Safe City Ch.94

Chapter 94: The Mysteriously Vanished Ship

“Boss… I think they’re all looking at us…”

Aboard the largest ship of the Green Skull pirate fleet, several men were peering toward the Inkshadow through telescopes.

Their binoculars had changed hands who knew how many times and were nowhere near as clear as Su Ya’s. They could only vaguely make out the two sides talking.

Then, in the middle of the conversation, every one of those strangers—who had descended from the sky like heavenly soldiers—suddenly turned toward the Green Skull pirate ships.

The ordinary pirates were still confused.

But the captain of the Green Skull Pirates already had alarm bells blaring in his head.

“This is bad! They’re not here to cause trouble for the Inkshadow!”

If they weren’t the Inkshadow’s enemies…

Then they might very well be the Inkshadow’s friends.

And just moments ago, the Green Skull Pirates had been trying to hunt the Inkshadow down.

The pirate captain grabbed his radio and barked orders to his subordinates.

“Blood Sail, Bloodwater, Bloodshade—fire straight ahead from your current positions!”

“But, Captain—”

“Fire!”

Whoosh!

Boom!

Blue Sea had anticipated exactly this.

That was why the ships assigned to the front line had all been reinforced with exceptionally thick, high-strength steel plating. The cannonballs slammed into their hulls but failed to penetrate them.

The crew aboard the ship chosen as the primary target were positively thrilled.

According to Blue Sea’s unwritten rules, whenever multiple teams fought together, the spoils of victory were distributed afterward based on each team’s combat achievements and level of participation.

Their ship had absorbed the bulk of the enemy’s bombardment.

That would earn them a sizable share of the rewards once the battle was over.

Aboard the Inkshadow, every crew member—including Yuan Moshu—instinctively ducked at the sudden roar of cannon fire, crouching low and scrambling for cover.

Yet Song Xi and the others didn’t even try to dodge.

If anything, they became visibly more excited.

“It’s started!”

Spreading her wings, Song Xi flew back toward the Little Blue Sea.

She might not have been the best at governing a nation…

But when it came to charging into battle, fear simply wasn’t in her vocabulary.

Cheng Anjing was being protected inside the sturdiest cabin aboard the ship. Blue Sea personnel guarded both the inside and outside of the room as she closed her eyes and once again entered Commander Mode.

More ships with reinforced hulls began repositioning themselves, forming an even more comprehensive shield in front of the fleet’s wooden vessels.

To Yuan Moshu’s astonishment, one of the modern steel ships even edged forward to shelter the Inkshadow behind it.

One of the crew asked cautiously,

“Captain… what do we do now?”

Yuan Moshu craned his neck to get a better view.

“We stand here… and watch the show.”

They had already been placed under the other fleet’s protection. There was no reason for them to panic.

Although he still couldn’t say what these people thought of him…

He was absolutely certain how they felt about the Green Skull Pirates.

Watching the pirate ships struggle helplessly to fight back, a flash of satisfaction crossed his eyes.

At present, Yuan Moshu owned a large ship and commanded over a hundred crew members. On Green Billow Star, he was considered a successful captain, someone with a comfortable life that many envied.

But what he truly missed…

…was the life he had lived as nothing more than the captain of an ordinary little ship.

Back then, his vessel had been unremarkable, his days uneventful.

And by his side had been an equally ordinary family and equally ordinary friends.

On that day, they had simply sailed out as usual, catching ordinary fish and chatting about how they would spend another ordinary evening.

Then, without warning…

The Green Skull Pirates had appeared.

That single day had shattered Yuan Moshu’s ordinary life.

He had often wished he were the protagonist of one of those underdog stories—that he could rise from adversity, build up his own forces, and one day return to exact vengeance for his ordinary family and friends.

But in the end…

He was only an ordinary man.

All he had ever been able to do was escape the Green Skull pirate ships again and again, surviving each pursuit by the narrowest of margins.

If he couldn’t be the hero of an underdog story…

Then being a minor bystander watching his mortal enemies get wiped out wasn’t a bad role either.

Yuan Moshu looked up at the modern steel-hulled ships, the medium and small vessels whose hulls were so new they showed no trace of wear, and the weapons mounted on them—

assault rifles, grenade launchers, heavy machine guns, light naval cannons, rocket launchers…

Ever since the apocalypse began, he had hardly seen so many modern weapons gathered in one place.

For a moment, he almost felt as though he, too, had transmigrated into another world.

Unable to stop himself, Yuan Moshu smiled as he stared through the gaps in the defensive line, watching the Green Skull Pirates’ miserable predicament.

He didn’t know where these people had come from.

Nor did he know where they were headed.

But he knew one thing.

The Green Skull Pirates were finished.

—

At the commander’s order, Blue Sea opened fire.

Compared to the Green Skull Pirates’ indiscriminate bombardment—which amounted to little more than firing wildly without accomplishing much—Blue Sea employed its modern weaponry with considerably more restraint.

It wasn’t because they couldn’t afford to expend the ammunition.

It was because…

The Green Skull pirate ships were actually quite large.

Most Blue Sea residents exploring the seas sailed in single-person boats. While those craft were sturdy enough, the cramped space wasn’t exactly comfortable for people accustomed to living in Blue Sea.

That said, uncomfortable or not, there was no way they were going to wait until larger vessels had been built before setting sail.

So the original plan for these lone captains had been to search for item cards that could expand their boats, or else salvage materials at sea and enlarge the hulls themselves.

Now…

An even better option had presented itself.

Green Skull pirate ships.

Blue Sea approved.

Messages flooded the Mind Domain group chat one after another.

[Don’t shoot the bottoms of the ships! Keep your cannons aimed higher! These hulls are built from thick wooden planks. If you hit below the waterline, they’ll sink too quickly!]

[Don’t hit the mainmast or the foremast either! If you snap them, the ships won’t have any propulsion!]

[And don’t shoot the stern—that’s where the steering gear is.]

No one in the group chat complained, “If we can’t shoot here or there, then what are we supposed to shoot?”

Every Blue Sea resident looked at the eighteen pirate ships as though they already belonged to them.

Their eyes were full of… affection.

To preserve the pirate ships as intact as possible, every vessel deliberately reduced its rate of fire and refrained from using its heavy-caliber naval guns.

The lighter weapons had their own advantages.

The constant chatter of machine guns and the thump of smaller artillery echoed nonstop across the sea. The entire battlefield was alive with noise. Water splashed skyward in towering columns as explosions rippled across the surface, their shockwaves churning the ocean into rolling swells. Some of the smaller boats bobbed and rocked under the turbulent currents.

Fortunately, anyone bold enough to sail a one-man boat was almost certainly a Blue Sea resident.

With their exceptional sense of balance, the waves barely affected them.

Those with wings simply took to the air instead, waiting for opportunities to strike the pirates from above.

The Green Skull Pirates’ cannons still used old-fashioned black powder.

Each volley produced thick clouds of black smoke that quickly blanketed the battlefield, reducing visibility across the surrounding waters.

The pirate captain seized the opportunity.

Standing in the wheelhouse, he stared straight ahead. Veins bulged across his forehead so prominently that anyone could tell he was exerting every ounce of strength he had.

The flagship, the Green Skull, was instantly enveloped in a transparent protective barrier.

At the same time…

The entire ship began to sink beneath the surface.

This was the greatest secret behind the Green Skull Pirates’ rapid rise and the reason they possessed so many valuable energy resources.

Not long after the apocalypse began, the pirate captain had salvaged a strange artifact from the sea.

When activated, it enveloped a ship in its power, allowing the vessel to submerge temporarily beneath the waves without affecting the crew’s ability to breathe.

Even more astonishingly, while underwater, the ship could travel at an absurdly high speed that completely defied common sense.

Although the artifact could only be used for five minutes a day, that limitation hardly mattered when no other ship on Green Billow Star possessed anything like it.

To everyone else, the Green Skull Pirates might as well have been using cheats.

With the captain’s artifact, they could appear and disappear without warning, perfectly positioning themselves to ambush any ship they targeted.

Of course, the ability was most effective against unsuspecting prey.

Against ships like the Inkshadow, which had long been wary of the Green Skull Pirates and kept lookouts watching the surrounding waters around the clock, ready to flee the moment anything seemed amiss, the pirates had no choice but to give chase openly.

But when it came to escaping…

The artifact was just as invaluable.

The captain had ordered the attack because he sensed the situation turning against them. His plan was to throw the battlefield into chaos and use the confusion to slip away underwater.

Those mysterious newcomers could fly, certainly…

But from what he had seen, none of them appeared capable of following him beneath the sea.

Escaping this way should be no problem.

The second mate’s heart skipped a beat.

He glanced outside at the smoke that now filled the sky. Through the haze, he could just make out that the other pirate ships were not being enveloped by the same transparent barrier as they usually were.

“Boss… aren’t we taking the others with us…?”

The pirate captain shot him a razor-sharp glare.

“There’s over a thousand goddamn ships out there from who-knows-where trying to kill us! We’ve only got five f*cking minutes to get away, and you’re telling me to bring the other ships with us?”

“So who the f*ck is supposed to keep those crazy bastards occupied?”

“Five minutes isn’t enough to get very far! If those thousand ships split up and come after us, do you really f*cking think they won’t catch us?”

The second mate understood the logic.

He really did.

But…

“Boss… then at least take the Blood Wail. If we’re going to rebuild from scratch, we’ll need a ship to lead the charge. Sl*ves taken by force will never be as reliable as our own men.”

The captain’s face twitched.

“I know. Your brother’s on the Blood Wail. But this is the life we chose. We all knew we could die at any moment. Your brother should’ve been prepared for that.”

“But, Boss—”

“First Mate.”

The captain closed his eyes.

“Throw him overboard.”

“…Yes, Boss.”

“No! No! I won’t ask you to take my brother anymore! Boss! Boss, I was wrong!”

The second mate struggled frantically in the water, shouting for mercy.

But after that single desperate cry, his voice quickly faded away…

…and disappeared beneath the sea.

Above them, groups of Blue Sea residents continued circling overhead.

The thick black smoke obscured their vision and stung their eyes, so they took out blindfolds and covered them.

It just went to show—

Those stylish eye masks weren’t only useful for sleeping at night.

They had plenty of other uses.

Temporarily giving up their sight, they relied solely on their hearing to pinpoint the direction of the cannon fire. One after another, the Blue Sea residents hovering in the sky tilted their heads slightly, listening.

Amid the flood of messages in the Mind Domain group chat—

[Be careful not to damage this part! It’ll affect how we use the ships later!]

[Don’t hit that section either!]

—a few new messages suddenly appeared.

[I heard someone shouting that he wasn’t asking the boss to take his brother anymore.]

[I heard it too. He kept yelling, “Boss, I was wrong!”]

[I heard “glub glub glub.”]

The Blue Sea residents, fully immersed in the battle inside the smoke, were baffled.

Take him away?

Take who away?

We’ve surrounded this entire area so tightly that it’s practically airtight.

Who’s supposed to be escaping?

Based on the location reported by the residents who had overheard the conversation, Cheng Anjing immediately directed one of the ships beneath that area to fire.

The shell missed.

Someone had actually managed to slip away under these circumstances?

The Blue Sea residents aboard the ships stationed on the outer perimeter—whose vessels weren’t sturdy enough to join the main exchange of fire and had barely gotten a chance to fight—instantly became excited.

Finally! We don’t have to just sit around twiddling our thumbs anymore!

At the commander’s orders, a portion of the fleet immediately broke formation and gave chase from multiple directions.

Some of the Blue Sea residents equipped with flight wings soared higher into the sky, using their aerial vantage point to scan everything below.

Cheng Qisheng was watching as well.

While continuing to study the fluctuations of Cheng Anjing’s psychic power, she was also curious about the mysteriously vanished ship.

Blue Sea’s fleet had formed such a tight encirclement that not even a bird should have been able to slip through.

Yet somehow…

That ship had simply disappeared.

The believers swept across the sky, and through their eyes, Cheng Qisheng overlooked the vast seas of Green Billow Star.

Beyond the battlefield’s perimeter, no ships appeared.

Still, the Blue Sea residents were remarkably patient.

If they couldn’t find it…

They would simply keep flying farther outward.

To ensure their safety, each of them carried either a sword, a saber, or a bow—or simply held a firearm, ready to engage at a moment’s notice.

A common sea monster heard the commotion overhead and slowly poked its head above the water.

It looked up.

It saw the countless powerful figures flying across the sky.

The sea monster slowly lowered its head back beneath the surface.

Five minutes later—

A familiar Green Skull pirate ship slowly rose from beneath the sea.

It surfaced at a leisurely pace.

The Blue Sea residents, however, had the advantage of the Mind Domain Group Chat, making their response far faster.

[Found it!]

[Commander, give us a heading!]

[I’m on my way!]

…

The Green Skull finally emerged completely above the waves.

Cheers immediately erupted aboard the pirate ship.

“We got away!!!”

“Boss! We must’ve put at least ten kilometers between us and them! As long as nobody’s up in the crow’s nest, they shouldn’t be able to spot us!”

The pirates could finally see the outside world again.

Surrounding the ship on every side—

Towering figures with four wings on their backs had already sealed off every possible direction. Not a single gap remained.

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