"Damn it, we have to stop! It was only one night—one night, and this ship has already covered more than ten days' worth of distance. If this continues, in just a few hours, it'll cross the final safety line. Once it charges through the Beluga Whale Sea, everything will be over!"
Inside the captain's cabin, the captain clutched his head, staring at the storm being forced aside ahead of them with an agitation tinged with despair. Beside him stood several Mandated Punishers from the Storm Church.
The leader of this squad was a man with the air of a civil servant. He wore gold-rimmed glasses and lacked the tattoos common among followers of the Lord of Storms. Hearing the captain's words, he said gloomily:
"We have already terminated the ritual, but the storm shows no sign of stopping. It is very likely that too many rituals were activated aboard this ship at once, causing interactions between them. This is an extremely rare natural mystic art..."
"I don't want to know the reason. All I can tell you is that if this ship doesn't stop, it'll charge straight into that Death Sea Domain! Damn it, apart from Aurora Society lunatics, no one would ever willingly head into a place like that!"
The captain scratched at his head fiercely, but at that moment, the ship suddenly jolted violently. A series of explosions came from the stern. The Mandated Punishers had no time to continue discussing the depths of the Sunia Sea and rushed out of the captain's cabin. Before they even left the bridge, they saw thick smoke rising from the stern as the ship began trembling continuously amid the violent currents of air.
"I knew those pieces of junk from the Machinery Hivemind were unreliable!"
"I knew this thing couldn't