novelraw Chapter 365: Spiritual Blind Spot
Chapter 365: Spiritual Blind Spot
A steam whistle tore through the thin fog of the fifth morning's dawn.
Lin Jie stood on the deck of the Black Seagull.
Beside him, William was wiping the railing with a cloth, his movements perfectly mimicking those of an old sailor doing odd jobs on a ship to make a living.
But the eyes hidden beneath the brim of his hat were fixed intently on the starboard side.
A gunboat flying a red, white, and blue flag was rapidly closing in.
It was the patrol boat "Batavia" of the Royal Netherlands Navy.
It had a streamlined iron hull, and the 75mm Armstrong breech-loading gun on its foredeck was uncovered, its dark, gaping muzzle deliberately or inadvertently aimed at the Black Seagull's waterline.
For the smuggling ships in these waters, this was more deadly than a storm.
"Damn it, it's those vampires."
Captain Deken rushed down from the bridge, his face etched with anxiety."First mate! Have the men in the hold hide those 'goods'! If these Dutchmen catch a whiff, we'll all be digging coal in the labor camps of Java for the rest of our lives!"
The crew began to run frantically across the deck.
They dragged tarpaulins, trying to cover the mountainous piles of crates.
A sense of tension filled the air.
It was a smell mixed with sweat, fear, and the impending violent clash.
"Mr. Lin."
The captain rushed up to Lin Jie, a fierce glint in his single eye, his hand already reaching for the short gun at his waist.
"If they want to board and search, we might have to..."
He made a throat-slitting gesture.
"That's the regular military." Lin Jie frowned.
He looked at the approaching gunboat, at the Dutch sailors on its deck dressed in white uniforms and holding rifles.
"If you open fire here, half the East Indies Fleet will swarm over like sharks smelling blood."
"Then what? Wait to be hanged?" The captain gritted his teeth.
"Put the gun away."
Lin Jie straightened his collar, his fingers lightly brushing over the ring on his right index finger.
"We are legitimate merchants from Rotterdam, remember that identity. Leave the rest to me."
The Black Seagull was forced to stop.
With a grating screech, the two ships came alongside each other.
Several gangplanks were heavily laid across the gunwales.
A squad of fully armed Dutch sailors rushed over. They roughly shoved aside crewmen in their way, banging their rifle butts against the deck.
Bringing up the rear was a portly naval captain.
He wore a sweat-soaked white uniform, the collar open, revealing a thick mat of curly hair on his chest.
In his hand was a rattan cane with a silver head, his face bearing the arrogance and greed unique to colonial officials.
"Van der Deken."
The captain tapped the cane against the captain's chest, making a "thump, thump" sound.
"I could smell the stink of your rotten ship from three nautical miles away."
"What are you carrying this time? Spices? Silk? Or logs stolen from Kalimantan?"
"Just some common daily necessities, sir."
The captain forced a smile, but his single eye held a hidden sharpness.
"And a few passengers returning to Europe."
"Passengers?"
The captain raised an eyebrow, his gaze passing over the captain's shoulder and landing on the four figures standing on the aft deck.
His eyes lingered for a moment on Evelyn's delicate face, flashing with a lewd glint, then shifted to William, who looked like a butler, and finally settled on Lin Jie.
An Easterner.
In this era, an Easterner on such a ship usually had only two identities: a coolie, or a pirate.
"Papers."
The captain walked over, using his cane to lift Lin Jie's chin.
This extremely insulting gesture instantly made William tense up beside him.
The long wooden box containing the gun was right by William's feet.
In half a second.
William could retrieve that gun and blow this fat man's head off.
Lin Jie tilted his head slightly, avoiding the cane.
His movement wasn't fast, nor did it carry any aggression, but it left the captain's cane swinging through empty air.
"These are our passports, sir."
Lin Jie took out the stack of documents forged by Ethan from his coat and handed them over with both hands.
The captain snorted coldly, took the passports, and flipped through them.
Perfect workmanship, clear steel stamps, even a letter of guarantee from the Rotterdam Chamber of Commerce.
But this couldn't satisfy his appetite. In this lawless sea, the law was just a fig leaf for the greedy.
"The documents seem in order."
The captain closed the passports, scrutinizing Lin Jie with the eyes of a predator.
"But these waters have been very unsafe lately. Many rebels and smugglers are mixing in with merchant ships."
"For your safety, we need to conduct a thorough search of this ship."
"Including your personal luggage."
The captain waved his hand.
Several sailors immediately stepped forward, rifles at the ready.
One of the sailors reached out, trying to grab the backpack full of precision instruments behind Evelyn.
That was where the Echo Goggles and Tesla Coil Glove were stored.
If these things were exposed, not only would their cover be blown, but it would also attract the pursuit of I.A.R.C.
The situation reached its breaking point in that instant. The captain's hand moved toward his waist again, and William adjusted the angle of his foot for maximum force.
Julian's finger hooked around an alchemical vial.
They had to stop them, but not with guns.
Lin Jie looked at the captain with his fleshy face. At this distance, he could smell the mixture of cheap brandy and body odor on the man.
Human fear stems from the unknown.
And a higher level of fear stems from the instinctive shudder deep within one's genes at the presence of a natural predator.
Lin Jie's right hand gently clenched into a fist inside his trench coat pocket.
The Spiritual Guidance Trigger on his knuckle emitted an extremely faint sound of a mechanism engaging.
Two micro-needles pierced his palm.
The circuit connecting to the ancient divinity was instantly activated.
There was no gale.
No thunder and lightning.
Not even Lin Jie's facial expression changed.
He just looked quietly at the captain.
But in the captain's eyes, the world changed.
The somewhat frail-looking Eastern youth standing before him suddenly became blurry.
An indescribable, bone-chillingly cold aura emanated from this young man.
The captain felt as if an invisible hand was choking his throat.
His heart began to pound violently, as if trying to break through his chest and escape this body.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, a chill shot up his spine, and his legs began to tremble uncontrollably.
This was pure, physiological fear.
Like a rabbit grazing, suddenly discovering a pair of golden vertical pupils staring at it from the grass.
Run.
Must run now.
If he didn't run, he would die.
Even though the other held no weapon, even though he had a squad of fully armed soldiers behind him.
In the face of a shudder originating from the depths of the soul, all rationality seemed so pale and powerless.
The captain opened his mouth wide, wanting to give the order to search, but the sound that came out was like a choked-off chicken squawk.
"Sir?"
The sailor beside him looked puzzled at his superior, who had suddenly turned deathly pale and was sweating profusely.
"That's all there is."
Lin Jie's voice sounded at just the right moment.
To the captain, it sounded like the whisper of Death.
"We are just ordinary merchants, hoping to return to our homeland as soon as possible."
Lin Jie took a step forward.
Just a small step.
The captain, however, recoiled as if touched by a red-hot branding iron, stumbling backward so violently he almost tripped over his own cane.
"Go... go!"
The captain let out a distorted shout, turned, and ran toward the gangplank.
"Retreat! Get off this damn ship immediately!"
The sailors looked at each other, completely baffled by what was happening.
But their superior's ghost-seeing expression made them feel an inexplicable panic too.
They quickly shouldered their weapons and followed the captain in a hasty retreat back to the patrol boat.
A few minutes later.
The Batavia sped away at full speed as if fleeing for its life.
Calm returned to the deck, with only the sea wind still howling.
Captain Deken stood in place. He looked at the departing gunboat, then turned his head, looking at Lin Jie with a completely new gaze.
Although he wasn't the target of Lin Jie's focus earlier, he too had felt that suffocating pressure.
That was definitely not a power an ordinary human could possess.
"Are you a wizard?"
The captain asked cautiously, his tone no longer carrying the previous roughness.
"I'm a businessman."
Lin Jie relaxed his fist.
The Spiritual Guidance Trigger's needles retracted, and that suffocating oppressive aura dissipated.
He bent down, picked up the rattan cane the captain had left behind, and casually threw it into the sea.
"As I said, we handle the trouble."
"And you, you're responsible for sailing the ship."
Lin Jie walked up to the captain, his gaze sweeping over the surrounding crew members who were as quiet as cicadas in winter.
"Let's make a deal, Mr. Deken."
"I know this route isn't clean."
"You're avoiding official patrols, so you have to sail through dangerous waters not marked on the charts."
"There are reefs, storms, and some... things you call sea monsters or ghosts."
Lin Jie pointed at the deck beneath his feet.
"I can help you clean up the dirty things that want to climb onto this ship."
"Whether they're alive or dead."
"In exchange."
Lin Jie lowered his voice so only he and the captain could hear.
"Everything that happens on this ship is a secret."
"If I hear any rumors about the passengers on this ship in any port's tavern."
"Or if I.A.R.C. people find our trail."
Lin Jie didn't finish the sentence.
He gave the captain a faint look.
In that instant, the captain felt his heart skip a beat again.
This young man before him was more terrifying than a sea monster.
"Deal."
The captain swallowed hard and extended his rough, large hand.
"The Black Seagull saw no passengers."
"We're just shipping a damned load of spices to Rotterdam."
Lin Jie shook that hand.
This was a contract forged at sea, based on power and fear.
It was more binding than any paper document.
Night fell.
The fog over the sea grew thicker.
The Black Seagull extinguished all its navigation lights, gliding silently across the dark ocean surface like a colossal ghost.
Lin Jie returned to the lower crew quarters.
The air here was still foul, but everyone's mood had clearly relaxed somewhat.
The day's encounter made them realize that even without the Association's support, this team still possessed the capital to survive on this cruel sea.
Julian was hunched over the oak table.
He had lit a storm lantern, its light illuminating his tired but focused face.
Spread out before him were several complex nautical charts, beside which lay a precisely crafted brass sextant and several thick astronomical almanacs.
"Something's not right."
Seeing Lin Jie enter, Julian looked up, his brows tightly locked together.
"What's wrong?"
Lin Jie walked over, looking at the densely packed data and lines.
"Our position."
Julian drew a circle on the chart with a pencil.
"Based on speed and compass, we should currently be at the edge of the Andaman Sea, northwest of Sumatra."
"But..."
He pointed to a hand-drawn star chart beside him.
"Half an hour ago, I took advantage of a gap in the fog to observe the stars."
"At this latitude and longitude, the zenith constellation at this time should be Orion."
"But the stellar positions I observed have an inexplicable deviation from the standard star chart."
Julian's voice trembled slightly.
As a meticulous scholar, this phenomenon defying common sense filled him with deep unease.
"How much deviation?" Lin Jie asked.
"It's not a simple angular deviation."
Julian shook his head.
"If it were that, it could be explained as observational error or atmospheric refraction."
"But the starry sky here... it's more like a kind of absence."
He took out a piece of white paper and drew an irregular oval on it.
"The starlight in this area simply doesn't exist."
"It's as if someone dug a hole in the celestial canopy, or covered this area of sea with an invisible dome."
"All starlight undergoes some kind of bizarre distortion upon entering this range."
"This phenomenon is called 'ghost wall' in nautical oddities, but in mysticism, it has a more accurate name."
Julian took a deep breath and wrote a word in the middle of the oval.
"Spiritual Blind Zone."
Lin Jie looked at the word, his expression turning grave.
He remembered what the captain had said during the day.
That hunter codenamed "The Sculptor" was waiting for them ahead.
A high-level hunter would never choose a patch of sea as an ambush point for no reason.
He must know about the peculiarities here.
"What are the characteristics of this blind zone?" Lin Jie asked.
"Don't know."
Julian closed his notebook.
"Because it has never been marked on official charts."
"Generally speaking, such a blind zone means the physical laws or spiritual laws here are in an extremely unstable state."
"Here, conventional compasses may fail, spiritual detection methods may be interfered with."
"Even..."
Julian glanced at Evelyn, who was resting with her eyes closed nearby.
"Even scientific instruments based on wave theory might malfunction."
Lin Jie turned his head.
He saw that the core crystal on Evelyn's Echo Goggles, which were under repair, seemed to have grown even duller.
The ship shuddered slightly once more, that heavy feeling even more pronounced than during the day.
As if something was gradually increasing the ship's weight.
Lin Jie walked to the porthole.
The sea outside was pitch black, without even a glimmer of reflection.
This was the blind zone.
A dead, silent place without starlight, without guidance, where even sound might be swallowed.
"Tell the captain to prepare himself."
"We are sailing into a shadow even God cannot see."