Chapter 985: Ghost Ship (Part 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!

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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!

“How was the Eye of the Storm created?” Saleen then asked.

“It is a product that was created by mashing up the souls of 360 powerful mages via divine spells. As for the specifics, I know next to nothing, as I never had access to the special techniques that the Tribunal used,” Nicholas answered.

“Wow… 360 mages!” Saleen was shocked when he heard that. He was rather angered as well. But, he quickly calmed down.

The Holy See had been around for almost a thousand years. When Tanggulasi established its empire, it had fought with Qin.

The great army of the Holy See had even reached all the way to the the foot of Holy Rock City. While the Holy See army was defeated in the end, then forced to retreat with clipped wings, it still managed to kill quite a large number of mages. They also had captured a great number of mages and threw them into the Black Dungeon.

The mages would have researched the holy masters if they were given a chance to. Likewise, the holy masters wanted to do the same with the mages. What was different, however, was that the research that the mages wanted to perform with the holy masters regarded the knowledge they possessed, while the holy masters would have seen the mages as being precious materials themselves.

A mage’s mental powers, soul, and magic chords were all of use to holy masters. While holy masters were incapable of using elemental magic, they were capable of using a mage’s equipment, even making that equipment into holy equipment.

An example of this is the soul bead. A level one mage’s soul was worth hundreds of common folks’ souls. If it had not been for the codex of the Holy See having forbade such research, the bloody conflict between both sides would have kept escalating until one of them was completely obliterated.

While the Tribunal had been cocky before, now, such experiments were only carried out in secret, instead of waging a war across the entire mainland. It was not until the sacred war broke out that Pope Theisio made a compromise.

“What the Tribunal planned to do was to merge the souls of mages together, then extract wind element magic chords from their bodies. It would then craft the Eye of the Storm with the combined products. The Eye of the Storm is capable of seeing everything within its area of control with great clarity. That information is then shared with the ghost ship. At the same time, the Eye of the Storm is capable of creating a storm that can cover a large area. Its power equals that of having 360 sorcerers cast a large wind spell!” Nicholas explained.

“This sounds impossible!” Saleen could not help but interrupt Nicholas. While the giant eye that was chasing them was powerful, it was impossible for it to be as powerful as having 360 sorcerers bundled together!

“Of course it is impossible! If the Tribunal had indeed been able to create something so terrifying, they would have razed Alchemy City. My liege, what I meant was that the Eye of the Storm had the endurance of 360 sorcerers in terms of combat capacity. If you had to deal with 360 sorcerers taking turns to have a go at you, would you be able to survive till the very end?” Nicholas asked, his voice growing increasingly loud as a thought came to him…

Both he and Saleen had never felt any danger when the Eye of the Storm had approached them in the past. This meant that thing was peculiar not just in the way that it fought, but also how it disabled its enemies from being able to tell how dreadful their situation was.

“There is no way that I can fight that long without a magic tower,” Saleen said plainly.

He was different from the others, as he brought his magic tower with him wherever he went. A magic tower was a mage’s most reliable piece of equipment.

However, the magic towers of conventional mages needed to be rooted to the ground and to borrow the power of the earth in order to stabilize its surrounding elements, which were what enabled them to cast powerful attacks. These towers also used magic arrays and the power of magic nuclei to create a very solid fortress for defense.

Nicholas continued, without caring what Saleen thought about his question, “The Eye of the Storm operated as if 360 sorcerers were taking turns to attack. Thus, it seemed like an endless deluge of attacks. Unless one is able to master higher rules, which prevent the Eye of the Storm from deriving elements from its surroundings…”

“Nicholas, I heard the Eye of the Storm crying for help. Did you hear it too?” Saleen cut Nicholas off with his sudden question.

Nicholas was startled, and after taking a moment, he answered, “No, I didn’t!”

“Nailisi, what about you?” Saleen then asked.

“I only heard some vague shouts from that monster, but I can’t make out what that thing was shouting about!” Nailisi was able to feel it due to her soul bond with Saleen.

“Help me!” the giant eye in the air called. Saleen was the only one out of all of the entire fleet’s occupants who heard it.

“If only Eleanor was here!” Nailisi stared at the eye and said fiercely. He said this because Eleanor was versed in archery, and her arrows came with rules of elements that would have definitely been useful for wounding the eye.

“Nicholas, tell me… What is that thing doing here? Did it run away from the Black Dungeon?” Saleen asked out of nowhere.

“That… Wouldn’t be possible, wouldn’t it?” Nicholas asked hesitantly. “I’ve never heard about anyone being capable of escaping that place!”

He then added, “That thing is not human, but rather a piece of equipment. It’s capable of talking, just like some high-level spirit. If it did run away from the Black Dungeon in such a hurry to cry for help… There is definitely someone from the Tribunal on its tail!”

As he thought of this, Nicholas felt his head getting itchy and he tensed up.