Chapter 339 – The Strange Sea
Chapter 339 – The Weird Sea
Kaolgeli, was a large city that had been established for less than a hundred years, but both the infrastructure and the population density had already far surpassed the current royal capital of the Kemah Duchy.
And there were so many things there that were so new and strange that they had never been heard of before, even Captain Harry’s airship was a rarity there.
But it’s very difficult to settle there, you have to go through a series of vetting and pay a large sum of money, even wizard apprentices are no exception.
The Baidon Academy is only free to full wizards and above in existence.
“What if it’s just a short stay?” Sol asked.
“Then you only need to pay this amount. It will need to be reviewed periodically though.” Bond compared a number to Saul.
Saul immediately gave up on the idea of going to Cauldron Force at the next stop.
In the middle of the conversation, the walls of the Blue Water Bay were close at hand, but Saul had yet to see any “blue water”, nor any black water.
“Isn’t Blue Water Bay near the sea?”
“Once it was, but after the great war a hundred years ago, the urban area of Blue Water Bay was moved away from the sea. The soul tides have become more frequent over the years, and even the villages that lived near the water bay had to all move away.”
Pound opened the wide window of the car and pointed out the direction to Sol, “If you want to go to the sea, just follow that road and travel further south.”
Listening to Pound’s introduction, Saul slowly frowned, “Since the seashore has been uninhabited for a long time, why are there still ships docked at the pier there?”
Pound’s face showed bitterness, “Because it’s cheap, my lord. But the ships willing to dock at Blue Water Bay have also become fewer and fewer over the past two years, and times have gotten tougher.”
Saul swept over Pound’s ten fingers, “Tough?”
“Haha,” Pound pulled at the corner of his mouth awkwardly, “I don’t do business in this area, I just come here occasionally to see my wife and children who live over here.”
Saul naturally didn’t care about Pound’s personal life, he left Pound behind mainly because he wanted to find out about the Soul Tide.
“How much do you know about Soul Tides?”
“A lot, my lord.”
Pound’s eyes lit up, he knew his chance to show off had come!
……
Saul didn’t end up going into the urban area of Bluewater Bay. He asked Pound for a horse and turned noiselessly halfway up the path to that bay.
Although the rich merchant Pound regretted not being able to invite Saul to sit in his house, he was more relieved that Saul had left.
He instructed his men to hurry, wanting to return home as soon as possible, but just as the carriage picked up speed, he saw a group of nobles waiting outside the entrance to the city gates.
“Your Lordship!” Outside the carriage window, the slightly older attendant shivered lightly, “Viscount Ailaf, Lady Shetterly, Mr. Audu invites you to come over and sit down for a moment.”
Pound froze for a moment, then let out a long breath.
On the other hand, the sky was already clouded with gray when Saul arrived at the beach.
Thick clouds came into view almost instantly. The shore was still clear, but the sea was covered with dark clouds.
It was like a sharp blade that divided the sea and the land into two worlds, clearly separated.
Only the waves wrapped in white foam occasionally crossed the border. They are like a hand struggling for survival, trying hard to climb up to the shore, but eventually retreating in despair because of the indifference of the beach.
That was not entirely metaphorical just now. Saul squinted his eyes to see that between the rising and receding waves, occasional pairs of ghastly white arms appeared, their knuckles grimly clawing toward the shore, and were quickly dispersed by the waves.
“Something is indeed wrong with the waters here.”
The sea in his previous life was exhilarating to view, while the sea in front of him always vaguely gave people a palpitating feeling.
It was as if you weren’t looking at the sea from the shore, but rather a drowning person who would sink to the bottom of the sea forever at any moment.
The farthest place where the sea and sky meet is also distorted, pale gray and deep inky blue gradually merge together, but also swallow each other.
The skyline was not a straight line, but a distorted outline.
After only looking at this for a moment, Saul felt some agitation in his mental body, and he hung his head, no longer looking at the end of the sky, but only focusing on the immediate future.
“No wonder ordinary people would rather remove a city at great expense. If one really lived by the sea every day and looked at such a sight, 9 out of 10 would go crazy.” At this moment, he was standing on a cliff some distance away from the seawater, and was about to fly to the bottom of the cliff to get a closer look at the seawater, when he heard other sounds mixed in with the waves.
It was the sound of the soles of shoes rubbing against gravel shells, and the sound of traveling against the waves.
Saul tried to look around and finally saw a dozen or so people at the bottom of the cliff, on a flat patch of sand.
The group consisted of men and women, old and young. Each of them had a thick hemp rope tied around their waist, which was tied remotely to a larger rock on the shore.
Their eyes were blindfolded with black scarves, and their feet stepped on the wet sand and sometimes on knee-deep seawater.
After a step or two they would stop and put their hands in the water or sand to feel around.
Each time they bent over they looked tense, their knees slightly bent and tense, ready to snap. It was as if they weren’t bending, but preparing to jump.
“Are these people …… catching the sea?”
Using his flight technique, Saul wordlessly jumped off the cliff and then landed a hundred meters away from those people.
He took a few steps in the direction of the sea water and looked down at the beach where it was plowed by the waves, and didn’t find anything.
“There are very few shells and seaweed here. But there are no signs of people walking. That means it wasn’t dredged up by people driving the sea. Rather, this off-the-beaten-path place was already lacking in flora and fauna.”
At this time, the small algae suddenly took the initiative to drill out from the back of Sol’s neck, looking left and right like a nimble little snake.
“What did you find again?”
Little Algae immediately twisted its head in the direction of the waves.
“Is it the scent of death?” Thor thought to himself, taking two more steps towards the sea water.
Suddenly he heard a terrified shout from the side of the crowd.
Immediately he turned his head to look, and realized that one of the men jerked straight up, then without saying a word twisted his head and ran in the direction of the rope.
He didn’t stop until he was out of reach of the waves. It was obviously only a few steps, but he was so tired that he was bent over and panting.
Obviously, he was terrified.
Though Thor didn’t turn his head to look over until after the other man shouted, his sharp reflexes and excellent eyes allowed him to see what had frightened the man.
It was a pair of ghastly white hands, hidden in equally ghastly white waves.
Those hands materialized in a flash and instantly gripped the man’s wrist that was fumbling in the seawater.
That was why the man fled to shore in terror.
After the man fled, the others all stopped moving and straightened up. They turned their black-scarfed heads in the direction of the man, also very nervous. But after a few breaths, no one followed the man to the shore.
They seemed to be hesitating, hesitating, in dismay.
After another minute of silence, the first man continued to bend over and feel for something in the sand, then the second, the third ……
Everyone’s face was numb, even the little children.
And the man who had been frightened away, after resting on his knees on the shore for a while, actually re-stretched the rope, and after making sure that it was tied solidly to the rock, headed back out to sea.
“There should be something in the sea that can be taken and sold for money.” Saul simply walked over towards where those people were, ready to ask directly.
Just at this moment, a change occurred again.
A boy suddenly slipped and fell into the water. He struggled to get up, but somehow managed to crawl two steps towards the deep water.
After being choked by the waves, he panicked and tugged at the rope around his waist, trying to determine the direction of the shore.
But when he stretched the rope and climbed two more steps in its direction, he realized that the water was even deeper.
A look of horror appeared on the part of his face not covered by the black scarf, obviously not knowing why this was happening.
(End of chapter)