Paladin of the Dead God - Chapter 341



Only Krnovel

Episode 341. The Sea of ​​Nightmares (3)

Tsk tsk tsk… … The first thing the sailors felt was a cold wave. It was a cold that was hard to feel in the south. The sailors, who were already soaking wet, felt their body temperature cooling down quickly, but Isaac ignited the flame of the Ruaddin Key even more fiercely.

“Why are you so late, you pirates!”

Isaac looked at the ghost ship with an expression of delight and shouted.

Aidan was slightly disgusted by the sight. Since the cause and identity of the ghost ships are clear, the Salt Council sailors do not have a superstitious fear of them. But even leaving that aside, the ghost ships are fearsome pirates in their own right.

“Captain Aidan, prepare your whaling harpoons! We have to catch them!”

“Huh? What did you say?”

“Come on! It’s their only way out of the Nightmare Strait!”

Aidan was taken aback by the unexpected situation of capturing a ghost ship, but he immediately set his crew in motion. The crew panicked at the sudden order to fight, but they quickly loaded their harpoons. Aidan noticed their quick-wittedness and realized that the storm had calmed down relatively.

‘Could it be that there is a holy relic on that ship that can calm the sea?’

Then I could understand why Isaac had been trying so hard to stand out. He had been lighting up his ships like a lighthouse to attract the ghost ships. He had also turned away the other ships in order to make the ghost ships approach without being careful. He had really wanted to make it look like the fleet had been torn apart by a storm.

“Shoot!”

Boom, boom! Several whaling harpoons flew towards the ghost ship at once. Many of the harpoons missed the rough waves, but two shots hit the hull accurately. The ghost ship did not respond properly, as if it had not expected to be attacked like this.

“Pull me in! We have to get on board!”

Isaac was ready to run up the chains to be the first one to climb aboard, when he noticed something shining beyond the railing of the ghost ship.

The moment an eerie feeling crossed his mind, Isaac immediately threw himself into the sea.

bang!

“Knight of the Holy Grail!”

Aidan panicked and searched for Isaac, who had fallen into the sea. However, it was not easy to find a person in the rough waves. The thing that had been shot from the ghost ship was none other than a whaling harpoon. Only then did Aidan realize that the other ship was also a ship belonging to the Salt Council.

“Damn it, why the hell did you jump into the ocean when you can’t swim with your armor on… .”

Aidan prepared to jump into the sea to rescue Isaac, who was already sinking. He couldn’t lose the dreamer here so vainly.

“Over there, over there!”

Then one of the sailors shouted, pointing at the ghost ship. Only then did Aidan see what was happening beyond the ghost ship.

A red fog swept over the undead crew atop the ghost ship.

***

Isaac, who managed to board the ghost ship using the ‘Red Petition’ just before it fell into the sea, immediately began attacking before he could even recover his body.

The first hand and arm to be restored were centered around the heart, and he cut down the skeleton sailors with the Ruaddin Key. Legs and feet grew to take the next step, and the head was restored last.

Meanwhile, Isaac had already burned and cut down five skeleton sailors. The sight of hands and feet growing out of thin air and swinging their swords was terrifying even to the undead.

Of course, this alone is not enough to deal with the undead. If you don’t burn them completely, they will stubbornly rise again.

It was completed with the unfinished body parts that followed Isaac.

[You can now prey on your opponents using the ‘Red Petition’.]

The return of the Splitting Ceremony and the strengthened Red Plea helped Isaac move more flexibly, allowing him to exert physical force without having to fully restore his body, while some of the Red Mist followed him like a cloak, gnawing on the skeletons like locusts.

Of course, as before, the undead had no nutritional value when eaten, but it was still beneficial enough to simply devour them and render them incapable of recovery.

[Paladin! It’s a Paladin!]

Skeleton sailors, probably members of the Salt Council, drew their cutlasses and charged at Isaac.

Although they were quite brave, the downfall of these sea punks was that they had not heard of the fame of the famous Grail Knights.

There was no need to focus on such a common soldier, but Isaac concentrated on it, reviewing his recent enlightenment. His posture was slightly different than before.

A hunter’s pose modeled after Carlsen Milter.

One of the skeleton sailors swung his cutlass to strike Isaac between the eyebrows, who was standing still. At that moment, Isaac’s blade wavered slightly, and in an instant, it split the skeleton sailor’s head from the top of his head to his pelvis. The skeleton sailors were shocked, not seeing Isaac lift his feet, let alone the movement of his sword.

But Isaac just watched them quietly and then took a big step closer.

Knock, knock, shriek. There was no violent impact, no final words. Only the faint sound of a sword cutting through the wind and the crack of bones echoed.

With each step Isaac took, the sailors around him were cut down and fell one by one. Then, as their remains were enveloped in red fog, they melted and disappeared.

The skeleton sailors shuddered at the sight of the Grim Reaper harvesting them one by one.

[That’s not a Light Codex Paladin! Run away! A reaper has appeared!]

Of course, the immortal cult that pursues immortality does not believe in the existence of the god of death. However, these are undead from the Salt Council. They believe in superstitions even after becoming undead, so they had no choice but to interpret Isaac’s existence in that way.

Isaac was deeply impressed when some of the skeleton sailors even threw themselves into the sea.

‘Wonderful. Is this the ‘sword that restrains life’ that Baschul was talking about?’

Unlike Isaac, Carlsen’s swordsmanship was extremely refined. It was ironic that swordsmanship with restrained killing intent was effective in killing people, but Baschul would have liked it very much if he had seen it.

‘Come to think of it, I should have asked Dera Heman.’

Of course, if you ask Dera Heman about Baschl’s well-being, it would be like revealing the fact that you were the one who invaded Lichtheim at that time. Since the angel of fame is not a fool and would not die easily, you have no choice but to assume that he is alive somewhere.

[You bastard… … Die!]

The last opponent was an undead dressed in fancy clothes that looked like a captain. The creature was waiting inside the captain’s quarters with a heavy whaling harpoon loaded, and as soon as the door opened, it struck him down. The moment the whaling harpoon was swept right in front of his nose, Isaac transformed his body into a blood mist with a red petition and entered the captain’s quarters.

The captain, who had thought that Isaac had turned to blood dust, had no time to feel joy before he realized that his head and body had separated and collapsed. The captain hung on the end of the Ruaddin Key, spewing flames from his eye sockets, muttering in a bewildered voice.

[You… … What the hell are you? What do you do… … .]

“Are you the captain?”

[Yes. My name is Naice Lawn. What do you want… … .]

“No, that’s enough. That’s enough.”

Isaac returned to the deck with the captain’s skull hanging from the end of the Ruaddin Key.

Before he knew it, Aidan’s ship was near the ghost ship, having been pulled up by a whaling harpoon. On the ship, he could see the sailors looking at Isaac with blank eyes.

It was something unheard of and unseen to single-handedly occupy a ghost ship.

“Is that the sacred object that calms the sea?”

Aidan asked, looking at the burning skull of Captain Ruaddin Key.

“no.”

But Isaac denied it.

“This is the key to the key. There is still one more step left.”

***

“I didn’t expect you to take over the Ghost Ship on your own. You seem much stronger than when you fought the Drowned King before.”

“He is known as an angel, but how can you compare him to the Drowned King and these skeleton soldiers?”

The sailors were afraid of the ghost ship, but they were hesitant to come over to check its condition because of its familiar structure and shape. The ghost ship had been submerged in the sea for a long time, so it was worn and rusted here and there, but there were signs of maintenance, such as removing barnacles and replacing sail lines.

The Ghost Ship swims beneath the surface and traverses storms. It may be due to some miracle of the Undying Church, but it means that it doesn’t need to be managed in any particular way.

Aidan analyzed the reason.

“I guess it’s because the undead are the Salt Council sailors. I know it’s meaningless, but it must have been hard for the sailors to just sit back and watch the ship rot away.”

“So you’re saying it was some kind of hobby, like tending to a flower garden?”

“… … You could look at it that way. If you become an undead, you’ll have endless time, so shouldn’t you have at least one hobby?”

As he spoke, Aidan looked at the equipment and cargo of the ghost ship. Although it was a bit old, it was still well-maintained, so there were still many usable items, such as the harpoon cannon. He also seemed to have a strange feeling about his old senior’s ship.

“By the way, it seems like the storm has calmed down relatively. The waves are still rough and the fog is thick, but… … Is it because of this ghost ship?”

“okay.”

The Ghost Ship emits its own unique coldness, or something, but the area around it is relatively free of abnormal weather. This is why these undead pirates can run wild in the Nightmare Strait. Aidan was speechless at the fact that the ‘holy object’ that put the sea to sleep was none other than the Ghost Ship.

“The Undead Cult doesn’t need to raise an elite navy. If this storm tears the fleet apart, they can just surprise and take the exhausted ships. That’s probably why they’ve released these ghost ships here.”

“So that’s why we were waiting until our ships dispersed… … Then shouldn’t we put this ship in front and regroup our ships before moving forward?”

“No. We have several ships, so one ghost ship is not enough.”

“Yes? Then… … .”

“We’re going to hunt down a few more ghost ships. When they appear, we’ll capture them all, tie them up like dogs, and lead them forward.”

Aidan felt that Isaac’s speech sounded somewhat pirate-like.

Even at best, he didn’t seem like a knight. Isaac, who had transformed into a pirate-catching pirate in an instant, waited anxiously for another pirate to appear.

***

But Isaac’s wish was not easily fulfilled.

It’s been two days since we captured our first ghost ship.

The waters around the ghost ship were relatively calm and bearable, but the cold air emanating from the ghost ship was tormenting the sailors.

This was especially true because I had hardly made any preparations for my visit to Korea.

Isaac tried hard to light the Luaddin Key, but it was only a temporary measure. To make matters worse, the thick fog surrounding the area made the sailors depressed.

“The fog is thick.”

Aidan muttered from the side, looking in the same direction as Isaac.

“Just looking at this fog, it looks like a calm sea, but it’s hard to believe that there are waves and whirlpools the size of houses beyond.”

“This fog is also one of the nightmares of Nightmare Strait. At some point, it will cause you to crash into the reef or pull you into deeper areas.”

Isaac looked out into the thick fog and thought.

‘… … Did I get caught after all?’

Seeing that they haven’t shown up like this, Isaac’s intentions may have been revealed. Since they wouldn’t be able to cross Nightmare Strait without the Ghost Ship anyway, there was no need to risk attacking them.

In that case, Isaac’s plans would all be in vain. The only options Isaac could choose were to go east and help the main force of the Dawn Army as Yenkos had initially suggested, or to make a large detour to the west and break through the outer wall head-on.

The former was unpalatable, and the latter seemed crazy to Isaac.

We have to go south somehow.

‘If that doesn’t work out, I could try to get through the strait alone and arrive at Mirmia first, then find a way. At least I could summon my subordinates… ‘

Then Aidan narrowed his eyes and stared into the fog.

“why?”

“Master Isaac, you said that the fog drags the ship towards the reefs, so wouldn’t it also drag it towards the ghost ship?”

“That may be true, but it’s been two days already without any news… … .”

Isaac closed his mouth. A whitish shadow appeared in the direction Aidan was staring.

It was not the Isacrea Dawn Force’s ship. It was much larger and more ornate than the Salt Council’s ship.

Isaac and Aidan were amazed by the size and scale of the ship. It was at least twice the size of their own ship.

Isaac thought back to the Brandt Duke’s warship that he had seen at Luzberg. Then, Aidan, who was looking around, called out to Isaac urgently.

“Oh, Isaac.”

Even without Aidan saying anything, Isaac already noticed that new silhouettes were appearing around him. They were literally ‘rising from the sea’. There were an incredible number of them, even if they were just what he could count with his eyes.

Then some of the fog cleared, revealing a huge sign engraved on the sail.

Isaac could easily recognize the sign.

“… … Dawn Army.”

The 7th Dawn Army, known to have been annihilated by the storm in Nightmare Strait.

They emerged from the fog.