yasinovel Chapter 21 Forced Landing
Chapter 21 Forced Landing
Whether Karen's diversionary tactic was successful was unknown to those aboard the Narwhal.
All they knew was that about an hour after Karen, Lydia, and Grom left, a violent and ominous energy surge suddenly erupted from the depths of the Emerald Forest—in the direction of the source of the pollution.
Even through the thick fog and the distance, the people on deck could clearly feel that the air suddenly became heavy, as if it were being squeezed by an invisible hand; their skin felt numb and tingling; breathing became difficult, and each inhale carried a cold, nauseating, sweet and fishy smell.
Immediately afterwards, a deep, muffled roar, like an explosion from the depths of the earth, came from afar. The sound pierced through the thick fog, echoing through the forest, turning into countless overlapping echoes. The source was indistinguishable, yet it made everyone's heart tremble.
Then, the strangulation vines that were besieging the Cloud Whale suddenly froze.
Like puppets whose strings had been simultaneously cut, their frenzied dancing abruptly ceased, frozen in mid-air in their attacking postures. The black patterns on their surfaces quickly faded, revealing their original dark green but natural color. Immediately afterward, the vines began to wither and shrivel, like dry grass that had lost its moisture, sliding off the hull one after another and plunging into the churning sea of clouds below.
Within minutes, all the vines had disappeared.
The Narwhal was freed from its near-strangled state, righting itself with a sickening, structurally loose groan. The deck was a mess: broken ropes, shattered planks, charred and corroded surfaces, and several sailors' bodies, entangled in vines and abandoned, lay in pools of blood and green slime.
They escaped death, but no one cheered.
Everyone stared in the direction of the pollution source, at the ominous, dark red halo faintly peeking through the green mist. The halo was slowly fading, like embers after a storm, but no one felt it was over.
"Repair progress!" Captain Heinrich wiped the blood from his face—his own and the vines'—his voice hoarse but still powerful.
"The port engine is completely destroyed, the propeller blades are twisted, and the drive shaft is broken." A dwarf mechanic poked his head out of the engine room, his face covered in oil. "The starboard engine has overheated and shut down as a protective measure. It will need at least four hours to cool down before it can be restarted. There are three structural cracks in the main hull frame, which require urgent reinforcement. Two whalebone ribs are broken, but the core support is not damaged."
The captain paused for two seconds. "Total time. Repair until it can fly, the minimum standard."
The mechanic and Grom's assistant quickly discussed the matter. "Five days. At least five days, Captain. And that's assuming we have enough materials, all the manpower, and work non-stop. And even if we manage to repair it, the speed will be greatly reduced, at most only 60% of what it was."
Five days.
Staying in a place like the Emerald Forest for five days is like putting your neck in a noose and taking a nap.
But there was no other choice. One engine was completely destroyed, the other was temporarily disabled, and the ship's structure was damaged. A forced takeoff would likely result in the ship breaking apart in mid-air.
"Then fix it," Captain Heinrich ordered, his voice unwavering. "All able-bodied men, divide into three shifts. First shift to reinforce the hull, second shift to repair the engines, and third shift to maintain alert and take turns resting. Alvin, is the weather instrument still usable?"
The old navigator knelt at the entrance to the navigation room, holding the brass sphere in his hands. The sphere's surface was covered in tiny cracks, and the fluid inside was murky and rotated slowly. Elvin's greyish-white eyes "looked" at the captain, and he slowly shook his head.
"The psionic environment is too chaotic... the equipment is overloaded... it needs time to calibrate..." the old man's voice was weak, "but the things in the fog... I can feel them... they're afraid... that sudden burst just now... made many things hide..."
This is good news, perhaps the only good news. The outbreak of pollution has temporarily deterred the native species in the Emerald Forest, giving them a brief, relatively safe window of opportunity.
However, the window of opportunity will not be too long.
The captain walked to the ship's railing and looked towards the southeast sky—the direction from which the cult's airships might be pursuing them. The fog was still thick, and nothing could be seen with the naked eye. But he could feel that the pervasive sense of danger, the watchful eye of the hunters, had not disappeared.
Roland wasn't one to give up easily. Three airships, over fifty armed soldiers, the Order's elite reconnaissance team. Would they pursue them into the Emerald Forest? Even if their detection artifacts failed in the chaotic psionic environment, they would likely resort to the most rudimentary yet most effective method: a comprehensive search.
The Narwhal is now a stranded, injured whale, unable to move, and reeking of blood.
"Captain!" a startled cry suddenly rang out from the lookout tower, "Southeast! There's light in the fog!"
Everyone's heart sank.
They're here? So fast?
But the lookout's next words made the situation even more bizarre: "It's not the airship's navigation lights! It's...it's pale flames! Burning in the fog! Burning over here!"
Pale white flames.
The emblem of the Azure Flame Order.
Captain Heinrich looked up sharply. Sure enough, deep in the fog to the southeast, an unnatural, pale halo of light appeared. The halo moved slowly, and wherever it passed, the emerald-green fog was "burned" away, revealing brief, clear voids. Behind the halo, the faint outline of a black iron airship could be seen.
They really did catch up. And they used a brutal but effective method: forcibly dispelling the spiritual mist with Azure Flame Spiritual Energy, thus opening a passage!
This was a huge drain on resources, but the Order clearly didn't care. What they wanted was the target: the Resonator, the Lightwing Lion cub, the Ironforge artisan who had defected, and the remnants of the Windwhisper tribe.
"Prepare for defense!" the captain roared, drawing his longsword once more. "Load all ballistae! Aim at the flash!"
The sailors rushed toward the ballistae mounted on either side of the ship. These heavy weapons, usually covered with tarpaulins and rarely used, were now beyond the scope of maintenance. They uncovered the tarpaulins, turned the winches to wind the ballistae, and loaded the heavy, barbed, and explosive arrows into their quivers.
But the pale halo moved faster than expected. Like a red-hot knife, it sliced through the thick fog and rapidly approached. In just a few minutes, the halo had transformed from a blurry bright spot into a blinding, unbearable orb of light.
Finally, the fog wall was completely torn apart.
Three black iron airships surged out in a triangular formation, their pale flame emblems on their prows burning fiercely, evaporating the surrounding mist into scalding steam. A layer of flowing, pale psionic shield covered the airships—the price of the continuous burning of the azure flames to dispel the mist, but clearly also providing additional protection.
On the bridge of the largest airship, Roland's figure was clearly visible. He was not wearing a helmet, and his short, iron-gray hair gleamed with a cold, hard sheen in the pale light of the flames. His light gray eyes, hundreds of meters away, precisely locked onto the Cloud Whale and onto Captain Heinrich on the deck.
The amplification array amplified his voice, which traveled through the gradually closing gaps in the mist, cold and clear:
"Captain Heinrich. Hand over the fugitive, and we may spare your ship and crew. Otherwise—"
He raised his hand.
The cannons on the sides of the three airships opened simultaneously, revealing dark, rune-covered barrels. Deep within the muzzles, pale light began to gather, emitting a low, unsettling hum.
Those were the Azure Flame Cannons, the Order's standard shipborne weapon; a single shot could blast a hole several meters in diameter in an ordinary ship's hull. Although the Cloud Whale had a whalebone frame and thick wooden planks, facing a salvo from three cannons, especially in its current damaged state…
"Otherwise, I will sink the Narwhal on the spot on charges of 'harboring rebels and resisting the cult's enforcement of the law.'" Roland's voice was devoid of any emotion, as if he were reading a pre-written verdict.
The deck was deathly silent. The sailors gripped the ballista levers, their knuckles white, but no one fired—compared to the range and power of the Blue Flame Cannon, these ballistae were more like children's toys.
Captain Heinrich silently watched Roland, the three airships hovering in the mist, and the increasingly bright pale light emanating from their cannons. His face remained expressionless, but the knuckles of his hand gripping the hilt of his sword were slightly white from the force of his grip.
He was calculating.
Calculate distance, calculate time, calculate probability.
Then, he made a decision.
It's neither surrender nor a counterattack.
"Elwin," the captain said in a low voice, audible only to the few veteran crew members around him, "do you remember seven years ago, at Howling Fjord?"
The old navigator's gray eyes suddenly turned to the captain, a flicker of realization crossing his gaunt face before settling into resolute determination. "I remember. But that move caused significant damage to the hull, and here..."
"There's no choice," the captain interrupted him, his gaze sweeping over the terrified faces of the young sailors on deck. "It's better than being blown to pieces."
He took a deep breath and roared in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear: "Everyone! Hold on tight! Prepare to crash!"
Before he finished speaking, the captain suddenly turned around, rushed into the wheelhouse, shoved the young helmsman aside, and took the wheel himself.
At the same time, he yelled towards the navigation room, "Alvin! Now!"
The old navigator used all his strength to smash the cracked weather instrument in his hand onto the ground!
The brass sphere shattered, and the turbid fluid inside exploded, turning into a rapidly spreading, grayish-white mist. This mist was completely different from the green mist of the Emerald Forest; it did not emit any life force, but rather a chaotic, disordered, and violent fluctuation of psionic energy.
"Psionic turbulence induction!" one of Grom's assistants exclaimed. "The old man has gone mad! This will trigger a localized psionic storm!"
That's right, that's the goal.
What Erwin smashed was the weather instrument's "core crystal"—a dangerous object that stored excessive psionic energy. It was usually heavily protected and would only be detonated under extreme circumstances. The chaotic psionic energy released by the crystal's shattering would instantly disrupt the psionic balance in a localized area, like water dripping into boiling oil, causing brief, small-scale psionic turbulence.
In the already chaotic environment of the Emerald Forest, such turbulence is amplified dramatically.
The moment the grayish-white mist spread, the surrounding space began to distort.
The fog's flow became erratic, as if stirred haphazardly by an invisible hand. Light refracted, and everything in sight began to distort, stretch, and rotate. The air temperature plummeted, then abruptly rose again. A sharp, shattering sound, like glass breaking, came from afar—the mournful cry of spatial structures under the impact of chaotic psionic energy.
The three airships were the first to be hit.
Their pale shields rippled violently, countless tiny cracks appearing on their surface. The psionic turbulence disrupted the airship's stability system, causing the hull to sway and tilt uncontrollably. The pale light emanating from the cannons became unstable, flickering on and off.
"Hold on!" Roland's voice trembled for the first time, carrying suppressed anger.
But it was too late.
Captain Heinrich stood at the helm, veins bulging on his hands, and with all his might, turned the helm to the left.
The Narwhal roared as if it were about to disintegrate, and its hull turned sharply at an incredible, almost right angle, hurtling downwards—into the unknown depths of the Emerald Forest, shrouded in thick fog!
This is not flying, it's falling.
With its bow pointing downwards and its engines completely shut down, the damaged giant ship was pulled to the ground like a meteorite by gravity.
"Hold on tight—!" Screams echoed across the deck.
The sailors clung desperately to anything they could: ropes, cargo boxes, gun carriages, even their fellow sailors' bodies. A feeling of weightlessness gripped everyone; their internal organs felt as if they were being pulled upwards by an invisible hand, and their vision blurred with the speed.
The forest rapidly expanded in view.
The canopies of the towering ancient trees rush towards you like a green tsunami.
boom--!!!
Hit.
Not just once, but a series of teeth-grinding impacts and tearing sounds.
The bow first snapped the branches of several giant trees, sending wood chips and leaves flying like an explosion. Then the ship slammed heavily onto the ground—not hard rock, but soft earth several meters thick, composed of fallen leaves and humus. The enormous impact propelled the ship forward like a plow, crushing trees, pushing aside soil, and carving a shocking, hundred-meter-long gash through the forest.
Finally, the Narwhale came to a stop.
The ship was tilted, wedged between two ancient trees over three meters in diameter, its bow deeply embedded in the soft humus, its stern raised high. Several new cracks had appeared on the whalebone frame, but miraculously it hadn't completely broken. Countless planks were shattered, yet the main structure held up.
Dead silence.
Only the sounds of the forest: the rustling of the wind through the treetops, the distant cries of startled birds and beasts, and the faint groans of the ship's structure due to stress.
Then came groans and coughs.
On deck, the sailors struggled to their feet, checking their injuries and searching for their companions. Fortunately, thanks to the cushioning effect of the soft ground and the protection of the giant trees, most suffered only minor injuries such as scrapes, abrasions, or fractures; no one died on the spot. But the ship… the ship was destroyed.
It's over, at least for now.
Captain Heinrich emerged from the wheelhouse with a bleeding wound on his forehead, but he seemed unconcerned. He glanced around at the messy deck and the surrounding dense forest, a hint of relief flashing in his deep gray eyes, but more so a sense of gravity.
The emergency landing was successful. They survived.
But this is no safe haven. This is deep within the Emerald Forest, an unknown and dangerous primeval forest. And though the three Order airships are hampered by psionic turbulence in the thick fog overhead, Roland will not give up. They will land, they will search, they will pursue them like hounds.
Time has become even more pressing.
"Clear the wounded, assess the damage," the captain ordered, his voice weary but steady. "Establish a temporary camp, set up a perimeter. We..."
He paused, then looked into the depths of the forest, towards the source of the pollution.
"I'll be staying here for at least five days."
At that time, Karen, Leah, and Grom were missing and their fates were unknown.