On the deck of the Lost Homeland, Vanna walked quickly to Duncan: "There was contact from the Tide, and a large number of 'humanoids' also drifted to their side and collided with the hull of the ship, and the 'humanoids' after the impact lingered and floated near them, as if they were being pulled by an invisible current......"

"There's also a call from Orlando, Commander of the Rest," Agatha's figure emerged from the shadows beside Duncan, "their ship is surrounded by floating humanoids...... There was also something gathering under the water, hitting the hull at the bottom of the ship, and the impact could be heard almost the entire cabin......"

She paused, as if hearing a distant voice again, and then added: "Commander Poleginny of the Rest, said she heard a whisper near the mechanical chamber that could have come from underwater—a voice spoke in her head:

"'You will become them, just like us.'" ”

Listening to the information coming from several other capital ships of the Combined Fleet, Duncan's brows furrowed slightly, and he especially noticed the news coming from the Sabbath: "Is it spiritual pollution?" ”

"It's not certain that Bishop Poleginia is in the church for mental calibration, and for now, she may have actually heard some kind of 'echo' hovering over the sea."

"Are there any reports of ship damage?" Duncan thought for a moment, then asked.

"Not at the moment," Vanna said, shaking her head, "All the impacts are just those 'humanoids' crashing into the hull of the ship, and they don't pose a physical threat to the ironclad...... However, some ships have reported that their steam traps and differential engines are making unusual noises and appear to be mildly contaminated. Overall, however, the level of contamination was still low, and all of them recovered after the pacification rituals. ”

Duncan nodded with a serious expression, and did not speak for a while, just looked at the sea in the distance.

The pitch-black figures that were like dead wood in the sea were still drifting from the misty direction of the "six-nautical-mile boundary line", like countless drowned corpses entering the range of the Combined Fleet, seemingly lifeless, but as if driven by an invisible force, they drifted towards every ship here, constantly hitting the hull and knocking on the bottom of the ship.

These disturbing voices are creating mental stress on every ship.

But for the elite of the church who have undergone rigorous training, this level of mental stress should not be a problem—so Duncan is not too worried.

After a brief thought, he ordered the entire fleet to move slowly forward again.

"We're very close to the six-nautical-mile border," Lucrecia reminded her father, "Do you want to go on?" In border waters, conventional navigation methods are no longer so accurate, and we need to leave some margin of safety...... Otherwise, you will accidentally cross the line. ”

"We're not going to 'cross the line,'" Duncan glanced at Lucrecia, and part of his attention was focused on sensing the entire ship, "Rest assured, Lucy, I have the most accurate 'chart' in the world, it can mark the location and distance of the Lost in the Infinite Sea in real time, and if I still can't see the 'Holy Land' at six nautical miles, I will stop." ”

Lucrecia opened her mouth, as if she wanted to say something, but after noticing Duncan's confident and gentle smile, she swallowed back what she wanted to say.

Duncan placed part of his "eyes" on the captain's room.

He could clearly "see" that the "chart" on the captain's desk was "running" as it had been before, slowly changing as the Lost Country sailed.

The fog on the charts was slowly lifting, and the trajectory of the Lost was clearly reflected on the edges of the charts—the ship was sailing slowly, and the charts showed small movements that were imperceptible to the naked eye, but for Duncan, who could accurately control the state of the entire ship, even the changes on the charts could not escape his perception.

And on the surface of the sea around the Lost Homeland, there are still more humanoids floating in from afar, and there seem to be a little more in number.

Suddenly, Duncan sensed that something seemed to appear on the edge of the chart.

In the mist, an unrecorded "buoy" appeared on a parchment roll.

The moment he sensed the change on the chart, he raised his head and looked in the direction of the ship's bow.

In the depths of the mist, a blurred silhouette of land is emerging.

It's on the border of six nautical miles!

"It's land!" Nina staggered to the high platform at the stern of the ship, and shouted happily as she stared at the shadows that were constantly clearing in the mist, "The land has appeared!" ”

Yes, land appeared, and the land that appeared in this direction was undoubtedly the target of the Combined Fleet this time - the lair that the Annihilators called the "Holy Land".

Soon, several Church warships following behind the Lost Land also observed the outline of the land, and after realizing that the "Holy Land" was located at the six-nautical-mile threshold, everyone instantly tensed up.

At the stern of each ecclesiastical battleship, a large expanse of white steam was released above the ship's chapel, and the sacred grease was poured into the cauldron as the sailors silently chanted the names of their gods as they ran to the gun emplacements, while the gqqed priests came to the deck and began to pour holy water on the guns, light incense, and pray to bless the cannonballs.

At the same time, there were still pitch-black humanoids floating from the sea in the direction of the "Holy Land", and there were still floating objects crashing into the hull of the ship from time to time, and the unsettling "thump" sound never stopped, knocking on the bottom of each ship, as if hitting everyone's heart.

With a flurry of colored paper, Lucrecia came to the lookout at the top of the mast, and she observed the "island" in the distance through the fog of poor visibility, and after a while returned to the deck, to Duncan's side.

"I could see some lights on the island, but there was no sign of activity – a dead air lingering over the area, and I felt something was wrong."

Listening to Lucrecia's report, Duncan only nodded slightly, and then beckoned to the side.

The fat white dove immediately flew down from the nearby mast and almost "thumped" into Duncan's shoulder.

Duncan turned his head with a subtle expression and glanced at the pigeon on his shoulder: "...... It's time for you to think about losing weight. ”

Ay tilted his head and immediately loudly emphasized his position: "V me 50!" V I 50! ”

“…… When I didn't say. Duncan sighed, ignoring the dove's noise, and gave it orders directly from the bottom of his heart.

In the next second, Ayi's body suddenly burst into flames, turning into a bony pigeon with craggy bones, and flew straight into the sky.

The bone dove enveloped in flames swept through the mist like an upside-down meteor, approaching the shadowy black island from a high place.

Duncan, who remained on the deck of the Lost Land, narrowed his eyes slightly.

Through the vision shared by the flames, a somewhat abstract and distorted overlook began to emerge in his mind, but the details were faintly recognizable.

Ay was rapidly approaching the shores of the island—from the view coming back, Duncan saw the latter's rugged edge as if it had been torn apart by something, a narrow and hidden secret harbor that was difficult to spot without looking at it from the air, and closer to the interior of the island, there were faintly discernible roads and buildings of varying heights, and many strange, sharp, stalagmite-like things scattered across the island, seemingly large in scale, but it was impossible to tell what they were.

As Lucrecia reported, there was no sign of activity on the island.

A large combined fleet, a beacon of flames burning in the fog, a giant bird wrapped in flames that skimmed over the harbor at close range—if none of this combined could make the annihilationists entrenched on the islands react, there was only one possibility.

"There doesn't seem to be anyone on the island—at least no living people have been seen."

Duncan kept his vision with Ay as he turned to Lucrecia beside him.

The people on the deck looked at each other.

"There are no living people on the island...... "Vanna's eyes widened slightly, and she turned her head to look in the direction of the island, "all gone?" Or is it dead? Or ......"

She stopped abruptly, her gaze swept across the deck with a strange look, and finally landed on the "humanoid blank" that was still lying quietly on the deck, guarded by the puppet Luni.

“…… Inform the Deep and the Church of Death that we need to get close to the island and all of us keep up - not to be left behind in the fog. ”

Under Duncan's orders, the entire fleet began to slowly approach the eerie, unsettling black island.

The island in the distance is becoming clearer, and as the distance decreases, it takes on more and more features that make it feel contradictory.

"Its edges look like pieces torn from some massive whole," Duncan described to the others what Aye saw from his perspective, "and we were approaching the shore on its west side, which was full of clusters of rocky formations, but between the cliffs, there was a hidden waterway that led to an inner harbor that looked gentle. ”

"Can you let a ship as big as the Lost Country in?" Nina asked curiously.

"It should be possible, but I'm not going to just drive in – the same goes for the other ships," Duncan said as he thought about it, "and I don't know the details of the island yet, but my idea is to have the fleet stop in front of that 'gap,' and then organize a group of men to land on the island in small boats, and get a rough idea of the landing site before sending more people ashore." ”

The others nodded.

And at this moment, Duncan seemed to sense something, and suddenly raised his head to look ahead.

He saw that the large ship, which had been used as a "spiritual torch" along the way, had been captured from the cultists, was slowly speeding up.

It grew faster and faster, as if it had suddenly broken free of its reins, and rushed straight towards the "Holy Land Island" without Duncan's orders.

It seemed to lose its weight, light as a gust of wind.

In the blink of an eye, it had crossed the misty sea and reached the edge of the island, a cliff lined with countless boulders.

And then bumped into it without hesitation.

(End of chapter)