The swaying cabin and the incessant screams from above interrupted their conversation. Lynn and Jonny exchanged a glance before rushing up together.
As they flung open the cabin door, a frigid gale howled, and icy raindrops pelted down upon the deck like a relentless barrage—an ominous prelude to the storm…
The once tranquil sea now roared tumultuously, with waves crashing incessantly against the ship's hull, causing the sailboat to lurch violently.
Due to the unrelenting wind, the dense fog had thinned considerably, doubling visibility, yet the mist had transformed from a pure white to a sinister gray…
"Quickly, tighten the sails! Everyone, move! We must flee this sea at once!"
The deck was in chaos, with hundreds of sailors from the crew scrambling in disarray. Laud, his face ashen, bellowed commands ineffectively. Many were kneeling in despair, crying out incoherently.
"Mr. Laud, have we struck a reef, or is it the storm?" Lynn asked, hastening forward.
"No, it's the Great Whirlpool, the Eye of Death!" Laud exclaimed in terror.
The Great Whirlpool?
Lynn recalled the intelligence he had previously gathered about Harbor Town. As he peered out at the roiling sea, he finally noticed what he had overlooked before—the tumultuous waters were converging toward a single point, and the sailboat beneath him was slowly being drawn toward the vortex's center.
The whirlpool's diameter was so vast that the fog on the sea concealed any reference points, creating an illusion that the ship was sailing normally!
How immense must this thing be?
Lynn broke into a cold sweat, while Laud, as if suddenly struck by a thought, turned to Lynn with a fervent gaze, eagerly asking, "Master Sorcerer, is there any way to freeze the entire whirlpool?"
"What are you joking about?" Lynn frowned. The diameter of such a whirlpool would have to be several kilometers to create such a visual distortion—what power could possibly freeze an ocean of this magnitude?
"We're doomed; it's too late to escape now!" Laud's flicker of hope extinguished in an instant, leaving him slumped on the ground, muttering to himself in resignation.
The Sea of Mists is feared not only for its pervasive fog, which disorients sailors completely, but also for the Great Whirlpool known as the Eye of Death!
This entity strikes terror into countless mariners, akin to a deathly specter lurking in the vast mist, potentially manifesting at any corner of the sea, with no warning or discernible pattern. Encountering it spells certain doom for any vessel.
The whirlpool's horrifying suction far exceeds any sailboat's speed. It is said that those eventually caught in the vortex not only meet a grim fate but their souls are also doomed to plummet into the abyss—hence the name, Eye of Death…
The only way to traverse this treacherous sea is to wait for Monday, when the Great Whirlpool's fury momentarily subsides. During this brief period, vessels must hasten to leave the region plagued by the Eye of Death, leaving the rest to chance.
In previous years, they had timed their voyages to set sail in the early days of Monday to avoid a direct encounter with the whirlpool…
But this year was different; the Church had blockaded Harbor Town, causing their departure to be perilously delayed!
Ignoring Laud, Lynn swiftly moved to the cargo piled on the deck, lifted a few barrels to gauge their weight, and threw them in various directions and angles. He then extended his right hand to measure the relative distances of these objects.
For an individual to estimate the whirlpool's diameter and flow rate using only a few drifting barrels as reference was pure folly.
Yet, for the intelligence system, it was a trivial task…
"The diameter of the whirlpool is seven kilometers, with an escape velocity of… twenty knots! To avoid being sucked in, a minimum speed of twenty knots is required!" Lynn received the analysis from the intelligence system and furrowed his brow.
In a past world, a speed of twenty knots was easily achievable by small boats; after energy reforms, such antiquated vessels were merely gathering dust in storage.
Yet, he was now in a malevolent alternate world, where their sailboat's maximum speed seemed to be… seven knots?
"That's impossible! Even the finest alchemical ships in the Sorcerer's Land could never reach twenty knots!" Laud, having heard Lynn's words, shouted in despair.
Although he did not fully grasp what the escape velocity entailed, he understood well enough what twenty knots represented!
"No, it's possible!" Lynn said earnestly, casting aside the collapsed helmsman and addressing the crew. "I will take the helm. Everyone, return to your stations, follow my orders, and hoist all the sails!"
"You know nothing about sailing! With this storm, if we hoist all the sails, the ship will capsize in no time, and we'll all be doomed!" The helmsman whom Lynn had pushed aside leaped up, shouting hoarsely. In the face of such peril, he no longer cared about the sorcerer's status.
But just then, the words caught in his throat as a massive fireball coalesced in Lynn's palm.
"Do as I say, or you'll die now!" Lynn's tone was icy.
The yellow-white phosphorescent flames made the sailors on deck shiver, and the helmsman fell to the ground in terror.
Yet, in the face of certain death, few obeyed the commands. Some even preferred perishing under sorcery to having their souls devoured by the whirlpool.
At that moment, the sound of the winch turning furiously reached their ears. They turned to see Jonny at work!
The girl was gripping a sail rope tightly, securing it to the winch. Raindrops cascaded from above, running through her hair and down her refined profile, drenching her cloak, but Jonny paid no heed. She pulled with increasing force until the final loop of the rope was firmly secured.
"Since you have no other plan, sitting here amounts to waiting for death!" Jonny's sapphire eyes fixed on the assembled crew as she spoke resolutely.
Laud quickly rallied, drawing the whip from his waist and lashing it across the back of a praying sailor, his face flushed with anger. "Do it—hoist all the sails!"