[Vol. 7] Chapter 54: Natural Disaster
Driven by some unknown force, a colossal sword strike erupted, slicing through nearly half of the island in a purely physical sense. The blinding sword light carved through everything in its path, roaring forward until it finally disappeared into the distant depths of the Ghost Sea.
Seawater surged toward the massive gap in the island, attempting to flood in, but the lingering power of the sword strike repelled it, creating an unbelievable and surreal spectacle.
“...?”
“This…”
“Oh my god…”
The queen and the pirate king, who had planned to stop their opponent using a different method, stared at each other in shock. They were completely dumbfounded. Miss Le Qiaoqiao, who had fallen flat on her back, was so stunned that her mouth hung wide open, almost big enough to fit an entire apple. It took her a long moment to snap out of her daze.
With cautious steps, the young thief approached the scene of utter devastation. What was once a solid structure now reduced to an open-air wasteland. She hesitated for a second before lightly poking the swordswoman on the shoulder.
“S-Senior Hongyan… Since when did you get this strong? Uh… about earlier, I might’ve spoken a bit too loudly. Please don’t take it to heart, alright…?”
“Cough… cough, cough…”
The gray-haired girl coughed up a few drops of golden-tinged blood and staggered back half a step. After steadying herself, she turned to look at the trembling Le Qiaoqiao beside her and gave a helpless smile.
“Weren’t you calling me ‘Little Hongyan’ just a moment ago? That was fast… But this power wasn’t mine. Do you remember the treasure Miss Violet gave me?”
“Huh…? No way! That tiny thing could help you wipe out an entire island? Isn’t that a bit too overpowered?”
“...It’s obvious that the power of an immortal is far beyond what you and I can comprehend. You should start getting used to it.”
As the burning sensation in her chest gradually faded, Hongyan felt the overwhelming power from her earlier strike dissipate as well. With that, the immediate crisis to her body was resolved. Although she had suffered some injuries from the immense strain, they weren’t life-threatening.
She ignored Le Qiaoqiao’s outstretched hand and instead straightened her back on her own. Her gaze remained locked on the dust-filled scene ahead, her expression serious.
“I don’t know if that unsettling ‘god’ has been completely destroyed… If even this wasn’t enough…”
Before she could finish her sentence, a faint yet undeniable cracking sound echoed from not far away.
Crack... crack, crack, crack…
It was the invisible barrier surrounding the mermaid princess, the core of the sacrificial ritual.
Even though Willipol and Silisa had been reduced to nothing by that devastating sword strike, the nearly imperceptible barrier around the princess had remained intact. But now, as golden light intertwined both inside and out, shimmering cracks finally began to spread across its surface, outlining its form in glowing lines.
And then—
Boom!!!
The invisible force constructing the barrier collapsed in an instant, shattering like a flood bursting through a dam. The mermaid girl, who had been floating with her eyes closed, slowly descended. A radiant golden orb that had been glowing at her abdomen gradually returned to her body.
In the distance, no longer an enclosed chamber, hurried footsteps echoed as reinforcements, alerted by the earlier explosion, rushed toward them.
Anies swiftly raised her staff, sending a gentle wave of water surging forward. The flowing current caught her falling daughter and gently brought her back to her side.
But before they could even take a breath, the dark and ominous energy, thought to have been eradicated, suddenly surged forth once again. Freed by the barrier’s collapse, it roared to life like a sentient beast and shot toward the open sea!
Rashid’s face darkened immediately.
“Damn it! It still had a backup plan! Your Majesty…!”
Compared to the blond man’s panicked outburst, the exhausted Anies simply fixed her gaze on the rapidly fading dark energy. After a long pause, she let out a sigh and shook her head.
“It’s already been severely wounded, and we’ve done everything we possibly could. Even after all our efforts, completely killing something like that is still too difficult… The rest, let’s leave it to her.”
………………………………
Beyond the island, on the Ghost Sea, near the shores of the Eastern Sea Pearl…
Countless dark streams of energy surged into the sky. Not just from the royal palace’s center, but from all six islands. The wandering Ghosts that had been lingering there suddenly collapsed, their weak remnants of energy rising into the air and rapidly converging into a single massive entity.
This was the very force that had originally granted them movement, allowing the long-dead “Deep Sea Ghosts” to behave like living creatures. It was also the source of the spreading contamination.
But now, after being outwitted and severely wounded by mere mortals, it was desperate to preserve itself. Its only choice was to reclaim every last bit of power to make up for its devastating losses.
Creak… creak…
From all directions, across the entire Ghost Sea, dark energy rapidly gathered, condensing into an increasingly dense and eerie sea mist. The heavy, unsettling sound of wooden sails groaning echoed over the waves.
Then, from within the swirling darkness, it took shape. An enormous, ancient, and decayed ghost ship, as if it had sailed straight out of a grim and twisted fairy tale.
“Heh… So you finally show yourself.”
A black-haired girl stood alone at the edge of the shore, watching the ominous vessel emerge.
“The drifting specter of the endless sea… the cursed wreck that crawled from the grave of gods and hatred… Eastern Calamity, the Ghost Ship. I’ve been waiting for you~.”
Despite facing one of the most terrifying disasters of the sea, something that struck fear into the hearts of all, she showed no trace of fear or hesitation. Instead, she simply smiled.
She didn’t even draw a weapon. Instead, she calmly clasped her hands behind her back, her silver-blue eyes glowing faintly with a golden hue as she gazed at the ghostly ship. Her expression was neither wary nor tense. It was as if she were scrutinizing it, verifying something.
Creak… creak…
As the surrounding dark energy surged toward it, the Ghost Ship grew more defined. The ancient wooden vessel rocked on the water with an eerie, rhythmic sway, the sound unsettling. Almost like the deep, guttural growls of a sea beast instinctively warning off a powerful foe.
After a long silence, the girl murmured to herself.
“Hmm… So it’s not the God of Truth, nor a new consciousness born from Them. It doesn’t even have the fragmented awareness or memories of something like Illusionary Cloud, which was formed from shards of a god’s divinity. It’s just a twisted thing that gnaws on a god’s corpse. A warped tree growing from the dead.”
The [God of the Azure Sea and Truth], Surst, was truly dead. Their divinity had shattered completely, leaving no chance for a new consciousness to emerge. Unlike the Goddess of Earth, whose divine fragments had once given birth to a successor god.
And the very existence of the Ghost Ship was proof of this.
As its name suggested, it was a ghost. A remnant of something that could never return to life. Formed from pieces of a shattered divinity, a god’s lingering resentment, and impurities tainted by [Truth], it was a monster born from the corpse of the God of Truth, Surst.
No matter what the evil god, Octavier, intended to do, or what Willipol had hoped to achieve by using this thing against him, the plan was doomed from the start. Leaving aside whether the Ghost Ship even had the strength to challenge an evil god, even if it fully materialized, it would never possess the intelligence or self-awareness of a true living being.
It was a Ghost, nothing more. A beast driven purely by instinct and hunger. Its very essence was a contamination so maddening that even gods lost their sanity to it.
It would never think clearly, never be reasoned with.
It could bring nothing but endless destruction to all life and civilization.
A true calamity.