Entering the Ruins

"Right. This fellow spent several months here, after all, and he's even been inside the ruins. He knows quite a bit about them and can save us a lot of trouble." Hawkins stepped forward to help persuade him.

Seeing the two captains step forward to stop him, Astor snorted coldly and put away the dagger in his hand.

"Captains, there's no time to lose. Let's each take four people and prepare to enter the ruins," Grant immediately told everyone after persuading Astor to stand down.

The ruins lay inside a cave behind the camp built by the Angry Whale pirates.

According to Grant, they would have to descend deep underground after entering the cave before they could reach the ruins.

Since the passages inside the cave were narrow, bringing too many people would not only be useless but might even prove counterproductive.

In the end, Dunn chose Green, Engels, and two classed pirates.

As for Annie, the Navigator class itself had too little combat strength, especially inside enclosed ruins. If anything happened to Annie through carelessness, the loss would be far too great.

Before entering, Dunn pulled Annie and the boatswain, Lewis, aside and instructed them, "Lewis, while I'm gone, follow Annie's orders in everything."

"No problem, Captain."

"Annie, I'll leave things out here to you."

"Are you really not taking me inside? Having a classed person with high perception would make things much easier in such cramped spaces."

"No. You're needed more out here. I'm afraid Lewis won't be able to keep things under control."

"Besides, Grant also has a perception-based class, and the other captains will probably bring their Navigators too."

"All right..."

Just as Dunn had said, all four captains brought their own Navigators.

All four looked surprised when they saw that Dunn had chosen not to bring Annie inside.

The impatient Feishman asked outright, "Hey, Captain Dunn, will you be all right going in without a Navigator?"

"Of course. A dark place like this isn't really suitable for a girl like Annie."

"Heh, do you trust your Navigator that much, Captain Dunn?" Astor asked pointedly.

"Of course. If you can't even trust your own Navigator, why go to sea at all? You might as well stay home and farm," Dunn replied with a light chuckle.

"You... I hope you and your Navigator really are that close, Captain Dunn. Don't end up screwing us over." Astor's expression instantly darkened.

Dunn and the others entered the cave carrying torches. The interior was fairly spacious, wide enough for three people to walk abreast. There were no forks along the way, only a single winding path that led straight to the end.

Dunn and the others proceeded deeper underground along a spiraling slope that extended steadily downward.

After Dunn and the others had walked downward for over ten minutes, the view ahead suddenly opened up, and they arrived in a relatively spacious hall.

Directly opposite them stood a stone door several meters tall. In the faint torchlight, they could just make out the elegant, intricate patterns carved into it.

Stone pillars carved in a distinctly classical style supported this underground space.

The stone door stood open, presumably opened earlier by Elvin and the others.

"Let's go. There aren't any traps at the entrance," Grant told everyone.

Despite Grant's words, Dunn did not let his guard down and remained vigilant.

They walked all the way to the stone doorway. Just as Grant had said, there were no traps.

Upon reaching the doorway, Dunn's attention was immediately drawn to the carving on the stone door.

It depicted a man lying upon the waves of the sea, with a crowd kneeling in worship below him.

It was a very simple narrative carving, and one glance was enough to tell that the man represented a king of the seas.

One thing worth mentioning was that, by Dunn's estimate, they were already at least several dozen meters below the surface, yet the air they breathed had none of that stuffy, putrid quality.

Clearly, even after all these years, the ruins' ventilation system remained in good condition.

From here, going any farther would mean officially entering the ruins. The captains exchanged glances, then passed through the stone doorway together.

Tap... tap... tap... tap...

The entire ruin was exceptionally quiet, with only their footsteps echoing through the underground space.

By the torchlight, they could see exquisite murals carved into the walls on both sides of the corridor.

Even after hundreds or thousands of years, the murals remained so vivid that they gave the illusion that the master of this place might still have been here yesterday.

Dunn took a cursory look. The murals depicted the story of the man at the entrance.

The man had been born in a small fishing village, then become a classed person by chance. After that came endless battles: against people, against wild beasts, and against sea monsters.

Finally, the man trod upon the waves and placed an exquisite crown on his own head out on the vast sea.

Presumably, this was how Grant had concluded that this was the Pirate King's treasure.

After passing through the long corridor, Dunn and the others arrived in a plaza the size of a soccer field, where they finally saw traces of the former "explorers."

By now, they had become part of the ruins.

Dried bloodstains, shattered bones, desiccated remains that no one had collected, and assorted weapons discarded at random-it looked as though they had been dead for at least a year.

Fortunately, the ruins were fairly well ventilated, and no particularly strong stench lingered.

"This happened the last time Jaeger and I came here. These were all crew members from our two ships." Grant explained it all with an impassive expression, as though the dead had all been Jaeger's men and none had been his own.

That was normal, though. Pirates were mostly cold-hearted sorts, after all, and dead people with no further use were not worth wasting even a flicker of expression on.

Three stone doors stood in different directions around the hall, all of them now open.

"The traps here were completely destroyed last time, and the rooms on the left and right have already been looted. There's no need to waste time here. Let's keep going." As Grant spoke, he took the lead toward the stone door directly ahead.

Already looted. Since Grant had confirmed that they had been looted, that meant it had happened during his last visit. So the question was, had Grant looted them, or had Jaeger?

Dunn narrowed his eyes slightly as he watched Grant leading the way ahead.

Beyond the stone door lay another long, narrow corridor, dark and deep, a sight that sent an involuntary chill down one's spine.

Exquisite murals still adorned the walls on either side of the corridor, but this time, they depicted a jumble of scenes with no connection to one another whatsoever.