[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies":3,"chapter-notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-76":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","Notes on Kraft Anomalous Studies",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2283554,4467,"Chapter 76","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-76",76,"\u003Cp>A sudden upward jump, with no precursor before this observation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When fully awake, Kraft realized his hand had already pressed against the small prism in his sleeve, instinctively preparing to adjust the depth of observation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The motion felt as natural as leaning closer when vision blurs, drawing nearer to see clearly. At the very moment before diving, he realized his action was abnormal and severed his spiritual senses.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>【When?】\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When had he become so accustomed to contacting the deep? In barely half a month, he had already reached the point of instinctively wanting to dive and use his spiritual senses to “inspect” closely, as effortlessly as stepping through a doorway.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kraft pulled the prism from his sleeve and placed it firmly on the grid map, distancing himself from it. This was not the time for reckless diving.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A sudden depth shift in the spiritual body has a high probability of being caused by something active below. His experience in the Salt Tide Zone during the day was still vivid—it could not enter the manifest world directly, yet in depth control it far surpassed Kraft, a postnatal user.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Approaching the deep now meant exposing himself clearly within its sight, confronting a thing capable of dragging others into the deep on its own turf—after losing control and plummeting, he might never get the chance to ignite.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Don’t rush. Don’t rush.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A new candle was lit, and observation intervals returned to one per candle. Even with speed doubling, it would not be quick enough to pull Kupra down—he needed time to understand its patterns.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kraft stared at the candle flame, the flickering fire dripping wax down its body, leaving behind graduated, solidified streaks.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He kept glancing at Kupra, whose breathing remained calm, chest rising and falling slowly, unchanged from before. Realizing something was happening, the previously dull wait became agonizing—unable to see the process made it unbearable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Through simple color-fading data, you knew it had come, approached this place, and in some unique way yanked Kupra’s spiritual body sharply downward.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Anxiety and fear drove him to activate his spiritual vision, to observe Kupra’s spiritual body without pause, using the only currently viable indirect method to track its movements—but reason clearly stated this action was absolutely forbidden.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yielding to emotional impulse now would cost him total loss of vision for the remainder of the journey, stripping him of all monitoring and response capability.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kraft felt Kupra trapped inside an iron coffin submarine sinking deeper into the ocean, unknown creatures circling outside, occasionally stirring currents to accelerate his descent toward the abyssal depths.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And he could only stare at a broken gauge showing depth intermittently, deducing its arrival by comparing two sudden drops, daring not to glance out the porthole—even a single look would invite a return gaze.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He hallucinated the sound of water outside the window, only for it to vanish instantly; psychological suggestion made him momentarily unsure whether he was in the deep or the manifest world—but it was surely lurking within the tide flooding into the city, drifting nearby.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>An invisible influence acted upon the connected spiritual body, accelerating its descent. He could not fathom how it achieved this, possessing such ability himself yet still affecting others’ depth.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If he were struck during descent, Kraft could foresee the outcome: uncontrolled fall into the deep, ambushed before adaptation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After a long candle’s burn, he activated his spiritual senses and urgently checked the spiritual body’s fading level—slightly above one grid.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The average fading rate was roughly fifteen minutes per standard unit, similar to before, slightly faster now. But with only two data points since the ascent, he wasn’t certain.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With the sudden rise confirmed, Kraft felt slightly relieved—half the night had passed, and at this pace, it wasn’t yet dangerously fast.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What worried him was his current physical state: the throbbing pain at his temple had worsened, signaling insufficient rest from frequent spiritual sense use—he felt internal tissues swelling, pressing against the shell, threatening to split the tightly fused cranial sutures.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was an illusion. Symptoms of increased intracranial pressure, beyond headache, should include blurred vision and vomiting—he had not reached that stage, and could endure one more single-candle observation interval; after that, he would have to extend the intervals.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“One more…” The flame flared again. Kraft leaned back in his chair, emptying his mind, seizing the precious rest.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The candle burned too slowly when he wanted speed, too fast when he wanted slowness; accumulated pain had not lessened much, and the next timing arrived. His spiritual senses swept over Kupra, yielding a new value.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>【Three-quarters of a grid】\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Hmm?” Kraft pressed his middle knuckle against his temple, gritting his teeth as he marked the new point—the progress had slowed, “What does this mean?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After waiting for two candles to burn out, the measured rate returned to its previous steady pace. Contrary to his expectation, Kupra’s spiritual body’s descent speed indicated the entity dragging him was not continuously active.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It lingered nearby, then left?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The next detection maintained the steady pace; double the rest time gave Kraft partial recovery—he sensed this would not be the end, the brief pauses like the prelude to a crest.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>【Three grids】\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Sss…” Kraft sucked in a sharp breath—half from renewed headache, half from the drastic number. The dotted line of points angled sharply upward, racing toward forty.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A light knock came from the window; his hand gripped the sword hilt, blade sliding out a few inches, heavy breaths rose and fell—then he realized it was only the sea wind nudging the ill-fitting window panel.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Reason repeatedly told him he was in the manifest world; emotion returned to the deep’s tide sounds, unable to suppress imagining wet limbs slapping against the window frame. It had drawn closer in the deep—nearer than before.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But what had it been doing during the intervals? What had happened?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kraft rose and paced; his rhythmic steps slightly soothed his inner unease—events were unfolding differently than he’d anticipated.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>【Two grids】\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After the peak descent, the speed naturally slowed. He began reconsidering what these two peaks meant.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His earliest assumption was that the entity would pull Kupra downward continuously, as it had pulled him—but in reality, the process was intermittent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even though Kupra’s spiritual depth had surpassed forty, barely short of the critical point, the descent slowed again, without any intent to plunge straight into the deep—surely not because it didn’t want to?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That meant this ability had limits—of some kind—and the intervals were the gaps. At least three candles, roughly forty-five minutes, separated the two accelerations.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Now it’s getting interesting.” Kraft marked this interval on paper, lit a candle, and waited for the next monitoring.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This time he rested a full three candles, and when the last burned out, the depth measurement confirmed the expected steady descent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Two consecutive measurements within the next candle caught the sudden surge: during the latter half of the candle’s burn, the depth increased faster—by a third of a grid more than the first half.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After two candles, Kupra’s spiritual body was fully dragged to the critical point; the severe fading matched what Kraft had seen in the deep.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That pale fading spread outward from the spiritual body, enveloping the entire physical form and radiating beyond, resembling the tragic figures in myths petrified by the gaze of a serpent-woman, losing the colors representing the manifest world.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Once descent reached sufficient depth, the spiritual body became a medium through which the deep acted upon the manifest. In his spiritual vision, the colors around Kupra drained like sand from an hourglass, vanishing into emptiness—he could no longer distinguish manifest from deep.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As if a thumbtack had temporarily pinned the manifest and deep layers together, causing localized overlap.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The fading progressed slowly, painfully, yet steadily. Kraft did not shut off his spiritual senses; he glanced at the candle—there was little time left before the next acceleration. If it intended to act, it would do so now.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He seized the prism from the table and secured it inside his sleeve. His memory was sharp—he hadn’t forgotten the promise made hours ago. If he was to act, it had to be now.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Amidst the arduous progress, the fading level jumped abruptly forward—a final, exhausted tug. This minuscule increment, negligible against the whole, pushed the spiritual body past the threshold into deep-level depth.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Fading erupted from the spiritual body, instantly enveloping the surrounding space. The deep and manifest overlapped chaotically, a fleeting sensation of disorientation—as if a substitution had occurred.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The two reversed: with the spiritual body as center, the manifest plunged into the deep, while the deep perfectly replaced the manifest—this small region was now replaced by a visually identical deep-layer counterpart.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With no spiritual body as a bridge, the connection severed; the faded portion was assimilated by the manifest, refilled with full “color”—appearing as if nothing had happened, except that Kupra had been dragged into the deep.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>【Spiritual body as bridge】\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kraft had no time to marvel at his deeper understanding of deep entry mechanics—he knew the moment he’d been waiting for had arrived. He gripped the prism, descended steadily under spiritual mediation, the world dimming, atmosphere surging.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Faint, writhing shapes emerged within his sensory range as he neared depth, rising through the deep’s waves—it noticed the unauthorized intruder crossing layers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Its depth changed at the moment of mutual recognition, then abruptly halted, retreating in frustrated silence, unleashing a soundless roar.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The roar became invisible, formless waves spreading across his entire spiritual vision—just like the depth oscillation Kraft had felt when first approaching the small prism, but far weaker.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His depth oscillated uncontrollably; the prism in his hand vibrated in resonance. Colors shifted chaotically, clouding thought and destabilizing consciousness—he nearly lost control and plunged straight down.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His guess was correct: its ability had been temporarily exhausted during Kupra’s dragging—this was its final, weakened strike. It could no longer influence from the deep layer, and instead shifted position by waving its tentacles.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Kraft barely endured the oscillation, adjusted his speed, and arrived steadily in the deep. His spiritual senses detected massive soft tissue crawling along the outer walls—noisy roars grew louder, blinding white light pierced through window cracks, illuminating Kupra’s sleeping face.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The light-tumors and vocal cords extended with the tentacles; in his spiritual vision, human bones and muscles drove them upward, resembling the reassembled corpse of a drowned man rising from water.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The creature’s prey, asleep, heard terrifying sounds, his face contorted—but still could not escape the unbreakable prison of the dream bathed in white light.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In desperation, he lit the brazier, seized a torch, and gripped it tightly. After repeated use, his spiritual senses could not last much longer—but he had no chance to sever the connection and wait for side effects to fade.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The penetrating vision granted by his spiritual senses saved Kupra’s life. Kraft judged he had mere seconds before the creature reached the window—he dashed three steps to the bedside, seized Kupra’s arm, and dragged him toward the far side of the room.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The deafening roar peaked as Kupra was pulled from the bed; all tentacles withdrew from the water, attaching to the outer walls and resonating in discordant harmony.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>An unprecedented sound, roaring with fury and hatred toward this fragile, insignificant creature daring to harm its body, radiating negative emotions that struck straight to the soul. The one who had barely escaped its grasp now dared to interfere with its feeding—utterly incomprehensible.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The horrific sound shook Kraft’s mind, dizzying even his hardened nerves, and jolted Kupra awake.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He opened his eyes, waking from a ludicrous nightmare, only to face a far more real, unending nightmare.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The window shattered; writhing, blinding light and layered, humanoid roars poured into the room. Vision and hearing were saturated with stimuli never before experienced, brimming with unmasked malice—his will shattered like a broken plank in a giant wave.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was evil beyond the imagination or description of priests or bishops, deeper terror than molten iron in hell or the claws of demonic spirits.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A truly existing, terrifying, blasphemous entity—merely beholding its form could crush human will—how could it survive to be recorded in texts?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It squeezed through the window, crashing onto the floor with a thick, heavy echo—like a cluster of writhing maggots, or dense, slender sea-snake forms emerging in the light, growing from the writhing, glowing giant tentacles, scratching at nothingness and the minds of witnesses. Other faint sounds were drowned by the renewed roar.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He helplessly flailed his limbs blindly, like a mackerel thrashing on a cutting board, instinctively trying to flee—his chaotic mind commanded unresponsive muscles to turn those orders into absurd spasms.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>From his loosened palm, a silver coin with melted, crooked patterns fell, rolling into shadow.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But he was indeed retreating—a steady, iron-like force gripped his right hand, dragging him away from the source of horror, like an unyielding rock amid roaring waves.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In his peripheral vision, the black sleeve trembled incessantly, yet the strength transmitted through it did not waver.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A burning torch was thrown from behind, arcing over his shoulder, flying across the bed, and striking the unspeakable “thing.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Fiery flames erupted, turning it into a massive fireball—burning, roaring, its writhing tentacles grasping anything within reach, engulfing the wooden bed, chairs in the blazing inferno.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He watched those twisted, writhing forms twist and warp in the flames—his spirit, overwhelmed by excess stimulation, finally gave out; he lost consciousness, sinking into dark, silent coma, spared further torment.\u003C\u002Fp>",2239,"2026-06-20T02:15:55.761Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","ef7df2ddfe26205f729ac1efb4234f0352994811b2a0de550efe9aeae7fde762","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-77","notes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-chapter-75",406,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fnotes-on-kraft-anomalous-studies-cover.jpg"]