CHAPTER 489: CHAPTER 375: THE WHITE SHIP INCIDENT PART 2: A TWIST OF FATE

Byron’s eyes and ears were spread across friends and foes alike, and they were everywhere on the high seas.

As soon as Hawkeye James and his group encountered the White Ship, Byron had sensed something out of the ordinary.

After all, no one understood "capsizing" better than he did on the entire sea.

The nightmares within the Nightmare Triangle seem to randomly generate based on the anchor point of the living’s fear. Since all high-ranking deities of the Deep Dive Church have the blood of the Bayfolk, extracting nightmares from their collective subconscious with the help of the corpses of Old Gods is especially easy. Encountering the White Ship from miles away is within reason. But... aren’t you guys a bit too good at rubbing salt into the wound? It’s true that at such a critical time, we use whatever works, but there should be a limit to everything. You can’t just keep relentlessly fleecing our family without a break. The ship capsizes time and again, and each time it’s a total disaster. Do you think we don’t care about our reputation?

While Byron’s thoughts whirled, the Golden Deer was silently joined by another White Ship.

Onboard was a group of Hastings Royal Family members from hundreds of years ago, lounging around with wine glasses, and many of them were dead drunk.

The sailors on the ship also had bloodshot eyes and reeked of alcohol, rowing desperately to make the White Ship go faster and faster.

When the two ships were close enough, all the Evil Spirits on the White Ship turned their eyes to the people on the Golden Deer.

Their pupils shone with a bloodthirsty green glow, and the corners of their mouths all bore the same savage grin.

Although they were just a dream fragment of the Slumbering God Kraken, and couldn’t be freed by seeking others to take their place in death, the killing power of these Evil Spirits was not diminished in the slightest.

They also had no thoughts of taking care of Byron, the so-called descendant of their family.

However, what should have been a heart-stopping, life-threatening race—one that had already caused horrific casualties among the other teams—failed to make any impact on the Golden Deer.

The wind on the sea had not changed, and the ship had not hoisted more sails, but strangely, every time the White Ship sped up by a notch, the Golden Deer would automatically speed up to match.

It always maintained a leisurely lead over the White Ship.

Gathered at the ship’s side to watch the excitement, a group of pirate officers were dozing off from getting up too early, including "Chameleon" Jacqueline, who yawned out of boredom.

"HAAH–"

She sleepily scratched her own cheek and leaned on her "girlfriend" from the night before, the "Navigator" Delia, looking as though she wanted to continue sleeping soundly.

This reaction was really an insult to the smoking rowing oars opposite and the sailors sticking their tongues out a dozen centimeters.

It was such an insult to the Evil Spirits!

The ferocious smile on Prince William’s face gradually turned to astonishment.

"GAH?"

Sacred Relic of the Golden Deer: See Ship Fast.

Whenever you encounter any ship on the high seas, even those Wonder Battleships with special Figureheads, your speed will passively exceed the others by a notch. As long as it’s a ship, it will never catch up to you; they’re all rookies compared to you!

If it were just a matter of speed, not to mention this oar-sail ship that had fallen behind the times, even if all the fastest ships in the world were tied together, the Golden Deer dared let them have sails on both sides.

There was no need even for drifting through gutters around bends; it was the Mount Akina... no, the Ship God of the Seven Seas!

Eight Fingers, Gus, Alfred, and a few other unscrupulous guys were also clinging to the side of the ship, whistling like hooligans and cheering them on:

"Hurry up, hurry up, haven’t you had breakfast?"

"You’re just a bit short of catching the Golden Deer’s stern wave. Hurry, if you catch up to me, I’ll let you... hehehe."

"Oh dear, another fail. You several-hundred-year-old grandpas who have been soaking in water, you’re really not up to it! Got rheumatism or what? I’ve got hot chili oil hotpot here: one pot to get well, two pots to make your clothes burst, and three pots to turn your butt into a flamethrower for acceleration—even more explosive than a Cyclone Jet Armstrong Cannon!"

Whether they understood those sarcastic remarks or not, the eyes of the Evil Spirits on the White Ship grew redder and redder, and Prince William’s forehead bulged with veins throbbing violently.

His body swelled like a corpse bloated with gas, and then, after a quarter of an hour in extreme rage...

Then...

BOOM!

He actually exploded on the spot, and the entire White Ship vanished into thin air on the high seas.

Without firing a single cannonball, the ship full of Evil Spirits was literally run to death by the "world’s fastest ship."

Byron, gripping the wheel, shook his head and commented:

"Don’t drink and sail; don’t sail and drink. Countless routes there may be, safety is key. Sail irresponsibly, and your loved ones will weep."

Then he poured himself another swig of chilled Rum to calm his nerves.

Rum, also known as "pirate’s blood," and Byron had never seen a North Bay Folk who didn’t drink.

The Golden Deer was unscathed in race mode, but not all ships in the Colonial Fleet were the Golden Deer.

Just like James and his Scout Fleet.

The Cold Raven, capable of soaring through the sky and diving into the sea, was half-flying, half-swimming, leaving everyone else in the dust. The Ironclaw Vessel had a small Sea Monster, the Ironlance Shrimp, beneath it, frantically whipping its tail, its burst speed also formidable in the short term.

But the adventure ship Absinthe, belonging to the Spirit Medium Dickens, was gradually falling behind.

BANG!

The moment the White Ship passed it, the ship suddenly capsized as it had hundreds of years before, and the full ship’s worth of Evil Spirits disappeared into the water like bubbles.

The second phase, "Death Replacement Mode," activated.

「The next moment.」

SPLASH... The water near the Absinthe’s starboard bulwark churned violently, and hundreds of heads, swollen and decayed from being soaked in seawater, suddenly emerged from below.

"Prince, let me up!"

"Your Highness, let me up!"

"Save me..."

They swarmed the side of the ship, scrambling over each other to surge onto the deck.

And each one was like a solid cast-iron figure, incredibly heavy, causing the adventurer ship’s hull to start tilting dramatically.

"NO——!"

The terrified crew members felt as if they had been transported back hundreds of years, into the perspective of Prince William, witnessing the desperate scene as the small boat he was on was overwhelmed by the weight of countless people and sank.

Looking at the churning heads before them, everyone was scared out of their wits.

The faces of those overboard showed a myriad of expressions, yet none displayed the gentlemanly decorum of yielding to others.

So-called courtesy existed only in self-glorifying tales, never in serious history books.

"Damn it! Soul Shepherding!"

Dickens, the Spirit Medium, immediately released several of his shepherded Third Order Transcendents, desperately trying to drive those Evil Spirits back into the sea.

But many Evil Spirits clung to the bottom of the ship, and it capsized faster than he could clear them.

No matter how many Evil Spirits he drove off, many more would quickly climb aboard.

"Captain!"

"Help!"

Already, many sailors had fallen into the sea with screams. Some were still struggling desperately, while others, embraced by an Evil Spirit, immediately stiffened and sank to the ocean floor.

Up close, Dickens finally managed to read crucial information from them with his Spirit Medium abilities and called out to the friendly ships ahead for help:

"The ship! The White Ship is the true form of the Evil Spirits!"

While trying to save themselves, James and the others could not stand by and watch their companions perish. Beast Tamer Jefferson immediately ordered the Sea Monster, the Ironlance Shrimp, to return to their aid.

WHOOSH!

The giant shrimp, clad in dark blue heavy armor and thirty meters long, arrived in an instant, carrying with it roiling currents.

It reached the White Ship in the blink of an eye.

A giant claw snapped shut violently. Bright firelight flared underwater, and a thunderous boom echoed over the sea as a high-speed jet of water, riddled with countless air bubbles, shot toward the White Ship.

This attack’s instantaneous peak temperature even reached 5,000°C, instantly heating a large volume of seawater into billowing steam.

Considering even the surface of the Sun is barely 6,000°C, this strike was simply cheating.

The White Ship, in essence just a figment of a Dream Realm, was like meeting its nemesis when faced with such extreme temperatures, lacking the defensive capabilities of a normal sailboat.

Struck by the shrimp on the spot, it burst and vanished into foam on the sea’s surface.

The 300 Evil Spirits, already nearly capsizing the Absinthe, also disappeared from the sea’s surface with unwilling roars.

The second phase, "Death Replacement Mode," was forcibly interrupted by absolute power.

Other fleets in different directions also showcased their powers, and after paying a certain price, they all managed to eradicate the many White Ships.

Among them, some employed a most cunning method to evade the Evil Spirits—hiding under the covers.

"’Home’ was bestowed with the effect of a sanctuary by the Silver Law; if faced with common Evil Spirits that weren’t too powerful, just hiding under the bedcovers made them difficult to detect."

The captain of one ship ordered all the sailors to cover themselves from head to toe with blankets, successfully evading the pursuit of the White Ship.

This was a victory of experience and knowledge in the absence of sufficient strength.

Bat after bat, all extensions of himself, kept bringing various pieces of information to Byron, making him marvel:

Indeed, not a single Adventurer who came to the New Continent is mediocre; they are truly an eye-opener.

In addition, he actually knew the third phase of the White Ship event:

As Crown Prince William perished, Henry I’s nephew Stephen, who initially excused himself from boarding the White Ship due to diarrhea, subsequently usurped the throne of the Kingdom of Hightins. This suggests that it wasn’t just a tragic accident but more likely a political assassination aimed at Prince William by Stephen! After all, the Prince’s Guardian Knights surely included at least one Third Order Storm Admiral. Drowning such a high-Class Transcendent in the sea was far too fanciful. Later investigations by the Royal Family concluded that the collective frenzy was caused by a unique alcoholic concoction made with Black Sorcery. Eventually, Henry II regained the throne from the usurper Stephen, founding the Plantagenet Dynasty before the Lancaster Dynasty. So if not for the White Ship incident, the Hightins throne most likely wouldn’t have had a single copper coin’s worth of connection to the Lancaster Family. For the Royal Family at the time and other victims facing the White Ship, it might have been a nightmare, but for the Lancaster Family, it was a tremendous turning point in destiny. Henry II, who restored the Kingdom, is my idol. Huh?

It was at this moment that it seemed, by leveraging this crucial turning point in the fate of the Lancaster Family and the Kingdom of Hightins, the Sacred Relic corresponding to [Hidden: The Root of the Blood Curse, Historical Influence 38] also quietly began to take shape. It looked blurry, like a very magnificent... new garment?

At the same time, having probed the details of the Nightmare Triangle and realizing the battlefield knew no front or rear, the Pirate King’s main fleet finally retaliated against the two Heretical Cults.

"Order, deploy... the Rift Seal Plug!"