Hadjar’s eyes widened. He’d heard about them, but he’d never actually seen a suicide Technique before.
“Holy shit!” He cursed loudly.
Chapter 643
T he flaming shroud that had enveloped the captain flared up again. Now a bright blue, it expanded to a height of fifteen feet, turning the planks beneath the captain’s feet into ashes. Behind her, the Thunderbird Spirit cried out as if it was in real pain. Its crimson feathers slowly turned azure. The heat and the pressure of the captain’s aura were so intense that even pirates who were sixty feet away from her began to scream in pain. Their skin blistered and their hair smoldered. Unable to stand it, many threw themselves overboard. Dying from the fall seemed like a better alternative to being burned alive.
Narrowing his eyes, Hadjar estimated that the captain was currently stronger than a Spirit Knight. Power was practically oozing from her, morphing her very surroundings.
“Die!” she cried.
Enveloped in azure flames, she shot toward him at the speed of sound. The Thunderbird behind her spread its wings, their feathers so hot and so incredibly sharp that they cut through everything in their path: from pirates, who screamed in agony as they were torn apart by the blue flames, to the lifeboats, which were thrown into the air with a crash and roar. Wood was reduced to cinders with her every step. Through the haze of the shimmering air, Hadjar could no longer see the captain, only a phoenix. He had no doubt that if he tried to block her attack, he’d be burned to ashes along with her.
“Barbarian!” Einen shouted.
Out of the corner of his eye, Hadjar saw his friend holding on to the rigging. Next to him lay the body of a pirate who’d been impaled dozens of times and a mound of mauled corpses. He’d dispelled his Call and was gesturing for Hadjar to follow him.
“Wait a second!”
He could just run away. Since he was close to the railing, he’d have enough time to jump over to their ship. The captain would most likely die from her Technique or from a fall by the time they were gone. However, when he thought about the ferocity and dedication she was fighting with, Hadjar felt like it was his duty as a warrior to see this fight through to the end.
Turning back to the captain, he swung his sword. The Thunderbird and the black dragon rushed toward each other. Just before they collided, Hadjar ducked and slammed his palm against the deck. Soaring into the air, he leapt over the Thunderbird and prepared to use his best Technique.
“Black Wind!”
His blade turned into a ribbon of darkness that pierced the captain like a fang. Her fire turned black for a moment, and then everything was gone. Nothing remained of the brave pirate who’d sailed the skies above the two Empires for centuries.
Hadjar, after dispelling his Call, rushed over to Einen. Behind him, the frigate was being devoured by flames. Whatever the islander had done, he’d pulled it off spectacularly. Not only had he set fire to the gunpowder hold, he’d also created a kind of chain reaction that had accelerated the ship’s destruction.
“Come on!” Einen held out his hand.
Sharing a glance, the two jumped overboard seconds before the deafening explosion. Hand in hand, they flew toward the clouds that had turned red from the fire and smoke. Before they could plunge into their cold embrace, they both crashed into the deck of their ship.
As the vessel wasn’t designed to handle such maneuvers, it swayed sharply and lost a bit of altitude. Hadjar was afraid that the sail might’ve broken or that the hieroglyph had been damaged, but both had managed to survive. With a grunt, Einen reached for the pedal and pressed it all the way down. Energy immediately surged into the symbol, which lit up, powering the ship. They moved away just in time to avoid a torrent of fire.
“Fucking hell,” Hadjar swore.
Rolling over onto his back, he peered through the holes in the railing and watched as the fire and smoke dissipated. Like comets, debris rained from the sky. Sometimes, there were screams to accompany the debris. At first, they grew louder, but soon subsided, disappearing somewhere under them.
“You said that the frigate would be yours, didn’t you?” Hadjar asked as he got up from the deck. Grunting, he walked over to a bench and collapsed atop it with a sigh. “Is this how you capture ships, Einen?”
“I realized that the three of us wouldn’t be able to fly it,” he replied with a shrug.
Hadjar looked at his friend. The islander, who was covered in shallow cuts, stood at the helm and stared into the distance.
“Damn it, man! I still can’t tell when you’re joking and when you’re being serious!”
They flew in silence for a while, the cold air grazing their cheeks like the nails of some small rodent. Luckily, the cold couldn’t really bother cultivators and they were also protected from the wind and rain by the dome that still shone around the ship.
“I’m sorry,” Dora whispered, sitting on the floor, her back against the mast. “I’m so embarrassed… I got flustered like… Like an inexperienced practitioner!”
“It’s all right,” Einen said. His tone was anything but comforting, as cold and detached as ever. “It’s normal to lose your nerve during your first sky battle.”
“Did it happen to you, too?”
Hadjar smiled broadly, but hid it from Dora. Einen had told him all about his first sky battle.
“I’m an exception,” the islander responded, clearly wishing to drop the subject. Dora, however, was still curious.
“How so?”
Einen turned to Hadjar, who just shrugged as if to say: ‘You’re on your own.’
Einen sighed.
“My mother was a pirate captain. She gave birth to me while her crew was fighting against the Imperial fleet.”
They sailed in silence for several hours. Dora was probably struggling to come to terms with the fact that her friend (or whatever Einen was to her) was actually a pirate.
Rewinding the fight against the pirate captain in his head, Hadjar tried to figure out why he’d been so tense. He suddenly got up and went over to Einen, who was looking at the stars with a glimmer in his eyes.
“Tell me, my friend,” he whispered, “how did you know that I had experience with sky battles?”
“Because you didn’t lose your cool,” Einen answered. “And because ‘Rukh’s Wings’ was lost. Trust me, I know what a lost ship means.”
They didn’t talk anymore that night.
Chapter 644
T he ship reached the edge of the Wastelands the following morning. Dora and Einen stared into the distance, lost in thought as they reminisced about the lands they’d visited before. Hadjar realized that they were approaching something unnatural.
During their trip, they’d often come across other ships. Some of them had even been accompanied by birds or other flying creatures, some of which had been so huge that they’d looked like clouds even though they’d been far away. Fortunately, the beasts had been docile and had paid no attention to them. The Empire’s sky, filled with its own secrets and dangers, was no safer than its vast forests, valleys, plains, and mountains.
As the dawn neared, they saw fewer and fewer vessels and their flying companions. The sky soon became empty, save for the golden rays of the dawn and the passing clouds.
Hadjar was about to ask his companions a question when a huge hieroglyph emerged from the clouds in front of them. It was so large that it could’ve easily cast a shadow over an entire city. It emanated no energy they could detect, which meant that its power was beyond the Nameless level. Asking the network to scan it didn’t yield any results either, as it couldn’t analyze what even Hadjar’s subconscious didn’t know anything about.
“By the High Heavens, what is that?” Hadjar gasped.
“The remains of an ancient Kingdom,” Dora answered, bowing to the hieroglyph.
“What Kingdom?”
“You’ll see.”
Einen turned the helm, slowing the ship down. Piercing through the clouds, they began their descen
t. The rapid change in atmospheric pressure didn’t bother him as much as it would have a mere mortal.
A desert landscape appeared before them: huge expanses of red sand covered with low vegetation, sparse trees that looked as if they’d recently been burning, and hills dotted with ancient ruins. Some of the structures were taller than the mountain atop which ‘The Holy Sky’ School stood. The remnants of once wide and beautiful stone roads could be seen meandering through the red sand and dry, yellowish grass. Every now and then, Hadjar would spot the movements of something very big and dangerous.
“These are the remains of this ancient Kingdom,” Dora said.
“I’ve never heard of anyone living in the Wastelands.”
“I haven’t either.” Dora adjusted the hammer on her back. Hadjar couldn’t help but wonder why she didn’t simply keep it in her spatial artifact. Anise also carried her weapon with her at all times. It was strange. “No one has lived in the Wastelands for thousands of years.”
Hadjar took another look at the sea of red sand. It looked as if it had been abandoned just recently — two, maybe three centuries ago at the most, but definitely not thousands of years ago. If the structures were so well preserved, then whoever had built them had really known what they were doing.
“That hieroglyph-”
“It guards the sky routes from intruders.” Einen twisted the helm again and the ship changed course slightly, heading toward a castle that stood on one of the highest hills. “You can find such symbols all around the perimeter of the Wastelands. They don’t let anything or anyone through.”
“The entire perimeter? But the Wastelands-”
“-are enormous,” Einen finished for him. “I was surprised when I first saw them as well. We’ll get to see them again. Sometimes, they go down and-”
“-fall,” Dora finished for the islander. “The Masters say that they’ll all fall in a hundred years, finally freeing up the sky routes over the Wastelands.”
“And as soon as that happens, the territory will be ransacked,” Hadjar guessed. “As long as the sky remains closed, no one will want to waste their time searching for treasures that may not even be there.”
They joined a long line of boats and ships. Hadjar saw several familiar banners, among which was one that had two swords crossed inside a strange hieroglyph — the coat of arms of the Predatory Blades clan, and one with a horse and bag — the symbol of House Tarez, who were the best traders in the whole Kingdom, the biggest supporters of the crown, and the richest people in the country. They were so rich that the family’s Head could afford regular check-ups at Hera’s house.
The castle that all the ships were moving toward looked a little… strange. Hadjar had seen various types of architecture in his life, from simple rustic fences to the monumental walls of Dahanatan, but what stood at the edge of the Wastelands, high above a shallow gorge, was strange… and frightening.
Along the edges of the chasm were numerous traps, along with watchtowers and ditches, inside which gunners sat, keeping watch. The castle itself looked like a military fortress: three rows of wide walls, each with cannons stationed on them, behind which stood rows of mortars meant to break through the enemy lines that would attempt to scale the walls during a siege. Seeing something like this on the western border of Darnassus would’ve been strange, but understandable. But to have such a fortress in the middle of the Wastelands, the heart of the capital, seemed unusual.
“What were they trying to defend from in their own country?”
Einen and Dora smiled simultaneously, as if they’d been waiting to be asked just such a question. They must’ve asked it themselves once, and were now eager to pass on their knowledge.
“What do you think destroyed the ancient Kingdom?”
Hadjar turned to his friend. He could almost hear demonic laughter and the cries of a raven. Something told him that he wouldn’t like the answer.
“What?”
“Well, rumors say,” Dora whispered, trying to sound mysterious, “that an ancient gate stands in the Wastelands. They say demonic hordes sometimes break into our world through that gate.”
“But don’t be afraid, my friend,” Einen continued, “They haven’t dared come here ever since the fortress was built.”
“Then why are we even going there?”
“You can’t enter the Wastelands without a pass.”
“Is that the law, or...?”
Instead of answering, Einen pointed at the sky. Ignoring him, Hadjar stared at the ground.
Damn it! A portal? Was Helmer messing with him again? By the Evening Stars, he hated intrigue!
Chapter 645
T he castle’s skyport looked ordinary — a huge tower with many long and wide wooden bridges to which various vessels were moored. By the time the trio arrived, the port was full, and they had difficulties docking even though Dora’s ship was small. It was only thanks to Einen’s maneuvering skills that they managed to throw their anchor down between a brig and a frigate.
“Is that a military coat of arms?” Dora asked, looking curiously at the image of a dragon wrapped around the ‘Sky’ hieroglyph.
“So, they’re also here,” Einen whispered with a hint of disdain in his voice. As a descendant of pirates and a true adventurer, he had a very complicated relationship with lawmen.
“I thought that they avoided sticking their noses into Imperial business.” Dora pressed one of her rings to the mast, and a gray sphere appeared around the ship. It exuded such power that even a Lord would have a hard time dealing with it. The ship must’ve had some sort of protective artifact on it.
“Normally, yes.” Hadjar nodded, “But the upcoming war seems to have changed that.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we encounter them at the Tournament of the Twelve,” Einen said.
They stared at the military frigate for a while longer. It had more sails, masts, and weapons than the pirate ship they’d just fought.
“Let’s go,” Einen said and headed toward the tower. He seemed to know where they needed to go and what to do.
Hadjar stepped on the wooden bridge carefully, afraid that it’d break under his weight. Given the number of people that were walking from the vessels to the port and back, the bridges had been made with the help of some incredible technology that allowed them to support a lot of weight without breaking.
They descended a spiral staircase and found themselves in a large square. It was so crowded that they kept bumping into people and then apologizing and assuring them that they had no hostile intentions. The vast majority of passersby had one thing in common — the tokens they wore. When he realized that, Hadjar took his own out of his spatial ring and put it around his neck. The moment he did so, he felt something stir beneath his shirt. Peeking under his tattered and mended tunic, he spotted the yawning Azrea.
“By the High Heavens,” he breathed out. “I haven’t seen you since the ‘Drunken Goose’ crashed.”
The cub tilted her head to one side and wrinkled her face cutely, trying to look innocent and unaware of what he was talking about. Hadjar took a strip of dried meat from his spatial ring, gave it to the cub, then looked back at the road.
“One day, you’ll tell me your secrets, you little demon,” he whispered.
“Here we go.” Einen, cutting through the crowd like a knife through butter, led them to a crowded tavern.
There were so many visitors inside that the owner had decided to remove the door, and it was now leaning against the wall. The venue had clearly not been designed to handle such a huge number of customers, and it was so full that the waitresses had to squeeze past people, walking sideways like crabs as they made their way through the crowd, holding trays high above their heads.
“Why are we here?” Hadjar asked. “Don’t we have to get some sort of pass in order to get into the Wastelands?”
“They’ll be here soon,” Einen said.
Hadjar narrowed his eyes at his friend, but the islander maintained his
usual blank expression. A grinning Dora took pity on Hadjar.
“We made a deal with two very skilled swordsmen. They’ll be joining us.”
They were able to make their way through the crowd, heading for the southeastern corner of the tavern. Walking up to a small table, Dora released her aura, scaring away the two disciples that had been sitting there. Despite wearing wooden tokens and being at the initial stage of the Spirit Knight level, they were quick to gather their belongings and scurry away.
“It’s the Dinos siblings, isn’t it?” Hadjar asked as they sat down at the table. He didn’t like it, but figured it would be wise to keep his mouth shut.
Dora nodded. “It’s them, yes.”
She raised her hand, beckoning a waitress over. She was a pretty practitioner at the Transformation of the Mortal Shell stage. Once she noticed the jade tokens of ‘The Holy Sky’ School, she turned pale and bowed deeply.
“What can I get the venerable disciples of ‘The Holy Sky’ School?”
Hadjar finally understood why commoners had such deep respect for the disciples of the three great Schools of Dahanatan. For example, a pirate ship filled with Heaven Soldiers and Spirit Knights hadn’t been able to do anything when faced with just three elite disciples of ‘The Holy Sky’ School. The amount of energy they’d wielded might’ve qualified them to be Spirit Knights and Heaven Soldiers, but in reality, they were no match for most of the disciples of the capital’s elite Schools. Living among the best of the best, it was easy to forget that one’s stages and levels didn’t decide everything. Still, there was normally a huge gap between a three-hundred-year-old Spirit Knight and a seventeen-year-old one, even one that had the best Masters, Mentors, Techniques, and resources at their disposal.
“Wine,” Dora said. “The best you have.”
The waitress bowed and disappeared.
Dora and Einen put their weapons on the table. This was something of an unspoken tradition amongst traveling cultivators. Everyone needed to place their weapons on the table so that everyone could see them. Because of this, the tavern looked like a weapons shop at the moment.
Dragon Heart: Land of The Enemy. LitRPG Wuxia Series: Book 8 Page 5