CHAPTER 364: CHAPTER 204: 2 SHIPS_3

The frozen walking corpses were smashed into pieces.

"Is that no longer the dense forest ahead?" Chadite asked, looking forward. The forest was rather dim, but a large expanse of light was already visible ahead. Moreover, her silver ripples had already detected the situation for her.

They bypassed the corpses, their formation tightened, and they exited the dense forest. With the sunlight shining through, their view suddenly became clear.

What appeared before them was a vast area of ruins, but these ruins weren’t any kind of building. It was the wreckage of two ships, destroyed together—one made of metal and the other of wood. The debris scattered across the island previously must have belonged to these two ships.

"Why are the ships here?" Jason couldn’t help but ask as he looked at the scene before them. They had just walked around and hadn’t seen any obvious traces nearby. Surely, if the ships ended up here, there would be drag marks? Unless they were built right here, in which case the surrounding traces wouldn’t make sense. These two ships seemed as if they had fallen from the sky.

At this moment, the direction they emerged from faced the rear of the metal ship. This ship was already completely twisted and broken in the middle, but one could still glimpse its former shape. Looking at the stern of the ship, Alka seemed to understand. The stern of this ship wasn’t flat and tightly enclosed like those on the ships they normally used. Instead, it had a huge circular hole, although this hole was somewhat distorted due to the damage. The more Alka looked at this hole, the more he felt it resembled a propulsion nozzle.

"These two ships might have flown here from the sea," Alka said. Without waiting for the others to ask, he pointed to what he saw ahead and explained, "See that hole at the stern? If there was a device inside capable of emitting intense flames, it could instantly lift this ship into the sky. If angled correctly, it might even allow the ship to unleash tremendous power to escape quickly or catch up to enemies. As for the wooden one, it very likely has a similar structure, or perhaps it uses a Spell for temporary flight."

After all, in a world of Magic, making ships fly using Magic shouldn’t be difficult. That seemed rational enough.

"Should we go inside the ship to take a look?" Jason asked.

Alka shook his head, crouched down beside them, and scraped at the ground. A few human bones were exposed in the soft soil. They had seen such skeletal remains on their path before, many of them, in fact. They were merely fragments of remains, so it seemed they hadn’t become undead simply because they were too shattered. If they had been even slightly more complete, perhaps they could have stood up and moved.

"Forget it, no rush," Alka said. "Let’s circle around first before exploring." Alka had already seen the inside of the shipwreck, where walking corpses with metal limbs lay or leaned, concealed in various places. One of them had a hand and a leg completely transformed into metal limbs. This transformation meant that walking corpse’s strength was at least Four Spirals, possibly even Five Spirals, and its limbs were very intact. This was unlike the ones they had encountered earlier on the periphery; even if those were relatively strong, their limbs hadn’t fully formed, making it difficult for them to inflict harm.

Both ships had crashed here, so there must be some Treasure left behind, especially considering how many people had died. Once we find a Treasure location, we can determine the approximate Difficulty. It wouldn’t be too late to explore then. This approach was safer.

Hearing Alka’s words, the others had no objections. Being cautious was always a good idea. Then they began to circle the edge of the shipwreck, allowing Chadite to use her silver ripples to record the surrounding environment.

"Alright, the general layout of the Island is recorded. We can return now," Chadite announced.

Hearing Chadite’s words, Alka nodded. "Okay," he said to everyone. "Let’s head back to our ship first. We’ll prepare and then officially explore these two wrecks tomorrow." He looked up at the sky. By this time, the sun had completely set, and barely any twilight remained. Exploring now wasn’t suitable, whether because they lacked a map or due to the current circumstances. Besides, they had crossed a storm in the morning, so their current condition couldn’t be considered optimal. With that, they proceeded to leave.

Choosing a different path than the one they had taken to enter, they encountered a few more walking corpses on the way. However, they already had experience dealing with them and easily took care of them. Most of these walking corpses weren’t very strong, generally at the two to three Spiral stage. And because they lacked intelligence, their attacks were extremely simplistic and hardly caused them any trouble. They only encountered three walking corpses similar to the Four Spirals ones from before. With clever collaboration, they could easily defeat them. Eventually, they reached the coast.

When they reached the coast, the sky was completely dark. Considering the Island was not safe, they still took the Flying Swallow back to the Sound of Dawn. Piloting the Sound of Dawn, they stopped not far from the Island’s beach. They didn’t dare to go too far; otherwise, they would be swept away by the relentless sea currents and be unable to return. These currents seemed to offer little resistance, but Alka and his team had tried and found it difficult to navigate back against them. These currents came in waves, with strong surges at intervals. Coupled with a constant breeze blowing them forward, they were still slowly pushed along even when exerting all their effort to go against it. Only a vessel with powerful propulsion could return against such tides. Only in the vicinity of such islands did the landmass significantly weaken the current’s intensity.

Back on the Sound of Dawn, Juanlu began preparing dinner for everyone. Considering the next day’s activities, he decided to prepare a grand feast. Chadite also began to draft maps in her room. Alka quietly waited.