Paladin of the Dead God - Chapter 344



Only Krnovel

Episode 344. The Sea of ​​Nightmares (6)

This time, the ‘hidden ritual’ that Isaac performed was of unprecedented scale, so large that it could even encompass the entire ocean.

The purpose was to capture the ship, but also to prevent the angel’s intervention early.

Suddenly, the surroundings became dark, and Horace felt as if he had fallen into the deep sea. The undead have night vision by default. The only time they feel ‘darkness’ is when something is blocking their vision. Something like the deep sea or fog.

That is, this darkness is not simply darkness, but something that exists materially.

Kkwaddeukduk! Before he could even realize what had happened, Horace’s ship suddenly came to a halt. As is natural when a fast-moving object suddenly stops, Horace felt his body lift off the ground momentarily due to inertia.

Kwad-duk, bang, bang! Not only Horace, but also the surrounding sailors, cargo, and skeletons hanging from the railings all crashed and shattered here and there, and the loud noise echoed. If it were a person, he would have fainted on the spot, but Horace stood up without even having time to lose his mind and looked up at the sky.

There was a being there who forcibly stopped the ship.

The dark red tentacles I had seen earlier were piercing through the darkness, grabbing hold of the ship. The skeletal sailors who had been tangled in dozens of tentacle bundles were crushed and sucked into the saw-toothed mouths attached to each tentacle, and were devoured.

[Hahahaha… … .]

Fear and shiver ran up Horace’s stiff, skinny spine. It is not easy to make the dead feel fear. ‘It’ had something that stimulated intelligent beings just by looking at it.

At one point, Horace felt his surroundings turn blood red. He turned around and saw Isaac looking down at him, enveloped in red mist.

“No one can survive after seeing that.”

Even as Isaac spoke, the spines descended one by one, devouring the sailors. Isaac felt his energy being drained just from summoning the Abyssal Grasp, but he intended to finish Horace off completely here and now.

As soon as Horace saw Isaac, he had a lot to say.

Are you really a nameless Apostle of Chaos? How did you know the name and not get the White Plague? Why on earth is the Salt Council helping you, and why are you pretending to be the Dawn Army?

But the first question that popped up was something entirely different.

[What about Captain Delrod?]

“who?”

[The leader of the White Eagle Knights. Did you kill him?]

Isaac found the question odd.

No one can kill a soul unless they are an angel, unless they simply scatter it to the point where its ego is thin, or send it back to Urbanus. But Isaac decided that Horace was not speaking in that context.

“I ate.”

[okay?]

Horace answered plainly.

[Then I’ll have to cut open your stomach. You can’t get out of here.]

As expected, it was an insane answer. Horace was more interested in the prey Isaac had eaten than Isaac. Isaac quickly swung his sword and cut off Horace’s head before he could do anything. Horace was a legendary captain, but he wasn’t legendary for his swordsmanship.

What Isaac wanted was his skull, or rather, this fleet that he could control with his skull.

Horace muttered a prayer even though only his skull remained.

[Emperor who does not die… … .]

“Ask the angels for help? I’m sorry, but no one can get in or out of here. It’s impossible to even call upon the angels… .”

Then Isaac felt himself swaying. Horace’s boat was rocking violently.

It seemed as if the waves were crashing down hard, but it was impossible because he was almost caught in the grip of the abyss. Only then did Isaac notice that the vibrations were growing louder and louder, and the abyss’s grip on his ship was becoming tighter.

‘no way.’

Isaac looked over the railing. The waves were crashing in one direction at a time. The waves were rushing madly, drawing furious circles before being sucked into the abyss that was beginning to gape open.

A gigantic whirlpool, large enough to swallow a huge battleship or even dozens of fleets, was gaping open.

Horace let out a low laugh over Isaac’s hand.

[No one can escape from this sea. No one.]

***

Dduk dduk!

Isaac felt that the ship would be torn in half if this continued, so he instructed the tentacles to let go of the ship. As soon as he let go, Horace’s ship bounced off and went along the waves.

The hidden ritual could not last long either. Although it was a curtain that could withstand a moderate amount of shock, it soon broke and was released when the enormous pressure of a natural-scale whirlpool pressed down on it.

‘What a disaster.’

No one can escape the hidden ritual, and it can only be destroyed by the caster or by outside intervention. What happens inside the veil cannot be observed in any way from the outside.

For an angel to intervene, he must either respond to the request of the originator or be observing the originator. The hidden ritual prevents both of these.

It must have been that kind of technology, but the ritual was broken when the whirlpool occurred.

So it was hard to believe that the whirlpool before my eyes was a coincidence.

‘Could it be that the Angel of Mercy has already arrived?’

At that moment, a powerful image came to Isaac and everyone around him.

It was the figure of a gaunt monk sitting in a dark room. The monk had twelve faces, each facing a different direction. There were holes big and small all over his body, and between them were raccoons, snakes, and bugs crawling.

The moment the vision, which seemed to represent the image of a serious death, struck his mind, Horace’s body suddenly shot up and struck Isaac in the jaw.

“what……!”

Of course, Isaac was not hit at all, but Horace’s torso quickly intercepted the skull and ran. Isaac was dumbfounded, but there was nothing the crazy captain could do about it anyway.

Because no one can resist this giant whirlpool.

Isaac thought about the image that had just been revealed.

‘If he is a celestial being with the appearance of a monk with twelve faces… … ‘Dead December’? Then he will never reveal himself.’

Dead December is bound to the flesh like other Immortal Order angels and the Immortal Emperor. However, Dead December buried himself in a deep grave and was in a state of meditation. Therefore, instead of going directly to those who asked for his help, he was an angel who willingly gave them miracles and protection.

Isaac was somewhat relieved that there were no angels in this place, but it also meant that Horace possessed a powerful relic or miracle that could borrow the power of an angel by any means necessary.

It was clear that that huge whirlpool was the power of the dead December.

The disaster was cruel, but fair to all. The unlucky ghost ships that were near the maw of the great whirlpool were the first to be sucked in. The ghost ships that could survive in the deep sea were torn apart and disappeared as if they had been thrown into a crusher the moment they were swept by the destructive currents of the whirlpool.

“… … .”

Isaac, who had been thinking of escaping by clinging to Horace’s ghost ship in case of emergency, erased that plan from his mind. And if he did that, there would be no way to save Aidan’s ship either.

After shaking off the White Eagle battleship, Aidan was desperately steering away from the vortex. Isaac looked at him with a slight sense of admiration.

It was Isaac’s arrogance to think that there was nothing humans could do about this great disaster.

The captain of the Salt Council knew how to handle such situations.

‘Wait a minute, then Horace too… … .’

Kwakwakwakwakwa! Horace’s ship roared as it raced across the waves. Horace’s ship raced across the whirlpools as if surfing the waves, chasing Aidan’s ship.

[No one can get out!]

Horace, who was at the helm, was controlling the ship with a possessed movement. He knew that if he destroyed Aidan’s ship anyway, Isaac would stay in this sea forever.

Isaac tried to grab Horace, cursing, but it wasn’t easy on the rocking boat.

“Ugh… … .”

Above all, the closer he got to Horace, the more the dead December energy pressed down on him. Isaac had already faced the energy of many angels, but this energy was on a different level from the one that radiated hostility and the intention to restrain.

I had to find another way.

[Nameless chaos watches you.]

At that moment, a faint trembling was transmitted from the Cachulainn that Isaac was holding.

[Look at the sea, Grail Knight.]

It was Calurien, the angel of Elril who was sealed in Kachulain and ordered to watch over Isaac.

[No matter how big the country is, I want to avoid being trapped in the ocean for tens of thousands of years where no one can find me. I feel like a brother in the ocean. That is where the truth of this miracle lies.]

Isaac looked down at the bottom of the sea at Calurien’s words.

It was difficult to find anything meaningful in the midst of the violently shaking whirlpools and waves, but soon I was able to spot a dark object moving under the water. It was moving at an incredible speed and had the shape of a giant water snake.

“Serpent?”

[To be exact, it’s the dragon that was enslaved by the dead December. That’s the catalyst for miracles. That brother is constantly protecting Horace under the sea and creating a whirlpool. Can you catch him?]

Isaac had already dealt with a group of fish pirates and captured a drowned king in the ocean. A mere skeleton of a sea serpent… … The situation was too unfavorable to say that. If he jumped into this crazy whirlpool, he would definitely get swept away even if the Salt Council issued the ‘Doctrine of the Waves’.

‘Would it work if I use the tentacles? Or if I use the Abyss’ Grasp again, or if I use the Event Horizon… … No.’

Isaac turned his gaze.

The destruction of the hidden ritual was not necessarily detrimental to him.

Isaac also has someone he can turn to for help.

Because Horace wasn’t the only one who could bring about natural disasters in these seas.

Boom, squeal! With a heart-pounding vibration, lightning shot up from the sea. The dragon-like lightning streak instantly burned a ghost ship and scattered into the sky.

“Found him! Our crazy commander in chief!”

The ship carrying Tukhalin and Yenkos arrived at the Sea of ​​Fog through a storm.

***

Isaac had clearly instructed everyone else to wait outside of Nightmare Strait until he found the key and came out.

However, if you just follow the commander-in-chief’s orders, you are definitely not an ally. It is normal for an ally to be suspicious and dissatisfied with orders.

This was especially true for Tukhalin, who knew full well that Isaac was a Grail Knight who risked his life to fool around.

So Isaac gave Tukhalin and Yenkos permission to act independently early on. Of course, there was another reason behind that order.

Because Tukhalin had the protection of the Thunder Master who could control the storm.

Of course, unless you call the Thunder Craftsman directly, it is only a localized influence that can barely protect one ship, but protection is protection.

‘Then why don’t we go with Tukhalin from the beginning?’ Isaac also thought about it, but decided it would be difficult. Horace knows Tukhalin, even if Isaac doesn’t. If Tukhalin had shown up, Horace would have changed his strategy or not shown up.

Yenko’s ship, like Isaac, pretended to be isolated and set out to capture the ghost ship, but as Isaac had expected, it proved that they did not encounter a single ship.

And Tukhalin, who finally met the enemy after several days, raised his fighting spirit to the max.

Tukhalin was excited to find a new ghost ship and fight it. However, he was surprised to find none other than Isaac on the ship’s railing. Isaac was desperately trying to communicate something to them from the ship, but they couldn’t hear him because of the distance and the sound of the waves.

But Isaac’s desperate hand gesture pointing to the bottom of the sea was clearly visible. Tukhalin followed the tip of the hand and discovered a giant skeletal water snake swimming on the bottom of the sea.

Within moments, a bolt of lightning the size of a ship shot up from the sea into the sky.