Chapter 209: An exchange of words after a hundred years’ absence
Chapter 209 – An exchange of words after a hundred years of separation
In the vast boundless sea, two warships each carrying a curse were running straight towards each other, and around these two large ships, the ocean had been stirred by an invisible force and was restless, and even the heavens within a certain range had changed.
The cold mist around the Sea Mist ship spread, large and small ice floes began to appear out of nowhere on the sea surface, and even formed a cluster of ice floes covering several nautical miles, turning back and forth like a whirlpool, and the sea, which was originally quite calm, was now undulating, with a burst of strong waves surging upwards, mixed with chaotic cold winds in the middle, while the Lost Country ship was wrapped in layers of ghostly green flames, and ran through all the extremes with the power of a rainbow! celestial phenomena, rushing straight towards the steel warship in the center of the ice floes.
The Sea Mist was accelerating as well, all its engines hissing like dying wails, the rudder adjusting its angle unmanned, and the ship’s church whistles sounding for a moment, a sacred sound that at the moment was like a death knell – immortal sailors stood on the decks, in the gun emplacements, and behind one porthole after another, staring down at their feet! The battleship rushed forward towards the burning ghost ship, and Tirian on the bridge could even now dimly see the figure on the towering stern of the Lost Country.
He saw the tall man with the tiller in his hand, standing like a reef in a storm, watching himself with a cold gaze.
It was so similar to what he remembered.
Then the two ships collided without incident.
The expected devastating impact and disintegration did not come.
In the next minute, the crew of the Sea Mist had the privilege of experiencing the same frightening and bizarre “spectacle” as the White Oak – the burning ghost ship crushed over like a mountain, and then the ghostly flames rose up, and in the flames, the boundaries of everything became blurred, the Sea Mist became a spirit, and the crew also became a spirit. In the flames, the boundaries of all things became blurred, the Sea Mist became a spirit, the crew also became a spirit, this scene, as if a phantom into another phantom.
First Mate Aiden stared in horror as he saw the bowsprit and masts of the Lost Country coming at him head-on, followed by the fall of the ship as it staggered past him, and he briefly intruded into one of the Lost Country’s compartments, seeing the ancient risers and burning tiki lamps almost graze his ears as they whizzed by – and, finally, he saw the stern of the Lost Country the towering deck, and the tall figure standing behind the wheel of the helm.
Tirion subconsciously took a half-step back, but in the next instant he was puffing out his chest again, as if a certain teaching of his father’s from his childhood were still ringing in his ears –
“Don’t step back, don’t bow to the wind and waves!”
So he braced his head and faced the wind and waves in front of him-his father who had been taken away by subspace and returned to earth.
Then they came face to face at an extremely close distance, the stern structure of the Lost Country breaking right into the bridge, where Duncan stood only a few steps away from the captain’s chair of the Sea Mist.
For a moment, it was as if the entire world fell silent.
A majestic, low voice reached everyone’s ears, “I’m busy.”
Tirion’s eyes widened in shock and snapped to the direction from which the voice came.
However, this temporary encounter was already over, the two phantoms sailing at full speed only overlapped for an extremely brief moment, and the illusory hull of the Lost Country swept past the Sea Mist’s surroundings like a gust of wind, and by the time Tirian reacted again, he realized that he and his own crew had already reverted back to a solid state.
He jogged to the overlook window in the other direction, and saw that the Lost Country was sailing at full speed in the direction of Prand – leaving the Sea Mist far behind.
The steel battleship came to a little bit of a halt in the sea, the invisible force that had drummed the ship subsided and now it was once again back at the helm, the severely damaged engine systems had finally managed to shut down thanks to the efforts of the sailors, but trying to start it up again didn’t look to be a simple task.
“…… What just happened?” Aiden scratched his bare head, the strong first mate was stunned, “That ship …… just left? Wasn’t it going to be a showdown?”
The sailor captain spoke with a palpitated heart, “…… It seemed like it didn’t mean to fight us to the death from the beginning, it didn’t even slow down much, it just came over and ran us over ……”
“It’s too scary, I even felt my heart beating again just now ……”
The commotion of the crew members reached Tirian’s ears, but he was not in the mood to listen to it at all, his mind at the moment was just echoing over and over again the short sentence he had just uttered-
“I’m busy.”
Those were his father’s words – nothing emotional, not at all a “greeting” of family meeting, even cold as if he was facing a stranger, but it was indeed a clear and sensible sentence that human beings could understand.
It was a clear, rational sentence that could be understood by humans, and not a frenzied hiss that belonged exclusively to subspace.
“Captain,” First Mate Aiden came over from the side, looking somewhat uneasily at Tirion, who was falling into silence, “What …… do we do next?”
Tirian snapped out of his thoughts and looked up, “Can the ship still move?”
“Not really, the engines are out right now, it’ll be a while before they can be repaired, and quite a few of the men were injured in the earlier engagement …… pretty badly, shattered all over the place kind of injuries that would take half a day to shovel,” Aiden shook his head, his clanking brain glowing, “But the most incredible thing is that the ship is still moving,” Tirian said. “But the most incredible thing is that those who suffered a direct hit from the Lost Country’s artillery were all fine instead, the number one and three main guns completely disappeared, and the people in the turret fell intact into the hole ……”
“The people who were shocked by the aftershock were seriously injured, but the people who were directly hit by the fire were not killed instead?” Tirion confirmed in surprise, followed by a frown, “How could that be ……”
“Perhaps …… your father didn’t land a killing blow?” Aiden glanced at his captain and said cautiously, “Judging from the Lost Country’s barrage, it seems it was just trying to stop the Sea Mist ……” “That’s not ……” Tirian said subconsciously, but immediately afterward, he closed his mouth, and after a few seconds of silence, he gently shook his head, “Grab the ship and get it back under power, and at the same time send a message to Prender, saying that we have tried our best to intercept it, but the Lost Country ship is still heading towards the City State …… Let the vastly outnumbered City State Navy figure out the rest, we’ve already tried.”
Aiden immediately led the order to leave, but after a short while, he hurried back, “Captain! I can’t get in touch with Prand’s side!”
“Can’t get in touch?” Tirian’s brows furrowed, “Was the signaling environment interfered by the battle just now?”
“No, we’re still getting signals from the far-off patrol points, but not from Prand, all of them,” Aiden said quickly, an expression of confusion on his face, “It’s as if the whole of Prand has disappeared from the radio . . at this distance that’s simply impossible. And not only are the telegraphs unreachable, but even the psychic calls from the church are not responding!”
“No response to the psychic call either?!” This time, the expression on Tirian’s face changed significantly, and at the same time, he associated it with the Lost Country’s unusual behavior of rushing towards Prand at full speed at all costs, and a strong uneasiness finally surfaced in his mind, “When did the communication break down? Is someone monitoring the telegraph station?”
“The last call was yesterday, we had a routine briefing with the Port Authority of Prand, and all was well with communications then,” Aiden recalled, speaking quickly, “Captain, what do we do? Do we still have to return?”
At this point he paused, his expression somewhat hesitant, “This …… thing has gone a bit beyond the initial plan.”
Tirion tightened his face and didn’t speak for several seconds before finally exhaling deeply.
“We’re going to Prand – we’ll move once the Sea Mist is recovered.”
Aiden was a bit surprised, but after a brief moment of surprise, the loyal first mate still immediately puffed out his chest, “Aye, Captain!”
……
The surrounding turbulent sea surface gradually regained its calmness, leaving only the sound of waves to reach the ears.
The deafening roar of the artillery still seemed to echo in his mind, causing Duncan to subconsciously scratch his ears – he was obviously still not too comfortable with the sudden encounter just now.
Goathead’s voice reached his ears, “Just now you were pensively accelerating towards the Sea Mist, I thought you wanted to go and have a word with Tirian, after all …… this is sort of a meaningful ‘reunion’. ”
“I did think that at first,” Duncan returned casually, “I just suddenly changed my mind.”
“Why?”
“I suddenly realized I didn’t know what to say after we met,” Duncan said matter-of-factly, speaking less cautiously than he had at first, after a sort of “showdown” with Goathead. After a sort of “showdown” with Goathead, he wasn’t as careful as he had been at the beginning, “After all, I don’t know you very well.”
“…… Well, if you say so,” Goathead was fine with it, “but you’d better think about how to get along with your pair of ‘children'”. Get along”, after all, everyone is quite capable of living, you’ll have to meet them sooner or later, good family relations are vital to destiny, think of one back in the day ……
“Shut up,” Duncan interrupted the other’s hair-splitting conversation with a light heartedness, followed by an odd expression on his face as if he had suddenly thought of something, “Speaking of which, it’s a shame that there’s someone missing from the ship this time.”
The goat head was a little hesitant, “One less person? You mean ……”
“Alice isn’t here, she’s over at the city-state to help look after the store,” Duncan’s tone was leisurely, even with a little bit of pleasantness, “I suddenly remembered just now, Tirion was under the Frost Queen’s command for a while back then, and Alice was wearing the Frost Queen’s face- -You know how much fun it would have been if Alice had been on the ship just now, I imagine Tirion could have pondered that for days when he got back ……”
Goathead: “……”
“Why don’t you say anything? Don’t you usually talk a lot?”
“I’m not at liberty to comment on your family matters ……” Goathead replied, “But after hearing you say that, I seem to think that this scene is quite something to look forward too… …Why don’t we go back again, and this time bring Ms. Alice with us ……”
Duncan, of course, ignored this whimsical proposal, he just suddenly said after two seconds of silence, “I didn’t see that you turned out to be a man of pleasure as well.”
“What’s a lezzie man?”
Duncan, however, did not answer the other party again, he just suddenly raised his head and looked in a certain direction of the distant sea.
Just a moment ago, he had clearly sensed his shell in the city-state of Prand on the Lost Country, and even sensed the flames spreading throughout that city-state.
Just as he had previously predicted, after the distance was close enough, the connection …… between the Lost Country ship and Prand was strengthened!
(End of chapter)