Chapter 385 – Metamorphosis

Chapter 385 Metamorphosis
Anomaly 077, ranked in the top 100, has caused double-digit number of ships and thousands of sailors to die in the storm, possessing the characteristics of spirit and “living things”, no matter in which city-state is worth the local church’s caution of dangerous anomalies – just like this in front of Lawrence He chose to close his eyes and play dead, refusing to utilize his power.

Lawrence had envisioned countless possibilities after the activation of Anomaly 077, and had conceived several scenarios for the resealing of the Sailor, but he had never imagined that this would happen!

The veteran captain looked up and stared at his first officer, both of them thinking that the condition of the dryad was different from what had been documented, and wondering what was wrong – but their dismay was soon interrupted by the roar of the water column and the sound of the White Oak’s self-defense cannons opening fire from the nearby sea.

Now was not the time to lose their heads, the “Petrel” was on the verge of catching up with them!
The “Sailor” with the ability to teleport from ship to ship was the only hope for the White Oak to get out of danger, as they couldn’t fight or run away.

Lawrence lowered his head and stared at the dry body that was pretending to be dead with its eyes closed tightly – no matter what was wrong with this thing, he had to find a way to make it cooperate and lose control!

“Wake up!” Lawrence reached out and grabbed Anomaly 077’s collar with all his might and shook it – being in such close contact with a dryad was undoubtedly a turn-off, but he couldn’t have cared less at this point, “I know you’re out of the seal, so listen, you’re at the helm of this ship! –‘Sailor’, don’t you have the instinct to control the ship? Don’t you have an active tendency to lose control? Do it! Take over the ship and get us out of here!”

The dryad lying on the ground was shaken with a strange clicking sound of joints rubbing together, but still kept his eyes tightly closed, yet the obvious rise and fall of that chest couldn’t be hidden from anyone’s sight, and at the same time, the explosions that kept ringing out around the White Oak made Lawrence more and more annoyed, and he finally couldn’t help but to reach out and slap the dryad, “I know you’re awake! ”

The corpse on the ground finally couldn’t lie still, and opened its eyes in a series of shaking, but its first reaction was to dodge to the side, trying to avoid Lawrence’s line of sight while yelling: “Stop it! Stop it! I’ll go back to sleep, can’t I go back to sleep? You can’t joke about this! You can’t touch this boat, you can’t touch it!”

Lawrence didn’t care about that. He saw the dry body open his eyes and immediately dragged it to stand up, even dragged and pulled it in the direction of the bridge, next to a few seamen at this time also have reacted, there are bold quickly stepped forward to help, a few people almost hard to press the “sailor” that shriveled up the body pressed it in front of the steering wheel, the first officer in the side of the roar: The first officer yelled: “Press it against the wheel! It’ll take effect the fastest!”

However, the Anomaly 077 continued to scream and struggle fiercely, “Let me go! Let me go!

“You can’t! Help, help!
“What kind of people are all of you nah …… do me a favor, do me a favor!”

“Just touch the rudder wheel!” Lawrence yelled as he pressed the dryad towards the rudder with all his strength, “It’ll be over soon!”

“I don’t! Help!” Anomaly 077 resisted with so much force that several of the big-bodied white oak crew members couldn’t even hold its arms down, struggling frantically as it tried to turn its head to look in the direction it had just been lying, “Let me go back! Do me a favor–put that rope around my neck, just a little, and I’ll go to sleep, and I’ll never get up again! Or else ye’ll give me the rope, and I’ll hang myself …… Don’t let me touch this!”

The bridge is in chaos, this scene is simply bizarre to the extreme – in the boundless sea many captains and sailors have a fierce reputation among the anomaly 077 struggling to beg for forgiveness like a tied to the ship’s victim, but on the contrary, the desperate white oak crew members of the ferocious and viciously pressed the “anomaly” arm to the rudder. “This is a scene that even those insane people in the asylum who have zero sanity can’t even imagine in their wildest visions, but now it’s really happening on the White Oak.

Lawrence, however, no longer had much time to reflect on the wrongness of what was happening, all he knew was that the Sea Petrel was getting closer and closer, and that the accuracy of her guns was rapidly increasing, that the White Oak’s sides had been hit continuously, that the stern was on fire, and that if the next shell struck the machinery compartment, or the ammunition magazine, or even the bridge, it would be all over!

And just as he was thinking this, a mournful whistling sound suddenly reached his ears, and listening to the direction in which that whistling sound was falling, Lawrence’s mind suddenly went blank.

Oops.

In the next second, an earth shattering explosion swept the upper deck, a huge fireball rose and burst against the bridge, the Haiyan s gunfire hit the side of the White Oak s bridge, and the blow …… was fatal.

Waves of air roared in, metal and glass were torn to shreds by the power of the shells, scattering across the structure of the walls into deadly rags, and Lawrence’s vision lit up with a blinding blaze of fire before he saw his first mate fly, his body instantly engulfed in a wave of fire that surged up alongside him, followed by the rest of the sailors on the bridge, and then himself.

The flames engulfed everything, Lawrence saw the fireball expand and engulf the entire bridge, saw his own body gradually burn up in the flames, time seemed to slow down, he clearly watched it all happen, even watched the flames spreading inch by inch in the air and tinting it a little bit with a layer of eerie ethereal green – ethereal green?
Lawrence’s mind was suddenly confused, he barely had time to realize what was happening before he saw the crimson fireball that had surged into the bridge instantly turn into a sea of ghostly green fire, the sea of fire formed by the spirit flames licking up everything as far as the eye could see, metal, wood, glass, leather……

The things burned by the flames all appeared translucent as if they were spirit bodies, and those crew members who were swallowed by the fireball also fell to the ground one by one, they were wrapped in the spirit body flames, and their flesh and bones were as crystalline as chalcedony, and then one by one, they climbed up as if they were nothing and looked at each other in dismay.

This scene …… is exactly the same as the first encounter with the Lost Country ship.

It was as if the horrific scene that happened on the White Oak that day had repeated itself.

A feeling of solid ground came to him, and Lawrence snapped out of his trance to see that he had somehow stood in front of the bridge and was burning with the same blazing spiritual flames – he subconsciously grasped forward, and his hand was gripping on the rudder wheel. In an instant, he felt it–

He felt everything about the White Oak, from a screw, to a window, to a rope, all reflected clearly in his mind as if it were his own body.

In all the years he had lived with the ship, he had never been as closely connected to it as he was today.

Along with this feeling, there was also an exceptionally strong idea, as if a voice filled with endless majesty was announcing his fate–

Now that you are a member of the Lost Country Fleet, go and do your duty to Captain Duncan.

Lawrence blankly gripped the wheel, feeling the White Oak rotate deftly in his own thoughts, and pointed the bow a little bit to the distant “enemy ship” that was rapidly approaching.

Anomaly 077 is still there, this dry body almost curled up into a ball next to the bridge, while shivering and watching the surrounding spiritual flames rise, while wailing: “I said I do not touch, you have to let me touch it, I dare to touch it I, sailors tampering with the right to be tied up with a cannonball and thrown into the sea! I know the rules of the ship! I’m a sailor!”

Lawrence slowly looked down at the “sailor”, in fact, he is still in a deep daze, do not understand what happened, but his gaze but let the abnormal 077 instantly quiet.

The dry body closed his mouth, carefully got up, and looked around – the bridge, which had just been torn apart by the shelling, was recovering quickly from the burning of the spiritual flames, and all the crew members were standing at their posts, looking like ghosts, but their instincts and only remaining sense of rationality made them return to their posts in the first place, waiting for the captain’s next order. Waiting for the captain’s next order.

“Captain ……” Anomaly 077 turned his head and looked Lawrence in the eye, “What do you want to do next …… “

Lawrence looked blank for a moment again, then slowly lowered his head as if sensing something.

“The Lost Country Fleet is under attack …… return fire.”

“Return fire!” Anomaly 077 immediately shouted, “Return fire!”

“Return fire!” First Officer Gus’s voice also sounded from the sidelines, his body covered in flames rising, the crackling and popping of flames in his voice, “Captain’s orders, return fire!”

“Return fire!”

On the bridge, the crew roared, and in every corner of the White Oak, every ghostly crew member “heard” the captain’s order at the same time, and the ship that had been transformed in flames immediately sprang into action – its steam core! The ship’s steam core immediately sprang into action – all of the guns began to turn, and a loud, hissing whistle rang out across the sea!

The ship beneath his feet began to accelerate in the direction of the Sea Petrel, and almost at the same time Lawrence caught sight of another shadow beside the White Oak – it was another ship, one that was almost only a pitch-black silhouette, shrouded in thick fog and smoke.

Its silhouette was vaguely similar to that of the White Oak, as if it were a sister ship of the same type.

The black shadowed ship and the White Oak accelerated side by side, simultaneously launching an attack in the direction of the Haiyan.

Through the rising spiritual flames, Lawrence looked at that phantom-like warship that suddenly appeared on the sea next to him in dismay, and after an unknown amount of time, he murmured its name as if he was in a dream state-

“The Black Oak …… Martha?”

(End of chapter)