A couple of hours after Daimon went to sleep, the Flying Citadel finally arrived at a relatively known area of the Maelstrom Sea.
Unlike the other three seas where there was a big mass of land that acted as the main continent, besides small islands that surrounded it, the Maelstrom Sea didn't have any big mass of land.
According to the rumors about the Maelstrom Sea that conform its history, as there were no "reasoning" natives from it, compile a proper record, there was once a mass of land but the strongest magic beasts joined hands and destroyed it.
The Maelstrom Sea had nothing but magic beasts as its natives, even back at the era of the foundation of the four seas, there weren't any human-like creatures on the Maelstrom Sea.
The beasts refused so take human form, like the races from the Mermen Sea who also descend from magic beasts.
Until the one who led the Maelstrom Sea to fight against the hero and the Matriarch of the Light Palace appeared, the one who was said to have a Hydra lineage.
After that, some magic beasts decided to develop a human form since it was beneficial to them, but not all were like that, and after the guy with the Hydra lineage died, the beast army split into two.
Those who wanted to take the path to evolution towards human form, and those who despised the idea, just like in the other three seas, inner conflict spread and they killed each other until a few generations ago, where the open conflict stopped after too many loses on both sides, and a relative peace with little skirmishes here and there reigned.
The Maelstrom Sea has two "officials" divisions, first of all, is the dangerous but habitable area, which is basically the outer part of the sea, there many nomad groups formed by those who were exiled, outlaws, criminals and people that just wanted to not live under the role of the other three seas, existed.
They modified small masses of land to be movable with the help of one of the two best Rune Masters in Neptune, that's right, both Blackbeard and the other Rune Master that was on the same level, the best two in Neptune, both lived in the Maelstrom Sea.
Or at least that was the popular opinion, since no one knows who the other Rune Master is, as it operates through remote golems all the time, but some people had seen them fly through the Maelstrom Sea a few times which forged that rumor.
Anyway, returning to the current distribution of the Maelstrom Sea, the outer area is where the nomad tribes live, past a certain point it's pirate's territory, the many crews form a circle around the nomads, then there is the middle area of the Maelstrom Sea which is controlled by the magic beasts that have use of reason.
That includes both those who advanced in the path to take human form and those who didn't, that's basically the first official division.
The second one is between the magic beasts that control the middle area and one of the accesses to the inner area of the Maelstrom Sea.
Among them there are two who had taken human form, one being Thea who controls one of the four accesses and one region, there is the three-legged toad king who is the other one that has taken human form, and then there are two high stage Stellar ranked magic beasts.
That balance broke when a descendant of the three-legged toad king infiltrated Thea's forces, and then betrayed her recently, so now, all the races that followed Thea, among which there was a couple of early level high stage magic beasts, were clashing with the forces of the three-legged toad king, being commanded by Thea's last remaining Stellar ranked general.
Unlike others, Thea not only valued strength, as the fact that her generals aren't the strongest of her army, but the ones in which she trusted the most, suggested, and that general served her father who belonged to the same generation as Vincent and Aurora, but who died in one of the few last conflicts under strange circumstances.
That is another thing which has gotten the Empress's attention, the symptoms in Bell and Malkim's bodies, were slightly similar to the wounds that caused her father's death, so she supposed that probably the Nethereals had something to do with it.
Which made sense, since her father was stronger than the leader of the enemies which he faced countless of times, one of the two magic beasts that despised those who took human form, and her father was forced to retreat after losing a large part of his army, that being said, he still fully obliterated the enemy's army, but was defeated by the magic beast and died not too long after, but he bought time for Thea to grow as the enemy was practically left without any subordinates.
Daimon's eyelids trembled as he felt a soft hand gently stroking his hair, he opened his eyes and was welcomed by Aisha's pretty face.
"We are here darling~", she mumbled, Daimon inspected his body and nodded, he has fully recovered after four or so hours of sleep.
The girls were already dressed and prepared to leave, so Daimon stood up and changed into the Hollow Suit including the mask and they then left the main residence, Aurora and Remi who was actively restraining Roger joined them soon.
Since Marlene's clansmen being targeted was urgent, they stopped at one of the many neutral nomad temporarily settlements, it was a mobile island called Entra, well, the Flying Citadel was floating past the clouds above it to be more accurate.
They then walked towards the outer ring of the Flying Citadel before Daimon turned to see Remi and then said.
"You'll be staying here, since there is a chance, we meet Marcus and he might recognize you as it has been too short of a time since you "died", I don't think I have to remind you what will happen to you, if you even think of anything funny, right?", Daimon didn't use a threatening tone of voice or anything, he just gazed at Remi from the corner of his eyes and the guy remembered the way Roger, an assassin who was vile and crazy enough to become a monster just for power, ended up begging for mercy after a few hours, and his body shivered.
"I wouldn't dare to, leave this prisoner in my hands young master!", shouted Remi, only after Daimon stopped paying him any attention, he could finally relax once again.
"Let's go", said Daimon, this time the Flying Citadel will be staying behind, because someone had to watch over Roger and Daimon didn't want Remi to follow them anyway, so they will be staying on the outer ring of the Citadel, where they can't do anything even if they were to somehow escape the slaving contracts that tied them currently.
Aurora casted her optic illusion spell around the Citadel just in case, and she then formed a barrier around Daimon and the others, to descend from the sky, in the Maelstrom Sea there weren't any flying magic beasts, at least not in the outer and middle areas of it.
As they descended from high into the sky, Daimon observed the so-called mobile island Entra, it looked like a regular island with the difference that his infinity eyes could see the countless runes engraved on its borders.
The island had the size of an average city of the Clear Water kingdom, not too small not too large, and the array covered it with a protective barrier, these nomads earned a living through different ways.
First many of them had deals with travelling merchants from the other three seas, there were countless weird things in the Maelstrom Sea, so it wasn't that hard to find some things that could attract the attention of the merchants.
There were also those who cultivated the land and those who risked their lives and captured fishes or other low ranked magic beasts an sold them, and lastly there were the ones whose business was the most lucrative, slavers.
They sold people to other nomad settlements, to the pirates and to the merchants of the other seas, naturally the slaves weren't legal in the other three seas, but they could be trafficked into them, through special channels, such was the case of Marlene after she lost her powers and memory.
Entra was one of the largest settlements, and the reason as to why they were here is because Marlene has a way to reach the hideout of her clan, in this same mobile island, in fact she has places like that in many points, but this is the closest one.
With Thea here, Daimon didn't have to worry about barriers that had anti-spatial properties, the Empress pierced her spear on the atmosphere and opened a portal through which the whole group entered, they then appeared inside of the barrier of the mobile island, avoiding the tedious process to enter as well as the entrance fee, and more importantly, preventing anyone from knowing they were here.
According to Roger, Black Wave has eyes and ears in all the mobile islands, and he doesn't know who are the spies, because his job wasn't intelligence but killing, he was one of the two vice-leaders after all.
What he did know was where were the gathering points of Black Wave are located, but there wasn't one in Entra since is one of the most visited mobile islands, naturally this time not only Daimon but even the others were wearing masks and other things to cover any specific characteristic that could help others guess their identities.
Marlene for example was wearing a hood to cover her unique hair color, which differentiates her from the other members of her angel fish clan, Marlene has a mix of royal blue and blond hair that reaches all the way to her waist, giving her a rebellious look that perfectly fits with her free-spirited attitude, also she has blue eyes that make a good contrast with her hair.
With Marlene guiding them and Aurora hiding them from the eyes of the others, they navigated through the city.
Daimon had to admit that the zero-law savage scenery he expected to see didn't appear, instead of that, Entra was blooming with life, merchants walked here and there and there were may locals that sold all kind of things.
There were restaurants and all the things one would expect to see in a relatively important city, everyone was busy earning a living too, even little kids were helping their parents, or the owner of the store in which they worked.
Of course, the prosperity in this city is quite noticeable, since Entra is one of the biggest mobile islands, but not everyone is so fortunate, there are some smaller nomad tribes that don't get enough food to maintain their members, and those are the ones that end up being sold as slaves.
"It's there!", Marlene pointed at an isolated alley that lied ahead of them, they walked towards it and after making sure there was no one in the nearby area, Marlene touched some specific places of the ground and the walls.
Despite that, nothing happened until she made a slight cut on one of her fingers and then let a drop of her blood fall in the middle of all the area formed by the many points she touched earlier.
Only then an array came to life, but didn't light up like normal, Daimon and the others were sucked in by a sudden portal, without affecting anything else, obviously it was made to not draw the attention of others easily.
…
The dimensional tunnel was darker than normal, but it was a rathe short travel so there wasn't any problem, Marlene clearly had a worried expression on her face, only she could use the different secret portals on the many mobile islands, since the members of her clan couldn't leave their hideout without her escorting them, due to their low ranks.
They were among the most desired slaves due to the superstition that said, they will bring good fortune to their partners, which was reinforced by the fact that there were only female members of the angel fish clan, no matter with who they married, if their child was a girl it will be a member of the angel fish clan, if not then it would always belong to the race of the father.
They soon reached the other side of the dimensional tunnel and were met with what Marlene feared the most, the sight of a battle breaking out on the vicinity of the hideout of her clan.
The hideout was located inside of a rock formation that raised from below the water, inside there was a cave that extended for quite a large distance, and right now the mountain was surrounded by ships without any flags.
Well, it would be more accurate to call it a besiege, since Marlene's clan could only hide behind the barrier of their hidden fortress, while the other party attacked them and tried to break in.
But that wasn't what took Marlene by surprise, but the person who was leading the attack, which she could of course recognize, as it was one of the few Arch ranks of her clan.
"Lora…", Marlene gritted her teeth as she spat out a single name, there was blood on the ground near the borders of the barrier, and she was sure it didn't belong to the enemy.
Clearly her clan members were taken by surprise, because one of them brought the enemies in, somehow, the Arch ranks were the ones in charge while Marlene was out looking for resources, but still they shouldn't have been able to bring anyone inside, only Marlene had that authority, so, many things should have happened in her absence.
Th𝗲 most uptodate novels are published on free(w)ebnov(e)l.𝒄𝒐𝙢