Escape

Scattered raindrops had begun to mingle with the damp wind. White Bone glanced at the warship in the distance. "I have some preparations to make too. Let's stay in touch through Mind Synchronization."

"Mm."

The two separated. Su Ming took the suspended basket to the hall where the steam engine was located. White Bone stayed where she was and began drawing a magic circle, letting faint traces of runic fluctuations leak out, seemingly by accident.

Amid the scattered wind and rain, the Pearl Duchy's warship began to weigh anchor, moving farther away from the White Bone Fortress.

"Why are they moving away?" Su Ming asked.

"In a storm, both the range and power of my combined wind and water attack spells increase," White Bone explained. "So when they see me drawing a magic circle, they're bound to retreat."

Inside the fortress, the structure had undergone a massive transformation. Su Ming had already manipulated the bones into a large number of components, some of which had even formed sections of a ship.

He reached out and unfolded the white bone mark, then began drawing a model of a honeycomb perforated plate.

Since he didn't have a ready-made one, he had to use runes to draw it bit by bit with the help of his sea of consciousness. A complex configuration would have been troublesome, but fortunately, the honeycomb plate was simple, consisting entirely of repeating hexagonal holes and hollow structures.

White Bone cut off Mind Synchronization without hesitation. For someone hopeless at spatial geometry, even something this simple was best avoided.

Once the model was complete, he loaded it into the white bone mark and activated the form-conversion rune, producing dozens of porous bone plates.

Then he had the zombies cover the inner walls and floor of the engine room with the plates. Why waste magic power on something manual labor could accomplish?

"I'm ready on my end." He contacted White Bone through Mind Synchronization.

"Same here."

"By the way, why do we still need Mind Synchronization to communicate at a distance?" Su Ming asked. "The white bone mark should be able to transmit messages, right?"

Mind Synchronization conveyed richer information, but while the two of them were working, their thoughts would inevitably interfere with each other.

"Mm, there's a voice-based message link. You just need to activate the white bone mark."

"Got it."

The final piece was in place, and the rain grew heavier. Su Ming moved aside the floor at the top of the tower, revealing that the section beneath had been shaped into a funnel. A column of water poured down from the sky and into the reservoir.

Su Ming tested it and found that its purity actually met the requirements. This was, after all, another world with no industrial pollution whatsoever. It wasn't entirely without its advantages.

Outside the tower, the rain turned torrential. Su Ming went to the cockpit component and sat down at its control console.

The indicator light showed that the boiler had finished preheating.

In the darkness, the tower-shaped shell of the White Bone Fortress quietly opened on the side facing the sea, and the bone structure inside slid out.

"Sea cliff height, eighty-three meters. Fall time, four seconds." Su Ming began to concentrate.

White Bone, who had remained at the top of the tower, gave a gentle push. Su Ming and most of the White Bone Fortress flew off the cliff, arcing toward the sea.

In midair, Su Ming rapidly assembled the sections. The seven parts of the main hull connected one by one, and the engine room and cockpit slid into place. The superstructure and deck were still incomplete, so Su Ming rolled a bone plate over the upper half to seal it.

White Bone Fortress, ship form, Type 056A replica: 75% complete!

The slender bone ship struck the sea with a smack, throwing up an enormous splash. It disappeared completely beneath the water, then rose amid the surging white waves, pitching and rolling.

A magical fluctuation, as faint as possible, flashed past. The screen of light absorbed only the impact on Su Ming himself.

There was too much to do, so Su Ming had prepared an operations checklist in advance and posted it on the console.

First, flood the ballast tanks!

The entire bottom of the ship was now flooded except for the engine room. The White Bone Fortress began to sink, becoming a semi-submersible.

Checklist item two: remove the cushioning structure beneath the engine room and replace it with a fixed structure.

Checklist item three: release the internal and external fasteners on the steam engine, gearbox, drive shaft, and propeller.

Su Ming completed the second item through the white bone mark, while the zombies in the engine room handled the third. After falling eighty-three meters into the sea, the zombies had merely rolled over and gotten back up. They were far tougher than Su Ming himself.

Checklist item four: start the boiler at fifty percent heating power.

Checklist item five: start the steam engine and let it idle until its low speed stabilized.

Checklist item six: shift the gearbox into low gear and start the propeller.

The fourth item required the zombies to add fuel to the boiler. For the last two, Su Ming only needed to operate the equipment remotely from the console.

Fortunately, the cushioning and impact-protection measures prepared beforehand worked, and the power unit started up smoothly.

It wasn't impossible to use large-scale cushioning magic to cancel out the impact of the bone ship hitting the sea. But after discussing it with White Bone, Su Ming had decided that making noise and taking the impact were preferable to releasing an enormous magical fluctuation.

The former might not expose them immediately; the latter would directly announce to the world: "I'm escaping!"

Everything went as expected. The sea cliff blocked most of the sound traveling toward shore, making it seem less tremendous. But the sentries on watch for the temple legion remained alert and raised the alarm.

A group of white holy light flares flew out of the enemy camp, trailing long tails of light as they drifted above the tower. The white tower had already closed its opened shell, and through the fine, mottled veil of rain, its exterior appeared unchanged.

At the foot of the cliff, most of the white hull was submerged. Hidden in the cliff's shadow, it was inconspicuous amid the sweeping waves.

The next moment, a thin line tore through the curtain of rain and struck the top of the Tower of White Bone in an instant. A high-level light-element attack spell: Solar Flame!

Almost simultaneously, the magic circle atop the tower activated, spreading a dim protective screen of light. A fierce radiance erupted where the two spells met, and a shockwave of magic power spread in every direction.

Aboard the warship farther out at sea, officers watched through viewing equipment. The dazzling light of the clashing spells covered almost their entire field of vision.

In the water, where they weren't looking, the white bone semi-submersible quietly moved away and positioned itself along the extended line between the Temple of Light's camp and the Tower of White Bone. That would fool the light priests' perception of undead fluctuations, making them think all the fluctuations came from the Tower of White Bone.

If not for those hard-to-conceal undead fluctuations, Su Ming could already have turned the ship into a submarine and slipped away.

Back at the tower, White Bone intercepted twelve consecutive shots of Solar Flame.

Silence followed on the battlefield. Once the elemental disturbances subsided, the temple's spellcasters began checking with detection magic. Seven or eight magical fluctuations flashed past one another, but they found nothing unusual.

Someone at the camp contacted the warship. After exchanging information, neither side found anything else amiss. It appeared that the storm had caused a cliff collapse, and the sound had come from earth and rocks falling into the sea.

Later, several more waves of detection magic flashed past. The priests in the camp still found nothing, and only then did everything finally quiet down.