novelraw Chapter 278: King of Dominions
Chapter 278: King of Dominions
Just as Jesse had said earlier, the sailing speed of the Flying Fish was incredibly fast. Not long after, while standing on the deck, the shape of the Patroshen Islands resting within the curtain of night could no longer be seen behind them. Jesse wiped the sweat from his face and walked out from the captain's cabin. Spotting Fischer still leaning against the side of the deck, he spoke to him,
"Although the captain's cabin was rummaged through by them, fortunately, the nautical charts are still there. Taking you to the Northern Border will be absolutely no problem. Also, I just checked the coal inside the engine room; luckily, those gang members found it too troublesome and didn't transport them away either. Otherwise, we wouldn't have sailed very far before we had to drop anchor and stop in the middle of the sea."
"That's good."
Fischer nodded at him in response. For some unknown reason, in Jesse's eyes, this paramour of the Iceberg Queen had actually acquired a layer of mystery at this moment. The scene of him using Weaver to steal the key back just now was still intensely shocking. It seemed this handsome young man from Naris was a magician. Who knew how he managed to hook up with that Iceberg Queen from the Sardin Woman's Country.
Jesse's eyes darted around, carefully shooting a glance at Eimhart on Fischer's shoulder. Subsequently, as if he suddenly remembered something, he said,
"Oh right, Mr. Fischer, didn't you want your book friend to read the books collected on the ship? Those books are right inside my captain's cabin. Do you want to come over and take a look?"
Before Fischer could even respond, Eimhart on his shoulder was already impatiently headbutting his gentleman's hat. Fischer smiled helplessly and signaled Jesse to lead the way.
No one else had boarded the Flying Fish for far too long, and the gang detaining it naturally wouldn't be charitable enough to clean it up. Therefore, heavily thick layers of dust blanketed every spot visible to the naked eye. It was likely that even Jesse himself couldn't remember exactly how long she had been drifting on the sea.
"Right this way, right this way. The sailing times in the past were awfully long. With nothing else to do, I could only rely on reading various books to pass the time."
The space within the captain's cabin wasn't large, but aboard a scaled-down ship like the Flying Fish, it was already considered one of the larger rooms. The furnishings inside weren't any different from a typical captain's cabin: nautical charts, clothing, various ledgers, and the master control switch for the engine's main shaft.The only difference separating it from other captains lay in the two massive bookshelves placed against the wall on one side of the room. They were completely packed with all sorts of books. Most were from Naris, though there were naturally quite a few books from the Southern Continent as well.
As Jesse introduced the room to Fischer, a complex array of emotions swirled in his eyes, as though he had run into an old friend after a long separation.
"I can smell the scent, Fischer! It's right there!"
The moment Eimhart entered, he seemed to catch wind of something delicious. He smacked his lips, staring fixedly at a specific spot on the bookshelf.
"Haha, you guys can freely browse and read the books here. I'm going to check the cabins below to see if there are any problems after all this time. After all, the Flying Fish is still a wooden ship. If there's a hole or a screw has fallen out somewhere, it could cause massive problems..."
"I understand. I'll come find you after reading."
"It's fine. I don't know if the lights down below are broken or not, so it's probably going to be quite dark. Mr. Fischer can stay on the deck; I'll come find you after checking the situation below... It won't take long."
Fischer shot him a glance and nodded in agreement without much thought.
"Alright, we'll have to trouble Captain Jesse then. We'll wait here for you."
"No problem."
Jesse rubbed the back of his head, then immediately sprinted toward the direction of the deck. Staying inside the captain's cabin, Fischer watched his increasingly distant back, then silently closed the door, isolating the room from the outside.
The instant Jesse left, Eimhart flew straight for that corner of the bookshelf. Fischer merely cast a rough glance over the books on the shelves; finding no useful clues, he walked behind the captain's desk and meticulously examined its contents.
The desktop was covered in dust, but there was nothing worthy of special attention—only ordinary items like an ashtray and a desk lamp.
"Fischer, look quickly! There's a hidden compartment behind the bookshelf here! The thing I want to read is inside."
Just as Fischer finished surveying the area empty-handed, Eimhart, who had been swaying his body in front of the bookshelf, suddenly discovered something and hurriedly turned his head to call out to him.
Fischer walked in front of the bookshelf. There, in a corner obscured by numerous books near the innermost side, a square recessed groove impressively revealed itself. Lacking hands, Eimhart could only watch anxiously. It was Fischer who reached out first, grabbing the books blocking the hidden compartment and opening it up.
Inside the moderately sized space rested a heavy notebook. Beside that notebook lay two or three items flashing with metallic lusters: a pocket watch, a highly antiquated flintlock musket, and a few gold bars bundled together.
Fischer raised an eyebrow and took everything out from inside. He first cast his gaze upon the book Eimhart cared about most. However, the moment he laid eyes on the book's title, his expression grew peculiar—because the title written on this book was "Flying Fish Logbook."
A logbook was something every captain was intimately familiar with. Unlike the standardized logs used to deal with company inspections and audits nowadays, during the early days of pioneering, logbooks were mostly highly private items used to record the people and events encountered along the journey.
Fischer still remembered that when the Gedrin Royal Museum was established, Blake had gifted his own logbook to the Gedrin Royal Family, who collected it as an epoch-making treasure.
But regardless of the specifics, was what Eimhart originally felt intensely interested in merely a captain's logbook? Why did it feel a bit somewhat lacking in prestige? Could it be that some profoundly esoteric secrets were recorded inside?
"No, it's not this logbook! It's the thing tucked inside! There's a piece of paper sandwiched inside this book, that's what I want to read!"
Hearing Eimhart's demand, Fischer helplessly flipped open this captain's log. Sure enough, right at the first title page, he spotted a piece of parchment that had been folded numerous times. The parchment looked incredibly archaic, giving off the illusion that it had become intensely fragile because it recorded a heavy weight of history.
"This is it! Fischer! This is it! I can already smell its fragrance! Hurry, hurry, hurry! Open it up quickly, let's read the contents inside together!"
Fischer reached out his hand and unfolded the parchment paper, revealing text that resembled ghost-drawn talismans. In between the text, various bizarre and eerie symbols had been drawn using the fresh blood of some unknown animal.
The instant he saw those eerie symbols, Fischer suddenly felt his scalp go numb. However, when he laid eyes upon the symbol situated dead center on the parchment, which resembled a gemstone crown, he suddenly found it intensely familiar...
Yes, Fischer felt as though he had seen this symbol somewhere before.
"Are these... texts from the Southern Continent?"
"Yes, but also no. The most widely circulated script in the Southern Continent is the Fafnir Dragon Court Script, which shares countless inextricably linked ties with the period under the Dragon Court's rule. But the text here isn't the Fafnir Dragon Court Script; rather, it's 【Ancient Human Script】. In other words, the text here is human writing. It's a cousin to the human language you use now dating back to ancient times. In the earliest eras, the humans of the Southern Continent all used this type of script."
"Wait, are you saying the humans of the Southern Continent use a language that shares a cousin-like relationship with the humans of the Western Continent?"
"Yeah, who knows, maybe a group of people from the Western Continent moved over to the Southern Continent?"
But the problem was, humans had only acquired such maritime navigation technology a few decades ago. So how on earth did humans travel across thousands, possibly even nearing ten thousand years ago? By relying on some sort of demi-humans?
Speaking of which, Fischer suddenly recalled that Caleb Woods—the author of the Soul Completion Handbook—had also previously mentioned that the Dragon Court's magic was brought by humans. Could this genuinely prove that there really were humans from the Western Continent who immigrated to the Southern Continent through some method back then?
Fischer pondered for a moment, then shifted his gaze back to the scroll in his hands. At this very moment, he suddenly remembered exactly where he had seen the symbol in the center of that scroll.
He had seen this symbol on that Demon Gate located behind the demon sisters hidden deep within Serpent's Head Street in Saint-Nazareth! And if Fischer remembered correctly, this symbol was precisely one of the few hanging high up at the very top.
"My heavens, Fischer..."
While Fischer was still trying to recall exactly which symbols had been engraved atop the Demon Gate in his memories, Eimhart—who was floating in mid-air—suddenly plummeted downward like a body losing control after finishing reading the contents of the parchment. Fortunately, Fischer had quick reflexes and reached out to catch him in his palm, preventing him from crashing head-first into the floor.
"What's wrong? What's recorded on it?"
Sitting within Fischer's palm, Eimhart seemed to have had some sort of immense terror awakened within him. Even his eye began spinning wildly.
He opened his mouth, waiting for quite a while before finally floating back up from Fischer's palm. Subsequently, feeling intensely guilty, he spoke to Fischer,
"Recorded inside here is how humans from ancient times prayed to the Abyss, and how to set up the ritual to summon a specific Demon God Pillar... My heavens, I absolutely never expected to see this thing again so many years after the demons' Demon God Pillars were locked inside the Abyss! This is truly... truly too terrifying!"
Good heavens, had you recalled your tragic past of being caught and brutally beaten by demons in the Abyss?
Fischer didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He spoke to Eimhart,
"Didn't you just say that all the Demon God Pillars are currently locked within the Abyss and have no way of coming out? What are you so afraid of?"
"No, no, no! Fischer, move that broken piece of paper a little further away first, and listen to me! I previously read in demonic ancient texts that an incredibly tragic war once occurred in this world! Almost all races participated in it, but the primary combatants were several Mythic Species that even I can't clearly describe in detail; they fought the fiercest!"
Eimhart's words sounded highly hurried. As he spoke, the pages on his body flipped furiously. The golden light bursting out from within indicated that he was continuously drawing upon the various knowledge recorded inside his body from the past.
"The specific outcome of that war remains unknown to this day, because the time period was simply far too ancient! I possessed zero sentience back then! And I haven't seen any relevant records outside of the Abyss since! So, all I know is the ultimate fate of the Demon-kin in that war—they ultimately lost."
"The demons' true forms, the 【Demon God Pillars】, were purged by the enemy and locked deep within the Abyss, unable to be moved. The Eliog you met before was exactly like this. Her excessively powerful soul arrived in the Western Continent, and due to the unified nature of soul and flesh, the world constructed a physical shell for her, much like how Chaos-kin descend upon the world from the Spirit World. That shell is nothing more than a crude imitation of her true form! Her rank didn't even reach the Mythic Rank, hovering only around Tier Thirteen to Fourteen! Meanwhile, her true form is a full eighteen Tiers!"
The more Fischer listened, the more exceedingly peculiar his expression became. If that was the case, didn't that mean his previous sexual relations with Eliog counted as some sort of soul-level communication?
"Fischer, there are 72 Demon God Pillars in total, symbolizing 72 great demons of the Mythic Rank. Logically speaking, after that war, all the Demon God Pillars should have been locked and their true forms sealed beneath the Abyss. Yet, there was one single exception!"
"There was a demon god highly skilled in trickery who used despicable methods to escape the war's purge! She hid her true form away, hiding it somewhere in the world where it could never be found..."
"And the summoning parchment scroll we see right now—the ritual recorded on it summons precisely that demon god whose true form was not locked within the Abyss! No matter how you call out to the other demon gods, they have no way of responding to you right now! However, I cannot guarantee whether this particular demon god will respond to you or not! Furthermore, from what I know, that vile bastard absolutely loved taking the initiative to grant knowledge to humans during ancient times!"
Eimhart spoke with lingering fear. An image of a terrifying demon wearing a mischievous smile and a gemstone crown upon her head seemingly surfaced in his eye. Just recalling that figure caused his boxy body to shudder. He didn't even dare mutter her name aloud, acting as though those hell-like circumstances had just occurred yesterday.
Fischer evaluated the intensely terrified Eimhart. A guess suddenly formed in his heart. He gently folded the parchment in his hand and tucked it back inside the book. Then, looking at Eimhart before him, he said,
"Let me guess: you must have seen the true form of this demon who uniquely escaped the war's punishment within the Abyss back then, and you are deeply aware of her terror. Since she is still active in this world, that is why you are so worried that our calls will be heard by her right now, correct?"
Fischer tapped his finger against the book cover, recalling the words Eliog had spoken to him concerning that very demon.
"That demon god who escaped the war's punishment is the 【King of Dominions】, the Demon God 【Baimon】..."