Chapter 79: Mad Triangle (6)

Chapter 79: Mad Triangle (6)Deep Sea Fish Hunting Specialty Broadcast

Parang’s descent continued.

The location of the Bermuda Hive is at a depth of 3km. Parang’s current position is at 1.5km depth.

The deeper she goes, the more monster fishes appear.

Parang was intentionally slowing her descent speed to give viewers the ‘joy of deduction’, allowing them to freely speculate about the current state of the Bermuda Triangle to their heart’s content.

However, the phenomena they were trying to deduce were so extraordinary that even with numerous people racking their brains, no plausible theory emerged to explain all these occurrences.

To give a few examples,

There was a speculation that there might be a mother or breeding ground in the Bermuda Hive laying monster eggs at a rate of one every three seconds.

This was quickly refuted. The overwhelming majority of the countless monster fishes in the Bermuda Triangle were ‘gate-born monster fishes’. Since creatures that come from gates cannot reproduce.

Moreover, this theory couldn’t explain the formation of gates either.

The closest guess was the hypothesis that ‘there’s an enormously large dungeon at the bottom of the sea.’

While ‘gates appearing without rifts’ is certainly an unprecedented anomaly, if you twist your thinking a bit, there are similar phenomena on land.

Occasionally, there are gates with very high stability that remain in one place for as short as a few weeks or as long as several months.

In these cases, phenomena occur that differentiate them from other gates that just spit out a few monsters and disappear.

First is the transfer of the otherworldly ‘environment’.

Strange structures or natural objects from the other world are transferred around the gate, changing the environment of the area.

This ‘changed environment’ is what we call a dungeon.

Second, while the dungeon exists, the frequency of small rifts or gates occurring in its vicinity increases.

Gates that would normally appear once a month or so start appearing weekly around the dungeon.

However, they are very small in size, and the level of monsters they produce is so low that just two or three A-rank hunters can provide complete defense.

According to academic research, this phenomenon occurs because the stable gate actually makes the surrounding environment more unstable.

It’s similar to how a cracked part of glass, if left unattended for a long time, makes the surrounding area more prone to cracking.

And if there’s some special form of dungeon under the Bermuda Triangle, wouldn’t it cause phenomena… similar to what we’re seeing now? That’s the explanation.

Parang gave this theory her stamp of approval. She even praised it, saying it was well done.

“That’s a close guess.”

As for other speculations that popped up, well.

There’s a black hole underneath, cosmic energy is gathered here, it’s actually all fake, and so on…

Regardless of whether the speculations were right or wrong, Parang also had an enjoyable time exchanging chat messages with viewers after a long while.

Also, since most of the monster fishes they usually encounter were mutated versions of Earth’s fish, there was a certain thrill in seeing pure otherworldly fish that had popped out of gates.

However, the time to reach the hive was inevitably delayed, as the monster fishes that came out of gates, true to their nature, would go crazy and charge at her as soon as they saw a human, thinking of her as food.

Whenever Parang approached, they would immediately deploy strange gimmicks and attack.

So after swimming for a few minutes, something would suddenly open its mouth behind her.

An eyeball would appear at the edge of the screen, and something would suddenly pop out.

“Ah, I shouldn’t show you this one. I’ll turn off the screen.”

The screen would suddenly go black, and the sound of a baby crying would be heard from all directions, then,

“Okay, we’re good now.”

Parang would turn the screen back on as if nothing had happened.

Jump scares, an eerie atmosphere, and breathtaking tension.

It’s fortunate this was a daytime broadcast. If it had been dawn, oh boy.

So when Parang’s screen suddenly turned dark at the 2km depth point, you can imagine how the viewers reacted.

─ Uh oh

─ Here we go again

─ The usual UFC

─ Argh

The screen that had been a deep Parang color just moments ago suddenly went pitch black. Literally plunging into perfect darkness where not even an inch in front could be seen.

However, this time it wasn’t Parang who turned off the screen.

Parang’s vision had also instantly turned pitch black.

It was so dark that she couldn’t even see her own hand right in front of her.

No matter how chaotic and random the brightness in the monster layer might be, it’s never this erratic.

Whether it’s a monster, an object, or whatever. It means an anomaly has occurred.

Viewers who had been following Parang’s broadcasts for a while now know well what it means when her screen goes dark.

It’s a signal that some shit is about to go down.

And that speculation has proven to be right on the money in most cases, including this time.

‘Ah, so that’s what it is.’

Parang was the first to grasp the situation.

‘It’s been a while since we’ve seen this.’

Almost simultaneously with her vision turning pitch black, she figured out what kind of monster had appeared, how to deal with it, and even how to use it for the broadcast.

Due to the broadcast delay, her perspective was ahead of the viewers’, and her knowledge of monster fishes was far superior.

First, since not only the camera but also Parang’s vision had turned pitch black, this wasn’t a mental attack. If it were, a skill would have activated.

In other words, the current darkness was a physical phenomenon, like gravity or heat conduction.

And when she tried purifying the surrounding water as a test,

[ Skill, ‘Clear Mirror Still Water’ is active. ]

‘Hmm, I can see clearly.’

She confirmed that she could see her arm very well.

This meant that black pigment was dissolved in the water.

One monster flashed through her mind.

It couldn’t be a more fucked up hunting method.

But life is full of unexpected turns. Who is Parang if not a talented individual who excels at using given situations to her advantage? Turning crisis into opportunity!

‘The broadcast has been lacking a bit of horror lately.’

Calmly thinking thoughts that would outrage others if they heard, she resolved to let our precious viewers experience the feeling of being hunted by ‘Tenebris’.

Tenebris. Latin for darkness. Whoever named it was quite intuitive.

Generally, monster fishes that use ‘darkness’ for hunting can be categorized into two behavioral patterns.

One is ambush. Unlike regular deep-sea fish whose eyes have degenerated from living in naturally dark places, many monster fishes living in the monster layer with its erratic brightness rely on vision. This method involves blocking their vision and ambushing from a blind spot.

The second is luring.

This method involves emitting light in the darkness to lure smaller monster fishes.

Even with dolphin-level intelligence, it’s obvious that it’s a lure, but monster fishes are still fish after all.

Except for a few special species, they stupidly follow the light. Searᴄh the NôvelFire(.)net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

Tenebris belongs to the ‘luring’ type, but unlike other monster fishes that simply flick a light, its level of luring is quite sophisticated.

It gives its prey the feeling of ‘escaping’ from a dark, black space.

“It’s a kind of black pigment like ink. For this type of monster fish, it’s safer to escape the ink first and then catch it from outside.”

Parang bluffed to the chat window.

Of course, while this is the standard method, it doesn’t work for Tenebris.

It’s better to stay still and quickly dispatch it when detecting sound.

But the chat window, unaware of this fact, was in an uproar, saying things like “Great idea!” and “Let’s get out of this dark place!”

─ I thought she was going to stay still and do a ‘Feel the cosmic horror’ thing

─ The Great Hwang King

─ Let’s get out before it comes

“Now, if you compare this side and that side, you can see a subtle difference in darkness. Let’s go towards the brighter side.”

This is where Tenebris’s sophistication shows.

It finely controls the amount of ink to the extent that only monster fishes sensitive enough to light to fall for the lure can detect the difference.

Parang continued to swim towards the slightly brighter area.

And as the surroundings became noticeably brighter as she progressed, the viewers’ expressions also brightened, when suddenly…

Crunch. Crunch.

Crunch. Crunch.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

Thump.

As if it had never been bright, as if someone had flipped a switch.

The surroundings were once again plunged into complete darkness.

Only then did Parang turn on the searchlight she had kept off.

“Everyone, you’ve just died once.”

When they came to their senses, they were already inside the monster’s maw.

The ‘thump’ sound was the sound of its mouth closing.

Inside, the corpses of monster fishes that had met a similar fate were strewn about, and fragments of what appeared to be ships and airplanes were haphazardly embedded in its mouth, acting like a second set of teeth.

─ ?

─ ???

─ No way

─ Is this a hallucination??

The viewers’ heads were reeling from the unexpected turn of events they hadn’t experienced in a while.

Their heads spun again realizing that the entity that had hit them from behind was a fish.

Seeing Parang calmly continuing her explanation, they thought, “This woman is at it again,” making their heads spin for a third time.

─ The sea is fucking dangerous, damn it

She had elicited quite desirable reactions in abundance.

#

Anyway, after all those twists and turns.

Finally, at 2.7km below sea level.

It was time to face the truth of the Bermuda Triangle.

Parang suddenly turned off all the camera screens.

─ What the fuck

─ What’s with this forced eye-closing

─ Open your eyes

─ Open your eyes

─ Here we go again with this bullshit!!!

Unable to accept the sudden change in situation, they grumbled and complained.

Once again, they surrendered their right to control their emotions to Parang.

“Ah, wait a moment. Let me try to create a dramatic effect, okay?”

─ Says the woman whose daily life is a drama, now talking about dramatic effects

“Oh.”

Slightly stung.

“Ahem! Hmm! Alright. I’ll show you in exactly 15 seconds.”

─ 15

─ 15

─ 14

Parang slowly and meticulously adjusted her position to reveal the full view of the hive.

“Ten… nine… eight…”

If you’ve been observing the characteristics of the hives well until now, you would have noticed that they resemble human artifacts, things from Earth.

“Five… four… three…”

However, there’s one point we need to address here.

What exactly falls under the category of ‘things from Earth’?

In other words, these ‘modern artifacts’ that the hive mimics…

“Three… two… one…”

Are they ‘modern artifacts’, or are they artifacts of this world, a ‘modern fantasy’?

“Now, this is the truth of the Bermuda Triangle.”

A massive crack, weapons suspended in mid-air, iron barricades.

“This is the Bermuda Hive. We call it the ‘Gate Defense Line’.”

Can a ‘gate’ really be considered part of Earth’s landscape?

The Bermuda Hive answered that question with a resounding ‘yes’.

A gate with a diameter of 700 meters appeared before them.