novelraw Chapter 146: A Shadow in the Sky
Chapter 146: A Shadow in the Sky
The ragged sound of breathing was swallowed by the driving rain, snatched by gusts of wind and lost without a trace.
Amidst the raging storm, following the Six-Armed Savage through the thickets of the swamp, Lu Li noticed that the creature was moving in an almost straight line.
It pushed forward relentlessly, no longer detouring around bogs, turning aside only for fallen trees and tangled roots.
This meant the quagmire was behind them, and they were approaching the edge of the swamp.
Just when salvation seemed near, something strange occurred. From the shadows of the trees, a few meters ahead, a colossal black spider descended. Its abdomen was disproportionately large, and its sheer size surpassed that of a man.
Lu Li's pupils contracted. He stopped dead and his hand went to the Spirit Gun beneath his cloak.
"What's wrong?"
Anna glanced curiously in the direction Lu Li was staring, but she saw nothing there.
"An illusion from the In-Between."
The descending spider was merely a black silhouette. Four long limbs, each the length of a grown man's, writhed before it as if ensnaring invisible prey.Lu Li skirted the eerie illusion and looked ahead. The figure of the Six-Armed Savage had vanished into the curtain of rain.
"It's gone...?"
Anna looked around, trying to spot the creature, and followed Lu Li in confusion.
The trees around them began to thin, and after a few dozen meters, an open space, free of twisted trunks, appeared before them.
They were back on the swamp road.
"We made it out!"
Anna exclaimed joyfully. The pressure that had weighed on them since they first entered the swamp finally lifted.
Lu Li stood at the edge of the road. Without the protection of the trees, the storm felt even more ferocious. The rain hammered against him like hail, and the wind shifted erratically, shoving him one moment and trying to knock him off his feet the next.
He allowed himself a moment of relief, but his tension returned almost immediately.
The danger was not yet over. Tenebrae was still about five kilometers away, which meant at least an hour's journey through the treacherous swamp.
Unless a passing cart happened to come by. But the hope for that was slim—in weather like this, no one wanted to take the risk, not even the greediest of owners.
Stepping onto the swamp road, Lu Li felt solid ground beneath his feet. It brought a welcome sense of stability.
Visibility was extremely low in the downpour. The two figures walked side by side along the straight road.
A white lace dress fluttered in the wind, but her short, silk-like hair remained untouched by the rain. Anna silently counted her steps. The rising numbers gave her a sense of progress toward their goal.
However slow it might be.
She was a little worried about Lu Li's condition, but his face remained impassive, his stride steady.
The frequent flashes of lightning were not exactly good for one's vision, but they were better than nothing.
Rainwater streamed off into the swamp on both sides of the road, but puddles collected in the uneven patches.
Lu Li lowered his head, stepping around a puddle.
In the flickering light of a lightning strike, the surface of the water reflected whatever was above Lu Li's head. In that instant, he saw in the reflection a vast, formless shadow hovering in the sky.
Lu Li raised his head and squinted at the sky behind him.
It was a ship, resembling an elongated balloon. It floated a hundred meters above the ground, moving at a speed of about eight knots... through the sky.
"A ship...?"
Anna's surprised and frightened voice sounded beside him.
This time, it was no illusion.
The shifting wind whipped painfully at his face. The ever-thoughtful Anna created a protective shield with her power in front of Lu Li. Raindrops struck it as if hitting a pane of glass and streamed downward.
The ship's hull was covered in rust, and its length, about twenty meters, was reminiscent of the medium-sized fishing vessels often seen in Port Roadster.
A bare mast rose from the deck.
Amazingly, the ship was entirely solid. When lightning flashed, its shadow appeared on the ground below. The rain poured onto its deck, and the water seemed to have already filled it to the brim, spilling over the sides.
Under the watchful eyes of Lu Li and Anna, the strange vessel, which had appeared from nowhere beneath the clouds, floated over them, crossed the swamp road, and, heading toward the northern part of the swamp, gradually vanished from sight.
Occasional flashes of lightning briefly illuminated its diminishing silhouette.
"Where is it going...?" Anna asked, looking away and dissolving the protective shield.
Although she could restore her power in the open air, she would lose consciousness during the process. And if Lu Li couldn't touch her, she might open her eyes to find herself all alone in the middle of the swamp road.
"Perhaps to Belfast," Lu Li replied, having determined the ship's approximate direction and memorized where it had come from.
Once back in Tenebrae, he could plot the ship's course on a map.
They continued the rest of their journey in silence.
Lu Li walked with his head down, eyes scanning his surroundings, his mind racing.
The recent strange events felt like an omen of bad things to come...
He hoped they were just coincidences, and not what he truly feared: that the world was growing ever more dangerous.
...
Rain streamed down the windows.
On the outskirts of Tenebrae, not far from the swamp road, was a makeshift "landing."
Carts stood in a line in an open space, while horses and goods that couldn't get wet were sheltered under an awning. Laborers, hugging their arms, squatted beneath the shelter, murmuring quietly among themselves.
Not far from the stables, a tavern was alive with noise. Commoners in homespun clothes and wealthy merchants or nobles in expensive attire sat at tables, their loud voices threatening to burst through the wooden walls.
At the edge of the tavern, closer to the swamp, stood a small hut. Inside, someone in a thin shirt huddled by the stove, shivering and stretching their hands toward the coals.
"Terrible weather, isn't it?"
A scruffy, middle-aged man had his feet propped up on a table, a cup of steaming coffee in his hands as he stared out the window.
The two men made the hut feel cramped. Windows on all sides revealed its purpose: it was an observation post.
The young man by the stove continued to complain, "A few carts have already fallen apart, and they say houses in town have collapsed... What are those scientists even doing? The hurricane has reached Tenebrae, and we haven't heard a peep from them!"
The middle-aged man shook his head. "That's normal, they're always like this. Maybe they write their weather forecasts drunk, because no sober person would come up with such nonsense."
The young man grew more agitated. "Old Joey and his rheumatism can predict the weather more accurately than them!"
Thud!
The middle-aged man slammed his feet down.
He stared in astonishment at the two figures outside the window. "Someone's coming! They're on the swamp road... Wait a minute... They came off the swamp road?!"