Charge Toward the Great Whirlpool! (Please Keep Reading)

The swaying cabin and the constant screams from above interrupted their conversation. Lynn and Joanne exchanged a glance, then rushed upstairs in unspoken agreement.

The moment they opened the cabin door, a freezing gale howled through them. Icy raindrops poured down onto the deck like a dense barrage of bullets—the prelude to a storm...

The once-calm sea had become violently turbulent. Waves battered the hull without pause, causing the Sail Battleship to rock endlessly.

Under the relentless wind, the thick fog had thinned considerably, doubling their visibility. Yet the mist was no longer pure white; it had turned an exceedingly strange gray...

"Pull the sails tight! Move, all of you! We must get out of these waters as soon as possible!"

The deck was in chaos. Hundreds of [Ship Gang] sailors were in complete disarray. Laud shouted harshly, his face extraordinarily ugly, but it did no good. Quite a few sailors had collapsed to their knees or sprawled on the deck, despair written across their faces as they endlessly cried out something under their breaths.

"Mr. Laud, did we hit a reef? Or is this the storm's doing?" Lynn hurried over and asked.

"No, it's the great whirlpool—it's the Eye of Death!" Laud cried out in terror.

A great whirlpool?

Lynn immediately recalled the information he had gathered in Harbor Town. Looking once more at the raging sea, he finally noticed what he had overlooked: the rolling seawater was surging in a single direction, while the great sailship beneath his feet was being pulled little by little toward the center of the vortex.

But the whirlpool's diameter was simply too vast. Combined with the fog covering the sea and the lack of any reference points, it had given him the illusion that the ship had been sailing normally all along!

Hiss... Just how big is this thing?

Cold sweat broke out on Lynn's forehead. Meanwhile, Laud seemed to have suddenly thought of something. He looked at Lynn with an incomparably eager gaze and asked excitedly, "Lord Wizard, can you freeze the entire great whirlpool?"

"Are you kidding?" Lynn frowned. The great whirlpool had to be at least several kilometers wide to create such a visual illusion. What kind of power could freeze such an enormous expanse of ocean?

"Then we're doomed. It's already too late to escape!" The flame of hope in Laud's eyes instantly went out. His entire body went limp as though his bones had vanished, and he slumped to the ground, muttering to himself.

The Sea of Mists was so feared not only because of the dense fog that blanketed the entire sea and could make people lose all sense of direction, but more importantly because of the great whirlpools known as the Eye of Death!

They were an existence that struck terror into countless long-distance voyagers, like Grim Reapers wandering the boundless Sea of Mists. They could appear without warning in any corner of these waters, with no pattern whatsoever. Once encountered, a sailor was effectively sentenced to death!

The terrifying suction of a great whirlpool far exceeded the speed of any sailing ship. Rumor had it that those eventually dragged into one not only met certain death, but their souls would fall into the abyss as well. That was how the Eye of Death got its name...

The only way to cross the Sea of Mists was to wait until Moon Day, when the [Eye of Death] whirlpools would temporarily subside. During that time, ships had to sail as far as possible from the waters where the Eyes of Death frequently appeared, then leave the rest to luck.

That was why, when transporting cargo in previous years, they had always tried to set sail during the first few days of Moon Day, so they would not run headlong into a great whirlpool...

But this year was different. The Church had sealed off Harbor Town, causing them to leave port far too late!

Ignoring him, Lynn quickly walked over to the cargo piled on the deck. He picked up several wooden barrels, weighed them in his hands, then threw them overboard in different directions and at different angles. He then extended his right hand and began measuring the relative distances between the objects.

For one person, trying to calculate the diameter and current speed of a great whirlpool using only a few drifting barrels as reference points was nothing short of fantasy.

But for the intelligent brain, this level of computation was child's play...

"The great whirlpool has a diameter of seven kilometers. Its escape velocity is... twenty knots! To avoid being sucked in, we need a speed of at least twenty knots!" Lynn quickly received the intelligent brain's analysis, and his brow furrowed.

In his previous life, a mere twenty knots could be reached by any small boat. After the energy revolution, these antiques could only gather dust in warehouses.

But now he was in this damned otherworld. The Sail Battleship beneath their feet seemed to have a maximum speed of only... seven knots?

"That's impossible! Even the finest Alchemy Ship in the Land of Wizards could never reach twenty knots!" Laud heard Lynn's words as well and shouted in despair.

Though he did not understand what escape velocity meant, he knew perfectly well what twenty knots represented!

"No, it's possible!" Lynn said with complete seriousness. He tossed the collapsed helmsman aside, then looked over the crowd. "I'll take the helm. Everyone, return to your stations and follow my orders. Raise every sail!"

"Do you even know anything about ships? In winds and waves this strong, if we raise all the sails, this ship will capsize before long! Then every one of us will die!" The helmsman Lynn had shoved aside immediately leapt to his feet and screamed himself hoarse. In this situation, he no longer cared whether Lynn was a wizard or not.

But the words at his lips were swallowed back the next instant, because a massive fireball was forming in Lynn's palm.

"Do it, or you'll die right now!" Lynn's tone was icy.

The yellow-white White Phosphorus Fire made the sailors on deck shudder. The helmsman, in particular, dropped back onto the deck in terror.

Yet with death already inevitable, not many people obeyed under the weight of their despair. Some even felt that dying to sorcery would be better than having their souls swallowed by the great whirlpool.

Just then, the sound of a winch spinning violently carried over. Lynn and the others turned to look, only to discover that Joanne was the one operating it!

The girl was gripping a sail rope and looping it around the winch. Unceasing raindrops fell from above, streaming over her hair and delicate profile, soaking her robes through. But Joanne paid it no mind, pulling harder and harder until she firmly secured the last loop of rope around the winch.

"Since you have no other way, sitting here is nothing but waiting to die!" Joanne said resolutely, her sapphire-blue eyes fixed on everyone present.

Laud quickly pulled himself together as well. He yanked the long whip from his waist and viciously lashed a sailor kneeling on the ground in prayer, roaring furiously.

"Do it! Every last one of you, do it! Raise all the sails!"