Chapter 524: Crossing the Storm Seal
Two hundred meters. One hundred meters. Fifty meters.
Marcus watched Pebble advance toward the storm one careful step at a time, closing the distance to the towering tornadoes and monstrous waves. Even after reaching the fifty-meter mark, he kept moving without the slightest sign of danger.
Marcus’s heart skipped a beat. ’It worked!’
Only a few minutes earlier, he’d watched Pebble get ripped into the storm and torn apart from two hundred meters away. Now, following Silas’s marked route, he was perfectly safe. The path was real. There really was a way through the Storm Seal that had cut Twin Wing Island off from the outside world for centuries.
"Let’s go!"
Unable to hide his excitement, Marcus gave the order, and the ship followed Pebble into the heart of the maelstrom, sailing straight into the supposedly impassable barrier.
Silas’s route twisted through the Storm Seal like a gigantic maze. The widest sections were only forty or fifty meters across, while the narrowest were barely wide enough for their ship to squeeze through. Without the detailed markings on the map, trying to navigate this place would have been nothing short of suicide.
About an hour into the journey, they reached a sharp bend that led into one of the most dangerous stretches of the route. To their left, a tornado wider than a basketball court stretched into the heavens, roaring past barely five meters from the hull. On the right, several enormous whirlpools churned together, their dark funnels opening like bottomless mouths ready to swallow anything that came too close. The nearest one was no more than five meters away.
Marcus could feel his pulse pounding in his ears, his palms damp against the wheel. If either the tornado or the whirlpool drifted just a few meters toward them, the ship would be torn apart instantly, and they would not even have bodies left to recover. And as if that wasn’t enough, lightning constantly flashed overhead, striking the sea with deafening force. If the route shifted even slightly, one of those bolts could hit them directly.
As for himself, Marcus wasn’t overly worried. Thanks to the Ring of Resurrection, he would come back even if he died. But his companions didn’t have that luxury. The thought of any of them getting hurt because of his decision made his stomach tighten.
The women, however, seemed to have reached the exact opposite conclusion. They had already pulled out their cameras and were eagerly snapping pictures of the unbelievable scenery around them.
"Marcus, get a little closer to the tornado! Now turn toward the whirlpool! Just one more meter! The angle will be perfect!"
Marcus could only laugh helplessly while reminding them over and over, "Safety first! We’re not risking our lives for a photo."
As the minutes passed, though, he gradually relaxed. Silas’s route truly was safe. Aside from the relentless rain drenching everyone on deck, the invisible passage protected them from everything around it.
The tornado beside them proved it perfectly. It charged toward the ship with enough force to crush mountains, but the instant it reached the invisible boundary of the route, it curved away as though it had struck an unseen wall, unable to cross even a single meter into the passage.
The most breathtaking moment came shortly afterward.
Only ten meters off their port side, three colossal tornadoes slammed into each other, unleashing an explosion of wind, lightning, seawater, and debris. The violent shockwave spread outward with enough force to flatten entire mountains, yet the moment it reached the edge of the route, it simply dispersed, leaving their narrow corridor completely undisturbed.
Marcus let out a slow breath. ’Incredible...’
The route itself was astonishing enough, but what impressed him even more was the man who had discovered it.
Crossing the Storm Seal in a straight line would have taken roughly an hour. Following Silas’s winding route, however, stretched the journey to well over five. Every twist and detour had been mapped through a storm capable of killing even Divine Beasts.
How had Silas managed something like that? Marcus couldn’t help suspecting he possessed some extraordinary artifact capable of reading wind currents, sea currents, or even predicting the storm’s movements. Otherwise, discovering a path this precise should have been impossible.
One thing, however, was beyond doubt: leaving the route meant certain death, and Marcus had personally confirmed it.
When a tornado drifted close to the edge of the safe passage, he ordered Pebble to test the boundary. The instant Pebble stepped beyond it, the storm seized him. His body shot upward into the sky so quickly that he disappeared from sight before anyone could even react.
The whirlpools were no different. Pebble mounted Blackie and flew above one of them, staying nearly fifty meters over the water. Even from that height, the whirlpool’s terrifying pull dragged both rider and mount downward until they vanished into the dark vortex below.
Marcus silently scratched that idea off the list. ’Right... staying on the path it is.’
From then on, he followed Silas’s markings with even greater care, refusing to deviate by so much as a meter.
As the ship sailed onward, Marcus noticed schools of strange fish swimming beneath the surface. Their scales shimmered with vivid colors unlike anything he’d seen before. Farther below, enormous shadows drifted through the dark water, each one large enough to make the ship seem insignificant.
Those had to be the creatures Silas had warned about, sea monsters that had spent centuries adapting to the impossible environment inside the Storm Seal.
According to Silas’s notes, any sea monster living here was at least level 80.
Fortunately, the route itself contained no ancient battlefield remains or sunken relics, so monsters rarely lingered there. Still, some wandered aimlessly through the storm, and if one happened to cross their path, they would have no choice but to fight or escape. If neither was possible... Marcus decided he’d rather not think about that outcome.
For now, he could only hope the rest of the journey remained as uneventful as the first hour.
Even so, another thought quietly took root in his mind. If sea monsters could adapt to this terrifying place, perhaps humans could someday do the same, and if that ever became possible, the countless treasures left behind from the thousand-year-old war hidden within the heart of the Storm Seal would be worth a fortune beyond imagination.
That was a problem for another day. For now, they still had about four hours left before reaching the other side.
Not long afterward, Jade crouched beside the railing with a large wooden tub in her hands, staring excitedly into the water below.
"Lily, look! Those fish have three different colors... and they’re glowing! We have to catch a few!"
Her excitement drew a few laughs from everyone aboard, easing the tension that had hung over the journey.
Fortunately, the monsters Silas had warned about never appeared.
Five hours later, the violent wind gradually weakened, and the endless curtain of lightning faded behind them. Ahead lay calm blue water, peaceful enough to seem almost unreal after everything they had just crossed.
Amber pointed toward the horizon, unable to hide her excitement. "Marcus! Are we finally out?"
Marcus looked ahead, a smile spreading across his face. "Yeah. One last turn, maybe another ten minutes, and we’ll be sailing in the waters around Twin Wing Island."