End of the Magic Era

“Finally out…” Lin Yun was relieved. They had no less than 37 encounters with Frost Giants and other ice monsters on their way here.

This meant that they had underwent 37 battles, for a total of over several thousand magic beasts. They could easily handle it at first, but as they got deeper and deeper, the amount of magic beasts kept increasing and they started succumbing to exhaustion. Especially on the final day, even Lin Yun had no other choice but to frequently return to the Natural Demiplane to recover his mana.

Fortunately, they were finally out…

“Hold on…” Zeuss, who was at the forefront, suddenly stopped, his face filled with shock.

“Yes?” Lin Yun was surprised at first, but then, his expression suddenly changed as he felt a fierce mana fluctuations covering the surroundings. Before Lin Yun had a chance to analyze it with his Magic Array, this fierce fluctuations transformed into a loud rumbling noise.

It sounded very distant at first…

But after a split second, they could recognize that this sound was getting closer…

“Rumble…”

“Rumble…”

That loud rumble felt as if thousands upon thousands mammoths were charging…

“Sh*t!” Lin Yun suddenly cursed.

Then, a huge rift appeared under his feet, just like a scar dividing the world of ice in two…

“Fly up, fly up, quick!” Lin Yun unhesitantly used Levitation and floated upward while looking at the happenings below…

Sure enough…

The world of ice seemed to be torn apart, shattered ice spread everywhere while the rumbling never stopped and another sharp sound started accompanying it instead, the sound of ice shattering.

Formidable waves surged from the depths of the rift, coming over with a roar. No one expected that a boundless ocean actually existed in the depths of the ice field…

The sea was raging up, its great waves reaching the sky.

Ultimately, a huge colossus slowly rose up from the depths of the sea.

That was a huge grey ship!

That ship was enormous, its hull spread for ten thousand meters and appeared far longer than the Mountain Pythons they had encountered. The entire hull gave out a decayed and desolate feeling, as if it had been laying at the bottom of the sea for several dozen millennia. Outlines of a fierce skull could be seen on the remains of the sail, a symbol of a pirate ship. After a quick glance, Arthus found out that there was no silhouette on the ship, it looked eerie and silent.

“Ghost Ship…”

As Arthus let out those words, a terrifying force suddenly emerged, covering everything within a few kilometers. Lin Yun didn’t have time to understand what was happening, his body fell down when that power covered him.

“Hell…” Lin Yun was startled. He tried using Levitation once again, but discovered that it was useless.

Yes, Levitation couldn’t be used!

With the surge of power, Lin Yun’s Levitation stopped working, no matter how much he incanted, he couldn’t decrease his falling speed at all…

‘What’s going on?’

The sound of wind whistling was echoing in his ears as he was falling faster and faster. Lin Yun stiffened and tried to cast a Featherfall in a rush, hoping it would decrease his falling speed, while also summoning ten Water Elementals below, hoping they would more or less help him.

Then…

A loud sound echoed.

Lin Yun had never been so miserable, Featherfall didn’t work and Lin Yun’s falling speed didn’t slow down in the slightest, leaving him heavily crashing on the deck of the Ghost Ship…

But how could the rotten deck handle such torment, only a crash echoed as Lin Yun directly met with the deck only to create a huge hole before continuing his fall. He didn’t even know how many floors he broke through.

‘Thankfully I’m smart…’ Lin Yun managed to recover soon enough and couldn’t help rejoicing after noticing the damp feeling of having crashed into the Water Elementals…

Thankfully he hadn’t put all his hope on one spell, otherwise he might have turned into minced meat after a kilometer long fall.

But, even then, Lin Yun’s fall wasn’t exactly gentle…

Every single bone in his body felt as if it was broken, that kind of pain made Lin Yun feel as if he had been stepped on by a colossus…

“Sir Merlin, Sir Merlin…” Xiuban’s voice could be heard not far from there. After having taken a bath in the Ancient God Blood, the resilience of the Draconic Beastman’s body had greatly increased, it was far beyond that of a High Mage. After such a long fall, his body didn’t have the slightest scratch and he was now standing there, loudly shouting.

“Alright, stop yelling, I’m still alive…” Lin Yun scolded in a low voice and struggled to crawl up from the ground, massaging the wounded areas while taking the time to ask Xiuban, “What about the others?”

“I don’t know…” Xiuban straightforwardly shook his head, “I’ve seen no one except that Dragonwoman…”

“Alright…” Lin Yun looked around, and sure enough, Reina was there.

As a Dragon, falling from such a height was nothing, her clothes weren’t even crumpled. After seeing Lin Yun get up, Reina’s expression relaxed a bit and she nodded at him, “I didn’t see anyone else.”

“A bit troublesome…” If Reina said that she didn’t see, then she didn’t see. Lin Yun couldn’t help frowning, this huge ship was too strange, the way it appeared even stranger, and there was also that mysterious power that restricted all flying-type spells. It was definitely one of those legendary flight-restricted domains.

Any array that used such a domain would definitely be nothing to scoff at. Domain meant altering Laws, or even creating Laws. That belonged to the realm of Saint Alchemists.

“Sir Merlin, where… Where are we?” Xiuban sounded somewhat afraid.

“How would I know…” Lin Yun unhappily answered. The lights were dusky, there was no sound, and an eerie and gloomy aura filled the place.

Lin Yun frowned and started incanting, and as he did one Mage Eye after another appeared in front of him. After a short time, several dozen Mage Eyes appeared in the hold of the ship.

After connecting them with his mana, Lin Yun glanced at these Mage Eyes and sent them flying out of the hold. After three seconds, Lin Yun was pleased by the information the Mage Eyes sent back and led Xiuban and Reina to another side of the hold.

Lin Yun soon found the puppet…

But the Watsons were missing.

“Sir Merlin, can we leave this place? It feels wicked here…” The ghastly surroundings had got completely rid of Xiuban’s courage, there was a sobbing tone in his voice.

“Wicked and restricting magic.” Lin Yun didn’t know where they were, but that place was restricting flying-type magic, no matter how evil it was, they couldn’t leave for the time being.

“Sir Merlin…”

As Xiuban whined once again, Lin Yun was already leading Reina and the puppet out of this hold and towards the next room. Xiuban fearfully looked around and after being scared by a passing cold breeze, he sprinted towards Lin Yun.

The hold was huge and filled with countless hallways. There were no decorations, it was freezing cold, eerily devoid of sound and desolate, making everyone’s mood very heavy.

Hours passed as they kept moving. The place didn’t seem to have an end, making Lin Yun’s frown accentuate, up until they finally arrived in front of a giant painting.

The person on the painting was a middle-aged man in his forties, wearing a black captain hat with a vivid and lifelike skull on it. His right eye was covered by a black leather patch, only exposing his left. As he looked at him, Lin Yun felt as if he was stared at by a viper.

The most important part was that this middle-aged man had a red beard.

‘Hold on… Red beard?’

Lin Yun suddenly recalled such a person in Noscent’s history…

“Damnit, it’s Red Beard…” After examining the painting, he was stunned when he recognized the famous Red Beard.

It was rumored that in the Ancient God Era, Red Beard was one of the most powerful humans and was highly valued by Constance, who made him his naval commander. Until the later period of the Ancient God Era, numerous Gods had fallen and Red Beard was said to have entered the northernmost Endless Sea, establishing the Red Beard Pirates, and becoming one of the most famous pirates in history.

According to the legends, he had once plundered a Pure-blooded Elven Princess on the outskirts of the Endless Sea.