986 Ghost Ship Part 2 (1/2)

”What the heck is that thing?” Saleen felt a sense of dread after seeing the giant eye that was hanging in the air. Saleen asked about the eye as soon as Nicholas said that he knew something about it.

”My liege… Have the ship go faster!” Nicholas could not help but yelled as he saw that eye in the magic projection moving increasingly closer.

”Relax.” Saleen was very calm as he spoke.

While the giant eye felt very strong, its attack was rather one-dimensional. Although such an attack would have proven lethal to low or mid-level professionals, it was simply a somewhat concerning threat to a level nine powerful professional.

Nicholas bit his lip and felt his throat getting dry. These reactions were caused by his nervousness, not fear. During the earlier days, when he had first become Saleen's follower, Saleen had little use for him. Hence, Nicholas had avoided fighting at the frontlines as best as he was able, so as to avoid clashing with those from the Holy See.

At the moment, he had followed Saleen as far as the Sikeqinyan waters, where he ran into a monster that was created by the Holy See. This was his first time getting a glimpse of the Holy See's secret power.

Now, he no longer feared such predicaments. At present, the nervousness that he felt was something born out of excitement instead.

The newly crafted Scepter of the Fallen allowed Nicholas to get in touch with powers of higher levels, and as such, he felt that his future had never been brighter. At the very least, it was brighter than what it would have been if he had been serving under the Lord of Glory.

Nicholas started to explain, ”When Pope Colin II took over the Holy See about 200 years ago, the Pivotal Council and the Tribunal were still quite friendly with each other, and both of them initiated a project that created a weapon that used prisoners who were being held in the Black Dungeon of the Tribunal. After Colin II rose up to heaven, the next pope clashed with the Tribunal, and that brought the project to an end. The Tribunal, however, continued modifying the project nonetheless, planning to handle it on their own. The codename for the project, which was given by the Tribunal, was 'Eye of the Storm.'”

”You mean that thing up there?” Saleen pointed at the eye in the magic image as he asked Nicholas.

”Yes. That's probably it. I have spent quite some time taking care of expired documents for the Holy See, seeing to their destruction. Things like this are all done by those who aren't considered to be important...” Nicholas could not help but wear a bitter expression on his face as he recalled this.

He then added, ”Anyway… I was still young back then, and I was very curious. So, I snooped around and found something, which was the project they called 'Eye of the Storm.' The pope back then went so far as to announce a law due to that, forbidding the Tribunal to continue conducting the experiment. It was then that the Tribunal and the Pivotal Council went their separate ways.”

Saleen never thought that he would have been able to hear so much secret history about the Holy See. He was paying close attention, practically mesmerized by what he was hearing.

Seeing how interested he was, Nicholas continued, ”The Tribunal might have simply ignored the pope's orders, as the Tribunal had six head inquisitors back then, all of whom were very powerful. In fact, every single one of them was more powerful than even you are, my liege.”

Although Nicholas immediately realized that what he had just said might have irked Saleen, Saleen did not think much about it. After all, he had encountered many strange things, yet his combat capacity was derived mostly from his equipment. Besides, the strength that Nicholas was referring to was simply that of the head inquisitors themselves, not taking into account the use of external apparatus.

”The Eye of the Storm Project was something that was created specifically to deal with Cloudflow. The Tribunal had suffered great pressure from the Cloudflow Empire for quite a while. If it wasn't for the Black Dungeon Island's sitting in the middle of the ocean, Cloudflow fleets would have gone on harassing the Tanggulasi Empire endlessly. Regardless, the Tanggulasi Empire started to build massive amounts of defenses along the shoreline in order to strengthen their defense against Cloudflow.” Nicholas' words sounded rather complex, which caused Saleen to have somewhat of a headache as he tried to keep up with what he was telling him.

Soon, the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel took to the air and gradually distanced itself from the giant eye. The elements around the ship were stable, and as such, the storm had little effect on the ship. After all, the ship was created out of the remains of ancient giant dragons, and since such dragons had been capable of flight in more terrifying environments, the storm that they were currently weathering wasn't really that big of a deal.

Saleen stopped pushing Nicholas to tell him more, as the crisis was no longer just around the corner. Yet, Nicholas seemed to be immersed in the past.

Nonetheless, his tone mellowed as he went on to explain further, ”The Tribunal's combat capacity had been on par with the Pivotal Council's for a long time, and they were even somewhat stronger at times. There were also countless powerful ones imprisoned within the Black Dungeon. Some of them have even been imprisoned for almost a thousand years! It was unthinkable to release those people, yet killing them wouldn't have done anyone any good. After all, the Tribunal needed their souls.”

”Souls?” Saleen asked.

”Indeed, souls,” Nicholas replied. ”There were people in the Tribunal, who had been crafting something like soul beads in secret, and there was nothing the Pivotal Council was able to do about it. The Eye of the Storm was something that was designed with Cloudflow in mind. It was something capable of creating powerful hurricanes in a very wide area, just like how it is now. My liege, this storm covers an area of more than a thousand miles. What do you think would happen to a fleet caught up in such a storm?”

Saleen thought about it for a moment. Unless it was something like an Ancient or a peculiar craft like the Dragon Remains Combat Vessel, any other type of ships would have simply been torn to shreds before sinking to the bottom of the ocean.

The merchant ship that he rescued was modified from a warship, yet even it had ended up being torn apart at the edge of the storm. Furthermore, it seemed that the giant eye was running for its life instead of trying to pursue the merchant ship. It was not even trying to attack anything!

”Wow… Very powerful... Casting a skill like this at sea. If that thing is capable of elemental conversion, it will be able to use the power of the sea itself, creating a storm as well as whipping up a tsunami. That would destroy everything in its path!” Saleen said to Nicholas.

Nicholas then said, ”The Eye of the Storm was only one of the methods that was used to deal with Cloudflow. There was also the ghost ship, which was created by making ghost-like beings out of the prisoners in the Black Dungeon. Only a ghost ship would not have been affected by a storm. My liege, if our fleet were to encounter a bunch of ghosts, whose combat capacities are entirely unaffected by the storm, while ours struggle to even stay alive in the storm, what do you think would happen?”

Saleen had only felt how powerful the Tribunal was at that very moment, and he had to wonder... What are ghosts? Beings from another plane that are entirely impervious to physical attacks? If they are not even affected by the storm in the slightest bit, that would mean that their combat capacities have been raised exponentially!

The most difficult thing about such design ideas was how to execute them perfectly. It seemed that the Tribunal had already successfully managed to do that, which meant that only the Ancient would have been unaffected out of his entire fleet!