Chapter 451: Familiar Island
The Elder's flesh and blood bloomed like fireworks in the air, and it pelted down the Narwhale's deck like rain.
Charles descended slowly, staring at the empty space where the Elder had been along with his crew.
Just as everyone thought it was over, the dripping blood coalesced into concentric circles with an inverted pentagram inside. Hoarse voices soon echoed, and the countless voices converged into a low chanting.
"Damn it, what's going on?!" Charles gnashed his teeth. He rushed to the railings and looked out to find that the Deep Dwellers had surrounded the Narwhale in a huge circle formation.
The waters were cold, but the Deep Dwellers couldn't care less about the cold as they stared at Charles with their deathly white eyes. The way they gazed at Charles seemed to be saying that the latter was a dead man walking in their eyes.
Moments later, the Deep Dwellers nonchalantly took out their weapons and stabbed their own chests. Green blood gushed out of their wounds, and the surrounding seawater was soon dyed green by their blood.
"I know you're difficult to kill, and since you're Edikth's Chosen One, I'll incur Edikth's curse the moment I kill you. However, I've found a solution..." The same gurgling voice Charles had heard in his dream echoed. It seemed that the Elder could stay alive, even without a fleshly body.
"I'm sure you couldn't have guessed that I found the Book of the Dead seventy years ago, and it contains the ritual to summon Hypnos.
"The Light God must not be unsealed! Once He is unsealed, those standing against the Divine Light Order are finished! Since you do not want to work with us, then you deserve to die!"
Charles ignored the Elder's remark, and his boots pattered against the deck as he rushed to the bridge with thick beaded sweat covering his forehead. He then seized the helm and turned the wheel frantically, shouting, "Dipp! Hurry up and order the sailors to wipe away those circles on the deck! Quick!"
Charles thought that they just had to erase the concentric circles on the deck and break out of the encirclement around the Narwhale, and the ritual would be canceled.
However, it was easier said than done. The Narwhale's massive propellers spun madly, churning the salty seawater into a froth of white foam, but the ship seemed to have been pinned in place by huge nails.
It wouldn't budge even an inch to Charles' dismay.
The turbines were overloaded, and the Narwhale ran at flank speed. However, a metallic creaking noise soon pervaded the ship. The Narwhale eventually started moving, but Charles wasn't happy at all.
The concentric circles on the deck were peeling away, but they seemed to be made of razor-sharp lines as they neared the ship's tower.
Charles realized one thing at the sightthe concentric circles hadn't been carved on deck but were carved on the coordinates where the Narwhale had been just a few moments ago.
At this rate, the concentric circles would split the Narwhale into pieces.
"Go astern!" Charles roared after immediately coming up with a solution.
Before Charles could turn the wheel, however, he discovered that the Narwhale's deck had been coated in a dark substance. A dark, jelly-like substance gushed out of the deck like a deluge, enveloping the ship rather than falling into the sea.
What is that? Just as Charles' confusion was about to give birth to questions, he lurched forward, almost keeling over. The Narwhale could move once more, and as the turbines had been overloaded, the massive Narwhale shot out like a speedboat.
The door was flung open, attracting Charles' attention. He turned and saw Bandages, covered in octopus blood, walking into the bridge.
"Bandages! What was he talking about? Hypnos? What is that? What exactly is he trying to summon by sacrificing so many lives?" Charles asked anxiously.
The Elder's ritual was definitely going to spell trouble for them, and Charles believed that the former wouldn't just let them go so easily. It was a good thing that Bandages was here. After all, He was once a follower of the Fhtagn Covenant, so he might know a thing or two about Hypnos.
Bandages stared at the dark, jelly-like substance that resembled mucus inundating the deck and shook his head slightly. "I don't know this ritual does not belong to the Fhtagn Covenant"
Charles' visage revealed surprise at Bandages' remark, and that was when a violent tremor ran across the Narwhale. However, the tremors weren't caused by a collision. The sea outside churned and receded; something gargantuan was about to emerge from the waters!
Everyone felt a sense of weightlessness just then as the Narwhale took to the air after getting pushed aside by a massive water column. The seawater cascaded down like a waterfall and pelted down on the Narwhale, almost sinking it.
The seawater washed away the dark, jelly-like substance on the deck; the concentric circles had vanished as well.
Charles handed the helm to Bandages and rushed out of the bridge. He ran toward the railings and stared at what had emerged from the waters. "Fuck! What the hell is that?!"
Rather than an ugly, terrifying monster like what Charles had imagined, he saw an island. The island had steep rocks that formed cliffs, elevating the summit, which made the island look like a flat-topped mountain.
He went that far just to raise an island from the seabed? Wait, why does this island look so familiar? Charles' heart abruptly sank. He fell into deep contemplation, and his eyes soon shot wide open in realization.
He had lost his arm on the island before him, and it wasn't an island!
It was a Divinity's finger!
"Set sail! Hurry up and set sail! The so-called Hypnos that he had summoned is a Divinity!" Charles roared in a voice filled with extreme terror. Knowing that the Divinity was just right below them, he dared not look down even at the floor.
The Narwhale's steam whistle pierced the air as she rapidly sailed away from the "island" amidst the tumultuous waves. It wasn't just Charles; the old sailors of the Narwhale recognized the "island" as well, and their eyes shimmered in fear.
Unfortunately, it was just the beginning. The Narwhale bobbed up and down, quivering violently as more and more "islands" emerged from the sea. When the ordeal was over, a total of thirteen islands had surrounded the Narwhale.
The sixty-five-meter-long Narwhale was as tiny as a mosquito before the towering islands.
Rumble!
A deafening rumbling echoed from the islands, and a shiver went down everyone's spine as the islands started moving toward the Narwhale, pinching it from all directions.
The sailors on deck collapsed to the floor one after another at the horrifying sight.
"It's over"
Charles also knew that escape was impossible. The Narwhale was just too slow compared to the towering "islands." However, Charles was unwilling to give up just like that, and he still had a trump card.
Bandages crouched in Charles' shadow, drawing something with his bleeding, severed fingers. Bandages' goal was to draw out Charles' true power as Edikth's Chosen One.
"He is a Divinity you are just a chosen one you can't beat Him."
"We'll never know until we try! We can't give up so easily!" Charles roared and tensed up as he stared intently at the oncoming islands with a distorted face.
The sailors stared blankly at their Captain, whom they thought was trying to stand up in vain against absolute strength.
"Even if I have to die, I'm going to die on my way to the surface!" Charles yelled, his eyes showing nary a trace of fear in the face of an unknown and powerful Divinity.
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