Mornn
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Chapter 705 - Sounds Surely Safe
🕑 Added 2025-06-30 16:00:22 +0000 UTCDo 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’
Comments
Mornn
Not really, that was also my first idea x.x
Phoebe Golden
Lotta fun! Ty
E
Engineer is my favorite skeleton, but it still feels like we've barely tapped into his potential. He has magical-space-station-tier knowledge. He can do MUCH better than 1700s bilge pumps and running-wheel-driven power transmissions. Hydrofoils, crazy uses of magical lumian bones, or something. Put Sofia inside a ball of lumian bones and have her channel an angel bolt. There's your power source. Speaking of magical space station, Sofia got the engineer from Sun's space station and he is probably elven. The odds are pretty good that this engineer knows a lot about the phoenix module.
E
"The smell of this fish must be frying my brain." Lol did Mornn just roast Emily's comment from chapter 704 about creating a fog?
Ceasar Salas
Thanks for the Chapter! We will finally get a glimpse of this thing! It’d be funny if it’s a variation of a white whale
Matt Grayson
"Sounds Surely Safe" says Saintess summoning skeletons. "Lulled Leviathan's Lot" likely leaves lethal leg.
Wensber
Thanks for the chapter!
Mornn
I think she started that during the sunless tower defense in the previous trial, but don't quote me on that x.x
Tom Asciola
Has she always called her engineer Engi? That's adorable~
Mornn
Might be apparent from the geography of the event but usual physics and space rules currently do not quite perfectly apply :p
Mornn
It takes a bit of time for an object this big, if she'd been expecting it like when Mornn charged her signature before she could have, but this was too short a notice.
Daemion
I think Phoenix module was definitely the best choice here, they are lucky to have an elven Saint on board. Anti-gravity and Levitation Array would have made the ship float, but they would have lacked propulsion except for their sails. Dragon wings sounds like it would induce a constant up-and-down movement on the ship and while dragons are super fast when they want to be, that's not just because of their wings. Without the rest of the dragon, the wings aren't that great. The Phoenix Module on the other hand seems to be similar to a rocket engine, although it's news to me that you can fly slowly with one without also having wings. Maybe Ezerid has learned from this trial and is only aiming for second place... by following Sofia. Much safer bet than trying to get past her.
Clara
When the ship was falling off the cliff before things finished, couldn't she have just stopped the whole thing by applying blessed bone construct?
Lazy Monster
TFTC. I see why the Seraphs said that this event might actually kill people.
phantom
4th is death. Hero Admin confirmed weeabo.
Matt Grayson
"Maybe it's friendly!"
Songy
YET
Dan N
This is good practice for when Sofia inevitably goes looting the Leviathan's lair. Think of all the amazing skeletons just laying around and how many divine artifacts have been lost down there (maybe some from dead gods even) it's also probably the largest mithrium concentration on the planet so she'll be able to get all she needs to upgrade her staff. She just needs to find a way around the problem of absolute certain and unavoidable death.
Cyclone001
We're finally going to get a look at the Leviathan. I am looking forward to that.
OmniGlitcher
As always, TFTC! >plane ocean I see you have inadvertently joined the plane tinfoil club, Kuli. >Elven technology?” Kuli asked. So... spaceship of sorts? Neat. >‘Lulled Leviathan’s Lot - Checkpoint 4’ Ah.
Songy
Ah yes, that COULD explain why the event was a backup ^^
Matt Grayson
Chapter! Yay!! Only Sofia can get away with "It's been pretty mild so far" and not get immediately eaten by a giant squid.
JHD
Thanks for the chapter.
