Chapter 269: Searching for a Ship |
Saul narrowed his eyes and looked toward the air above the town walls. He didn’t see any barrier that had intercepted his arrow.
His semi-immersive meditation method was quite effective for observing spiritual bodies and corruption, but when it came to curses, it wasn’t of much use.
So, he simply chose to observe the air above the town walls with his naked eyes, meticulously.
At last, between the inside and outside of the town, he vaguely caught sight of a transparent shell, like plastic.
The shell extended upward from the town walls, converging in the air to form a dome-shaped canopy.
But it wasn’t truly a dome.
Saul walked up to the base of the wall and quickly dug a half-meter-deep hole.
Beneath the ground at the foot of the wall, he touched another transparent barrier.
“Heaven and earth alike are sealed—we’ve nowhere to run,” Saul turned and said to Billy, “Senior, do you have a more powerful attack?”
But to her surprise, Billy shook his head.
“I observed the wall while it was under attack earlier. My conclusion is that it can withstand several times the focused power of a Corrosive Claw.” His gaze swept over the two, “Unless one of you can cast a Third Tier spell or has a scroll of similar strength, don’t bother wasting your magic.”
“If brute force isn’t an option, there must be another way out, right?” Saul returned and patted the dirt off his hands, “Do we have to break the curse in order to shatter the barrier?”
“In theory, yes,” Bill nodded slightly.
The next second, Saul and Billy turned their heads at the same time, both looking toward the center of town—the clock tower.
Angela saw their movements and felt a chill in her heart, “We… still have to go back there?”
She didn’t want to take the risk, so her first instinct was to find a place to hide.
“Unless you can keep flying in the air, there’s nowhere to hide,” Billy said coldly.
Saul recalled what the soul had said when he first arrived, and the increasingly loud sound of surging water, “You mean that rushing water noise?”
Billy nodded, “I read about a curse in a book once. The pattern matches this place quite closely.”
“What?” Angela’s eyes lit up, “Then you must know how to escape already, right?”
Billy ignored her and instead spoke to Saul, “The curse was called the ‘World-Destroying Black Tide.’ It described a black, corrosive flood that wiped out all living and undead beings within a designated area. But the problem is, the tide I just saw was blood red.”
“Blood red?” Saul’s heart stirred, “Sounds like they’ve already encountered the tide directly. But I’ve been here longer and have only heard the sound of it. What did they do to trigger a direct encounter?”
Although he thought this, Saul kept a look of lingering fear on his face.
“In that case, maybe we can reference the method used to break that curse,” Saul said.
“I thought the same.” Billy nodded, “There are two ways to break the World-Destroying Black Tide curse: one is to violently destroy the energy fueling the curse; the other is to find a ‘ship.’ If you can ride out the curse’s eruption aboard the ship, you can leave.”
“But brute-forcing the Black Tide curse requires at least a true wizard. In terms of raw attack power, even together, we’re not enough.”
“Then we’ll have to try the second option,” Saul said, “Even though this isn’t the Black Tide but a Red Tide, it’s clearly not something we can withstand. If we’re looking for a suitable ‘ship’...”
“The clock tower,” Billy finished.
Saul met his eyes—they were clearly thinking the same thing.
“Do we really have to go back? We just ran away from there,” Angela said nervously, wringing her hands, “What if we run into the red tide again?”
“We only heard the water last time—we didn’t actually see the red waves,” Billy replied, “If we do run into them this time, we’ll have to find a way around.”
After the discussion, the three of them didn’t hesitate further and sprinted toward the clock tower.
Angela deliberately lagged behind, thinking that if danger struck, the other two would take the brunt of it.
But then, she noticed Saul had taken something small from his sleeve and was fiddling with it.
Because Saul had split some of his attention elsewhere, his running speed was clearly slower than before.
“Is he trying to push Billy to take the lead too?” Angela was curious. She craned her neck to sneak a glance at Saul’s hand.
She saw a shiny gold coin in his hand, and Saul seemed to be scraping something across its surface.
Just as Angela’s curiosity peaked, wondering what Saul was doing at such a critical moment, the sound of the tide echoed again.
This time, however, it wasn’t just sound.
Saul glanced up, and finally saw what a blood-colored tide truly looked like.
Until now, he had only heard it, never seen it. The ever-louder crashing had warned him that the tide was drawing near.
Now, countless crimson waves, like a tsunami, came pouring in from all directions, rushing through the streets toward the tower.
The largest waves were over ten meters high. No one knew where such massive tides had been hiding until now.
Wherever the waves passed, windows shattered, buildings collapsed, and everything—furniture, vehicles, street debris—was swept up and carried forward.
Within the red tide, Saul even spotted some luxurious carriages and exotic garments.
“Looks like the ordinary people who stumbled into this town didn’t end well… though maybe they didn’t just stumble in…”
After one glance, Saul looked down again and resumed fiddling with his ancient coin.
To speed things up, he summoned Little Algae from the back of his neck. It split into four and became four long legs, lifting Saul off the ground and sprinting at full speed.
Little Algae was impressively agile. Carrying Saul like this, it ran even faster than he could on his own.
To avoid getting caught by the lethal red tide, and to reach the clock tower as quickly as possible—the three each used their own tricks.
Billy flew straight into the air.
Flight was a staple auxiliary spell for any Third Rank apprentice.
But since Flight was a Second Tier spell, Saul couldn’t learn it. He continued relying on Little Algae for speed.
Little Algae lifted Saul higher, and its tendrils began crawling along the walls.
On Angela’s feet, two childlike soul projections appeared, hugging her calves as if lending her strength to run faster.
But Angela wasn’t built for speed. Even with the souls desperately helping her survive, she remained the slowest among them.
She wasn’t exactly slow, but compared to Saul and Billy, she was clearly lagging.
Then, just as they were nearing the clock tower, red tides surged in from both sides of an upcoming crossroad, threatening to cut them off.
At the critical moment, Billy swooped down, grabbed Angela, and carried her into the air.
Billy’s speed was affected by Angela’s weight, slowing him just slightly more than Saul, who had already safely passed the intersection.
Billy’s flight speed and altitude both took a hit.
Especially the altitude—he could no longer lift Angela high enough to fly over the cresting red tide.
The waves were closing in from both sides. Angela squeezed her eyes shut in terror.
But Billy didn’t let her go.
He pushed his magic to the limit, and at the last possible moment, managed to increase their speed just enough to slip through before the blood tides collided.
Seeing this, Saul grew thoughtful.
Especially after noticing how naturally Angela accepted Billy’s help. It was clearly not the first time he had saved her.
But if Billy was helping Angela out of affection, then Saul might as well believe that Billy was a kind-hearted man with ugly face.
Becoming used to being rescued was never a good thing. Even if she told herself she wanted to be independent, the body could still develop unconscious dependence.
Then Saul noticed Angela’s right leg trembling slightly.
Though Billy had flown her over the tide, some splash had still struck her calf.
Judging from her pained expression, Saul was now certain—they absolutely couldn’t touch the red tide. If one were truly swallowed by it… they’d probably become part of it.
(End of Chapter)