novelraw Chapter 401: Doctor
Chapter 401: Doctor
"Haha..."
After the oncoming moonlight enveloped all of Fisher's consciousness, it was unknown how much time had passed in the surroundings. He felt as if he hadn't been moved at all, or as if he had a very long dream. There was nothing in the dream, only the immensely huge and cold moon he was very familiar with hanging in midair, quietly and indifferently gazing at him just like that.
Amidst this eternally unchanging, chilling gaze, Fisher awoke. But he didn't wake up naturally; he was forced to wake up, and extremely painfully at that.
He merely felt that breathing was incredibly difficult, even more unbearable than breathing at the bottom of the sea. It was as if his lungs were being squeezed dry without receiving the slightest nourishment of air. In his ears was nothing but an extremely severe ringing sound, as if his body had returned to an extremely fragile state. But clearly, this time, his feelings were caused by other reasons.
"Fisher! Fisher! How are you? It's too high up here, there's no air to breathe. Wait, I'll pull you..."
"Eim... hart..."
Amidst his painful and difficult panting, the iconic drake-like voice of the Eimhart beside him, echoing slightly alongside the severe ringing in his ears, was clearly caught by Fisher. But that sensation wasn't like his usual hearing; the sound of his voice seemed to emanate from within his own brain.
Eimhart seemed to have grabbed onto Fisher's clothes with his mouth, dragging him in another direction with great effort.
But before the nearly suffocated Fisher could figure out the exact situation—right now, he couldn't even fully open his eyes—he suddenly heard Eimhart cry out in alarm. He seemed to have seen something and sounded extremely panicked.
"Fisher! Fisher! Wake up quickly! Someone's coming! Wake up! Ah! Let me go! Lord Holy Progeny, I...""A human? Why would one appear here? And what is this thing..."
Eimhart's voice came to an Abrupt End. The suffocating Fisher hurriedly clutched his chest and forcefully opened his eyes. He raised his eyes to look ahead, but was almost blinded by the extremely dazzling light before him.
He painfully covered his eyes, only vaguely seeing two tall figures seemingly standing in front of him before doing so. At the same time, a calm male voice exploded in his mind. Even though Fisher had never heard the language they spoke, for some reason, he almost instantly understood the meaning of the other party's words at this moment.
"Did he run up from the [First Heaven]? His physical constitution is very strange, not like an ordinary human. Capture him first, then lock him in the [Cage]. After that, I will report to Lord [Raphael]..."
"In the [Cage] there's also..."
"Fisher! Waaah! Let me go!"
Completely unable to breathe, Fisher's consciousness became heavier and heavier. He could only crawl on the ground, panting with all his might, yet it was completely Of No Avail. It was only after several seconds passed, before his consciousness completely vanished once again, that he felt himself being lifted by a force. The intermittent conversation of those two figures resumed, and at the same time, Eimhart's shouting and yelling rang out as well,
"Fisher!!"
"This thing..."
"I'll... take it together..."
Subsequently, Fisher's consciousness was once again dragged by suffocation into absolute darkness.
"Haa!"
It was unknown how long had passed before Fisher finally felt the long-lost refreshing sensation of breathing. His chest continuously heaved, and his muddled consciousness grew clearer amidst his breathing. He quickly sensed that he seemed to be lying somewhere right now. Beside him, a strange male figure was squatting, silently and slowly stroking his body with his hand.
"Boom!"
Fisher's pupils shrank slightly. He fiercely raised his right arm and smashed it towards the head of this guy beside him. That sudden, explosive strike rushed toward the person's head with a massive sound of tearing through the air, frightening the person so much he fell on his rear and scrambled backward frantically, bizarrely dodging Fisher's punch.
"Calm down, calm down! I bear you no ill will, calm down."
Taking advantage of the person before him retreating, Fisher abruptly sat up. He first touched his own body to check if he was injured, and then inspected his personal belongings. Upon touching them, he discovered that his Magic Lord ring, the Fluid Sword in his pocket, and the Eimhart he carried with him were all gone.
The Magic Lord ring was completely scrapped after being used once inside the Wutong Tree. Previously, he had been constantly chased by Death and hadn't had the time to investigate the secret of its activation back then. It was fine if it was taken away; the Fluid Sword was relatively precious and useful, so losing it caused Fisher to feel some heartache.
But the most critical thing was Eimhart. If he was taken away, Fisher found it unacceptable. What's more, he seemed to have heard his shouts when he was dazed earlier; he seemed to have been captured by someone.
However, the three Completion Handbooks were still on him and hadn't been confiscated. Furthermore, the items Renee gave him and the items that came with the Demi-Human Completion Handbook were all tucked inside the Completion Handbooks and weren't lost...
Glancing around the surroundings again, he found himself currently sitting within a relatively spacious enclosed space. The surrounding walls were pitch black, made of an unknown material. Except when he checked his Soul, he actually found his connection with the outside world severed. Fisher had felt this sensation before, and looking at the decorations of this place, he suddenly felt a very familiar sense.
He had indeed seen this kind of thing not long ago. It was outside the ancestral shrine of the Moon Rabbit-kin in the Northern Border—the Turan Family's artifact named the [Cage of Sealing Curses]. The place Fisher was in right now was exactly the same as the Cage of Sealing Curses back then, but it was clearly more aesthetically pleasing and complete than the cage back then.
And Eimhart had told him that this cage was an artifact the Angels used to imprison criminals...
That is to say, he was already inside the Sanctuary right now, and had been captured by the Angel-kin?
"Stop thinking about it. When you came in, your belongings were pretty much completely searched. There won't be anything left on you."
Just as Fisher was furrowing his brows, Filled With Doubt and Suspicion, the muttering voice beside him earlier transmitted again. Listening closely, the male before him spoke very gently, and his voice was amiable, giving one a feeling akin to bathing in a spring breeze upon hearing it. It was just that Fisher was completely unfamiliar with the language he was speaking, yet could understand his meaning.
He turned his head to look at the person speaking and sized him up and down. On the other end of this relatively spacious space, a man wearing an extremely bizarre, loose white robe woven from some kind of seaweed was leaning against the edge of the Cage of Sealing Curses with a smile. His skin was pale and smooth, his eyes were a yellowish-gold, and his features were incredibly handsome. A head of pale blue long hair was gathered at the ends by a small golden ring, resting against his chest, making his temperament appear both gentle and elegant.
But besides this, what caught Fisher's eye the most were a pair of long black ears—even more slender than the ones Fisher had seen on Jasmine before—and a wide, large whale tail behind him. In this enclosed, dim space, the non-human parts of his body flickered with bright fluorescent patterns, making him look rather conspicuous.
Yes, the man before his eyes was a Whale-kin!
Looking at the curved smile and gentle eyes of the tender man before him, Fisher's hostility toward him diminished considerably. He rubbed his head, which still ached somewhat, and asked,
"Why can I understand the language you're speaking?"
"I've never heard the language you speak either. I understand human language, but this is the first time I've heard the kind you're speaking. As for why we can understand..."
The Whale-kin man rubbed his chin, raised a finger to point toward the ceiling, and continued,
"Because 'God said: Let there be no barrier to communication.' This is what the Angels say. The general meaning is that the existence the Angels worship set a Rule of [No Communication Barriers] here, which is why we can converse with each other."
Fisher blanked slightly. He touched his chest and murmured,
"I have already arrived at the Sanctuary."
"Mm, and accurately speaking, you seemed to have arrived at the [Second Heaven] earlier. I didn't even know how you got up there without any preparation at all, almost suffocating to death."
"Suffocating?"
"Mm, the Second Heaven is probably almost twenty thousand zhang (one zhang is approximately 3.33 meters) from the ground. Ordinary living creatures simply wouldn't survive for more than fifteen minutes. Fortunately, your physical constitution is very, very high. Otherwise, you would have died before they could attach a [Breathing Holy Artifact] to you. The Angels' level of life is far higher than ours; they don't need to breathe to live..."
Halfway through speaking, seeing Fisher look down at his own body without finding anything that could be called a Holy Artifact, the Whale-kin man smiled and pointed at Fisher's chest, saying,
"Stop looking. That Holy Artifact isn't on your body; it has already entered your body and enveloped your lungs. Compared to this, we should rather worry about our future Destiny. Right now, we are in the [Third Heaven], the penal area governed by the Angel [Uriel]. We are both considered sinners who trespassed into the Sanctuary and were captured by the Angels. Presumably, it won't be long before we are both burned to death by Uriel."
Fisher narrowed his eyes. He essentially recognized none of the nouns spoken by the Whale-kin before him. He paused for a moment before still asking,
"The Second Heaven and Third Heaven you mentioned just now are different areas of the Sanctuary, right?"
The Whale-kin before his eyes looked at Fisher in surprise and exclaimed,
"Huh, it's already bizarre enough that you appeared alone in the Second Heaven. I didn't expect you to not even know the situation of the Sanctuary. I thought you were a slave raised by the Angels in the First Heaven or something... Thinking about it, your level of life definitely shouldn't be that of a slave."
"There are a total of seven Heavens in the Sanctuary. Although it's called the residence of the Angels, basically all the Angels live in the places from the Second Heaven onwards. The higher the level, the farther the distance from the ground, and naturally the less suitable it is for other living creatures to reside. Ruling the Sanctuary are seven powerful Archangels. They govern one Heaven each, possessing different Divine Authorities and preferences..."
The Whale-kin smiled and counted on his fingers, raising one finger as he mentioned each one.
"Governing the First Heaven and responsible for mundane affairs is Archangel [Remiel]; governing the Second Heaven and responsible for medical affairs is Archangel [Raphael]; governing the Third Heaven and responsible for penal law and judgment is Archangel [Uriel]; governing the Fourth Heaven and responsible for angelic law is Archangel [Raguel]; governing the Fifth Heaven and responsible for war and forging is Archangel [Michael]; governing the Sixth Heaven and overseeing wisdom and collections is Archangel [Gabriel]; and of course, there's the Seventh Heaven, where there's basically nothing. Overseeing that place is Archangel [Sariel]..."
"Ah, of course, because the Archangel of the Seventh Heaven also frequently interferes with mundane matters, you can also address her by the name other races use to call her, [Pandora]."
The more Fisher listened, the deeper his brows furrowed, and the more his scalp felt numb. Especially at this moment, as he leaned against the window and looked at the scenery outside through the transparent material at the edge of the Cage of Sealing Curses...
It was only at this moment that he truly realized exactly what kind of existence the [Mythical Species], which he had never seen before, were.
Right outside this Cage of Sealing Curses, Fisher first saw a cluster of pale and highly aesthetically pleasing architecture. Most of those buildings were slender, scattered, and suspended midair within a certain range. There were very few roads here; most were massive, independent, and magnificent architectural complexes.
Yet surrounding the architectural complexes was not the azure sky, but rather the incomparably pitch-black profound darkness beyond the sky. This was because their position right now was far, far too high. Looking down from here, one would immediately see an incomparably massive azure planet. That giant planet, which seemed to occupy Fisher's entire vision, quickly made him realize that below was precisely the place where they had lived and depended on for all their lives.
And extending all the way up from the surface of the sea on that planet were suspended, massive, translucent, milky-white cylindrical channels. Every significant distance, a vast expanse of architectural complexes—varying in style yet all holding breathtakingly beautiful aesthetics—would appear. That seemed to be what the Whale-kin before his eyes referred to as [Heaven].
Understandably, right above the extreme heights of where they currently were, there were still several levels of such beautiful architectural complexes leading to an unknown profundity and darkness.
Unlike Fisher's own time period, looking south along the azure ocean before his eyes, there was a continent Fisher had never seen before on the surface of the sea. And at the southern tip of that continent, which was also at the edge of Fisher's vision right now, he only saw an indescribably massive, illusory golden tree growing all the way up from this planet. Its incomparably gigantic and twisting golden branches extended far, far into the darkness of the universe, to a place Fisher couldn't see...
The size of that illusory golden tree was in a one-to-one ratio with the planet before Fisher's eyes. This giant tree, illusory and lacking any sense of physical reality, simply stood quietly in cosmic space. It made Fisher truly unable to distinguish whether the giant tree before him was reality or an illusion. He could only poorly imagine with what kind of gaze the living creatures on the continent beneath that canopy ordinarily looked up at this giant tree that blotted out the sky and sun like a deity.
That was the World Tree from ancient mythology.
Fisher didn't wallow in the shocking absolute scenery before his eyes for too long. He quickly calmed down and realized that Renee's arrangement had gone wrong.
According to the Whale-kin, only the First Heaven in the Sanctuary harbored dependents and slaves, and these dependents and slaves couldn't ascend to the other Heavens at all. Not to mention seeing the Seventh Heaven's Archangel Pandora and her Holy Grail. Therefore, Renee likely didn't understand the structure of the Sanctuary very well, and Eimhart possessed absolutely no memory of the Sanctuary, so he couldn't be counted on either. Furthermore, he was probably captured by the Angels right now.
So, it was unknown whether Renee mistakenly sending him to the Second Heaven, where there were only Angels, was a good or bad thing. But these Angel-kin were genuine Mythical Creatures. Being captured by them now...
Fisher's brows furrowed ever deeper. Only after several seconds passed did he suddenly glance at the gentle, jade-like Whale-kin male before him as if remembering something, and thanked him, saying,
"Thank you for your information; it's very helpful to me. So, what is the reason for you coming to the Sanctuary? As far as I know, the Whale-kin live in the very deep seabed and rarely come out, right?"
"Ah, about that, it's a bit of a long story..."
The Whale-kin before his eyes smiled bitterly and reached out to scratch his chin before continuing Fisher's words,
"To tell you the truth, I am actually a doctor. I am very interested in the various medical arts that exist in the world. I have already learned the medical concepts and methodologies of quite a few races. This time, I originally wanted to visit the Angel Raphael. I heard he is very skilled at healing others, so I really wanted to exchange ideas with him. But he ignored me no matter what. Having no choice, I had to come up myself to see how the Angels practice medicine. I didn't expect that coming up would be fine, but I wouldn't be able to go back..."
"...So, were you examining my body earlier?"
Why did it feel like all the Whale-kin he met, other than Xuan Can, shared the exact same mold as Jasmine?
Fisher looked somewhat speechlessly at the gentle, goofily smiling Whale-kin before him. For a moment, he didn't know what to say. Just as he was left speechless, the Whale-kin before him suddenly clapped his hands, seemingly remembering something, and said,
"Exactly. After all, those Angels were quite rough when they implanted the Holy Artifact, and you hadn't woken up for a long time, which made me quite worried. Right, after talking so much, haven't we both not introduced ourselves yet? I'm afraid right now we can only address each other as 'Mr. Human' and 'Mr. Whale-kin', right?"
"Ah..."
Fisher sighed and continued looking out the window. The various thoughts in his head made him somewhat absent-minded, but he still spoke to the person before him.
"My name is Fisher, a human scholar... I don't know if humans have scholars right now."
"There probably are."
The Whale-kin man smiled slightly, unbothered by Fisher's cursoriness at the moment. He merely changed his sitting posture, also looked out the window, and likewise introduced himself,
"My name is Gou Wen, an ordinary Whale-kin doctor."