Chapter 433: The Lucky One
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
On the ten or so s.h.i.+ps that had been connected to become one through vines, the mainlanders, who were desperately resisting and escaping, immediately had their gazes attracted by the huge red eye the instant it appeared. Looking up at the eye hovering in the sky overlooking down on them indifferently, fear gushed up from their hearts, and at once, their bodies became completely stiff.
At this time, the giant eye slowly turned and swept its gaze on the fleet while faintly revealing its malicious intention. An invisible force radiated from it, changing the rigidity of every mainlander into shackles.
“I-I can’t move! I-I’m cursed by the devil…”;
“That is the eye of the devil! The h.e.l.lfire people have summoned the h.e.l.l Devil’s Eye! That eye! The devil is looking into the humane world…”;
“G.o.d! Oh, ancient G.o.ds who protect the Venisans! Please wake up from your sleep! Open your eyes! Open your eyes…”
All of a sudden, the Tantorn Family’s guards and sailors, who felt that their bodies were so heavy that they could no longer breath, who were struggling desperately but were still unable to move, screamed in fear and sorrow at the top of their lungs one by one.
The enemies who obtained this golden opportunity, on the other hand, began to command the huge spiders under them to run. Chanting some strange praises with solemn piety on their faces, they cruelly harvested the lives of the mainlanders.
Not long after, when almost all of the resistance force on the fleet was almost slaughtered, the huge red eye slowly turned again. The surrounding s.p.a.ce slowly collapsed, twisted and deformed, with long translucent tentacles emerging slowly from behind, waving around, gently picking up the Tantorn Family’s huge s.h.i.+ps one by one.
When the huge s.h.i.+ps left the water, the loud sound produced made the surviving mainlanders, who had been freed from the invisible force, collapse. Many of them were swaying gently and jumped off the deck that was gradually hovering in the air, as though they would rather die in the sea than fall into the hands of the h.e.l.l Devil and suffer from endless torment.
Unfortunately, under the cold stare of the devil’s giant eye, among those people who wanted to commit suicide, some of them managed to get their wish and jumped into the icy water, while some were pinched up by the invisible force and thrown into the lower cabin of the s.h.i.+p, being deprived of even the liberty to die.
Some of them did not wish to jump into the sea but was picked up by the invisible force and thrown into the sea. Then, the giant red eye waved the translucent thousand-meter long tentacles behind it and s.h.i.+fted the position of the Tantorn fleet, that was already suspended, in the air. Like building blocks, they were placed neatly in the sea behind the h.e.l.lfire s.h.i.+ps.
Then, the large metal chain tying the more than ten s.h.i.+ps together began to stretch and wiggle like a serpent, stretching across the sea to the deck of the three Wizard Li’s iron s.h.i.+ps and became one with the iron deck.
After finis.h.i.+ng all these, the giant eye gradually sank, sinking into the sea in the praise of the indigenous warriors.
By the time it disappeared, the chain connecting the Tantorn Family’s fleet and the native s.h.i.+ps abruptly tightened. Amidst the shouts of hundreds of thousands of Wizard Li’s warriors, who were raising the spears in their hands up high, the steams.h.i.+p pulled the string of huge wooden s.h.i.+ps with lowered masts towards the distance, leaving behind only a few surviving mainlanders floating in the water, doing their last struggle to live.
Right at this critical moment of danger, a skinny figure suddenly burst out from the lonely s.h.i.+p, that was stolen from the h.e.l.lfire island by the refuges, floating in the sea that had not been taken away. He walked on the water, stepping on a broken wooden plank. Relying on the blazing fire in the distant water and the bright moonlight, he bent over and picked up whichever survivor he saw and threw them back onto the wooden s.h.i.+p.
The rescued lucky ones would make a parabolic trajectory of either long or short, high or low, in the air. When they landed, they would roll involuntarily and slump on the deck unscathed. Only a few fully drenched warriors managed to regain their foothold and land on the s.h.i.+p gently, relying on the countless amounts of training they had done with their bodies.
Upon seeing the increasing number of survivors and fewer drowning people at sea, an enraged voice suddenly shouted from the deck. “Wester! Wester! I have given you all the defensive power of the fleet! Is this what you mean by won’t disappoint me?! Do you even know w-what have those h.e.l.lfire people taken away…”
“Young Master Fandersal, we couldn’t use the artillery of our fleet and only I alone mastered the spellcaster ability. The h.e.l.lfire people, on the other hand, had six sea monsters who had joined in the battle and even summoned the power of the devil to help them out. I really was powerless in such a situation…” In the face of his employer’s accusation, the Tantorn Family’s Chief Guard, who was lucky enough to escape this calamity, lowered his head in a panic-stricken manner, unable to defend himself, no longer having his inscrutable cold look of the past.
“Powerless? Just one word ‘powerless’ is enough to make up for the loss of the family?! Seven medium-sized merchant s.h.i.+ps, three large merchant s.h.i.+ps, one giant flags.h.i.+p and the cargos, tens of thousands of hand cannons, millions of pounds of ‘gunpowder blocks’…” Fandersal became more enraged as he continued to list them, to the point where he could not even breathe and pa.s.sed out right away. At once, a disorderly panic and chaos erupted on the deck of the wooden s.h.i.+p.
Only Zhang Lisheng alone, who had just saved several dozens of lives, stepped on the wooden block and jumped back to the wooden s.h.i.+p. Showing no concern, he breathed in the wet and salty air before looking at the distance where the Wizard Li’s steams.h.i.+ps sailed away. Lowering his head, he sneered coldly and proceeded to walk back to his own cabin quietly amidst the chaos.
After lying in a swaying manner for one whole night on the hammock, the young man walked out of the cabin and found that the deck had already regained its calm state. However, there were many unkempt people who were sitting slantingly or lying on the floor with a dazed look on their face. It was apparent that n.o.body had the intention to go back to the cabin to sleep last night, except for him.
It was a good thing these people owed Zhang Lisheng grat.i.tude for saving their lives. Even though the atmosphere was heavy and was not convenient for them to express their grat.i.tude, when the mainlanders on the deck saw him come out of the cabin, they did not show any weird expression to him. On the contrary, the young man stretched his legs and take the initiative to a.s.sume air and explained, “I’ve used too much ‘Qi’ yesterday so I must go to a clean room to rest…”
Before he could finish his words, Annete, who was close to the s.h.i.+p’s side with a face full of exhaustion, immediately interrupted him. “Mr. Lisheng, you don’t have to say anymore. You’ve rescued all of us and we have nothing but grat.i.tude towards you. Speaking of it, after the incident yesterday, my sister and I have been saved thrice by you already. The s.h.i.+p is already not far away from Venis City so please rest a.s.sured that once we dock, our Bailile family will definitely thank you for your favor.”
“Same goes to Tantorn Family as well. Even though this loss has caused my family to lose half of its wealth, we still have the ability to thank our benefactor.” A dispirited Fandersal, whose eye circles were dark but whose sanity seemed to have completely recovered, smiled wryly. “However, I’m afraid we can only give you after the Kattaman Insurance a.s.sociation has compensated us.”
“There’s no need for that, Young Master Fandersal, I have, have…” Zhang Lisheng was about to say some polite words but all of a sudden, a statue so unbelievably huge in the sea entered his eyes through the gradually disappearing mist, and made his words become stuck in his throat.
That statue had a mottled blue-grey color. Its face was thin and beautiful and it was wearing a crown weaved from waves. Wearing a long drifting dress and revealing half of its full b.r.e.a.s.t.s, it stood quietly in the sea, stretching its arms with a full smile on its face, overlooking down on the numerous sea-going vessels that were constantly moving across the sea.
Behind her was a bustling port and behind the port was a huge majestic city surrounded by stone walls that were tens of meters high.
Silently standing on the deck of the wooden s.h.i.+p that was continuously approaching the port, Zhang Lisheng looked up at the statue’s ankle when the s.h.i.+p pa.s.sed by the statue in the sea and suddenly said, “This statue is the largest statue I have ever seen, the port is the most prosperous I have ever seen, and this city is the largest city I have ever seen…”
Of course, the second half of his sentence was not true, for after all, no matter how prosperous a foreign world’s port docking wooden s.h.i.+ps could be, it would never be as prosperous as the new New York harbor that docked 10,000-ton s.h.i.+ps. It was also impossible for a city surrounded by walls to be bigger than New York City. Even so, the first half of his sentence was true.
“This is the statue of the sea G.o.ddess, Tinaros. Legend has it that Venis is her hometown, so the G.o.ddess personally carved this statue from the sea reef and erected it in front of the city. Even the most powerful city-state of Kattaman City State, Seniakha, doesn’t have this honor at all. This statue can be said as the pride of all Venisans,” Annete walked up to Zhang Lisheng and said with a proud and relaxed expression on his face. “When we see her, we’d know that we have reached home…”
While the teenager was talking, the wooden s.h.i.+p entered the torrent of merchant s.h.i.+ps, and drove into the harbor outside Venis city. Soon, it created a commotion.
In the days to come, Zhang Lisheng was treated as a VIP by the Bailile family, one of the most influential merchants in the city, and received two medium-sized seagoing vessels with a length of nearly 400 meters and a cargo capacity of several thousand tons.
At once, this young man, who was said to have come from a different continent, had become the most enviable lucky man in the Venis City.
Little did they know, the things that made them even more jealous was yet to come. On the sixth day of the New Year, the n.o.ble Tantorn merchant family suddenly announced that they would give a large sea-going vessel ‘White Gull’ that had only been produced by Mofudon s.h.i.+pyard to the Frosty Mainland’s knight-errant Zhang Lisheng who had saved one of their heirs, Fandersal Tantorn, and several dozens of guards and sailors.
A large sea vessel was at least seven times as valuable as a medium-sized seagoing vessel.
The Tantorn Family was so generous despite being in a predicament. With just one glance, those who knew the inside story and were smart enough would know that this was not because they were twice as grateful to that outlander young man compared to the Bailile Family but instead, they purposely showed off their economic strength to demonstrate that Tantorn had not fallen into a pit having its entire fleet looted by the h.e.l.lfire people.
A merchant’s credibility was sometimes far more important than his ability. For this reason, Bailile Family understood Tantorn Family’s actions and did not give any additional gifts. Even so, from a person who came empty-handed to the Venis City, Zhang Lisheng was starting to become a sea merchant who possessed two medium-sized seagoing vessels and a large merchant s.h.i.+p.
After selling his gold belt, he naturally set up his own business, and then began to recruit sailors, navigators and captains.