The Magician of Sound

"!!!" Carissa was the first one to react. She never expected Kai to have such a ridiculous idea. But on the other side, she couldn\'t help but believe it was the case. "The first time it appeared, people diagnosed it as a sound coming from an animal… But later, it changed and finalized with a different cause. Do you think it\'s really the one?"

"Yes. After listening to Elder Rapakha\'s story, I can\'t help but link many mysterious accidents that couldn\'t be explained by science to this." Kai frowned and explained his point.

"Still, there is a missing piece in that story." Michelle stopped him. "A whale needs to go to the surface after a period of time, right? In that case, isn\'t it weird since the bloop sound is never heard again after that…"

"I think he is right." Rapakha suddenly replied with an unsure but thoughtful look. "She was capable of using magic, so she could stay underwater for a very long time. I don\'t know how long she could stay, but I think a few decades should be easy for her."

"Now that you mention it… When the sound got recorded?" Kai looked down, pondering if he remembered such a detail.

However, Carissa went one step ahead and opened the internet. "It was 1997."

"Hmm… The apocalypse day was in 2094, right?" Kai frowned.

"Yes. If she could stay that long, I don\'t see any reason she came to the surface and let out another bloop sound. Well, with almost a century, I think there were one or two that were not recorded..." Carissa nodded in agreement.

"No. I think it was heard again in 2057," said Kai with an unsure tone.

"Anyway, the bloop that you are talking about might be the sound of her bursting a portion of air underwater," Rapakha added.

"It\'s not that easy to believe, but there is no explanation that can describe it other than that. That bloop sound alone can be heard for five thousand kilometers… If we consider water as an easier way for sound to travel… It might be possible, especially with how the whale was described." Carissa scratched her head while reading the information.

Kai facepalmed. "How can we fight something like that?"

"…" No one said anything. They couldn\'t even picture the whale\'s power, let alone simulating the fight in their head. Rapakha, on the other hand, sighed. "If you want to hear my conclusion from my experience… You shouldn\'t fight her if you want to live. I don\'t know if she can be angered, but if she is truly angered, I think humanity will perish."

Kai stroked his chin a few times, looking down with a thoughtful look. After a few seconds, he suddenly said in a low voice. "In that case, there might be more mythical creatures on Earth that have been hiding since Ancient Time."

"You mean like Kraken and Megalodon?" Michelle glanced at him.

"Yeah."

"What are these Kraken and Megalodon in your mouth? No one actually mentioned such a thing on this island," Rapakha asked.

"It\'s an octopus and a shark basically," Kai explained in a very simple way.

"Hmm." Rapakha paused for a moment and said. "I don\'t know about the octopus, but I have heard a giant squid and a giant shark from her mouth. There are a few protectors in the sea and a few on the lands… I don\'t know about the sky though."

Kai thought for a moment. "Doesn\'t this make them look like an ancestor of a species? You know there is a very big whale species, a giant squid, and a shark. If that is the case, doesn\'t it mean the protectors are ancient creatures, not mythical creatures?"

"I think you can consider them as both. No one knows their age, and no one knows the extent of their power. They are both ancient and mythical." Rapakha corrected Kai\'s statement.

"In that case, should we start giving them something like a virgin to the sea to pacify their anger?" Michelle grinned.

Kai twitched his eyebrows and gently chopped her head. "Don\'t joke around."

Michelle stuck out her tongue and smiled.

Kai sighed and shook his head with a smile. "Fine. Let\'s talk about another thing… Since Michelle is talking about sacrificing things to pacify them. How about we discuss the way to prevent them from moving? From the story, they didn\'t really act this whole time, so what made them actually move?"

"It seems your brain has become sharper…" Rapakha said with a happy tone. "Anyway, I don\'t know much about it. But they have been acting from time to time in history."

"Eh? Really?"

"Yes."

"Do you think why I, a human, decided to turn myself into a stone statue?"

"A hobby? Just kidding."

"Haha… I wish it were a hobby, but it was not." Rapakha shook his head. "I traveled around the world before going to this island as soon as I returned to my family. And the cause of it was due to the warning of the whale.

"There were nearly a thousand of us that could use magic in the tribe. However, our tribe was a peace-loving tribe. We didn\'t attack and made us prosper in our own way. It was at this time the protector deemed us to be dangerous to Earth.

"In exchange for the whole tribe, all people, who could control their magic power, were obligated to seal themselves. At that time, we were transported to this island. As soon as we reached the island, we ended up agreeing to her request. Using my magic, we sealed ourselves with the volcanic ashes and became a stone statue that protected this island.

"At that time, I thought it was a threat from her. But it seemed not to be the case. Over time, I realized it was a premonition instead of a threat. It\'s like she had seen the future of this and asked us to seal ourselves to protect our tribe in the future.

"Although the tribe had their memory erased and the record deleted, the moment the so-called apocalypse came, I unsealed this body of mine and summoned all of my brothers and sisters to protect this island from magical beasts.

"We managed to protect a majority of them, but she then came again, asking her to take them away to the bottom of the sea, so she could protect them. I agreed to her request again because I thought it was a good choice. She then swept this island, grasping every single human and magical beast\'s corpses before submerging again." Rapakha closed his eyes, ending his story.

"…" Kai and the others fell into silence as if they just heard something amazing. Kai felt something amiss in the last few sentences, so he asked. "In that case, for what reasons did you agree?"

"It\'s simple. First, my tribe will be able to live and reproduce in that place, and she will raise them to be the protector. Second, with my tribe knowing about me and the others, your leader will surely extract this information with any means necessary. Isn\'t that right?"

"I completely agree." Kai nodded with a solemn expression. "Though I don\'t know about the first reason."

"If you know more about the protectors, I doubt you will reject it. Well, we, humans, have our own thoughts and views over this matter, so I won\'t impose my ideal. But I agreed to the first reason, and I can\'t say anything more about it." Rapakha shook his head in disappointment.

"I understand." Kai nodded before proceeding to the next question. "What do you mean by them appearing a few times?"

"Don\'t you think there are many weird places on Earth? The ones that can\'t be explained by science?" Rapakha smiled.

"!!!" Everyone widened their eyes in amazement.

"Pyramid, gigantic structures, and so on. I believe you are familiar with these terms, right?"

"Yes."

"Well, the advancement of humanity for the past few centuries was brought by what you called technology. However, it was different in the past. The advancement was brought by magic power. The city then started to flourish, and knowledge became common.

"At that time, civilization would surely grow… To the point it would endanger Earth with its progress. With your technology, you should know many civilizations that flourished suddenly turned into a wasteland without apparent reason, right?" Rapakha smiled.

"There were many civilizations like that…" Kai confirmed his words with disbelief. "The scientist never knew how they could have such advanced knowledge and cultures despite being traditional… If we assimilated this knowledge to those legends…"

\'Everything was real.\' This thought appeared in every person in this room. They never expected that magic power gave birth to many legends around the world.

"There is not much I can talk about. However, there are two things that I can tell you. First, the protectors have been protecting the Earth from destroying itself due to its inhabitants all around the world even until now. However, these actions only destroyed a single tribe they deemed dangerous.

"There was one time they turned the world into chaos like this to destroy a whole civilization. I don\'t know which civilization it was since I assumed everything about it had been erased… But I am sure it was a mighty civilization.

"And the place where it started was a place called goli…tepe…? I forgot its name."

Carissa instinctively searched it on the internet and somehow got autocorrected by the search engine. "Do you mean Gobekli Tepe?"

"Yes. That\'s the name."

"Oh… How I like the search engine\'s autocorrect." Kai shrugged while joking.

"It was an altar that became the place where the Protector used to influence the whole world. And as you could expect from the Protectors. The moment it came, a whole world turned into chaos and the civilization overturned.

"And I actually praised your civilization because you could still retain a portion of humanity and adapt to the new world. And I don\'t think I need to tell you about the reason why the Protector decided to overturn the whole world again, right?" Rapakha narrowed his eyes.