Chapter 769 Snowlay Garden <TOC> Chapter 771 The Island of the Dead
Translator: SumTLMan
Each corner of a rune pattern has its own meaning. Be it depictions of nature, creatures, or symbolic – once the foundation of rune patterns is grasped, the majority of them can be deduced in reverse.
Of course, this deduction merely allows one to understand the effect of the rune pattern. An exact replication is out of the question as each rune possesses its unique inscription trajectory, where even the slightest deviation in writing sequence results in a pattern that only masquerades as the original.
What Angel is currently doing is not replicating, but inferring the meaning of this rune pattern.
Deciphering a rune pattern is not a task to be taken lightly. The complexity of a rune pattern contains many overlapping areas, demanding a meticulous dissection of these intersections to gain understanding and broaden knowledge.
A night has passed.
Outside, the wind howls and snowflakes flutter. Angel lifts his head, puts down his pen, and massages his aching arm that has been bent over the table all night.
On his desk, a stack of pages covered in tiny, dense handwriting lies before him.
After shaking off his drowsiness, Angel begins his final inference: “According to my deduction, the rune pattern at the bottom of the well is a composite rune, likely a magical formation. The number of rune corners that can be extracted exceeds four digits, but… I can only comprehend a little over three hundred.”
“This is a descriptive corner of the ‘Contract Rune’, this is a corner of the ‘Camouflage Rune’ that represents the mechanism of manifestation, this is a corner of the ‘Pathway Rune’ that expresses the concept of measurement…” Angel painstakingly interprets each corner, until he reaches the final one: “This is a corner of the ‘Blood Rune’ that signals initiation.”
Angel unravels the meanings one by one, and finally, he reaches a conclusion that leaves him rather astounded.
“Through the lineage of the descendants, one can travel to a certain place.”
Even though he couldn’t comprehend several hundreds of rune corners, he guesses that they are likely some quantifiers describing “that place”, such as distance, size, spatial coordinates, and so on.
However, these are not important. The crux lies in the sentence he has deduced.
“The sentence at the bottom of the well —Only with the soul gazing upward—is undoubtedly left by Lucas. Hence, the sentence I deduced, the lineage of the descendants, should refer to Lucas’s descendants,” Angel speculates. As for the latter part of the sentence—
It should mean that by using the bloodline of Lucas’s descendants, the magical formation at the bottom of the well can be activated, leading to some secret location.
But what this secret location is, Angel has no clue.
Some intuition tells him that perhaps the ultimate destination of Song of the Deep Sea and the people of Summer Dew Ridge should be that secret place.
However, Angel still has some doubts. According to Lucas’s nautical log, he committed suicide by jumping into the well, but why is there no skeleton at the bottom of the well, only this magical formation? And why did Lucas’s skeleton and this logbook appear on that strange ship?
Could it be that the place connected by the magical formation at the bottom of the well is that ship?
Angel pondered, yet it mattered not; clarity would come with observation. The magic formation at the bottom of the well was not a one-way conduit; he could return to the well’s depth if the situation went awry.
As the parchment on the table was consumed by fire, Angel allowed the ashes to scatter in the snowy wind. He opened the door, attuned himself to the location of Count New Rosberg, and flew towards him.
He had two matters to discuss with the Count. Firstly, regarding Nite and Sanna, he had no intention of forcefully matching them, merely suggesting that the Count shouldn’t be overly constrained by class consciousness. Secondly, it was a matter of bloodline; according to Muya’s annotations in the scroll, all of Lucas’s other offspring had perished, only her child survived. Consequently, it was probable that the New Rosberg Family members had, to varying degrees, Lucas’s bloodline.
The bloodline of Lucas’s descendants was the key to unlocking the magic formation at the bottom of the well.
With a bit of magic and trickery, Angel successfully drew a vial of blood from Count New Rosberg. He then dispelled the illusion and, without looking back, descended into the Snowlay Garden.
The howling wind outside forced most people to stay indoors, leaving Snowlay Garden deserted.
Descending into the well, Angel found himself again in front of the wall where the magic formation resided. As the formation included a “Hidden Rune” component, visible only in a soul state, the wall appeared blank to Angel.
Once his soul left his body, numerous glowing runes promptly surfaced on the wall.
These luminescent runes cast a warm glow on Angel’s soul.
Angel’s gaze quickly locked onto the upper-right corner of the magic formation, where a pyramid-like rune with an eye trapped within signified the activation source of the formation.
A wave of excitement, barely contained, washed over him as he smeared the blood drawn from Count New Rosberg in the center of the activation source.
The viscous blood vanished, slowly integrating with the wall, at a rate discernible to the naked eye.
Subsequently, the magic formation on the wall began to shine with unprecedented brilliance. In that moment, the storage room where Angel stood seemed to fall into a starry expanse, surrounded by a constellation of twinkling lights, devoid of impurities. The only focus in the celestial panorama was the rune on the wall, the most dazzling point amidst the stars.
The eye at the center of the pyramid blinked unnaturally.
A vortex-like passage appeared in the middle of the wall.
However, this passage was exceedingly small, not even half a meter in size. Moreover, the wall’s rune was still flickering, hinting at something in its intermittent luminescence.
After returning to his body, Angel could still see the vortex. He attempted to throw a magic crystal into the vortex. The rune on the wall brightened slightly, and the vortex grew a bit larger.
Angel fell silent. Could it be a lack of energy?
Angel began to feed the vortex, each magic crystal he threw in made the rune on the wall slightly brighter, and the vortex grew a little larger. Simultaneously, the stars around him became even more radiant.
Until Angel dropped nearly twenty magical crystals into the vortex, did it grow large enough to admit his body.
Behind the vortex was a swath of inky darkness, obscuring everything from view.
As Angel fed the vortex with crystals, he extended a mental tendril into the abyss. Initially, the void mirrored the darkness outside. But as his mental touch delved deeper, he spotted a glimmer of white light.
The white light marked the mouth of a passageway.
“Based on the spatial characteristics detected by my mental touch, this could be akin to a planar passage,” Angel mused. However, the exit was close at hand. Even a mortal could likely traverse it with minimal risk.
Assured of the safety, Angel took a deep breath. His heart pounded with anticipation as he stepped into the vortex.
The pitch-black planar passage was short. When Angel reached the white light, he immediately went on full alert. But from the moment he exited the passage to when he touched down, he encountered no threats. All he perceived was a familiar salty tang.
-The scent of seawater.
There was also the stale odor of wood corroded over time.
Upon landing, Angel heard a crisp sound, but his body lacked the firm sensation of stepping on solid ground. The intermittent sinking sensation, combined with the noise, reminded him of his days aboard the Cloud Conch.
Could it be that he was on a ship?
The surroundings were cloaked in darkness, yet he could faintly hear the gentle lapping of water. However, the sound was so faint it seemed more like the splashing of water against an object.
Angel took out a luminescent stone lamp from his bracelet.
Instantly, the surroundings were bathed in light. Upon surveying his surroundings, Angel’s expression grew slightly complex.
His previous speculation had turned out to be correct.
He was indeed on that ship, the strange vessel the Cloud Conch had encountered in the misty region. Moreover, Angel found himself in the exact place he had last seen—the captain’s cabin.
The skull-less skeleton was still seated in the captain’s chair, as steadfast as ever.
On the table, Angel could faintly discern a spot distinctly whiter than the rest. The area was where Lucas’s nautical log had once lain, hence the cleaner surface underneath.
Accompanied by the creaking of wooden boards underfoot, Angel crossed the desk where the headless skeleton sat and arrived at the window behind it. He wished to ascertain the situation outside, to see if he was still in the misty region of the Devil’s Sea.
Using a cleaning spell, he brushed off the dust on the window.
Outside was as dark as ever. With the luminescent stone lamp’s illumination, Angel could only see a limited area, getting a vague view of the immediate vicinity of the deck.
It was desolate, with several gaping holes—exactly the same as he had seen from the Cloud Conch.
Although the ship’s figurehead is obscured from a frontal view, the sight from the stern reveals an impressive semi-circular array of feathers, reminiscent of a peacock in full bloom. These clues suggest that this is the “Feather Fan”, the very ship Lucas set sail on.
However, this place doesn’t seem to be the fog zone.
The darkness outside is impenetrable, without a speck of light. This clearly isn’t the fog zone anymore. Even though the fog zone lacked illumination, the soft glow of the moon could still be discerned at night.
Most importantly, Angel senses the presence of seawater beneath the ship, but it feels devoid of life, like dead water. The briny smell is also much stronger than that of the outside world.
Angel decides to venture out and explore this mysterious place. Could it possibly be the elusive location that Song of the Deep Sea and Summer Dew Ridge are seeking?
But before he embarks on this journey, there is something crucial he needs to establish—an escape route.
The luminescent stone lamp illuminates the captain’s cabin, but Angel finds no traces of a magic formation after scanning the room. He closes his eyes, mutters the Soul Whisper, and his soul momentarily steps out of his body.
When he inspects his surroundings with his soul’s gaze, the magic formation still remains elusive.
Returning to his body, Angel doesn’t let the disappointment overwhelm him. Although he doesn’t spot a magic formation here, he’s certain that the magic formation at the bottom of the Snowlay Garden Well isn’t a one-way portal.
According to the default rules that Angel is familiar with, there must be a return magic formation nearby. The only question that needs answering is—where is this formation located?
Before venturing outside to investigate, Angel decides to conduct a thorough search of the captain’s cabin once again.
When they initially discovered this ship in the fog zone, they had used a scouting puppet to board the ship as a safety precaution. Many areas were overlooked and not thoroughly inspected, like, for example, the drawers.
Angel approaches the desk. It was at this desk that he had initially found the ship’s log, which had provided him with the clues to find this place.
He wonders, what discoveries lie within the drawer?
As Angel opens the drawer, a robust smell of decay wafts out.
It’s eerily empty, save for a piece of parchment tucked away, identical in style to the —Lucas’s Captain’s Log— Angel had found previously.
Chapter 769 Snowlay Garden <TOC> Chapter 771 The Island of the Dead