984 Eye of the Storm Part 2 (1/2)
”Master, why the rush? Have you found something good?” Nailisi curiously asked Saleen. Saleen did not share his senses with her and she was unable to see what lied one-hundred miles away.
”To save people.”
”Save people?” Nailisi asked in glee, and even Truman found that to be odd.
”Killing people all the time is tiring. Getting to save people for a change sounds fun.” Nailisi was so eager to try it out that it rendered everyone laughing, even Saleen.
While it was not precisely correct that he had been killing people all the time, what he had done as of late got him nothing but headaches.
The magic power furnaces of the dragon skeleton combat vessel went full power, enabling the warship to travel at one-hundred and twenty miles per hour in the direction of the storm. Such a speed, however, was not the fastest the vessel was able to reach. The one-hundred yard long construct was able to fly after all.
Everyone onboard was able to see the dark clouds in less than half an hour. The waves seen in the alchemy binoculars were more than ten yards tall. The ones who controlled the magic power furnace were all mages, as there were not many sailors onboard. The soldiers who followed Saleen were all astonished by the scene of the storm.
It was fortunate that everyone knew what the dragon skeleton combat vessel was capable of, and there were grade-9 sorcerers stationed onboard. They would have needed to only take flight if anything happened.
The ten yard tall wave chased after the merchant ship in front of it. The ship had obviously undergone modifications, as it looked to be a common warship originally. The merchant ship that was modified from a warship even retained the two magic stone cannons on it.
The modifications allowed the ship to travel at very high speeds, yet sport reduced defensive capacities. Any huge waves would have gotten the ship off-course, let alone the fearsome storm at their rear. The merchant ship began to tip in the waves. The near one-hundred yard long ship was severely tipped over soon. Ships in the sea were to keep at a vertical angle with huge waves. If ran with waves flipping at the ship's sides, not even the Ancient would have been completely safe.
Most warships had mages stationed on them, ensuring survivability in the event of storms. The ship before them however, seemed to be one of those capable of hiring only magic apprentices.
Crack...Boom!
Loud cracking sounds were heard from the merchant ship. The bow of the ship made it past the wave and trembled violently. Soon after it was torn apart in the middle!
Saleen was able to tell that the ship was given modifications to the center of it in order to increase cargo capacity, by stripping off some magic instruments. There were no mages to be found on a merchant ship after all. The ship's cargo capacity would have easily doubled at least, at the cost of severely reduced durability.
”Let's go rescue some people,” Saleen sighed, as the ship before them was bearing the flag of the Sikeqinya Empire, but it was not a warship. Even if it happened to be a warship, if both sides were not engaged, he still felt compelled to at least save the sailors.
The dragon skeleton combat vessel adjusted its angle and extended the bone wings at its flanks, deploying metal buoyancy modules as well to ensure stability to the ship. All that enabled it to maintain its balance to a certain degree in the storm. More than forty dinghies were thrown out from the deck on both sides. They were not lifeboats, as lifeboats would have simply toppled over in such storms.
The area covered by the storm was incredibly huge, covering an area of more than one-thousand miles. The center of the storm was however, incredibly calm and serene. Within the area of less than ten miles, furious waves were seen everywhere, stirring about the center of the storm and moving forward. An old sailboat was seen traveling at great speeds in the area. The ship was about sixty yards long, its masts held high, yet its sails were utterly tattered. A row of soldiers stood on the deck of that old ship.
The soldiers were seen clad in rusted iron armor and were not wearing helmets. Most of the flesh on their faces had rotted away, and their eye sockets were almost all bereft of eyeballs. None of them had the soul flames typical of spirits.
The soldiers held ancient spears in their hands. The spears' blades were about a yard long, serrated on both sides.
A large eerie eye was seen hanging above the ship, staring forward. Its pupil was thinned to a vertical slit in the middle, exuding an incredibly evil aura. The eye had a diameter of one mile. As it was hanging high above the air, it did not look as repressing as its size suggested.
All elements surrounding the eye were subjected under its control. The waves were unable to make it to the ship, and it was not known what actually made the ship move at such speeds.
The eye blinked slowly, with every blink stirring up huge waves faraway. The dark clouds in the sky stirred along, cracking noises were heard from the violent air currents. The storm covering the one-thousand mile radius area seemed to have originated from the eye.
The merchant ship was totally wrecked in the storm. The sailors and merchants onboard were at a loss of what to do. The chances of surviving such a storm was next to none.
”Captain, a ship at our front!” Some of the soldiers pointed at the dragon skeleton combat vessel from their ship that had yet to sink. The huge vessel waited silently under the shadow of the clouds, waiting for the storm to come.
More than forty dinghies were thrown overboard into the water, with two spirits on every boat for control. The boats had Water Shields about them, but they were different from the ones Saleen was used to using; they were probably grade-2 spells. The boats were using magic arrays to propel them, and power driven from magic nuclei. The dinghies were not fully inflated, and they were all caved in somewhat. With the protection provided by ball-shaped Water Shield, the dinghies were able to easily float at sea, making their way for the dismantled ship.