Chapter 705 - Sounds Surely Safe

Do I send a big bolt in the ocean? A large enough explosion should create more than enough steam to hide us for a bit… No that’s easily blown away with a bit of wind… 

Wait… The smell of this fish must be frying my brain.

They’re still wearing the bone rings I gave them, right?

Yep, looks like it. Alright.

How much mana to invest, two million? Six minutes should be enough.

Sofia flew up as much as the rules of the event would let her, and after a short five second cast, she spent a million mana on a Saintomancer’s Star. The bright sun of holy light appeared above the ship, and was left behind as the galleon continued to advance.

“That should do it.” Sofia flew back down to keep grilling Pestle’s catch. “Good enough?” she asked Kuli.

“Perfect, thank you, should help to hide where we are going.”   

“I think they’ll figure it out soon anyway,” Mornn added.

“Likely, some must have picked the map too, also, but this is really starting to feel like a race to me, so any advance we can get is good to take,” Kuli explained.

“Well, you’re the one behind the wheel.”

“Girls,” Sofia interrupted, “Look, there was nothing out there and this fog suddenly appeared,” she told them, pointing vaguely at the direction of the third checkpoint on the map.

“Neh, I was wondering how we were going to find a canyon in this plane ocean,” Kuli noted,” I suppose this works.”

The group lazily munched on grilled meat as they sailed toward the fog, Sofia getting a few kill alerts in the process. Looking back, it seemed the curse of her fake sun mesmerized a few contestants into jumping in the water and that had killed them somehow. The other strong contestants, however, were all still following, having all dealt with the curse, one way or another.

For a crazy ride into the sunset it has been pretty mild so far. Sofia thought as the ship slowly entered the thick fog.

Sofia looked down the side of the galleon, making sure that the formation of her skeletons held. She had summoned 200 guardian Kidjikkiks, 100 for each side of the galleon. They were latching onto the sides of the hull in a tight formation, with their large rectangular shields strapped on their back like shells.

A few losses again; the ones from below, climb back up to fix the hole in your formation. Sofia ordered them as she kept unloading more bones to hastily fix the holes in the hull.

“All from the right!” Kuli warned, her superior hearing letting her notice the faintest of sound.

The entire crew rushed to the right side of the ship, ready to defend. This was the tenth salvo of cannonballs aimed at the ship since it had entered the canyon. The canyon was a large channel between two tall cliffs, but the galleon was forced to traverse through the very center, as there were many rocky outcrops on the sides. With how thick the fog was, that meant they could barely see the bottom of the cliffs on either side, and could not see the enemy hiding within cliffside galleries.

On each side were lines and lines of cannons, and no matter how much Sofia strained her mana senses, she could never tell which ones were going to fire before that happened.

As Kuli had predicted, the group heard a series of bangs from the right cliff, and a dozen asterite cannonballs flew toward the ship from a few different angles. Sofia managed to store four of them in her eye before they hit the ship, but that was the most she could get in so little time with the fog hindering her view. The others all blocked however they could, and this volley was successfully defended against.

“That’s ten. This canyon sure is long,” Mornn complained, joining the others near the wheel.

“At least with Sofia to fix the ship we’ll be leaving with basically no damage,” Kuli said, putting her hands back on the wheel. “We’re almost at the third checkpoint, so this must be the end. I can hear the other ship behind us is getting closer, Ezerid’s group, I think.”

“They must have picked two speed perks,” Sofia guessed, “at this rate–”

“Wait,” Kuli interrupted her, her ears perking up, “Both sides! Big one!”

Everyone left for their post, they each had their pre-assigned position for attacks from both sides to make organization faster.

Cannons fired from both cliffs, tens of cannonballs raining upon the ship. Everyone did their best to defend, but many Kidjikkik skeletons died, and the galleon was inevitably pierced in several places both above and below the waterline. Sofia’s storage eye harvested the cannonballs straight from the air, but under the constant barrage, she had to leave the defense to the others.

“I’m going down to repair!” she yelled amidst the constant firing noises. Jumping pas Pareth whose shield stopped cannonballs one after the other, she threw herself down the hatch leading into the ship.

She quickly flew to the nearest water leak, and with the stronger control her close aura gave her, fixed the gaping hole in the hull almost instantly. In just a few seconds, she repaired everything, but the cannonballs kept raining down, creating more holes. After thirty seconds of an uninterrupted barrage, the shots finally stopped.

Over? 

Sofia stored the few cannonballs which were floating inside of the ship, and walked to the engineer skeleton, who presented her with a new schematic of a machine to hook to the mimic-powered wheel. Some kind of hand pump? Oh to get rid of the water? Good call.

As she manufactured bone parts for the pump, Sofia got a new system notification.

[You have reached the second checkpoint! Vote on a flying perk for your vessel!]

[Available perks (4) :

• Anti-gravity hull

• Dragon wings

• Phoenix module

• Levitation array]

Flying?

Sofia ran back up to the main deck, the fog was starting to clear up, and she could see all the way to the end of the canyon, where the sea seemed to just disappear. Oh, we need to pick fast!

“What do we take?!” Sofia asked.

“Neeeeh, I’ve no idea! Wings?”

“Phoenix! Phoenix! Trust me!” Mornn jumped in, instantly casting her vote. The others followed. 

[Your group has unanimously voted for the ‘Phoenix module’ flying perk!]

[Your vessel changes!]

The hull started cracking, Sofia could feel the bones at the rear of the galleon turn into something else, looking at it, it seemed to be some kind of steel. The steel warped, taking a rounded and more elongated shape, making the ship almost twice as long at the rear. At the same time, a panel with buttons and switches along with a few levers appeared near the wheel.

“I’ll handle it!” Mornn told Kuli, taking her place at the wheel.

“Elven technology?” Kuli asked.

“Damn right! I’ve only seen this one in books, but I know how it works!”

Engi! Come up, we might need you here!

The galleon reached the end of the canyon and started to tip forward. The sky in front of them was a dark blue shifting to pure black, and the water underneath the boat had disappeared. The end of the canyon was several kilometers above the sea surface somehow, leading the ship to a freefall toward the clouds below.

“You better make it work fast!” Sofia hurried Mornn as she fought against the current to keep the ship from falling off of the canyon. No matter how much she told the bones to stop, the ship was too big for her to completely halt, especially with its new steel addition at the rear.

“Almost there!” Mornn exclaimed, frantically fiddling with the control panel, as the ship started to dangerously tip down toward the clouds.

The steel behind them started to radiate heat and make strange noises. Sofia wanted to use her mana senses to check what was happening inside, but she held back, knowing how badly mana and electrical technology tended to interact. Long flames started spewing out of the galleon’s rear, and the extra propulsion precipitated its fall out of the canyon’s waters.

“Just a bit more!” Mornn confidently said as they fell.

Sofia controlled the deck’s bones to latch onto everyone’s feet, preventing any unexpected falls as the galleon went for a nosedive. She looked back, watching the canyon in the sky disappear from view and the flames getting stronger. With deployed sails, the masts couldn’t handle the friction and broke one by one.

Slowly the falling gallon started to right itself. Just as it fell through a thick layer of clouds, it finally started flying and stopped falling. Mornn pulled hard on a lever, and the ship tilted the other way, starting to slowly gain altitude, and flying back out of the clouds.

“There we go! Man! Harder to operate than I thought!” Mornn said, wiping her brows, “we should be stable now, straight to the next checkpoint!”

Sofia and Pareth observed the map while Kuli looked at the clouds underneath the ship.

“Is that our maximum speed?” Kuli asked ”That seems quite slow.”

“It’s not that slow, but that’s the best I can do for now i think. It needs to accumulate heat before being able to use the main speed boost, once we use that, though? I we should be much faster than anyone who picked something else!”

“Next checkpoint is close enough anyway,” Sofia pointed out, “It’s almost within the map’s boundaries already considering how fast the arrow is moving… The name is worrying though…”

“Is it?” Kuli absentmindedly said, bringing up her map. Her eyes widened as she read the name.

“What could possibly–” Mornn started saying, bringing up her own map. “Sun save us…”

‘Lulled Leviathan’s Lot - Checkpoint 4’