Chapter 555 - 551 – VICTIMS OF GREED ON THE VAST OCEAN AND A LAND FILLED WITH ZOMBIES

The journey of the Eclipse-class Dreadnought fleet across the vast oceans of this new world continued peacefully without any significant disruption. Over the past few days, the atmosphere aboard the ships had felt remarkably calm. The advanced sensors modified by Stacia worked automatically in the background, scanning every inch of the waters, recording undercurrents, and updating the three-dimensional digital maps stored in the ship’s central servers.

However, the peace on the open sea did not last forever.

Toward midday, when the sun stood directly overhead and cast a blinding golden shimmer across the water’s surface, the fleet’s long-range monitoring system detected a visual anomaly in the forward sector. The hologram screens in the command room displayed a small point moving slowly.

After magnification through long-range optical lenses, a fairly large wooden ship came into view, though its size looked utterly pitiful when compared to the main vessels of the Nocture fleet. The wooden ship measured only about 50 meters in length, with tall masts and enormous canvas sails that relied solely on the wind for propulsion. In terms of technology, the vessel lagged thousands of years behind the undead fleet powered by fusion reactors and mana crystals.

Yet it was not the ship’s form that attracted the attention of Stacia’s advanced detection system, but rather what was happening beneath the water’s surface.

The underwater sonar sensors captured dozens of life pulses moving in synchronized rhythm beneath the keel of the wooden ship. After the sound waves were mapped into visual form, a heartbreaking scene was revealed: a group of creatures with human-like upper bodies and glittering fish tails mermaids, or fish-people were being forced to swim against strong currents and drag the heavy wooden ship using thick iron chain ropes.

In the command room, Sylvia, who was monitoring the main screen, could only sigh softly while shaking her head. The fundamental nature of humanity, especially those trapped in cycles of greed and savagery, truly never ended in any era. Wherever civilization stood, there was always a group that felt entitled to enslave weaker beings for personal gain.

On the other side, the humans’ wooden ship had not yet detected the presence of Sylvia’s fleet. The distance between them was still about 50 kilometers, obstructed by the curvature of the horizon and thin residual fog from spatial anomalies.

However, the mermaids beneath the water had already sensed extraordinary fear. The low hum of Sylvia’s fleet reactor engines traveled through the water waves, sounding in their ears like the roar of an ancient monster ready to tear anything apart.

The mermaids desperately wanted to break free and flee to deeper waters to save their lives. But they dared not. Aboard the wooden ship, the human overseers held their children hostage, threatening to throw the mermaid infants into boiling cauldrons if their pulling slowed even for a single second.

In profound despair, the mermaids made a decision filled with sacrifice. They had no intention of warning the ship owners about the danger ahead. Instead, they deliberately exerted the last of their strength, pulling the wooden ship ever faster directly toward the source of that "monster" sound. Their hope was simple yet tragic: let the cruel crew and owners confront the great monster ahead, perish together with their ship, so that the chains of slavery would be broken and the children held hostage on the lower decks could be saved amid the resulting chaos.

After some time passed, the distance between the two vessels shrank drastically. From the deck of the wooden ship, the human crew finally saw the towering black silhouette rising high on the horizon, a floating steel fortress whose size even exceeded that of a small island.

The captain of the wooden ship, a middle-aged man with facial scars and luxurious yet soiled clothing, immediately took a brass telescope from one of his subordinates. He aimed the lens toward the bow of the enemy vessel.

His gaze fell directly upon the figure of Sylvia, who was sitting leisurely in her lounge chair beneath a black silk umbrella, wearing an elegant evening gown with her black hair blowing in the wind. Sylvia’s extraordinary beauty, radiating the absolute elegance of a queen, caused the captain’s eyes to instantly turn red with disgusting lust and greed.

"Hey... look at that woman!" the captain shouted in a hoarse voice, calling his officers. "A ship that large, yet led by such a young and stunningly beautiful girl! If we can seize that ship, or at least capture that woman as a hostage... our wealth will surpass any king on the main continent!"

The crew members burst into loud laughter, imagining abundant plunder and worldly pleasures. Greed had completely blinded their eyes, making them fail to realize that the gigantic steel object they were approaching was not a treasure, but a walking iron graveyard.

That foolishness did not last long. The increasingly approaching size of the Nocture fleet at high speed finally made them aware of the terrifying difference in scale. The gigantic steel ship showed no intention of slowing down or negotiating. The bow, clad in black star steel, was already right before their eyes, advancing straight without mercy to smash them into pieces.

The captain’s face suddenly turned deathly pale. The greedy smile on his face transformed into a belated scream of panic. "Turn! Quickly turn the helm! We’re going to crash...!"

But before the shout could finish, Sylvia, sitting on the deck, showed no expression of concern whatsoever. She merely waved her slender fingers through the air.

SHREEK!

In that instant, dark shadows shot out from Sylvia’s palm, manifesting into pure energy chains known as the Chains of Abyss. The shadow chains pierced the seawater at lightning speed, seized the heavy iron chains binding the mermaids’ bodies beneath the wooden ship, and severed them in a single silent stroke. The bonds that had tortured the fish-people vanished at once.

Finding themselves suddenly freed, the mermaids immediately lashed their tails, swimming backward with all their might away from the collision path.

And in the next second...

BOOOOM!

The fatal collision occurred without mercy. The 50-meter wooden ship was struck by a gigantic Dreadnought weighing hundreds of thousands of tons advancing at full momentum. There was no resistance, no miracle. The wooden vessel was shattered into pieces in less than a single second; wooden fragments and the bodies of its crew were swept clean beneath the steel hull without leaving a single trace of regret in the world.

After continuing forward for a short while, Sylvia ordered Celes to reduce the ship’s speed and switch to slow sailing mode, allowing the water waves to calm once more.

Not long afterward, the water surface beside the ship’s hull stirred gently. Several of the mermaids who had just been saved by Sylvia raised their heads above the surface. Led by an elderly mermaid wearing a small coral crown on her head, they swam closer to the towering steel walls of the ship, then bowed their heads deeply as a form of respect and boundless gratitude.

Sylvia, standing at the edge of the deck, regarded the group of mermaids with a flat yet not cold gaze. She nodded her head slightly, signaling that they were safe.

The elderly mermaid lifted her face, then with a melodious voice that echoed across the water, she pointed toward the horizon ahead and informed them of the location of the land where those cruel humans had lived.

In truth, even without that guidance, Sylvia’s radar system had already accurately mapped the location of that land several hours earlier. However, Sylvia deliberately allowed the interaction to occur so that the mermaids would feel that providing information was an equivalent form of repayment, while simultaneously planting a sense of awe in the hearts of those sea creatures toward her future domain of power.

After the group of mermaids dived peacefully back into the sea, Sylvia shifted her attention to the system scan results.

The fleet’s radar and long-range sensors had completed the preliminary mapping of the large continent located 30 kilometers ahead of them. Based on data analysis, the landmass was a massive continent, the result of the fusion of several ancient landmasses due to the dramatic expansion of the new Earth’s structure.

Interestingly, the state system on this continent had apparently collapsed from its previous modern structure and regressed into a feudal system of separate kingdoms that constantly warred with one another over territory.

Before deciding to dock her ships or deploy troops, Sylvia of course did not wish to act rashly. She raised her wrist, activated the control panel on her hologram bracelet, and launched a small squadron of stealth reconnaissance drones from the lower hull of the ship.

Dozens of camouflaged mechanical insect-shaped drones shot through the sea wind, gliding toward the coastline of that continent to conduct thorough reconnaissance.

Through the hologram screen before Sylvia, the scenery of the new continent began to appear clearly. At a glance, the geographical form of the land felt extremely familiar, reminding Sylvia of the remnants of major continents from her original world. Especially when the drones recorded the existence of a gigantic stone wall structure stretching for a long distance across mountains and valleys, a colossal defensive fortification that strongly resembled the Great Wall belonging to the panda nation of the past.

From the drones’ aerial surveillance, the cities on that land displayed a unique contrast. Most of the people’s equipment and infrastructure had declined into something far more ordinary, returning to an ancient rural era due to the severing of modern industrial chains. Yet on the other hand, the application of magical knowledge in this place was far more vibrant and rapidly developing.

Every major city and settlement visible was surrounded by transparent, pulsing magic domes that served as external protection against outside threats.

For, just like the continent where the Kingdom of Nocture had once stood, this continent was also a legacy of the era of destruction caused by the zombie apocalypse. The difference was that on the Nocture continent, the entire undead population had been successfully eradicated, purified, and completely placed under Sylvia’s absolute control as the Queen of Death, whereas on this new continent the situation was vastly different.

On the vast land before them, millions of zombies still roamed freely through forests, ruins of old cities, and wild grasslands. The reconnaissance drones even recorded the presence of several high-rank zombie variants terrifying mutants whose magical and physical strength had evolved beyond the limits of ordinary living beings.

This continent was extremely vast, filled with wild threats, ruins of old civilizations, and political intrigues among mortal kingdoms that constantly undermined one another amid the grip of the living dead.

Sylvia closed her drone projection screen for a moment, her lips curving into a thin smile full of anticipation. She allowed the reconnaissance drone fleet to continue working, mapping vital points across the land, while her ships slowly cut through the waves, preparing to welcome a new adventure.