984 Eye of the Storm Part 2 (2/2)

The storm engulfed the forty dinghies and more in an instant. The boats rocked feverishly in the storm, yet they stuck to the water stubbornly.

The storm was powerful, but it was not some kind of offensive spell. There were no other impurities found within the storm other than water. The dinghies made it through the waves and came to the merchant ship. Most of the ship have sunk by then, with only the deck left about half a yard above the water. Most of the hold had already been flooded. If the ship had not been keeping half of the sealed holds intact, the ship would have gone completely underwater by then.

The spirits threw ropes overboard. With the sailors and the soldiers being within an inch of their lives, they cared not for who it was that came to their rescue. They were soon dragged onboard by the spirits. Every dinghy was capable of carrying about twenty people and left as soon as they were filled.

The storm made it to the dragon skeleton combat vessel. It rocked in the huge waves whipping about, with the wings at its flanks sticking close to the water, acting as balancers. Conventional balancing plates would have failed their intended purpose when subjected to waves of such magnitude. The bone wings on the vessel however, came with auto-adjustment functions, allowing them to brave the fierce waves without snapping.

The dragon skeleton combat vessel was built to be a flagship all along. While the ship was indeed powerful in combat, the most crucial aspect laid still with safety, speed, and its ability to adapt to situations. The dragon skeleton combat vessel sported the best teleportation portal to be had, magic arrays and nine magic power furnaces. The ship was also equipped with a hold that functioned like a space warehouse, enabling it to carry massive amount of cargo. The metal buoyancy modules were designed specifically to brave large scale storms such as the one they were facing then.

There were more than one-hundred sailors and more than one-hundred soldiers on the merchant ship. The rest were coolies meant for hard labor. On the Myers Mainland, being a sailor was a lucrative job, which differed from the coolies working on ships. More than forty dinghies meant that more than eight-hundred could have been saved; the merchant did not have such a capacity to begin with.

The sailors and soldiers on the dinghies were rocked until they felt like vomiting. The ones in charge of steering the dinghies respectively were two spirits, and they only knew to secure the rescued people by tying them to the boats. They then steered the dinghies back to the dragon skeleton combat vessel.

Saleen stood at the deck of his ship, overlooking his spirits fishing people out of the water. Nailisi had dived into the sea and went to the broken ship, diving into its hold.

The cargo hold was divided into several sections and Nailisi was looking for the smallest one. She kicked the door open and found the place to be filled with crates—the space crates used by Qin elite forces, completely identical both in looks and dimensions. It was only how the content was stored that was different. Such crates ensured the safety of the cargo within, and there was no need for the content to be weighed prior.

Such spatial crates ensured that no matter how heavy the content they were made to carry, the total weight of the package remained unchanged. As such, the spatial crates were valuable commodities on their own, specifically due to their properties. The crates however, were not very sturdy, and Nailisi was able to easily break any one of them. As she was there alone and there was no one around to watch her, she went stuffing all of the crates into a dimension stone instead.

There were more than one-hundred of those creates within the small hold. After Nailisi was done bagging whatever was in the hold, she went into large holds. That hold carried the usual cargo, and as such, was packed using large wooden crates, tied up using metal threads and labeled.

Nailisi bagged the normal crates into her bracelet. She had sharp eyes and went checking out the labels themselves. Anything she deemed of low value, she would hardly bother doing anything with. The ship came from Sikeqinya, and she was sure that it was a smuggling ship. The goods needed to be valued to at least one-hundred-thousand gold, before the journey was deemed to be worth the risk.

One-hundred-thousand gold was no small amount to even the Kingdom of Metatrin. While Saleen had his way hunting in the Oceanic Ice Block, the current situation with things meant that Saleen would never sell a single magic nucleus, no matter how expensive they got.

The economy of the entire kingdom was undergoing a recession. Wealth was only circulated domestically. Magic nuclei, metals, wood, and ores, all commodities fought over by merchants, were stored by the royal family within the kingdom's warehouses as soon as they were produced.

Nailisi went to explore the next hold with glee, thinking that saving people was indeed interesting, and a lucrative activity to boot.

After clearing out most of the sunken ship's goods, Nailisi made it back quietly to the dragon skeleton combat vessel. Most of the rescued people were seen onboard the ship by then, and there were more than two-hundred of them.

Saleen went back to the hold early. He was in no mood to deal with the people. As the merchant ship was merely a smuggling ship, he handed it over to Truman to deal with them.

Four-hundred miles away, at the center of the storm, the great eye was still flying forward. The sailboat beneath it reeked of death. The ship went skimming the waters without making a sound.

The great eye in the sky retained control of the storm, and it soon got near to the dragon skeleton combat vessel. It was flying at about one-hundred miles per hour. If the dragon skeleton combat vessel had simply turned around and left, the ship would not have encountered the monster. As the ship was still busying itself with sorting out matters of the rescued people and Saleen paid little heed to the storm, the ship stayed where it was.

Both parties got increasingly near to each other. Four-hundred miles, three-hundred, two-hundred...

Saleen felt strange. He had finished meditating and three hours passed, yet the storm seemed to have no intentions of stopping. The dragon skeleton combat vessel continued to rock on the waves, yet those within were hardly able to feel it.

”Nicholas, do you sense any danger nearby?” Saleen asked the old holy master.

”Nothing. Nailisi, you sense anything?”

Nailisi shook her head. She was very sensitive to perceiving danger, and she felt no threat looming about.