Volume 3: The Land of Mist Chapter 20: Dragon and Fog
Time goes back a few minutes.
In the battleship's cabin, outside the captain's room, two guards who were guarding the door heard a harsh sound of hinges rubbing against each other behind them.
"Squeak, kakaka ..."
A girl with long chestnut hair pushed the door open a crack and stuck her head out.
She opened her eyes as clear as the bright moon and looked at the two guards outside the door, holding a piece of water chestnut cake in her hand and chewing it in small bites.
"Miss Diana, what's the matter?"
Seeing this, one of the guards hurried over, saluted and asked.
She put down the water chestnut cake in her hand and looked towards the deck. The two guards followed her and looked there.
"Is there something wrong?"
After watching for a while and seeing nothing appear, the guard repeated his previous question.
Diana slowly swallowed the cake in her mouth after hearing this, and then asked in the same flat tone as before:
"Everything is going well on deck?"
Hearing this question, although he didn't know the specific situation, the guard still answered in a comforting tone:
"Please rest assured, they are just a group of ordinary pirates..."
But before the guard finished speaking, the girl named Diana continued to ask:
"Are you sure those are pirates?"
This question made the other party nervous.
In the early years, in order to encourage the Imperial Navy to take the initiative to eliminate pirates, the Riel Royal Family promulgated the Anti-Piracy Law, which stipulated that after defeating the pirates, the navy could retain 70% of the pirates' loot as its own budget.
However, robbing pirates is legal for the Imperial Navy, but robbing smuggling ships is not.
Of course, because this law lacked effective supervision, and the navy was rigid, there were many cases of killing innocent people and taking credit for their achievements. The Imperial Navy often robbed smuggling ships and even regular merchant ships as pirates. Later, the royal family established the Imperial Shipping Company, and civilian merchant ships could receive official protection after paying expensive registration fees.
The Star Council equipped each merchant ship registered with the shipping company with a "recorder" engraved with the [Reverberation] spell, as a mark and warning to prevent the navy from "accidentally hurting" them. It was not until then that the Imperial Navy's harassment of ordinary merchant ships was greatly reduced.
"Of course they are pirates..."
Thinking quickly about how to deal with the current situation, the guard spoke slowly.
But Diana's next words made the words he had finally organized in his mind shattered in an instant.
"What I mean is... I just felt a huge amount of magic power emerging over there. If it's just an ordinary pirate, it shouldn't be this strong. Could it be a powerful one from the high elves?"
After Diana finished speaking, she threw the remaining piece of water chestnut cake into her mouth, patted the crumbs in her hands, and then pushed the door open completely.
"Extremely huge magical power?"
Another guard asked curiously:
"How huge is that?"
Diana did not answer the other party's question. After swallowing the cake, her eyes lost focus for a moment, and then she said like a dream:
"And the dragons, and the mist..."
The two guards looked at each other, a little unsure of how they should deal with the situation.
This girl named Diana is a "divinely inspired one" certified by the Eighth Order.
The Eighth Holy Spirit was the only mortal who ascended the throne of heaven in the Holy Spirit Church. He was now the only person allowed to be worshipped by the Empire. Since the birth of the religion, there have been people who claimed that they could hear the teachings of the Eighth Holy Spirit, and some even arrogantly claimed that they were the reincarnation of the Eighth Holy Spirit.
Those who claimed to be reincarnations were naturally suppressed by the royal family as traitors. However, a very small number of the former were certified by the church and became the so-called "divinely inspired ones". On the one hand, they were the "messengers" responsible for delivering the oracles of the Holy Spirit, and on the other hand, they were the "holy grails" that carried the power of the Holy Spirit and walked in the world.
In formal occasions, when referring to those who are inspired by God, one even has to add the prefix "holy" before their names.
And the girl in front of me is such a person.
Although the two of them were not believers of the Eighth Holy Spirit, and were not even considered devout followers of the Holy Spirit Church, they did not dare to neglect the words spoken by the person with the identity of the divine revelation.
Especially when the other party suddenly said these words when she fell into a trance - God knows whether they were her own words or the oracle issued by the Eighth Holy Spirit through her mouth.
"Miss Diana...what did you just say about the dragon and the mist?"
One of them couldn't help but ask.
His question brought Diana back from her trance, and she replied:
"It's the dragon and the mist. Literally the dragon and the mist."
As she spoke, Diana walked towards the simple wooden stairs at the side.
"Miss Diana!"
The two guards subconsciously stopped in front of her.
Their previous mission was to make sure she stayed here safely until the captain returned.
They were very clear about the captain's style of doing things. If they really failed to take good care of this divinely inspired person and ruined the private work he had taken, he would definitely make them take a step back.
"It's dangerous out there."
Seeing that the two of them were not prepared to give way, Diana said as she took off the bronze holy emblem of the Holy Spirit from her neck.
"What kind of danger is that? Is it the powerful high elves you just mentioned?"
The guard asked.
The other person shook his head.
"No, it's a dragon, and there's fog."
She replied.
The two guards found this ridiculous.
How many years has it been since the time of Terra I that dragons have appeared on the entire continent of Vic?
"roar!"
But before they could utter this sentence, a roar that froze their hearts and solidified their blood came from not far away. This sound frightened them so much that their legs almost went limp and they sat down on the ground.
Long Wei...
Although they had never seen a dragon, they knew from many legends that creatures called dragons could scare all creatures around them by making terrifying roars.
However, Diana pushed the two of them away as if nothing had happened amid the roar that contained the might of a dragon, and then rushed up the stairs.
…………
I can't attack my own master?
Feeling the Black Dragon's awareness, William was a little confused for a moment.
This black dragon was created by William using the divine-level illusion [Shadow of Truth]. As for the owner, the only owner of this black dragon is himself.
When did the short woman on that boat become its owner?
Thinking of this, William tried to control the black dragon to breathe on the sea around the warship, and the other party did so almost immediately.
The flames entangled with a dark curse swept across the calm sea surface, and a hissing and boiling sound was heard. Almost in an instant, the imperial warship was shrouded in a layer of misty fog .
Seeing this, William immediately ordered the black dragon to turn around and spit flames onto the warship. However, just as the flames were about to touch the hull, it stopped.
What the hell?
William looked up at the woman on the other ship again.
At this moment, the woman seemed to have recovered her breath. She slowly walked to the side string, still holding high the bronze metal plate in her hand.
A metal plate with the holy emblem of the dragon sword symbol.
Looking at it this way, the thing in her hand really looks like a pair with the Holy Spirit Iron Plate that she uses as a response terminal.
The horn holy emblem of Holy Spirit Cain and the dragon sword holy emblem of Holy Spirit Terra, the Eighth Order calls them the two sides of the Eighth Holy Spirit.
Thinking of this, William tried to order the black dragon to breathe fire onto the Whalebone.
I cannot attack my own master.
The same will appeared in my mind.
Hiss...could this be the reason?
Thinking of a possibility, William took out an unused iron plate from his pocket and threw it into the sea. Then he used long-range spellcasting to summon a tidal spirit in the sea, causing it to sweep the iron plate several hundred meters away. He then continued to order the black dragon to spit flames at the sea.
The black dragon still refused his order.
And using the same reason.
I see……
William suddenly realized.
In the game, any summoned unit - whether it is summoned by summoning spells, undead spells, or illusion spells - any summoned creature will not attack its summoner.
That is to say, for these summoned creatures, their real masters are those holy emblems.
At this moment, William's real body, who was far away near the Serpent's Trace, took out a response terminal from the storage space and threw it on the ground, then used it as a medium to summon a most basic [Wolf Spirit].
"Attack me."
William said to the blue translucent giant wolf in front of him.
Upon hearing the order, the wolf spirit pounced at William without hesitation, and its razor-sharp teeth went straight for William's throat.
“Pah.”
Just as it was about to pounce on William, William snapped his fingers with a gloomy face.
He instantly lifted the summoning spell of [Wolf Spirit], and the giant ghost wolf turned into countless faint blue light spots and dissipated in the air in the blink of an eye.
The masters of those creatures summoned by the holy emblem are not William Kane himself.
William didn't believe that this was just a characteristic of summoning type spells.
In other words, when I cast a spell with the holy emblem of the Eighth Holy Spirit, even though I am the one providing the magic power and am also responsible for weaving the spell, the actual subject of the cast is the illusory "Eighth Holy Spirit"?
In this case, whether the power of the Eighth Holy Spirit is reliable or not for him is a big question mark.
At the very least, the Dragon Sword Holy Emblem in the opponent's hand can also play a role. This is the first time that it has been truly proved that there are more than one person who possesses the authority of the Eighth Holy Spirit.
It seems that we still need to take a long-term view on the development of the power of the Holy Spirit...
William thought.
Indeed, William has deeply experienced how powerful the complete power of the Holy Spirit is in the ending of the waning moon.
The Waning Moon Ending is also known as the Gundam Ending among players. In that ending, after determining that there is no hope of closing the Moon Rift, the protagonist chooses to gather the faith of the Seven Holy Spirits to build an incarnation of the Holy Spirit to fight against the real body of the Void King.
The King of Dead Blood, the Demon of Ruins, the King of Mad Power.
These three symbolize war, destruction, and domination respectively. After entering the human world, the Void Kings, who have the strongest intuitive combat power, were beaten like dogs by the protagonist who was driving the incarnation of the power of the Seven Holy Spirits. In the end, other Void Kings came to the rescue and allowed the three of them to crawl back to the Moon Realm.
Although this plot is only played after the decision is made, and the health bar of the Void Kings cannot be seen, according to the post-episode of this ending, the three Void Kings have suffered injuries that cannot be healed in their lifetime. William estimated that if they stayed in the world for a few more minutes, they would probably be killed by the incarnation of the Holy Spirit.
But the problem is, the cost.
In order to prevent himself from becoming a new disaster after using this power that mortals cannot control, the protagonist in the Eclipse ending constantly burns his soul in battle. After the battle, the protagonist also becomes a vegetable with no response to the outside world because his soul is burned out.
All I can say is that this is a reasonable means of mutual destruction.
And now, I finally have a power that seems to be safe to use, but it turns out that it is still not that reliable, which is like pouring a bucket of cold water on myself.
William thought of this and immediately controlled the mirror image on the Whalebone, picked up the response terminal hanging on his chest, and tried to break it. However, the moment he was about to do this, the fingertips of the mirror image lost their power.
"Don't pray yet. Take this opportunity to summon a strong wind to get rid of the enemy's pursuit. It seems that fog is about to form around us."
Captain Hobbs patted William's shoulder fiercely.
From his point of view, William had just stood there with his eyes closed and remained silent, and then he picked up the iron plate in front of his chest and silently brewed his emotions. No matter how you looked at him, he looked like he was praying.
When William heard this, he opened his mouth slightly, intending to explain something, but after hesitating for a long time, he finally closed his mouth.
However, before he could take the next step, the strange phenomenon reappeared.
Just as Captain Hobbs had said, fog began to gather around.
I don't know when it started, but a fog began to spread over the entire ocean.
William thought that the mist caused by the flames he had caused the black dragon to spit out had dispersed, so he didn't pay much attention to it. But within a minute or two, a thick layer of mist filled the entire sea surface.
It was as if the surrounding sea water was steaming, and the fog surrounding the ship became thicker and thicker. After a few breaths, even with the [Eagle Eye Technique], William could not see the outline of the imperial battleship not far away.
William ordered the black dragon to spit fire into the sky to indicate its position, and then a very faint column of fire illuminated the distant location - the flame looked as faint as a candle swaying in a storm from the Whalebone.
"That's not right... Normally, there would be such heavy fog only when we are close to Ava Continent. But we still have another four or five days to go."
Captain Hobbs on the side muttered to himself in confusion.
William has never been to Ava. After all, the map of Ava is not open in the game. It is said that there was a DLC plan, but it was later cut due to lack of budget.
However, William was not completely unfamiliar with Ava. In addition to reading many books introducing the customs and people of Ava, he also often heard his companion, Remedios, who was known as the "Ranger", talk about her hometown more than once.
Ava, also known as the Land of Mist.
It is said that whenever a foreign ship is about to enter the range of Ava, fog will appear around the foreigner. If the foreigner is a friend, the fog will automatically dissipate, but if it is an enemy, the terrifying existence in the fog will swallow them up.
William had never seen or heard any specific description of what the terrifying existence in the fog was, but now he felt that it must be a very powerful existence.
Because a few seconds ago, he felt that the black dragon he had conjured up disappeared.
