Throne of the North.

Chapter 778 Deepening Connections, Unable to Buy Back Life
What lies beneath the deep sea, Ryan had no idea. The ravens didn't give him a definite answer, and Ryan suspected they didn't know themselves.

This wasn't very reasonable, but Ryan didn't bother to investigate further, because the existence of gods was an obstacle to his conquest of the world.

"This flock of ravens seems to be planning to deal with the projection of that great being."

Ryan guessed that the ancient wizards' previous hostility was abnormal, and the only explanation was that they were enemies of that god.

However, even these 'wise men' cannot control matters related to gods.

Although he didn't receive any further information, Ryan began making his own preparations after learning of the existence of the gods.

What the wizards did was none of his business since they didn't tell him, but it was inevitable that he would have to deal with a god.

"At worst, we can just call Surtur again. Anyway, that guy is an old friend now."

On the third day after arriving in this world, the islanders of the Blue Sea Islands discovered that there seemed to be more people from the 'land'.

The villagers couldn't see clearly, but the crows in the wizard tower on the mountain had real eyes, watching hundreds and thousands of strong soldiers appear on their island.

"A terrifying army. Could he be the king of a kingdom?"

They were already thinking about the human kingdoms of other worlds, because in their ancient memories, even the kings of mortal kingdoms only had two or three weaklings by their side.

In ancient times, wizards ruled over all.

Ryan set up camp on the Blue Sea Islands, ignoring the reactions of the witch crows. The intimidation of the two legends was enough to keep them in line.

Of course, both sides still need to communicate amicably, whether for the knowledge in the raven's mind or for the raven ship that helped him set sail.

Ryan brought many specialties from another world, causing cheers throughout the Blue Sea Islands.

During this process, the ravens explored the strength of the human civilization on the continent of Norris and found it to be a force to be reckoned with.

"In his world, the development of the extraordinary level is no longer a secret in the eyes of ordinary people."

After seeing this, Raven gave Ryan some information.

"In the deep sea, there are many monsters with scales. They have no intelligence, only the instinct to kill and devour."

Ryan understood that this referred to the retinue of that great being.

So Ryan set sail once again.

……

"Damn it, this time he'll pay the price!"

Liv, her face grim, stared into the distance in the dim storm, watching the direction where the lightning struck. But this time, she did not rush to Ryan's Raven Ship's location immediately.

She was unwilling to waste any time or money, so knowing that she was no match for Ryan in terms of current strength, she would not blindly launch an attack.

Then, turning around, the dark pirate ship sailed into the depths of the ocean.

Crossing the calm, blue waters, a deep whirlpool appeared in the storm, carrying the pirate ship to the deepest part of the ocean, where even light could hardly penetrate. Darkness swallowed all the reckless creatures, and unimaginable terror was buried in the fleeting shadows.

The pirate ship sailed unimpeded, arriving at a place it had never imagined.

Here, darkness still lingers, but light has also appeared. Two enormous mermaid sculptures hold aloft the Holy Grail, its contents shimmering with a blue glow—the fluorescent eggs of some kind of eyeless deep-sea fish. Their light is an anomaly in this seabed, yet no deep-sea monster dares to wreak havoc in this terrifying realm.

The fish were terrifying, but even more terrifying were the building outlines illuminated by the eerie blue light.

The enormous stone palace stands at the edge of the ocean. It is unknown what kind of beings could reach such a place and build such a magnificent palace. Over the years, it has not been eroded by the sea or destroyed by sea monsters.

The palace was not complicated; in fact, it could be described as simple. And within it, only one thing was enshrined.

The dark pirate ship drifted slowly between the palace's massive pillars. The few remaining sailors huddled tremblingly in the cabins, too afraid to appear on the deck. Liv, however, had no such concerns and breathed freely in the seawater.

Finally, she came to a stone coffin. The coffin was open, and inside was a display stand covered with a red cloth, on which sat a pale white skull.

The skull was enormous, radiating an aura of grandeur.

The ravens told Llane that there were no artifacts or relics in Mikragard, which was correct, but they didn't say that there were no 'loot' in this world.

These are spoils of war acquired by a great being in an ancient conflict.

Wars also exist between gods. When divine kingdoms clash, their followers fight to the death. This is the norm. However, before the interdimensional wars between gods, mortals could never witness such wars.

The god of Mikragard, the great raven spirit, was a frequent participant in the wars of the divine kingdoms before the arrival of the North.

In the process, He gained many spoils, but only this one was preserved.

The head of a 'child' favored by a great being.

In Liv's perception, beneath the ocean, there is only one thing whose status surpasses that of Brand.

Mikragard has fallen into decline; the power of legends is impossible to maintain. Even the ravens have fallen to the pinnacle of the Saint Realm.

Only this trophy, 'Nagle's Law', retains its great primal power even in the dead world, breaking free from the world's limitations and possessing terrifying power surpassing even the legendary.

Only this thing can defeat the legend on that raven ship. Liv will no longer waste time and money trying to save her life, so this time she came to salvage this thing.

The sarcophagus should have been covered, but Liv didn't care who made it, which saved her a lot of time when opening the museum.

She reached out and picked up the three-meter-tall white bone skull. It was a divine prize, and in Mikragard today, only Liv was qualified to handle it.

"This time, I'm determined to get everything I've lost back."

Liv spoke up indignantly.

……

A wind picked up in the sky.

Although the sky above the ocean was always filled with raging winds due to the super-active magic factors, Ryan still sensed something different about it.

The raging wind, carrying a certain subjective will, was familiar to him; it was the feeling of a magician manipulating magic to unleash spells, giving all the magical elements in the void a master at this moment.

Not only that, the clear sky quickly turned into a dense cloud cover, and the thunder and raindrops went from sparse to heavy. With the help of the torrential rain, even the calm sea began to ripple.

The crashing waves, the turbulent sea, and the fluttering sails told Ryan that Liv was back again.

"The innate magic of controlling storms."

Ryan was envious. He himself had no magical talent, but this Liv clearly possessed a talent he had never seen before.

Doing whatever one pleases is a forbidden level of magic.

The taboo lies not in the mage's rank, but in their mastery of power outside the orthodox magical pathways. Of course, generally only high-ranking mages are qualified to deviate from the proper magical path.

Liv is too weak. This storm looks intimidating, but it can't frighten the group of extraordinary knights and two legends on the ship. They once fought dragons in the seas of Nidhogg.

That scene was much larger than this.

"I wonder what trump card the chosen one of this world will pull out this time."

Ryan was quite curious, but could a dead world really give birth to extraordinary power to deal with legends?

Or is it that the alien god, whom the ravens were on high alert and even terrified of, was helping her?
Liv is a native hero-level unit in this world.

Boom! ! !
Silver lightning, like the world's sinister smile, rained down, covering the sky. In this brilliant light, Liv, piloting her pirate ship, appeared before Ryan. The pirate captain was as arrogant as ever, brandishing her turquoise scimitar and swinging it at Ryan with intense ambition.

"Come to think of it, all these years, it seems like the only time we didn't fight was when I first met you."

Ryan smiled and said to Brand beside him, who thought for a moment and excluded Brock and Etrilia from Ryan's consideration.

As they chatted and laughed, the air turned cold, and the turbulent waves froze at a visible speed. In just a few dozen seconds, the seaside within a kilometer radius turned into frozen land, and the crow boat was frozen in the center of the glacier, unable to move.

"ah?"

Ryan was surprised; Liv's magic actually had such an ability.

What does this have to do with the storm?

The glacier swayed like driftwood on the sea, while around it, pirate ships, like sharks, brazenly displayed their malice. The black three-masted pirate ships were no different from shark fins.

The real danger comes from the gaping maw of the shark beneath its fins.

Ryan also saw the device that created the power to freeze the sea surface—a skull, albeit a rather large one, belonging to some extraordinary creature. It was permeated with a rich divine essence, undeniably originating from a great being, which made him doubt the witch ravens.

When it comes to great beings, even the knowledge held by wise men seems insufficiently authoritative.

Liv held the skull high, and the power of the storm lifted it into the sky before it fell into the ocean. Ryan's legendary vision pierced through the ice and seawater, and he saw the skull growing a skeletal body at a visible speed, then flesh and blood, and finally, a huge humanoid life form appeared.

"giant?"

No, that's not right. It's much shorter than a giant. Its body is covered in long brown fur like clothes or a blanket. It exudes a cold aura and slowly walks up from the deep sea, eventually landing on the glacial 'land'.

"Roar!!!"

“Son of Herim, I have hired you to fight for me and to conquer the enemies before me.”

Liv stood on the deck of the pirate ship and spoke loudly to the brown giant-like life form on the glacier. The latter knelt on one knee to show its submission, and then slammed its hands down, making a loud thud as its fleshy palms hit the ice.

And so, the ocean boiled, not with the seawater, but with the thousands upon thousands of sea monsters that Liv had summoned.

The power of the Son of Herimur, or more precisely, the divine essence contained within its head, crushed and reassembled the flesh and bones of thousands of magical beasts, transforming them from marine creatures into 'kin' with limbs and the heads of various aquatic beings.

From all sides of the glacier, countless followers, summoned by the Son of Herim, climbed up and launched a full-scale attack on the location of the Raven Ship of Lyon.

Ryan even saw that among these monsters was a creature with an octopus head and a humanoid body, blowing a unicorn shark's horn as a horn. The whistling sound it emitted carried extraordinary sonic power, and a bloody aura permeated the air, making all the familiars' fighting power three times stronger.

Moreover, with the sound of the horn, the chaotic army of dependents became orderly, and they actually turned into armies and pressed towards the crow ship.

"I never imagined we'd be fighting a war on land."

Ryan raised his hand, and behind him, hundreds of knights and squires raised their hands, clenched their fists, and pounded their chests in a dull, synchronized beat. The clash of their metal armor produced a chilling sound unique to the battlefield.

"Kill them all."

"Follow your will."

As the Brand Knights' salute concluded, all the stag squires leaped from the raven ship, frozen in place and unable to break through the ice, and circled the ship's sides, facing an enemy a hundred times their number.

"For Ryan's glory—"

"kill!"

Liv's eyes widened as a primal and predictable massacre unfolded before her.

No matter how many flesh-and-blood, soul-twisted monsters crawled up from the sea, they could not break through the defense line formed by hundreds of human knights. Even as the corpses of the monsters piled up into mountains, none of the stag servants blocking both sides retreated even a single step.

Their armor was sturdy, covered with some kind of extraordinary runes; their knightly longswords were sharp, and even after thousands of strikes, they never dulled; deep within their hearts burned a terrifying life force, giving these knightly squires unimaginable power of blood and qi. This power of blood and qi kept their combat strength at its peak, and they would never be exhausted even after fighting for days and nights.

The power of spiritual blessing has given this extraordinary legion the qualification to compete for the pinnacle of the Empire's extraordinary legion strength.

Compared to the endless stream of monster minions, these human cavalrymen were more like monsters.

The dead world of Mikragard ultimately suppressed the power of the Son of Herimur too severely, preventing him from unleashing his full potential. In contrast, Brand, now a spiritual believer, was unaffected by the rules and maintained peak combat power wherever he was.

When the towering Son of Herimul fell and returned to his skull, which Brand held in his hand, Ryan looked at Liv.

"Looks like you've lost again."

Without the presence of the Son of Herimur, no more of his followers climbed up to the edge of the glacier, and the glacier itself was melting rapidly.

"This thing is very precious, but next time, if you can't come up with something even more precious, you won't be able to buy your freedom."

Ryan patted the tall skull beside him. He was deeply impressed. This skull, which was only a little over three meters tall, contained a quantity of divine essence that even he had never seen before.

Liv remained silent, for the first time not refuting Ryan's words. He was right; she no longer possessed any treasure more precious than the Son of Herimul.

"Perhaps you could try giving me this ocean."

Ryan always manages to catch Liv while fishing because she believes that every drop of seawater and every fish in the ocean belongs to her, and the theft of her wealth is unacceptable to Liv, who cannot afford to waste money.

In other words, this sea is her last treasure.

Ryan's goal was not to kill Liv; she was a valuable follower like Brand, so he let her go this time.

The next time will be the last chance, because Liv can't really hand over the ocean to him, not because she doesn't want to, but because she can't.

So next time, the other party will lose their freedom and have to work diligently for Lord Ryan to pay off their debts.

As for how much to repay?

How much is the ocean beneath our feet, which covers 99.9% of the world?
Lord Ryan was magnanimous, because he was happy to continue playing along with Liv until a way to deal with the gods was found.

This is one of the few sources of enjoyment I have during my free time.

(End of this chapter)