Chapter 710 The Holy Land Island

Chapter 710 – Holy Land Island

On the deck of the Lost Country ship, Vanna quickly came to Duncan, “The Tidal Wave ship sent a contact, there were also a large number of ‘humanoids’ drifting to their side and collided with the ship, after the collision the ‘humanoids’ hovered and floated in the their vicinity, as if pulled by invisible currents ……”

“Commander Orlando of the Shall Not Rest also sent a contact,” Agatha’s figure also emerged from the shadows beside Duncan, “Their ship is surrounded by floating humanoids …… There are also things gathering underwater, hitting the bottom of the ship’s shell, and the crashing could be heard from almost the entire deck of the ship ……”

She paused for a moment, as if she heard another sound coming from the distance, and then added immediately, “Commander Polegini of the Sabbath said she heard whispers near the machinery bay that could have come from underwater – a voice that spoke in her head:
“‘You will become them, just like us.'”

Listening to this intel coming from several other main ships in the Combine, Duncan’s brow furrows slightly, and he takes particular note of the message coming from the Sabbath, “It’s mental contamination?”

“Can’t say for sure yet, Bishop Polyginni is in the church having her mind calibrated, and as far as I can tell, she may actually be hearing some sort of ‘echo’ that’s hovering over these waters.”

“Any reports of ship damage?” Duncan asked again immediately after a moment’s thought.

“None at this time,” Vanna shook her head and spoke up, “All of the impacts are just from those ‘humanoids’ hitting the hulls with the waves, and pose no physical threat to the ironclads. …… However, some ships have reported that their steam organs and differentials are making abnormal noises, and appear to be mildly contaminated. However, overall the level of contamination remained low and all recovered after performing the pacification ritual.”

Duncan nodded with a serious expression and didn’t say anything for a while, just looked out to sea in the distance.

Those black human figures like dead wood in the sea were still drifting from the direction of the misty “six nautical mile boundary line”, like countless drowned corpses entering the range of the United Fleet, seemingly lifeless, but as if driven by an invisible force drifting towards every ship here, continuously hitting the hull and knocking the bottom of the ship.

These disturbing sounds are creating mental pressure on every ship.

But for the church elites who had undergone rigorous training, this level of mental pressure shouldn’t be a problem – so Duncan wasn’t too worried.

After a brief moment of thought, he ordered the entire fleet to move forward slowly once again.

“We’re already very close to the six nautical mile border,” Lucrecia couldn’t help but remind her father from the sidelines, “Do we still need to continue forward? In border waters, conventional means of navigation are no longer as accurate, and we need to leave some margin of safety …… or we’ll accidentally cross the border.”

“We won’t ‘cross the border’,” Duncan glanced at Lucrecia while part of his attention was focused on sensing the entire ship, “Don’t worry, Lucy, I have one of the world’s most accurate ‘chart’ that will mark the Lost Country’s position and distance traveled on the infinite sea in real time, and if I still don’t see the ‘Holy Land’ at six nautical miles, I’ll stop.”

Lucrecia opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something else, but after noticing Duncan’s confident and gentle smile, she swallowed back what she wanted to say.

Duncan, on the other hand, kept a part of his “eyes” on the captain’s cabin.

He could clearly “see” that the “chart” on the captain’s desk was “running” as usual, and slowly changing as the Lost Country sailed.

The fog on the chart is slowly dispersing, the trajectory of the Lost Country is clearly reflected on the edge of the chart – the ship is sailing very slowly, and what is presented on the chart is a tiny displacement that is difficult to notice with the naked eye, but for Duncan who can precisely control the state of the entire ship, even if it is a change that is not noticeable by the naked eye on the chart, he can’t escape from his perception. His perception.

In the sea around the Lost Country, there were still more humanoids drifting from afar, and the number seemed to be a little more.

Suddenly, Duncan sensed that something seemed to appear at the edge of the chart.

In the mist, an unrecorded “waypoint” appeared on the parchment scroll.

The moment he sensed the change on the chart, he looked up in the direction of the bow of the Lost Country.

In the depths of the mist, a blurred silhouette of land was gradually emerging.

It was right on the six nautical mile borderline!

“It’s land!” Nina thumped up to the high platform at the stern of the ship, shouting happily while staring wide-eyed at the shadow that was continuously clearing up in the mists, “Land is appearing!”

Yes, land had appeared, and the land that had appeared in this direction was undoubtedly the target of the combined fleet this time – the lair that those Annihilationists called the “holy land”.

Soon, the several church ships following behind the Lost Country also observed the outline of the land, and after realizing that the “holy land” was located at the six nautical mile threshold, all of them instantly tightened their nerves.

At the stern of each church ship, a large white vapor was released above the onboard church, the sacred oil was then injected into the sacred fire bowl, the sailors recited the names of their respective gods while running to the various gun positions, the priests in burkas came to the decks, began to pour holy water on the guns, lit incense, and blessed the cannonballs with prayers.

At the same time, there was still a constant flow of dark humanoid objects coming from the sea in the direction of the “Holy Land”, and still from time to time floating objects crashed into the hulls of the ships, with a disturbing “thud” that never ceased to beat on the bottom of each ship as if it were beating on the hearts of all the people! The sound never stopped, hitting the bottom of every ship, as if it were hitting everyone’s heart.

With a flurry of colored paper, Lucrecia reached the lookout on top of the mast, and through the fog of poor visibility, she observed the “island” appearing in the distance, and after a while she returned to the deck, back to Duncan’s side.

“There are some lights visible on the island, but no signs of activity – an air of death lingers over the area, and something feels off to me.”

Listening to Lucrecia’s report, Duncan only nodded slightly before waving to the side. Immediately, a fat white pigeon flew down from a nearby mast, and smashed onto Duncan’s shoulder with a “thud”.

Duncan turned his head with a somewhat subtle expression and glanced at the pigeon on his shoulder, “…… You should consider losing weight.”

Aey cocked his head and immediately emphasized his position loudly, “V me 50! v me 50!”

“…… Forget I said that.” Duncan sighed, ignoring the pigeon’s raucousness, and directly ordered it mentally.

In the next second, Ai’s body suddenly burned with a blazing flame, transforming into a skeletonized bone pigeon that flew straight up into the sky.

The bone pigeon wrapped in flames swept through the mist like a meteor flying backwards, approaching the shadowed black island from a high place.

Duncan, who remained on the deck of the Lost Country, narrowed his eyes slightly.

Through the vision shared by the flames, a somewhat abstract and distorted, but vaguely recognizable and detailed overhead view began to emerge in his mind.

Aye was rapidly approaching the shores of that island – from the vision that came back to him, Duncan saw the latter’s hideous, jagged edges that looked as if they had been torn apart by something, as well as a narrow, hidden, secret harbor that would be difficult to spot without looking at it from the air, and vaguely discernible in the direction of the island’s interior even closer inland Roads and some tall and short buildings, and many more strange and sharp, as if stalagmite-like things are distributed on the island, the scale seems to be very large, but what exactly it is can not be discerned.

As Lucrecia had reported, there were no signs of activity on the island.

A huge combined fleet, a flaming lighthouse blazing in a thick fog, a huge monstrous bird wrapped in flames that swept over the harbor from close range – if all of these combined couldn’t make the Annihilationists entrenched on the island react, then there was only one possibility.

“There seems to be no one on the island – at least no living souls in sight.”

Duncan turned to Lucrecia beside him as he maintained his visual sharing with Aye.

The men on deck looked at each other.

“There’s no one alive on the island ……,” Vanna’s eyes widened slightly as she craned her head in the direction of the island, “Did they all run away? Or dead? Or ……”

She suddenly stopped, her eyes swept across the deck with a strange look, and finally landed on the “humanoid billet” that was still lying quietly on the deck, being guarded by the mannequin Luni.

“…… Notify the people of the Deep Sea and the Church of Death that we need to get closer to that island, all of you follow – don’t fall behind in the mist.”

At Duncan’s command, the entire fleet began to slowly approach the jagged and strange black island that gave off a disturbing aura.

The island was becoming clearer in the distance, and taking on more and more of its defiantly detailed features as the distance continued to shorten.

“Its edges look like a fragment torn from some vast whole,” Duncan said, describing to the others what they saw from Aye’s perspective, “We’re approaching its western shore, which is littered with clustered rock formations, but between the crags, there’s a hidden waterway that leads to an inner harbor – the terrain there looks gentle.”

“You can get a ship the size of the Lost Country in there?” Nina asked curiously from the sidelines.

“It should be possible, but I don’t intend to just sail in – and neither do any of the other ships,” Duncan said as he pondered, “It’s still unclear what’s underneath the island, and the idea is to have the fleet at that ‘isthmus’ and then organize a group of men to board the island in small boats, and then send more men ashore after we get a general feel for the landing site.”

The others nodded.

And just then, Duncan seemed to sense something and suddenly raised his head to look ahead.

He saw that the ship, which had been used as a “torch of spiritual fire” along the way, and which had been captured from the cultists, was slowly accelerating.

It was gaining speed, as if it had suddenly broken free, and was heading straight for the “Holy Land Island” without Duncan’s orders.

It seemed to have lost its weight and was as light as the wind.

Almost in the blink of an eye, it had already crossed the misty sea and arrived at the edge of the island in front of the cliff with countless boulders standing in a hideous forest.

Then without hesitation, it crashed into it.

(End of Chapter)