rapier.
“ENOUGH—!” Natantes roared, his blue eyes shining.
The ocean current moved according to his will, opening the heavy metal doors of the banquet hall as if they weighed nothing.
He pointed outside the door and said, “Mushveli, Sverdvalur. Leave us.”
“Father!” Mushveli shouted.
“That’s an order.”
Mushveli and Sverd remained silent, having no choice but to leave the banquet hall. Their yellow and grey eyes sent death glares to Seong-Hwi. Once the two of them left the hall, the ocean current moved in the opposite direction and closed the doors. Natantes stared at the doors for a moment, then his blue eyes shifted to Seong-Hwi.
“Now, then. Try to make me understand. Why did you have my sons leave?” he asked.
The giant, white, two-handed sword, floating behind Natantes, trembled. It was the White Tail Fin, his beloved sword that he rarely unsheathed, but was said to cause destruction equivalent to a tsunami when unsheathed.
Seong-Hwi heard the sword’s cries and said inwardly, He’s angry.
It was no wonder since he had been a little unkind. However, he had no other choice now that he knew anyone could be a mimic.
“Before that, I must ask you one more thing,” he said.
“What is it?”
“You have the merfolk’s Race Stone, don’t you?”
The temperature and pressure of the water around him changed instantly the moment he finished his question. His surroundings were as cold as ice, and the pressure was strong enough to crush him. It was as if the entire ocean had become his enemy.
“Your statement just now goes beyond disrespect. You had better explain yourself, envoy of the Sēmen, Cheon Seong-Hwi!” Natantes shouted, glaring at Seong-Hwi as he unleashed his caliber in full.
It felt like his chilling bloodlust was about to engulf Seong-Hwi at any moment, but instead of trembling in fear, Seong-Hwi smiled at his furious reaction.
“I see. You’re not one of them,” he said.
“What?”
“Have you ever heard about doppelgangers?”
***
A short, robed individual bowed to four people, somewhere not far from the Ocean King’s Castle.
“Thank you for responding to my reinforcement request,” the robed individual said.
“Hiss! What is going on? The war was supposed to have already begun by the time we arrived,” a female naga asked aggressively, completely ignoring the robed individual’s greeting.
She had red hair and eyes, and her entire body was red.
“Hiss! You’re not going to make Master Nagaraja wait, are you?” she said.
“There has been an issue—”
“If you do, I will personally swallow you whole!”
The robed individual remained silent. Based on the naga’s personality, she did not seem to be the type to listen to others.
“Just shut up and listen, Ananta,” said a female naga with short, purple hair and purple scales, exuding a gloomy aura.
“What? That’s no way to talk to your older sister, Sagara!”
“Older sister, my ass. Oi, ignore Ananta. What is the issue?”
“Sagara!” Ananta shouted.
“An envoy has arrived from the Sēmen. He is an inspector named Cheon Seong-Hwi,” the robed individual answered.
The expressions of Ananta, Sagara, Kulika, and Manasvin hardened. They were part of Patala’s famous Eight Death Snake Sisters, each as powerful as Spare Rankers. Among them, Ananta and Sagara were World Rankers.
“The Sēmen? Those slowpokes have taken action already?” asked Kulika, a naga with blue scales, her vertical slit pupils narrowing.
Manasvin, a naga with green scales, remarked, “An inspector... Sisters, that’s the new position that Grandis made.”
“Grandis...”
“Hiss! That damned giant! I knew he had become active lately, but to think he would even bother with events all the way out here!”
“Cheon Seong-Hwi? I’ve heard of him. He’s the human who succeeded the Tortoise Emperor, Lee Kang-San.”
“He’s part of Underground, the confederation that had recently waged war against Consanguineus.”
The four sisters chatted as they hissed.
The robed individual, who had been listening in silence, mentioned, “We had no choice but to be more cautious because his right to expel is detrimental to us. The same goes for Carcharocles.”
If it hadn’t been for Seong-Hwi, the placoid and ganoid scales’ rage would have long since gone past its critical point and exploded. His right to expel was acting as a coolant, suppressing the combustion.
We must be more aggressive and sudden. Since reinforcements have arrived from Patala, it’s time for Plan B! the robed individual shouted inwardly, clenching their fists.
“Hiss! Then we’ll just have to kill him!” Ananta shouted, flicking her tongue as she licked her lips.
“Of course!” the robed individual answered instantly.