Sinking Ship
After completing all the most hardcore and brilliant dance moves I could think of, I woke up out of my stupor. I felt the inexplicable changes in my body. Not only had my realm consolidated further, but my control of my body had become much more efficient. The consolidation is sped up three times when I do those dance moves, which mean's I'll finish sooner.
But seeing a pile of bloody and foamy disciples, I couldn't help but wonder what happened. Was my moves truly that beautiful? Have I already leaned to the female side enough that my charms have begun to display their effects? I couldn't help but put my hand on my hip and lean to the side like a woman would.
I walked over to the oldest female disciple who was as stiff as a pencil on the floor and staring off into space, as if she'd seen a ghost. I lightly tapped her a few times before her eyes began to regain clarity and color. She slowly got herself up and looked around, confused, before seeing my face.
"Hey, you alright?" I asked. I guess my horrifying human eating face was too close to her, as her face and eyes turned white before fainting.
Scratching my head, I just decided to leave it be. I guess I'm just that great at reenacting the dance moves of strippers and nobles. If I had a pole, then I'd be able to perform the rest smoothly. But we're running out of time, but seeing how significant doing those dances consolidates everything way faster, I decided to do them at the stern of the ship.
An unknown amount of time went by again before I was interrupted by commotion. Exiting the process of eat, sleep, and dance, I came outside. I also realized that the ship has seemingly tilted a few degrees. The disciples were pointing at the side, and I peeked over as well.
Several of the formations and runes have already corroded enough that they've stopped working, allowing acid to reach the hull. A few small holes have already appeared in all the weak spots of the formation. There's a large one a foot and a half in diameter with lots of acid pouring inside near the stern.
I found the middle-aged man who is in much better spirits with more meat on his bones compared to before. When he saw me, his face turned a little pale as he awkwardly looked away. Is he too mesmerized by my beauty? Sliding over, I didn't need an explanation for the current situation.
"Get everyone packed up," I said in a whisper through energy transmission. He backed up a little away from before before dryly coughing and nodding.
I sat back and watched as he explained to them. Disciples immediately rushed downwards into the ferry to grab their things. The ferry immediately shook and trembled for a few seconds as a loud explosion suddenly rang out.
*BOOOOM!*
Releasing my divine sense, I noticed a small mushroom cloud leaving the stern area. A huge hole had been ripped open on the opposite side of the original large hole, causing planks and materials to float about in the acid lake, releasing steam and gas in the process. This hole is several meters in diameter and most of it was above the waterline. But acid is still pouring in at the same rate as the other large hole.
I noticed that the ship has leaned to the stern side a few degrees. But the ferry's size is the same as a cruise ship, so it shouldn't be a problem. But I noticed flames coming out of the stern side, that rapidly grew with the wood as their source.
Another explosion rang out, larger than the first one, rattling the entire ferry. But this one was entirely underwater, as you can see a lot of bubbles rising to the surface with smoke. Bringing my divine sense under the acid, I noticed a ten meter wide hole. Any nearby debris and acid was rapidly suck in like a vacuum, reminding me of a scene from a ship movie.
"What the heck did you put on this ferry to cause these explosions?" I asked to him who was all the way in his captain quarters packing up.
"We were supposed to transport a lot of medicinal herbs and cultivation materials, which some are combustible," he said awkwardly. I couldn't help but roll my imaginary eyes and do an imaginary face-palm.
With nothing more to say, I went back to observing the ferry. But only a few seconds went by before a chain reaction of explosions went off. Over a dozen large holes suddenly appeared in spots where acid was entering. Smoke bellowed out with flames, making the scene look tragic from afar. The ship leaned a few more degrees to the back.
"Thankfully, the formations and runes are mostly intact, or else this ferry would be reenacting the Titanic," I said as I observed. Contrary to how bad the situation looks, I'm having quite fun. I've always been fascinated by the destruction of large objects like skyscrapers collapsing and ships sinking. As long as nobody dies and get's up here in time, then everything's good.
I watched as the middle-aged man ran down to the lowest decks to get all the medicinal supplies that haven't touched acid yet. Only thirty percent of the disciples had gathered their stuff by now, but it's still alright based on the situation. The ferries only leaning several degrees, a few degrees short of when silverware would be falling off shelves.
But then, I heard a distinct cracking sound. Sending my divine sense over, several cracks in the formations and runes were forming in the middle. At first, they were little and slow, but soon began growing faster as they ran up both sides of the ship. It reached the deck before moving into the air. Both sides connected right above the masts and made creaking sounds before shattering. Then the entire formation and rune system of the entire ship shut down, allowing acid water to rush up to the sides.
The ship shook a little and groaned, a few corroded planks on deck exploded and stuck out of the deck. I couldn't help but violently twitch my imaginary eye a few times. Surely this isn't going down like the Titanic, right?
Thankfully, although a few boards are jolting out, the ship is still in one piece. The stern of the ship still has a little less than half the distance before acid reaches deck. And the bow is sticking out of the water a little by a few inches, so everything's still alright, right?
Although I was thinking this, the reality was different. There was so many explosions in the stern that acid is gushing in like a waterfall. Every second, the stern is lower several inches and the bow is already a foot above the water. Looking inside, I can already see silverware beginning to slide off with furniture still in place.
The ship's groaning is getting increasingly louder and another plank nearby has snapped. Although the quality of the jaded wood of this ship is quite impressive to be able to withstand waves and being completely swallowed, that was mostly because of the runes and formations of the ship. I know history enough to know the limits of what wood can do.
The largest and longest wooden ship in history, the Wyoming, had a length of 140 meters overall and a width of 15 meters. It was capable of holding 6600 tons. However, it's size was too large, and during a bad storm, the whole ship distorted and bent with the waves, causing it to sink. Even with a steam engine to pump out the water, too much went in.
Even though the quality is way better and stronger than regular wood, there's always a limit to building with wood. Even if there's legendary quality wood as tough as steel, it still pales in comparison to Earth's metal ships which are whole objects instead of pieces of wood put together with some gluey substance.
But of course, this is a cultivation world, so everybody focuses on formations, runes, alchemy, cultivation, fighting, wars, and world laws rather than the advancement of technology. So it'd be impossible for steel warships unless a high cultivation person wants to spend their time molding metal into ship forms.
So once again, I'm enjoying the beauty of the limits of wood for the first time in my life. Checking up on them, sixty percent has already came back up. What is taking them so long that the ship has time to be like this? Although it's only been surprisingly thirty minutes since then, even in my previous life, I wouldn't take this long to grab my belongings out of my dirty room. But I'm too busy watching the ship to watch them for now.
A loud creak echoed through the crackling fires that had spread to half of the ship. A several planks snapped in front of me. By now, the ship's bow is over a dozen meters out of the acid and the stern only has a few feet before acid hits deck.
"Head over to the bow," I said to the ones already up. They listened obediently and quickly moved with their belongings towards that direction.
A few minutes went by before several more came up and were directed to the bow. 80% has came up by now, with about a dozen still below. But it seems the ship couldn't hold any longer, and the planks quickly snapped as a crack ran up the sides. The ship shook, as the ship split in half. The bow fell back into the water with an okay splash, causing the disciples to scream. If it had been as high as the titanic before falling, then it'd be quite an epic scene.
The stern, with half of the weight gone, submerged into the acid quickly. A semi-large crevice in the middle has now formed, with materials and things falling into the middle. Acid pour inside at the bottom that was still connected surprisingly.
Surely the movie creators of Titanic would be bulging their eyes out at the similarities. Although the ferry didn't split at the height the Titanic's stern was in the movie, there's still some resemblances. Now if only there was smoke stacks, then it'd be perfect.
Some of the ones that were still below had fallen, so I caught them with a gentle hand before putting them back on deck. As for the other ones, I grabbed them as well as it can't wait. The middle-aged man can get our himself.
With the ship split in half, the masts quickly collapsed and fell into the water, like smoke stacks. With such a crevice, the ferry quickly began sinking as explosions of acid water were constantly happening from explosive medicines that didn't get saved in time.
The stern stayed fine for a few seconds, before the stern began pulling it down. But it only partially pulled it up before snapping, causing a rebounded as it fell into the water. If the stern had pulled it upright like in the Titanic movie, I would've face-palmed for the rest of my life. But thankfully it didn't and began falling to it's side.
I quickly expanded to my large form before sucking everyone into my mouth without caring if they're scared. The ship's bow was falling to the side so I had no choice. The stern went directly vertical as it's split end hanged a few feet out of the acid for a few seconds. Then it descended into the acid before falling below the acid water level, causing periodic explosions and waves on the surface.
Thankfully I pulled them in. I don't Jack and Rose crying because of people hanging on the bow for their life as they descended into acid waters.
Finally, the middle-aged man came out finally on the bow side of the ship and flew up to me. It seems as though he was getting the remained supplies at the stern side.
"Where's everyone at?" he asked with concern.
"The bow fell to it's side, so I had no choice but to bring them inside," I said.
"Alright, thank you," he said sincerely.
"No need for thanks, hurry up on in," I said as a suction force emitted from my mouth. He was willingly pulled in before disappearing.
Viewing my stomach, you can see everybody there hanging about on the floor. My stomach is quite large so there enough room for them all with a little bit of leftover space for my food which is hanging on the sides. Putting a devour shield around the entire group, this prevented devour energy from entering.