A huge ball of blue flame rose from the passenger ship. Only afterward did the tremendous boom arrive, along with wave upon wave of seawater.
Smack!
The waves struck the pier, throwing up great sprays of water.
A Guarding Walls appeared above Kallen, shielding him and the two women behind him from the falling seawater.
This was a spontaneous manifestation of Spell Art, because Kallen had not chanted. At the moment, he had no mind to spare for keeping his clothes dry, either.
The passenger ship began to list after the explosion, but just then, another two balls of blue flame erupted from its hull, followed by two tremendous booms:
Boom!
Boom!
When the waves struck again, Kallen raised his hand. This time, he deliberately summoned a Guarding Walls, blocking the seawater once more.
Before his eyes, the passenger ship broke apart in the middle. Its bow and stern began to sink, forcing the middle section upward.
Two coast guard boats that had been moored nearby started their engines and headed toward the passenger ship.
Kallen turned back, looked at Fanny and Peige standing behind him, and asked:
"What do we do?"
Fanny took a deep breath and said, "If he hadn't come ashore and the handover wasn't complete, we won't be held responsible for anything that happened."
Kallen nodded.
But none of the three felt relieved by those words. Such self-deceiving comfort served no purpose beyond filling the silence when there was nothing else to say.
Because this was not a matter of whether they would be held responsible. The person almost delivered into their hands had slipped away.
The interval between the first explosion and the second pair of blasts had actually been extremely short. In that little time, there had been nothing the three of them could