Silent Crown

by Feng Yue

  It was as if the sea was alive, reacting to the invasion of foreign bodies.

  This place had turned into something like the World of Dark, or even more powerful than that. Like the realm of some catastrophe, no other enchantment was allowed to exist.

  This was not good; it was very bad.

  In the School of Abstinence, which Ye Qingxuan was best at, more than half of his willpower was used on the path of domain. Now that the path of domain was rejected, it was like he had lost one of his legs.

  What’s more, a sea monster like the Mountain of Nomadism was in no way an ordinary creature. It was quite similar to the snake that twined around the whole world and was the ace of spades in the School of Dragon Stone in the School of Summoning. It was in no way weaker than the monsters created by the skillful musicians of the School of Summoning.

  Undoubtedly, the blood of Catastrophe flowed within it. It might be the sibling of some catastrophe or the incarnation of some catastrophe who was preparing to descend upon the world. Besides its monstrous strength, it definitely had some other horrible power. Even the beasts modified by the breath of monsters could spit fireballs.

  Passive defense would not work.

  Definitely not.

  In one moment, Ye Qingxuan made up his mind. If he only took the defense, he would run out of strength fighting against the lightless sea.

  He had to attack; drive it off or kill it!

  “Organists in position, sir!” Several seconds later, four men, who had just put on their clothes, ran onto the deck. One of them had thrown up many times due to seasick. He was pale.

  “Musicians?” Ye Qingxuan asked. “Can they really be of any help?” Pretty soon, he was relieved to see the shine of the musicians’ music theory.

  Four of them were Resonance musicians; two were from the School of Modifications, one from the School of Revelation, and one was even the Son of Phoenix from the School of Anglo Royalty.

  They not only had the skills of summoning but also those of modifications! They were really professionals.

  At this moment, the School of Modifications was so much more useful than Ye Qingxuan.

  539 Keel and Virtue

  The School of Modifications was now much more useful than Ye Qingxuan!

  Even three resonances was enough to repair the holes in the hull and temporarily strengthen the ship.

  As for the Son of the Phoenix, who had vomited so much that his face turned extremely pale, Ye Qingxuan dropped him on the bridge and let him direct from there. Out of those present, he understood the nature of the heaven catastrophes and beastliness the most. He would definitely find a better way to deal with the Mountain of Nomadism than Ye Qingxuan would.

  After the appearance of the Holy Grail, the Mountain of Nomadism changed his sloppiness and contempt. Dark green liquid poured from his pores, and dyed the vast sea. Then, the seawater began to evaporate, turned into a thick mist, and swallowed them.

  Soon after, Ye Qingxuan discovered that the metamorphosed seawater had an pervasive erosion effect apart from the violent poisonousness.

  The holy light of the outermost layer was darkened under the erosion of the dark green vapor.

  If the musicians of the School of Choir saw such a fierce poison, they would crazily delighted.

  Ye Qingxuan now also had a crazy impulse.

  Fortunately, Captain Igor didn’t disappoint him this time.

  “Cannonball!”

  Knowing that this time they would either die or win, Igor no longer panicked.

  The ferociousness that had accumulated for more than 30 years on the sea exploded, burning his eyes red like flames. “There’s a cannonball in my ship!”

  Ye Qingxuan was shocked. Cannonball?

  “Will that work?”

  “Most of the cannonballs on board are meant for hunting whales or driving away demons. Although the power is enormous, it could only be said to be passable in this situation.”

  “Maybe it can’t even shoot through the scales of the Mountain of Nomadism.”

  “Would a person be terrified by an embroidery needle?”

  “What’s more, the stuff is so cumbersome that it will be difficult to move and take a long time to install.”

  “It’s possible to shoot a fixed target, but if we use it as a weapon now, I can only say that… half a loaf is better than no loaf at all.”

  “Have a look first!” Igor knew clearly what he was thinking. He opened the secret room in the bridge and pulled out the safety bolt.

  A roaring sound suddenly rang from the inside of the hull. Through the glass on the bridge, Ye Qingxuan saw the deck suddenly open. The folded mechanical structure hidden within shook violently and unfolded with a sharp rubbing sound. The grease filled between the gears, and the hub was melted by high heat, squeezed out of the gaps, and sprinkled down.

  Within a few seconds, an exaggeratedly giant cannonball had already broken through the unlucky figurehead erected at the prow of the ship.

  After an aether engine was installed in it, high-heat aether waves ran through the alchemy matrix, glowing like burning lava. The entire cannonball was bathed in flames.

  “Is that a cannonball?” Ye Qingxuan was dumbfounded. “You told me that it was a cannonball?”

  “That giant weapon was obviously made by the psychopaths of the Chainsaw Fraternity to destroy the ‘point-to-point siege matrix’ of a city wall!”

  “That is a legion-type weapon, right? It was born to destroy strong barriers. The Chainsaw Fraternity calls it the ‘Keel,’ because it contains power as strong as an evil dragon’s.”

  “Since its first test shot when it tore a crack through an entire city, all the finished products were divided by the countries. Then the government prohibited the reproduction, transportation, or the sale of the weapon.”

  “But when did Igor hide the giant weapon in the hull?”

  “Under the supervision of all countries and the shipyard of the Sacred City…”

  “It’s a merchant ship!”

  “What is he doing with this monstrosity on his ship?!”

  “This is a second-hand stuff that I bought from Caucasus. It really took me a lot of work.” Igor rubbed his hands excitedly and said, “Well, actually, it was abandoned equipment. It will break after one more shot or two… Mr. Ye, you’re not going to report me to the Sacred City, right?”

  Although saying that, he didn’t worry at all.

  They were rats on the same boat; they would die together if they couldn’t win. Moreover, what Ye Qingxuan wanted to do was much more unacceptable than he did.

  Igor was now very grateful for the wise decision that he made previously.

  He saved money for years, and had just gotten rid of his bad reputation. Igor didn’t want to slip-up and fall into the trap again.

  The pirates were the ones who knew the pirates the most.

  The peers were the ones who knew their peers the most.

  Unexpectedly, when the ship was launched into the sea for the first time, he took over a life-risking mission for money, and sailed to Anglo. This terrible, precious stuff would be first used to shoot the Mountain of Nomadism of legend.

  Now, although hearing the good news, Ye Qingxuan still felt depressed.

  Not enough.

  The power was still not enough.

  The power of the point-to-point attacking matrix was based on the design of the “triple composite overload filling,” fueled by the massive supply of power of a military aether furnace. Its overloading capacity was three times stronger than that of the other weapons, which greatly reduced its service life, but gave even a single shot terrifying, destructive power.

  A civilian aether engine couldn’t let it exert its full power, or activate part of the matrix.

  Moreover, they only had one chance…

  At this time, the weak musician next to him—the Son of Phoenix, who finally finished vomiting, got up against the wall and raised his hand faintly. “Sir… When I came
from the Indian Branch Office, I brought a ‘cup of virtue’ with me.”

  “We could definitely win this time!”

  Ye Qingxuan was shocked at first, and then suddenly became overjoyed. He had never expected that there would be so much good stuff in the ship.

  The seven cups of virtue included honesty, hope, generosity, justice, courage, temperance, and tolerance. One of them was here in the ship!

  “The minister said that we might use it… so I brought it here,” the Son of Phoenix said anxiously. “But the Indian Branch Office only has the cup of temperance, and I don’t know if it’ll work.”

  The “cups of virtue” sounded like a beautiful name, but it was actually a joke in Anglo.

  The seven cups of virtue were seven notorious, large-scale weapons for biological alchemy. No, they should be described as the alchemical makers.

  As long as the aether supply was sufficient, they could create all kinds of evil things without restriction.

  Humans were always keen on creating things to destroy their counterparts.

  For example, the “hope,” the best of them, was sealed by the Anglo’s Royal Fleet and included in the blacklist. At first, the Royal Fleet guaranteed that they would never use it in war.

  It was said that in just five minutes, one teaspoon of the turquoise gas it produced could kill all the living things in half a city.

  Although it was already a pleasant surprise to have one cup of virtue, Ye Qingxuan still felt disappointed when he heard its name of “temperance.”

  It was given the name because of the terrible concentration of the poisonous liquid it produced.

  But making it exert its power required a considerable amount of poisonous liquid—at least a few hundred milliliters at a time.

  If the liquid was poured into the headwaters of a river, all the water systems, river banks, and crops that relied on water irrigation within tens of kilometers would be completely destroyed.

  According to current observations, the contaminated land was impossible to restore.

  That was why Anglo placed the temperance cup in the biggest colony, India, as a deterrence to evil thoughts. The spices and tea produced on the fertile black soil there each year supplied more than half of the Western World. Food was the lifeblood of Anglo. If the land was lost, it must be completely destroyed, and not allowed to fall into enemy hands.

  540 Night Battle

  “Temperance? That will do.” Ye Qingxuan stretched out his hand and the Son of Phoenix clumsily took out a metal box from his backpack and cracked it open. There was a cup which seemed to be carved from a human skull.

  “I’ll go and gather the musicians,” said the Son of Phoenix.

  “No need for that; it’s too slow. I can do it myself.” Holding the cup like a sword, Ye Qingxuan chanted the initializing incantation which was a national secret.

  “Today we raise the cup to celebrate; may all the fertile lands yield wheat.”

  The sound of mud gushing was heard. In the empty cup, sticky grease -like liquid was steadily gushing out. The speed of the liquid was incredibly fast, with small bubbles popping out with it. There was nothing odd about its appearance, yet it made people nervous and fearful.

  Land and grain were the prerequisites of life. If they were lost, the world would suffer from terrible plague and famine, which meant endless starvation and torment.

  Even the Son of Phoenix, who had been keeping it, stepped back in terror, swallowing his own saliva.

  The Temperance was horrible, yet the speed at which Ye Qingxuan was making it was even more horrible. Normally, it would take several masters to drive the process to make the venom, but now it was flowing out like a fountain.

  “What are you waiting for?” Igor was the first to recover from the shock. “Get a bucket! A bucket!”

  The dust bin was emptied and placed in front of Ye Qingxuan, who tilted the cup so that the sticky liquid poured out of the skull cup into the bucket. The bucket was almost half full in no time.

  When the bucket was put down, it was replaced by the musician of the School of Modifications into a kind of strange metal that was rich in oil to isolate the toxin. Though the toxin was completely isolated, the floor underneath the bucket turned a greyish-green and quickly rusted due to erosion.

  “Enough! That’s enough! No More!” When the amount of venom reached two-thirds of the bucket volume, Son of Pheonix asked Ye Qingxuan to stop. He carefully picked up the bucket and maintained the balance among the metals. It was only a short while, yet he began to sweat all over.

  Ye Qingxuan’s face also turned slightly pale. He put away the cup and stepped back. Catching his breath, he said, “It’s your job to do the extraction. The rest of you go and fix the ship body. Captain, I’m not familiar with sea battle. You are in charge now.”

  “Now that we have a ballista, we can fight back.” Igor’s eyes brightened up and he shouted, “All crew members, get in position! Turn on the main engine, the secondary engine, the third engine, and the fourth engine! All of them! Put all the fuel in the furnace, save none of it! Distribute 30% of power to charge the Keel!” Then he paused, looking at Ye Qingxuan.

  Ye Qingxuan nodded. “I’ll distract the sea monster. No problem.”

  Hearing that, Igor spat some saliva into his hands and rubbed them together, feeling a fire burning in his chest. The fire was so vigorous that his blood-shot eyes were almost radiating light.

  “Well, in that case, let’s do some chasing then!” said Igor.

  …

  One minute before the barrier of the Holy was withdrawn, the wheelset was ready. The warm-up of the “point-to-point attacking matrix” keel was finished and the overload charging was in progress.

  The organist engineers had finished the main structure of the special arrow for the ballista and were making final adjustments. Several pharmacists wrapped up in protective clothing carried the iron bucket and poured the sticky liquid into a narrow opening carefully. It was as they were facing the worst enemy ever. Every time there was a little shaking, they turned pale due to fear.

  30 seconds before withdrawal, three musicians of the School of Modifications were in place, and the repair of the ship was finished.

  The construction of the main parts of the reinforced matrix had begun.

  The alchemy matrix drawings stored in the form of scrolls were quickly engraved on the deck. The key parts were forged to form the basic circulation. Based on that, the active layer, the creation layer, formation layer, and the outflow layer were all taking shape.

  Ten seconds before withdrawal. Overload drive of the main aether engine began… Enormous pressure flow that exceeded the maximum capacity was charged into the energy loop. The whole ship cracked and almost exploded due to the sudden increase of inner pressure. The steam whistle hooted. Super-hot aether flow burst out, leaving a trail of fire in the sky above the lightless sea.

  The aether engine was in “overload drive” mode now.

  A dark light beam pierced through the surface of the sea, like molten lava that escaped from the earth, emitting dark red light when it bloomed under the sea.

  This was caused by the blades which were rotating at incredible speed, by which a huge tide of aether with an ultra-high temperature and rainbow-like light was generated.

  Three seconds before withdrawal, as if he was going to give up on himself, Igor opened his best wine and drank a mouthful of it, then he shattered the bottle on the deck and closed the brake valve.

  Full open!

  Boom! Enveloped by the holy halo, the ship quaked and shrieked, generating a deafening boom which sounded like a bell ringing from heaven.

  No longer floating in the sea, it began to charge forward at full speed. The Mountain of Nomadism hit the barrier with all its might, its venom eroding the holy halo. The barrier was quivering.

  Then, the halo went out.

  Sensing that the barrier had gone, the Mountain of Nomadism hissed and threw itself into the dark green toxi
c fog, shoveling huge waves with its mighty power. In the next instant, with its greyish white eyes, it saw that its poisonous fog was swirling in the high-pitched sound of the steam whistle.

  Then, the greyish-green poisonous fog was pierced through by the searchlight, which suddenly lit up like the burning eye of a giant monster.

  Everyone was shaken to the core. Then, they felt a big bang from the ship’s body.

  It was as if the ship had collided with a reef. Then, there was an earthshaking shriek. Shock, anguish, and anger were all mixed up in the shriek.

  It was the Mountain of Nomadism; the Mountain of Nomadism was shrieking in pain.

  At that moment, riding the sea tide, the iron ship rushed forward like the god of war on fire. With the hooting of its steam whistle and the rhythm of battle, it broke out of the mist and rushed straight at the huge face of the Mountain of Nomadism. Then, it crashed into its face without any hesitation.

  The sharp edges of the ship instantly collided with the scales on the snake’s face and cut open its flesh, exposing its bones which were of a greenish-white color. The demon was now in hysteric fury.

  The iron ship rushed toward the Mountain of Nomadism at full speed. Driven by the ocean current as well, it reached the incredible speed of over 90 knots! It was as if it were riding the wild wind! Even the sea wind was cut off by the ship and howled angrily.

  The whole ship was quaking, with every part cracking painfully. It seemed as if it would collapse at any moment.

  “Captain, we have to slow down!” The second mate in charge of the wheelset was panicking. “The fourth engine was already dead! If the overloading continues, we’ll explode!”

  “To die by fire?” Igor smiled. “That’s not so bad.” The fire in his eyes was even brighter due to the liquor he drank. They were so red it was as if they were glowing.

  “I know it can go that fast! It really can! Go faster!” He shouted, “Faster!”