Chapter 176 – God Has Spoken (4)

The fight ended quickly.

Full Pocket, who had been making a fuss about sinking the ship, got hit on the back of the head by Sun-woo and passed out, bringing the fight to a close.

After the fight, all the crew members knelt on one side, unable to move.

It wasn’t that they were frozen with fear, Sun-woo had pressed their pressure points, making them all stiff as logs.

After pressing the pressure points of all the crew, Sun-woo pressed Full Pocket’s sleep point as he lay sprawled out, putting him completely to sleep.

“An interesting technique. Doesn’t seem like magic.”

The prince looked at Sun-woo’s technique with curiosity, then walked toward the frozen crew members.

The prince decided to try persuading them first.

Sun-woo wasn’t sure if waving a glittering sword around wildly while talking counted as persuasion, but he let the prince do it for now.

Sun-woo had his own work to do.

He approached the old sailor standing in the corner with a frightened face.

“Thank you for the advice earlier.”

“You’re not really planning to go there, are you?”

These were adventurers who had subdued the entire crew using magic weapons without taking any damage.

They weren’t the novice adventurers full of youthful vigor seeking their deaths that he’d initially thought.

“Didn’t you hear? These are adventurers who received an oracle from the goddess of the Holy Kingdom. The goddess promised to open the island’s gates.”

Van Shingwan nodded at Sun-woo’s words.

The old sailor looked at Full Pocket lying on the floor and sighed.

“I only heard that bastard say some adventurers who could be robbed had appeared, so I wondered what kind of fools had come.”

Shaking his head, he looked at Sun-woo with a puzzled expression.

“Why are you leaving me alone? I’m part of the same gang anyway.”

“Well, you could think of it as respect for elders.”

At Sun-woo’s calm words, the old man sighed instead.

“In the end, you’re planning to drag everyone to the island? You’re not touching me because I’m the navigator. Don’t tell me you’ve been thinking this from the moment we boarded?”

“We asked to be taken to the Isle of Destruction from the beginning…”

“So whatever the outcome, you thought you could make it work.”

Sun-woo pointed at the prince who was swinging his magic sword around threateningly.

“Ha, I thought it was about time to die. Looks like that time has come.”

“If you just take us to the island, we plan to send you back safely.”

“Hehe, the curses sent by the gods and the hellish sky and sea aren’t all there is to that Isle of Destruction. If that was all there was, the sea routes wouldn’t have narrowed this much.”

The old sailor looked like someone who had already let go of everything.

“I thought it was about time to die anyway. Those bastards deserve to die considering all the evil they’ve done.”

He dusted off his hands and walked toward the helm.

“I haven’t married off my daughter yet, but she’ll manage on her own. Having my last voyage be toward the Isle of Destruction isn’t so bad.”

He looked like a pilgrim embarking on his final journey, but Sun-woo wasn’t particularly moved.

That old sailor was just part of the villain crew anyway.

Someone who sustained his life with money and equipment stolen from adventurers.

He may have had his reasons, but committing one small good deed at the end didn’t erase his sins.

“Still, if there’s danger, I should rescue him first among them.”

It seemed the crew had been talked to as well.

They clearly looked like they’d been strong-armed into making promises and seemed quite ready to flee, but as long as they kept the ship moving, their other thoughts didn’t matter much.

Sun-woo immediately released the pressure points, and the crew moved around avoiding Sun-woo with frightened faces.

He’d used pressure point pressing as a method to intimidate the crew.

Thanks to explaining the pressure point technique that immobilized them as something like dark magic, Sun-woo had been perceived by them as a terrifying dark mage.

Finally, Captain Full Pocket, who came to his senses, didn’t listen to the group at all, but it wasn’t a problem.

The crew adjusted the sails according to the navigator’s instructions.

They had no enthusiasm, but the ship moved toward the Isle of Destruction.

***

The voyage continued for several days.

The navigator and his ship, the Horizon, showed excellent skill that transcended age and time, and Alda summoned wind spirits to make the ship even faster.

The crew, who tried to escape several times, were detected in advance thanks to Sun-woo’s sensing ability and had no choice but to keep sailing.

As they got closer to the island, the crew’s anxiety grew, but fortunately, there were no problems with the ship’s movement thanks to the navigator’s skillful command.

As time passed, a massive gray cloud pillar began to appear ahead of the Horizon.

“Is that the Isle of Destruction?”

Sun-woo had heard about this sight beforehand, but seeing it in person, he couldn’t help but be amazed by the enormous scale.

The sight of massive clouds covering the entire island, which looked larger than Jeju Island, extending to the edge of the sky was unlike anything that could be seen anywhere else.

While the group was amazed, the Horizon’s speed gradually decreased and soon stopped.

The navigator had stopped the ship.

“This is as far as the ship can go.”

The old navigator, who had handed the helm over to another crew member, approached the group with the news that he couldn’t sail any further.

“Didn’t you say you’d take us to the island?”

At Daniel’s question, the navigator raised his hand and pointed at the sea.

“I told you before, didn’t I? The curse isn’t the only problem with going to the island. After the gods’ curse descended on the island, sea monsters gathered around it. And we were unlucky enough to enter the worst route among them. Look, the master of this sea is approaching.”

In the sea the navigator pointed to, two long lines cutting through the water entered the group’s view.

At first, they looked like faint rippling shadows, but as they got closer to the surface, the group could recognize their enormous size.

“Good lord, it’s almost 100 paces long.”

The creature approaching the ship was a giant sea serpent that appeared to be at least 100 meters long.

“Sea Serpent! Don’t tell me that monster was living in this sea?”

The prince let out a low groan upon seeing the approaching creature.

Sea Serpent. A massive water snake living in the sea, with adults exceeding 100 meters in length, a monster said to not lose even to dragons in water.

The crew also saw the approaching Sea Serpent and began expressing their fear in their own ways.

Some screamed and prayed, some wet their pants and fainted, some stared blankly and babbled nonsense.

Everyone knew well about the Sea Serpent called the master of the sea.

Stories of countless ships sunk by Sea Serpents, navies from various countries that went to subjugate them only to be subjugated instead, and mages and mercenaries who died charging at the greatest monster of the sea.

Each one clearly conveyed the terrifying nature of the Sea Serpent.

The group didn’t look good either.

The prince and Daniel’s expressions were stiff, and Alda, who lived in this sea and knew well about the monster before them, also had a serious expression.

Van Shingwan, who had also heard stories about this monster, clasped his hands tightly and prayed.

Only Yeonhwa looked at the two approaching monsters with a curious expression.

“It’s a sea dragon.”

The sea dragons said to live in the southern sea of Yeonhwa’s world, the martial arts world, looked quite similar to the sea serpent monsters here.

Sun-woo looked at the two gradually approaching monsters and recalled what he’d heard about Sea Serpents before.

Monsters with strong resistance to magic, whose skin cannot be pierced by spears or swords.

The water balls shot from a Sea Serpent’s mouth were powerful enough to sink a ship like the one they were on in one shot.

“Ship protection first.”

Sun-woo drew his sword from his inventory and swung it toward the deck. Sword energy shot from the swung sword, creating a large pattern in the center of the deck.

He’d quickly carved the deck with sword energy, but it was a properly functioning magic circle.

Sun-woo threw an amplification stone into the center of the magic circle. It was a method of utilizing amplification stones he’d discovered while checking the memories of the dark mages he’d faced.

An amplification stone that consumed internal energy to enhance mental power.

The amplification stone enhanced not only a person’s mental power but also the mana of this world.

Therefore, even without Sun-woo, maintaining the magic circle he drew was no problem.

When the amplification stone floated in the center of the magic circle, Sun-woo quietly chanted a spell.

The activation spell for the magic circle.

As bright light burst from the amplification stone, light also flowed from the magic circle.

Finally, a translucent barrier was created around the Horizon.

It was a defensive barrier created by the magic circle.

Matching its large size, its durability and defense were lower, but it just needed to protect the ship until Sun-woo returned.

And Sun-woo jumped off the ship.

Swish swish swish

The surprised group and crew hung on the railing and looked down, but they only saw an even more amazing scene.

A person running on water.

Sun-woo, holding a sword in one hand, was running on water toward the approaching Sea Serpents.

Meanwhile, the two Sea Serpents heading toward the ship realized that something departing from the ship was approaching them.

The two monsters pulled their necks above the water surface without slowing down and saw the human running on water.

The Sea Serpents immediately attacked the human running on water.

Bang! Bang!

The two monsters’ mouths opened wide and balls made of water were shot toward Sun-woo.

Water Ball.

Balls made by compressing water with tremendous pressure, Sun-woo had previously made them as small as beans and used them instead of bullets.

But the Water Balls created by the two monsters were larger than most cannonballs.

Water Balls larger than cannonballs contained tons of water inside.

That powerful impact energy could pierce even the sturdiest ships, and if they pierced through and entered a ship, the magic containing the water in the Water Ball would break, causing a massive explosion that sank even the ships that had been holding out.

However, unfortunately, these Water Balls couldn’t even approach Sun-woo, let alone the Horizon.

The two Water Balls burst from the sword energy Sun-woo shot out.

Kwa-ang!

Sounds like giant fireworks exploding rang out consecutively, and a tremendous deluge of water poured into the sea.

Sun-woo burst through the deluge.

Even seeing the human who had approached right up close, the Sea Serpents showed no signs of worry.

During the Sea Serpents’ long lifespan, many adventurers had challenged the male and female pair.

But no human had caused them significant damage.

Neither attacks using magic nor attacks using magic items were very effective against the two monsters with strong magic resistance.

This time too, the monsters were leisurely dealing with Sun-woo thinking it would be the same, but their opponent was different from the humans they’d faced before.

Puwak!

The sword Sun-woo swung easily pierced the Sea Serpent’s magic resistance, and the long sword energy emanating from the sword cut off the Sea Serpent’s neck in one strike.

The female Sea Serpent nearby momentarily froze at the sudden death of her long-time companion.

And that brief freeze became the female Sea Serpent’s last movement.

Sun-woo’s sword flew through the air and pierced through the female’s head.

The two monsters immediately sprawled out on the sea, and Sun-woo hurriedly searched for the monsters’ cores before they sank.

Fortunately, the cores were near the hearts.

Sun-woo took out walnut-sized cores, put them in his pocket, and ran across the sea back to the ship.

“Hiiik!”

When Sun-woo boarded the ship, the crew members who had feared him before now exuded an atmosphere beyond fear, almost worshipful.

The group was also clearly surprised. Except for Yeonhwa, who wasn’t surprised no matter what Sun-woo did, everyone seemed not to have known Sun-woo was this strong.

As the awkward atmosphere continued, Sun-woo spoke first.

“The obstacle is gone, so shall we depart?”

The old navigator, who had been staring blankly at Sun-woo, came to his senses at his words and began steering the ship by taking the helm.

Entry to the island, which had seemed impossible until now, appeared to be becoming possible.

As the ship approached the island, the massive cloud pillar covering the island gradually parted.

And finally, the island that had not allowed human entry began to reveal itself.