560 Avalon Part 1 (1/2)

It was dark. In the faint, gloomy, cold mist, one couldn't hear the splattering of rain. As the icy rain passed through the mist, the raindrops seemed to blend into the squirming mist and disappeared. Droplets of water fell on the dead silent sea, almost invisible to the naked eye, only leaving fine ripples behind.

Shattered ice crystals in the ripples collided with each other and spread outwards, pushing the swollen corpse forward. It was unclear how long the deformed corpse had been soaked in the sea. It had already rotted, and the ghastly white abdominal cavity swelled due to the gases produced in the rotting process. It was like a balloon floating on the sea.

Strange fish that smelled the odor of putrefaction swam up from the deep sea. The fish, which were about the thickness of human fingers and resembled iron wire, greedily ate the carrion. They punctured the balloon, which burst with a muffled sound, and the foul stench grew thicker.

In the appalling rustling sound of sharp teeth munching on bones, a dark shadow slowly emerged from the bottom of the sea. It opened its huge mouth and surfaced suddenly, then shut it again.

Crack, crack, crack. Hundreds of strange fish were crushed as the six rows of teeth munched on. Viscous blood oozed from the huge mouth and stained the surface of the sea, dyeing the pitch black ocean into a ghastly dark green.

As it chewed carefreely, in the fog, two pale white glows lit up silently. They were like the huge eyes of a behemoth, shining through the fog.

The calm surface of the sea was shattered. Before the creature which the huge, gigantic mouth belonged to could dive into the sea once more, overwhelming roars echoed in the deep sea.

The fierce glow of lightning flashing shone from the clouds. It struck down like a blade, opening up a gap in the mist that was so thick it made one feel breathless. When it fell on the sea, it completely shattered the waves that were brewing up on the surface of the sea.

In the turbulent waves, the blaring of horns sounded. The vast, pitch black shadow sailed on the surface of the sea, coming from afar. It brought with it a hurricane, and advanced along the path opened up by the lightning. At the foremost of the shadow hung the pale white skull of a giant snake. A scorching glow was emitted from the eye sockets of the skull. Simply by sweeping across the water surface, it cast down flames and bestowed destruction equally upon all demons.

The huge mouth was instantly burned into ashes in the pervasive invisible fire, leaving no trace behind.

Far away, something roared hoarsely as if it was enraged. Across the long distance, the roars could be heard. Their effects were almost tangible, like that of a hammer knocking in one's heart, rendering one breathless suddenly, as if one was suffocating.

The roaring creature was joined by the second, third, and fourth... As if they had sensed the arrival of an uninvited guest, the monsters hidden in the fog roared maliciously, in a clearly threatening manner.

The hurricane bringing the roars in it hit an invisible wall and was crushed as the ship sailed forward. Only a weak gust of wind remained and blew at the silver hair of the young man standing on the deck.

Ye Qingxuan put down the binoculars that could not enable him to see anything and sighed. ”How much further?”

”One hour.” Carol, who was temporarily serving as the first officer and chief engineer, replied, ”Actually, we are quite near Avalon. On a sunny day, one can already see the White Tower of the palace in the uptown. But the fog is getting more and more powerful. This region of the sea is rejecting us.”

”We never intended for it to welcome us anyway.” Ye Qingxuan fished out the lens of the Eye of Silence from his pocket and wiped it with a handkerchief. ”Go and tell the purification musicians to speed up once more. At any rate, this is the first battle of the re-established Religious Court of Inquiry. Stop goofing off.

”In ten minutes,” he said, ”I want to see where Avalon is.”

Carol's expression twitched. He touched his bald head, forcibly swallowed to prevent himself from vomiting blood and took out his aether ball to pass the orders of the Grand Inquisitor down.

In the bilge of the warship, amid the vast alchemy array, the dozens of purification musicians who were about to break down from stress received the orders and almost vomited blood in unison.

Have the superiors been thinking that we have been slacking here this whole time?! Doesn't anyone know how stressed they are right now? The pressure from opening up the fog and guiding the way is already about to blow up their sound of heart movements!

In the array, the musicians of the School of Abstinence located at several core positions glanced at each other and lifted their sleeves to wipe the sweat off their foreheads. Soon, their veins and eyes bulged, as if they were burnt red.

In an instant, they became similar to puppets that had fallen apart, with their heads hung low and their bodies slumped on the core of the array, but their tenacities traveled along the vast alchemy array and blended into the entire Mountain of Nomadism.

In a flash, they flowed through the four layers of outflowing, creating, circulating and forming, and entered the core.

A pool of aether several meters in width was located in the center of the sixteen main circuits and the four Instruments of harmonious melody. Aether that had condensed into liquid form swirled in it. One couldn't see how deep it was by looking down from directly above the pool. As if it led to another unpredictable world, glints flashed across the pool constantly.

In the silver glow of the pool of aether, the giant heart of the Mountain of Nomadism was soaked inside. Having been transformed into a living aether furnace, the heart was emitting a terrifying amount of heat at the moment.

It spewed out liquid aether as it beat slowly. The glow from the power contained within alone was glaring enough for one to be unable to look at it directly.

When the musicians' tenacities flowed into it along with musical notes, the rhythm of the beating accelerated ever so slightly.

[Code—Gaze at the abyss]

[Sequence of notes is activated.]

[The valve between sections nine and eight is closed.]

[Activation of the second mode is completed.]

The hull shook slightly. In the silent alchemy array, three more complicated movements were awakened and connected to the main axis.

The engineers beside it were relieved. The aether furnace made of the heart smoothly changed from the first mode designed for pure navigation to the second mode designed for situations where the ship was on alert.

Silently, the silver glow in the pool of aether surged. A fountain-like torrent of aether poured out of the nine-layer sea of aether and was devoured by the greedy hull, leaving no drop behind.

At the moment, musicians could sense that the violent gravitational force emitted by the Mountain of Nomadism had formed a large depression in the sea of aether, plundering non-stop and attracting all loose energies, gathering them together.

The scale was comparable to that of an artifact!

Honestly speaking, the method in which the Religious Court of Inquiry processed the Mountain of Nomadism was really sketchy.

The ship was built based on the corpse of the Mountain of Nomadism. The raw material was processed and manufactured while the cells were still active. Basically, the humongous sea monster was cut up into pieces and reassembled into a ship.

In Carol's original words to Ye Qingxuan, ”First, we have no industrial base. Second, we do not have enough alchemists. Third, we do not have shipbuilders at the forefront. To conjure up a legendary warship that can screw whoever dares to attack it over in such a short span of time is simply impossible. However, if you are willing to settle for the next best alternative... well, it's not impossible.”

So, Igor only realized something when he took over... To forcibly say that it was a ship was indeed not wrong, one could even go out on a limb and call it a warship.

But in fact, what Ye Qingxuan they all had done was to use the best materials to build a gun emplacement that was fit for war and could float on the sea while carrying three cannons capable of causing insanely high damage. Although it could fly in the sky using the sixth mode, that still couldn't change the fact that it was just a gun emplacement!

If it wasn't for Ye Qingxuan who stopped Igor with all his might and promised him ”We will have bread, we will have milk [1]. When I finish saving the nation, I'll make sure Anglo equips your ship with everything you want,” Igor might have jumped into the sea in sorrow and frustration.

Not that Igor could help it. From a harsher perspective, the warship lacked any technical substance. The only things worthy of praise were the insanely strong firepower and extremely extravagant raw materials.

The former came from the three Petitioner-level main batteries made by the Religious Court of Inquiry. By right, the forbidden technology should still be sealed at the moment unless a special order was issued.

The latter was because as raw material, the quality of the Mountain of Nomadism itself was simply too high. During the manufacturing process, the purification musicians had marveled at its nature countless times. They even suspected that it had descended from the direct bloodline of Leviathan and that it was a prince that had been granted its own territory in the seven seas by Leviathan.

Thanks to that, the Mountain of Nomadism was basically a living artifact, and insane results could be achieved simply by using it as raw material alone.

Presently, the disturbance in the sea of aether caused by the Mountain of Nomadism was at most no more than that caused when it was breathing, and they didn't even have to activate anything deliberately to achieve such a result.

Back when they were drawing the designs for the ship, the old devils already began to thump their chests and stomp their feet in regret—How can such good material be wasted on building warships, it is born to be used as a musical instrument, gods be damned!

With just the slightest bit of nurturing, it can become a new artifact. If a Scepter Musician is put in charge of the process, it's not entirely impossible for it to become an artifact of the very top quality.