Pillar of Yita

Fang Hong walked to the bow and looked down. The fish-shaped hull of the airship was slowly parting the clouds. Flying clouds streamed away, and beneath the gaps in the cloud layer a stretch of charred land was revealed, the city’s broken walls and ruined remnants like silent embers, scattered in fragments across the vast desolation.

At the edge of his vision, to the north he could still vaguely make out the outline of city walls, sketching the shape of this town that had once held nearly two hundred thousand people, and the lost prosperity now buried beneath the ruins.

The sky in the north hung dark and oppressive, foretelling an oncoming storm that might bring the whole of a bitter winter and blizzards, covering all unrest beneath endless deep snow.

There were faint black dots moving on the ground, probably people. Silver Forest Spear had a garrison somewhere nearby; Fang Hong didn’t know if it was them.

The community said the two great northern alliances were both urgently integrating new forces, but the specifics were unknown.

Unlike other easily obtainable news, internal affairs of professional guilds generally had very few channels for outside understanding.

”You came over? Gita found something earlier, you’d better ask her,” Luo Hao was busy at the bow with sailor’s work, winding the cable around the pulley block as he said, ”Seems like something is following us.”

”What’s our current altitude?”

”Fifteen hundred—no, around thirteen hundred, above the cloud layer. Air currents are changing a lot, wind speed about seven meters a second.”

Fang Hong withdrew his gaze from outside. That lingering feeling seemed to have returned again, as if a line of sight was fixed on them. ”You didn’t ask her?”

”Gita seems kind of afraid to talk to me.”

Fang Hong shook his head. Their Miss Scholar was indeed rather shy with strangers.

He picked up the sound transmission tube hanging on the mast and said, ”Gita?”

Mei’s voice came from the other end: ”Mr. Ade?”

Fang Hong hadn’t expected her to be in the Magic Guided Pod as well. After a brief flicker of surprise he said, ”Can you help me ask Gita what she found?”

Mei covered the sound transmission tube with her hand, turned her head back, then after a while turned around again and let go, answering quietly, ”Gita says the Wind Detector has picked up several anomalous points of unclear meaning, and they’ve been following us since last night.”

”Last night?” Fang Hong was a bit surprised. ”Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

”They haven’t been following us continuously. At first they were just a few blinking noise signals. Miss Gita once thought they were just Cloud Sea creatures.”

Luo Hao interjected at this moment:

”I think they really might be Cloud Sea creatures. I suspect what’s following us is a Dragon Beast, the flying kind.”

Fang Hong looked at him. ”What makes you think that?”

”Xiangzi and the others and I have all observed Dragon Beasts several times, but we’re flying very high—they didn’t notice us.”

Fang Hong leaned his body out over the ship’s side, glanced outward, and asked again, ”Which direction are they coming from?”

”From our southwest, behind us.” Mei’s small hand gripped the sound transmission tube.

Just then a startled cry suddenly came from that side.

It was Gita’s voice.

”What happened!?” Fang Hong hurriedly asked.

Mei didn’t answer for the moment. Just as Fang Hong and Luo Hao exchanged a look and were about to go down to check, Miss Scholar’s somewhat anxious voice came through the tube:

”Brother Ade, the Wind Element readings to the south have grown stronger.”

”That means they’re getting closer to us?”

Gita hurriedly nodded on the other end. ”They’re closing in faster, Ca—Captain.”

She blushed a little; in her anxiety she’d just called him the wrong title. In formal settings she usually forced herself to use formal forms of address.

But Fang Hong clearly didn’t care about that, because he heard Luo Hao at his side suddenly shout: ”Look behind!”

Fang Hong instantly turned his head, only to see this fat man spring in one leap up onto the ship’s side, his movements improbably full of Agility as he grabbed the rope net and swarmed up in one go, like a big gorilla, suspending his body outside the ship, one hand hanging from a cable as he peered toward the stern.

From that direction came a low but cacophonous sound—

And it was low only because it was still far away.

Fang Hong quickly saw a mass of black shadow rising beneath the clouds in that direction, thousands upon thousands of black dots densely crowding together, like a flowing black cloud.

But it was no cloud; it was only a flock of birds—more precisely, innumerable ravens—these messengers of ill fortune that folk in Eteliria say bring disaster, now letting out harsh croaking cries.

Their piercing cries merged into one, at that moment seeming to echo through the clouds.

The raven flock rose above the cloud layer and quickly drew near the Seven Seas Traveler. These winged, flat-feathered creatures occupied most of the sky; in the eyes of ordinary people, that sight alone was enough to chill the blood—like the end times of a great prophecy descending, judgment arriving.

The black that filled Luo Hao’s pupils almost completely drowned out his Vision. He couldn’t help but gape, saying a bit theatrically, ”No way, is this for real!?”

The same thought was in Fang Hong’s heart.

This was like seeing a ghost.

Yet legends were still just legends. When thousands of ravens wove past the Seven Seas Traveler on all sides, above and below, the spectacle was nonetheless enough to overwhelm.

Overhead came a continuous thudding of wings, unceasing; those black birds were landing on the airship’s cross-spars and cables. Luo Hao, in the very first instant, leapt down from the rope net, rolled, and came back onto the deck. Fortunately he moved fast enough; almost in the next moment, a black storm swept past.