Chapter 381

Chapter 381: Cannon Fire.

When he saw that rough and sharp line of letters, Lawrence and the First Mate both froze.

“‘Humans have only two eyes’… why is this carved here?” The First Mate stared at the words for a long time with wide eyes before he turned his head in confusion. “Isn’t that just normal? Except for a very few people born with deformities, who doesn’t have two eyes?”

Lawrence did not answer at once. He stayed silent for a long time before he finally broke the silence. “Who do you think carved this line?”

“…The natives of the island?” the First Mate guessed, unsure. “Someone used to live on this island?”

“I am not sure about this island, but Dagger Island in the Mortal Realm definitely has people,” Lawrence said slowly. He reached out and gently touched the cuts on the wall. The rough, solid feel against his fingers seemed to carry the strong emotion and will of the person who carved the phrase. “Humans have only two eyes. Someone carved this sentence on the wall on purpose. That might mean one thing…”

“It might mean one thing?”

“That on this island there once appeared things that were not ‘only two eyes,’ things that looked like humans,” Lawrence slowly lifted his head and looked into the fog around them and the vague shapes within it. “And they mixed in among humans and could not be easily noticed.”

The First Mate drew in a sharp breath and spoke with some hesitation. “Then… where did the person who carved this sentence go?”

“I do not know,” Lawrence shook his head. For some reason, he thought of the black sludge he had seen along the way and of the empty pier, but he pushed these vague guesses aside for now. He put his hand on the handle of the harbor office door. “Stay alert.”

The sound of safeties clicking off came from behind him. Lawrence steadied himself, then pushed the door open with a firm shove.

He quickly stepped to the side so he would not present his body to whatever might be hiding inside. The First Mate stepped half a pace forward, lowering himself into a crouch and pointing his rifle into the room. The sailors behind them raised their guns as well, aiming at the open doorway from different angles.

There was no movement inside the building.

The First Mate took a breath and carefully leaned forward to look through the doorway.

“There is no one inside,” he said over his shoulder. “It is an empty office with the lights on.”

Lawrence waved to the sailors, then entered the room with the First Mate leading the way.

It was an empty office. Several desks took up almost half the space. A few chairs stood in front of them, placed as if people had only just stood up from them a moment before. The electric lights on the ceiling and the gas lamps on the walls were still lit, making the room very bright. On the floor… that same strange, suspicious black sludge could be seen everywhere.

“This disgusting stuff is all over here too…” The First Mate frowned at the black substance on the floor, his face full of disgust. He carefully stepped around the dried mud and came to the desks. His eyes moved over the messy piles of papers and office items. “These things… Captain, do you want to take a look?”

“These are the forms and reports the harbor had to handle every day. Cargo in and out, personnel transfers, facility inspections, and equipment check reports…” Lawrence came up to the desks and looked through a few documents. His brow furrowed deeper and deeper. “The dates… they are from just a few days ago?”

“It feels like people were still working here not long ago,” a sailor said with a nervous gulp. “Then they all rushed to evacuate and didn’t even have time to pack up…”

“Rushed to evacuate?” Lawrence muttered under his breath. His gaze swept across the desk. A half cup of coffee sat there, not yet finished, with a thin layer of dust on its surface. Beside that desk, a patch of black sludge on the floor had already dried. A bit of the black stuff even clung to the chair. His expression grew more and more grim. “Was it really an evacuation…”

The First Mate heard the change in his tone. “Captain, what did you think of?”

Lawrence thought for a moment and was just about to speak when a harsh noise suddenly came from outside the room. It sounded like it came from the direction of the harbor square. It was the electric hiss of a loudspeaker suddenly switching on.

“Bzz…”

The shrill noise startled everyone. The sailors quickly turned their eyes to the window. The next second, a broken, twisted broadcast voice, full of interference, rang out over the whole harbor district. It sounded like an older man’s voice. “Notice… we have been touched by corruption… this island… can no longer be saved… Protocol Twenty-Two will be activated… it was an honor to work with you all… we will meet again behind Bartok’s gate.”

After another burst of static, the broadcast from the square cut off. The First Mate stared in shock and turned back to Lawrence. “Captain, what was that…”

Before he could finish, a thunderous roar boomed from far away.

More thunder followed, one blast after another, like the sky and earth were splitting apart.

The chain of explosions swept across the whole of Dagger Island in an instant and shook everyone to the core. Lawrence almost understood what was happening the moment the blasts began.

That was not thunder. It was explosives. Some facility on the island was blowing itself up.

“Get out of the building!” Lawrence suddenly shouted. He fired his pistol at the ceiling. “There are explosives!”

The sound of his shout was almost buried by the explosion noise, but the gunshot was enough to snap the sailors out of it. They rushed for the door at once.

A dozen men burst through the doorway, ran down the slope, and sprinted toward the open ground. The explosions still rumbled from all directions, as if the whole island was being ripped to pieces. But halfway down, Lawrence suddenly felt that something was wrong.

“Stop!” He halted all at once, firing into the air again as he yelled. “Stop!”

The sailors stumbled to a halt. Then they too noticed what was wrong.

There were only explosions in their ears. In the direction of the blasts, there were no clouds of smoke, no flashes of light, and not even the faintest tremor under their feet.

Only the thunder-like noise echoed over the whole island.

After a while, the sound slowly faded away. The island returned to the same foggy silence as before. It was as if the earth-shattering bombardment had been nothing but a shared hallucination.

“Only sound?” The First Mate stared around in shock, unable to believe it.

“It was an echo,” Lawrence’s heartbeat slowly calmed as he forced himself to a decision. He did not know if he was right, but as captain he had to give everyone an answer. “What we just heard was something that once happened on this island, replaying as a lingering echo in our ears. It was not a real explosion.”

“I was scared half to death just now,” a sailor muttered. “I thought it was a real blast…”

“The closest explosion just now came from that direction,” the First Mate said. He lifted his head to check their surroundings, then pointed to the other side of the harbor square. “Should we go over there and take a look?”

“Let’s go see what is there,” Lawrence decided quickly. “If something really happened here, there should still be traces left.”

The exploration party moved into the dense fog again, now more cautious than before.

After an unknown amount of time, the ruins of a large building appeared before Lawrence.

The building stood at the inner edge of a small bay, backed by a sheer wall of rock. From the damage, it was clear that a massive explosion from the inside out had completely destroyed it.

The First Mate stood on a higher spot and stared at the ruins in shock.

“What kind of facility was this… it is incredible…”

“We should be more curious about what terrible thing happened here, so terrible that they would blow up a facility like this without hesitation,” Lawrence said in a low voice. He took a few steps forward. “If the people on this island…”

“Stop.”

A voice suddenly spoke from nearby, and Lawrence’s feet stopped at once.

“Martha?!”

He snapped his head toward the direction of the voice, calling out in alarm.

But there was only the slowly rising and falling fog there, with no sign of that familiar figure.

“Captain?” The First Mate noticed the captain’s strange reaction. He jumped down from a rock and hurried to Lawrence’s side. “What happened?”

“…An auditory hallucination,” Lawrence answered at once, his face very serious. “You did not hear a voice, did you?”

“We did not hear anything.” The sailors looked at one another. One of them answered for the group.

“We may not want to go any deeper,” Lawrence said with a frown. “We should go back to the harbor first, then…”

Martha’s voice came into his ear again, this time closer. “Go back to the ship. Now.”

Lawrence froze for a moment and forced himself not to look toward the sound. He wanted to keep talking, but a second later Martha’s voice came once more, this time almost at his ear, with a hint of urgency. “Get back on the White Oak. At once – Lawrence, they are coming!”

Lawrence’s eyes widened a little. He spoke without thinking. “Who? Who is coming?”

Beside him, the First Mate grabbed Lawrence’s arm in worry. “Captain, who are you talking to?”

Lawrence did not answer. He suddenly lifted his head and looked toward the direction where the White Oak was docked.

A wave of unease surged in his heart.

The next second, as if to prove that unease right, a heavy, muffled thunder came from that direction.

It was the sound of guns.

“Someone is firing the guns…” The First Mate reacted at once. “We have an enemy!”

“Back to the ship!” Lawrence shouted. He led the team and ran at full speed toward the harbor. In the rush of wind past his ears, Martha’s voice brushed against his ear like a whisper.

“The Sea Swallow is here…”