CHAPTER 498: CHAPTER 381: WRESTLING WITH GODS: CALLING ALL FISHING ENTHUSIASTS TO CAST THEIR RODS!

In the deep dreamscape of Luanyun City, amidst the graveyard of sunken ships.

Apart from the massive number of Ghost Ships that Yemengade had summoned away, the chaos of the outside world had yet to affect this place.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!...

The battle within the graveyard continued ceaselessly, day and night.

The mountainous First-Rate Ship, the Blue Dragon King, with sails fully unfurled, its 118 portside cannons spouting blue flames in rapid succession.

A York Family cruiser, failing to escape in time, was blasted on the spot, scattering across the sea as countless wooden fragments and mangled limbs.

The flagship second-grade ship of the Strait Fleet, the King Edward (Chapter 71), managed to narrowly escape, having used the other ship as a decoy.

Its sails blazed with ghostly fire as it fled desperately, without any intention of turning back to retaliate.

Unless another Legendary Warship was dragged in by the Touch of the Kraken, the Blue Dragon King reigned as the absolute overlord here.

Former Marshal of the First Fleet, Norwich York, looked at the few remaining White Rose warships beside him, his face ashen, desperately wanting to curse.

"Damn Edmund Lancaster! When your son sent me here, I had already died once, and here you are, killing me again? Is this never-ending?"

"And damn Yemengade! You take all the cannon fodder away and just leave us here, what is this? Putting a pack of wolves with a tiger is called a beast fight, but a wolf with a tiger? That’s just a snack! Are you afraid that the Blue Dragon King isn’t eating well enough, you bastards! Bastards!"

"And my dear nephew, His Majesty Edward. If you can’t send more ships to die at the Touch of the Kraken, to come to this graveyard of sunken ships to take the hit for me, I’m really going to die! Ahhh..."

He had been in the graveyard of sunken ships for over half a year, constantly pursued by the Blue Dragon King; Norwich had hardly slept a wink. The hardships he faced were incomprehensible to outsiders. As the First Fleet neared total annihilation, he was on the verge of a breakdown, driven to madness.

The rules for killing in the graveyard of sunken ships were as follows:

"Living beings here face instant death sentences every moment, only to revive in the form of Undead. After death, those of the Middle Sequence can retain their sanity, while those below only keep their instincts for slaughter. The more a Ghost Ship kills, the wider the range of its crew who regain their sanity, and the stronger they become. Once they become the strongest in the graveyard, the entire crew regains sanity but also draws the instinctual onslaught of everyone else, until they completely fall."

During this time, under Yemengade’s direction, Ghost Battleships armed with 32-pounder cannons avoided combat, while other smaller warships attacked day and night. The aim was to deplete the heavy cannon ammunition supply of the First-Rate Ship, the Blue Dragon King, and completely defang it.

However, with an Online Financial Street connecting the entire known world as their backing, an unlimited supply of various materials from all corners of the earth was available. From the northernmost, rarely visited polar circle to the Celestial Orbital Belt at the equator, as long as they were willing to spend, the resourceful "online shopkeepers" could procure anything for them. For instance, they could have roasted camel hump from the West Coast deserts for breakfast, creamy ice cream from the polar regions of the Eternal Night Peninsula for lunch, and fresh seafood from the Bantaan Archipelago for dinner. Cannonballs, firearms, alchemical explosives, Spices, Blood of Transformation... all were in abundance.

If not for the fact that the Lancasters were already dead, they might have been force-fed by Byron’s remote provisions until they were considerably plumper.

COUGH, COUGH.

Edmund Lancaster, standing at the bow and enjoying the sorry state of his enemies, smoked high-grade Spices all day long until he nearly developed a smoker’s voice. It got to the point where if he didn’t dismantle a few enemy ships each day to keep his hand in, he’d feel an itch in his very bones.

Of course, maintaining the Blue Dragon King wasn’t cheap, but their output was even greater. During this time, they continuously collected antiques and wealth from the graveyard of sunken ships, managing the "Undead Livestock Branch Company" on the Edge of the World. They also traded various treasures on the Financial Street with Catherine’s alter ego, "Lady Friday," for cutting-edge military supplies produced by Violet. Far from being drained to death by Yemengade, their strength grew with each battle.

Even the armaments of this First-Rate Ship had been upgraded with a large stock of military supplies provided by Violet:

"Blue Dragon King: Tonnage 2,351, gun deck length 57.98 meters, keel length 47.59 meters, beam 16.22 meters, 118 guns.

Armament: Lower Gun Deck, 30 x 32-pounder cannons; Middle Gun Deck, 30 x 24-pounder cannons; Upper Gun Deck, 32 x 18-pounder cannons; Poop Deck, 14 x 12-pounder cannons; Forecastle Deck, 2 x 32-pounder carronades, 4 x 12-pounder cannons; Aft Cabin Section, 6 x 24-pounder carronades.

Complement: 837.

Figurehead: Blue Dragon King."

Such a Ghost Ship floating on the sea was like a small town; just one look at it would make others’ legs tremble, let alone fight against it. Especially equipped with more advanced, lighter, and larger caliber carronades, its firepower had increased again.

Comparing the world’s fleets, below the level of Legendary Warships, the Blue Dragon King confidently claimed second place, with no one daring to claim first. With such a solid foundation, even if one day it miraculously crossed that chasm-like threshold and rose to Legendary Warship status, it wouldn’t be a fantasy.

Additionally, many members of the Lancaster family and the Guardsmen and Transcendent officers serving on the ship had switched paths with the help of the Book of the Dead. Even in boarding combat, they feared no one.

The only regret was that they had not found a Forbidden Book suitable for the Ship Spirit’s cultivation, preventing Edmund Lancaster from completely merging with the Blue Dragon King. A Fourth-order Heroic Storm Knight Ship Spirit, coupled with a top-of-the-line First-Rate Ship as its body, had potential surpassing that of the "Sailboat Collector" and his Phantom Bottle. Once promoted, it would not be among the weakest of all Legendary Warships.

Byron, longing to see his father achieve greatness, held high hopes for his old dad. Although there was still a certain gap to becoming the King of the Undying, as long as he could escape the belly of the Old God, he would immediately soar like a dragon riding the winds under a vast sky! In the New World, fraught with dangers where even Fifth-order Pseudo-Gods sprung up incessantly, this was an unwavering pillar of support, an ace in the hole. It allowed Byron, after starting from scratch and toiling for so long, to once again cling to a golden leg. He could be like the blue-haired Barbarossa Halding, reciting an essay titled ’My Legendary Father’ and borrowing the tiger’s fierceness.

Even without becoming Legendary, with his current capital, he could immediately become the decisive force in the outcome of the colonial wars abroad.

"Byron said there are already some clues about the Forbidden Book. But what I’m actually most concerned about is this..."

The tall figure of Prince Sorenburg stood on the forecastle deck, caressing a carronade bearing the Violet insignia beside him, obviously worried about his daughters-in-law’s affairs. But it was not about the choices others thought he was considering; rather, it was:

"Although according to our family’s tradition, both your uncle and I, your old dad, have been utterly devoted to our wives, without even a mistress. To anyone else, I would say: Fidelity is a gentleman’s virtue. But when it comes to you, all I want to say is: We want them all! The problem is, The King’s Right Hand has only one Queenly Title, and each Queen must have a crown and a piece of land befitting her status. We absolutely cannot favor one over another. To avoid wronging my daughters-in-law, I really need to work harder to help Byron earn another crown."

Just like any father working to prepare a matrimonial home for his son’s marriage, Prince Sorenburg was under considerable pressure, yet he was also filled with invigorating resolve. It was just that the "matrimonial home" he had to prepare was, by just a tiny bit, bigger than others’.

Just then, the Blue Dragon King lurched suddenly, and then, under the pull of a tremendous force, it broke away from the sea surface and shot into the sky. In Edmund’s ears rang Byron’s excited voice:

"Take off, Dad!"

「As one took to the skies, the Royal Capital of Kingston in Hightins on the other side was thrown into utter chaos.」

Among the York Party, countless nobles from both the Royalist Party and the Earl’s Party had secretly taken Byron’s offerings through various channels. A mere paper contract might lack actual substantive power. But who could argue with Byron possessing the Faustian Contract and The First Stock Certificate? Accepting his benefits without fully understanding amounted to accepting blood money.

THUD. THUD.

In an instant, an unknown number of people suddenly lost their balance; their Anchoring was violently torn, and they disappeared from the Material World. They were pulled into the abode of the Old Gods in Byron’s place.

"This way of disappearing is just like Lancaster’s."

"Not good! This must be the Touch of the Kraken attacking!"

"I told you we shouldn’t have gotten involved with those Old Gods; we must be cursed."

Even those with some knowledge only thought that the "Colossal Monster of the Northern Sea" nearby was causing havoc, never imagining that they had been severely tricked by a certain Great Loyalist of York’s "investment project" thousands of miles away.

However, Byron also knew that the main goal this time was not to ensnare White Rose. Seeing they couldn’t pull that group of people, he immediately fastened other "fishing lines" he had prepared for a long time:

"The Pirate’s Ten Commandments, connected to the entire Privateer Fleet and the Pioneer Navigation colonial adventure company;

The Golden Code, representing the threefold sovereignty of the Aztec Empire and Yucatan Island over heaven, earth, and man;

The Crystal Skull, representing the cultural heritage of the Taya civilization;

The most core Forbidden Books of the Bloodthirsty Cult and The Skinners’ Church: ’Blood Source Pilgrimage’ and ’Thousand Faces Rites’;

The Faustian Contract, which established an online trading platform covering countless merchants and buyers across the known world..."

For a moment, with Byron and the Golden Deer as the hook, countless pale gold fishing lines materialized, coalescing into a thick, tangible column of light. It blasted a large hole in the dark clouds above Byron’s head. Golden sunlight poured down through the column in reverse, bathing him in a light that made him appear divine.

No, in the eyes of others, he might well have been a true deity, performing the feats of gods as a mortal.

"Heave! Now, LIFT!"

SNAP—!

As the fishing lines tensed.

It wasn’t just the Blue Dragon King accelerating its ascent; the second-grade ship King Edward, still attempting to flee, along with all other Ghost Battleships linked by "iron chains," took to the sky together.

Byron’s cover was that of a Great Loyalist of York. If he only fished out the Blue Dragon King under everyone’s watchful eyes, his cover would be blown instantly. The gain wouldn’t be worth the loss. But he was already committed; if he was going to pull one, he might as well pull them all. With meticulous preparation, he had recruited "fishing buddies" numbering in the tens of millions, making it possible to reel in an entire fleet.