Ishad ordered the whole team to be alert, then spoke with the navigator who was drawing the course on the chart, and then went to inspect the ship's warehouse. She crawled back to the main deck and picked up a ratnose worm from her Bloodblum dry food. At that moment, she heard someone yelling.

"What's the matter?" She asked in a commanding tone as she climbed onto the main deck.

Odilon listened to the guide's words. "He said he wasn't going to go any further."

Isad frowned. "Why?" She looked around, and the river and rainforest looked the same as they had been in the past few days. But the river wanderers were alarmed, as if they had broken some invisible boundary and entered territory they should not have set foot in.

The little guide gestured frantically to the crew around him. He pointed to the oozing red patches on their skin. Ishad had noticed that the disease had begun to spread among the crew, and she had never figured out where it came from. She even found similar signs in herself.

"It's the rainforest," Odilon translated, translating the guide's gibberish. "He said it was the rainforest punishing us. It won't allow us to enter. ”

Cowardly elf, Ishad thought to herself.

She glanced at Odilen. "Let him go. Let him disembark, and throw him down if necessary. We're not going to turn around right now. ”

The Yuanwang continued to travel, and it had already been deep inland for a week. The past few days have been quiet and there has been no momentum to move forward. On Ishad's orders, several groups of crew disembarked and trudged through the water, laboriously dragging the frigate with ropes and chains. It took a lot of effort to pull the fiber, and the crew continued to persevere on the unpredictable and dangerous riverbank. But they had already discovered that there were nine fewer souls than when they first set out.

The mist envelops the river, making it impossible to see in the distance. As the trees of the primeval jungle grew larger, the branches of the trees on both sides reached the top of the river, and the convergence formed a deeper and deeper canopy, obscuring the sky and the sun, leaving only a faint visible ghostly light. Ishad had a clear feeling that the ship was sailing downward, not forward, constantly sailing towards the dark heart of this unknown land.

The jungle is devouring them alive.

Heavy rain came without warning and lasted for several days. I don't know how it did it, but the rain pierced through the opaque rainforest canopy, drenching the Yuanwang and her crew, and the cold penetrated the bones. It was as if the place was trying to peel back their shells and punish the daring invaders. The crew was convinced of this.

The guide's departure weighed on the crew's hearts like a dark cloud. Some of the extraordinarily superstitious crew members began to talk to themselves, catching the dark omen in the shape of every tree and the ripples of every stern. Even the most cynical soldier became restless. After listening to the rumors for too long, they began to see some strange phenomena as well.

Ishad knew in her heart that it wouldn't be long before someone would break the string in her head, and she would inevitably have to make an example of her. It turned out that she was right, and sooner than she expected, and hoped.

"Turn the ship around!" A frightened voice shouted. "Turn around!"

"It's all right, Cross," Odilon said as he tried to keep his voice calm.

"It's a dead ship. It's a cursed ship. The trapper hurried to Odilon and grabbed the collar of his coat. You've all heard what the river nomad said - everything that goes into this jungle is gone. There is no return! ”

Odillon's eyes swept over the crew around him, large drops of condensation sliding down the wide, shabby brim of his hat. He could see it in their eyes, Cross's words echoing in everyone's hearts.

"Shut up." He snapped and pushed Cross back. "No curses are allowed. Wake up Lao Tzu. ”

"We must turn back," begged the mad trapper, his eyes wide open, pleading over and over again. "We must—"

Cross didn't finish the sentence. He gasped hard, the tip of the blade stabbing out between his ribs. He then fell to the deck.

Ishad wiped the blade clean. Sometimes, doing the right thing is a heavy burden.

"I hunted with him before you were born," Odilon roared. "Why are you—"

"We're not going to stop," Ishad said coldly. "Anything, no one should try to stop it."

A violent jolt and impact threw Isad out of bed. She got up, buckled her weapon, and galloped to the deck.

The river came to an end all of a sudden. The estuary seems to be surrounded by winding vines and ornate trees, and its source is a trickle from the depths of the dense forest, or a dark spring gushing from beneath the mud bore in the ground.

"The river is blocked," Odilon said, pointing to the wall of trees directly ahead. "We have to turn around. Find another tributary. ”

Ishad held up her binoculars and glanced ahead. It would take too much time to get the Yuanwang to turn around and find another waterway, and she couldn't afford to delay. Ishad looked at the assembled soldiers and seasoned crew, and she was a little skeptical that the weary and wavering group of survivors would be capable of turning the ship around.

Ten people have lost their lives in the last few days – one more who left without permission has been executed, and six have died from that bizarre contagion. The three disappeared in the night, and the successors found them disappearing without a trace when dawn came.

"We'll leave a few men on the boat, enough to drive the boat, and then the others will attack from here," Ishad ordered the assembled soldiers. "We'll either find land worthy of occupation for the Empire, or we'll build outposts here as a basis for further expeditions in the future. Armed man Stamm, handing swords to the landing team. ”

Stam said hesitantly. "Commander...... Without a crossbow? And gunpowder bombs? ”

Ishad drew his sword and said to the staff. "This weapon has no effect in the jungle. We can only use the dirt method. She glanced at Odilen, who was assembling his hunting party. That's what you're here for, right, Master Beast Tamer? ”

Although it is unclear how he did it, and despite the same arduous voyage, the master animal catcher remained confident and irascible. "We're going to catch a big guy, boys," he said. "Bring all the guys, we have to catch them alive, and we have to bring them back alive. Everyone shared the weight equally, got ready, and went ashore with the commander's guys. We act with them and don't leave them behind. ”

His men dispersed to prepare, and Ishad approached Odilon. "I really didn't expect the two of us to reach a consensus."