Chapter 203: Port Leighton

Three airships flew steadily at normal speed in the sky, with an estimated arrival time at the capital of East County in fifteen hours.
Port Leighton, the capital of East County, was the largest city in the southeastern region of the Kingdom of Celt. It was roughly a thousand kilometers away from the royal capital of Kosovo, similar to the distance between Beijing and Shanghai in his previous life. Its straight-line distance from Dalaran was even several hundred kilometers farther than that from Dalaran to the royal capital. Therefore, at the steady flying speed of the airships, it would take an additional five to six hours to reach there.
At the beginning of the journey, Donald accompanied the countess on the deck to enjoy the scenery for a while. Once she grew tired and returned to the cabin to rest, he had time to study the power he had obtained from the Temptation Demon.
Firstly was the enormous magical power of the Temptation Demon. By absorbing its innate magic-casting ability, his maximum magical power doubled instantly, making his magical strength comparable to that of a high-level gold mage.
Secondly, the Temptation Demon’s innate ability, True Sight, was combined with the Hunter’s Demon-Sight ability, granting him an innate spell ability that could be used without consuming magical power.
True Sight was a sixth-level spell, one of the most difficult spells in the ancient Arcane School’s divination branch. It could reveal ordinary darkness as well as magical darkness, and detect spells such as magic doors, illusions, and teleportation. Most invisibility, illusion, and transformation spells below level nine, including level nine itself, could not escape True Sight’s detection. It could even allow the user to see the landscapes of outer void planes or even star realms—though the caster must first be capable of surviving in such dangerous environments.
The only drawback was that True Sight’s range was limited, usually around 120 steps at most, and it could not be combined with other detection spells. Yet these shortcomings did not diminish its powerful detection capabilities.
Just True Sight alone was worth the risk of hunting down the Temptation Demon. After all, the cost of maintaining a sixth-level spell was enormous. Mages below gold rank would see their spellcasting level permanently reduced by one, along with half of their mental strength, requiring at least half a year to recover and rendering them unable to cast that spell permanently. If the caster was a gold mage, the consequences would be less severe, but they would still be unable to cast the spell for a year and would enter a period of weakened magical power—a time that was extremely dangerous for a gold mage. If enemies learned of this, they would surely try every means to kill them.

This is also why powerful mages rarely grant permanent spells to others easily. Unfortunately, the spell-like abilities of the Temptation Demons were bestowed by the Will of the Abyss; spells like the Hammer of Chaos, Confusion, Magic Dispel, Shadow Magic, Anti-Gravity, Advanced Teleportation, and Shadow Strike, which Donald favored, could not be obtained through the bloodline power of the Temptation Demons. Thankfully, similar or equivalent spells exist among mage spells, which can be learned step by step in the future. But they are still not as easy to master directly. All these gains only satisfied Donald, but what truly surprised him was his acquisition of two of the Temptation Demons’ most powerful innate abilities: the ability to cast Command: Intimidation once a day, and Wishcraft once a month. Although these innate spells were weakened compared to those of the original Temptation Demons—Command: Intimidation was reduced from seven times a day to once a day, and Wishcraft was changed from level 9 to limited level 7 Wishcraft—they did not diminish the effects of these two abilities. In fact, even the mighty dragons at the top of the food chain in the main world did not possess them. The former is one of the strongest spell systems in the School of Enchantment; mastering Command: Intimidation allows for better control over lower-level commands like Command: Blindness and higher-level commands like Command: Death. Limited Wishcraft is even more complex, incorporating rules from various schools such as linguistics, transformation, and enchantment. It is similar to the exchanges in the Book of Truth—by sacrificing energy and materials, one can create what they desire, though the greater the value of the item, the greater the sacrifice required. The advancement paths for Wishcraft and Command spells are Great Prophecy and Great Command, both ultimate spells that can only be cast by gods of the highest rank. Just like Great Dissolution, which evolves from Dissolution spells, aside from true gods, only Archmage Lords and powerful believers granted power by true gods can cast them. Moreover, not all true gods can cast these ultimate spells; without understanding their principles, even the most powerful higher gods cannot master them. On the contrary, once the principles are understood, even demi-gods with the lowest divine power can cast them. Donald came to this understanding through the knowledge derived from the divinity he had integrated and the information from the Book of Truth. Otherwise, even with a treasure, one might still be ignorant! More than ten hours passed in the blink of an eye. While discussing the situation in Port Leyton with Jesse and Augusta in the cabin, they heard reports from the airship crew outside.

“My lord!”
Donald casually asked, “What is it?”
These crew members were human pilots trained from ten civilian youths selected in the territory during the training for the Ansel family. It was troublesome to keep summoning goblin pilots, as most summoned creatures had a limited lifespan, and Donald didn’t intend to summon goblins permanently. Thus, training human pilots was necessary. After all, operating goblin airships was relatively simple; the more challenging parts were mastering wind direction control and precise flight paths, which required some experience to perfect.
However, traveling from the North County to the East County was simple—just fly downstream along the Izumo River, with no need to get familiar with the route.
“Port Leighton is in sight. Shall we land, my lord?”
Hearing this, Donald stepped out of the cabin and looked ahead. Sure enough, there stood a city slightly smaller than the capital Kosovo, very prosperous. Outside the city lay blue skies and turquoise seas. From thousands of feet in the air, one could see the white beaches and a bay shaped like a “mouth”.
“What an excellent port!” Donald praised. As they descended to a few hundred meters above the ground, he noticed something wrong with Port Leighton.
“What’s going on?”
They had set off the previous evening, and upon arriving at Port Leighton, it should have been around six or seven in the morning—time when the day’s activities began, especially in a prosperous port like Port Leighton. Even if the city residents woke up late, the port workers and sailors wouldn’t slack off.
But now, looking down at Port Leighton from above, he saw the port area completely silent, with not a single person in sight. The city’s defensive fortifications were crowded, but there was no one outside the city walls.
Donald ordered the pilot to lower the altitude and then called out to the cabin, “Augusta!”
The young new head of commerce stepped out of the cabin.
“Did my lord call for me?”
Donald pointed in the direction of Port Leighton and asked, “You’ve been to Port Leighton before. Go and see if everything is normal over there.”
Port Leighton was the first Kalt city reached by Gardrel when he set sail, so Donald asked him to go and check.
As soon as Augusta saw the situation at Port Leighton in the distance, he knew something was definitely wrong, but he couldn’t explain what it was.
Following behind was Augusta’s friend, Freyge of the Kotta family.

After arriving in Dalaran, Freyg, who was determined to become a great hero, was drawn to the Adventurers’ Guild. After officially registering, he plunged into a pile of tasks. With his strength comparable to that of a Silver-level beginner, he managed to complete many tasks that ordinary adventurers dared not take on, becoming the one with the fastest progress in terms of guild rank and points.

The honest-minded young swordsman frowned upon seeing the situation in the city below and said, “What is this?”

“Freyg, have you noticed anything?” Faced with Donald’s question, Freyg replied hesitantly, “Once, when I went to Thalos with my grandfather, we encountered a sea beast attacking a human port. The port was under martial law, with no ships allowed to pass, and the fishermen from the surrounding villages fled inland to escape. The situation there is very similar to what’s happening in Port Leyton now!”

“A sea beast?”

Donald was puzzled. Since arriving in this world, he had never been to coastal areas and had little exposure to anything related to the sea.

After Freyg’s explanation, he learned that sea beasts were actually magical creatures of the sea.

The oceans in this world, like the geography of his previous life, covered a larger area than land. However, the main world wasn’t a planet like Earth but a vast world floating in the void, more akin to the ancient legend of a round sky and square earth.

With such an immense and endless ocean, countless aquatic magical creatures must have emerged, their numbers far exceeding those of land creatures.

It was said that deep in the sea, there were nations established by intelligent aquatic beings like merfolk and sea nymphs, though few had ever seen them.

In the southeastern coastal region of Thalos, due to the harsh conditions of the Storm Sea, the sea beasts there were particularly ferocious, often gathering to attack human ships and fishermen. Some even included advanced magical creatures with intelligence, leading other lower-level sea beasts to attack human port cities!

However, the Falling Star Sea in the northern Celt Kingdom was relatively calm, and there were few reports of sea beasts attacking humans.

“My lord! Whether it’s a sea beast attack or not, something clearly goes wrong in Port Leyton. Should we still proceed as planned?”

Hearing Augusta’s worried question, Donald thought for a moment before saying, “Of course! Since it’s part of the Celt territory, I can’t just ignore Port Leyton’s troubles. Besides, we have airships to travel by. Even if we encounter an insurmountable crisis, we can retreat from the air! Maybe this is our chance!”

Hearing Donald say this, the others also felt relieved, and then Donald ordered the three airships to glide slowly toward Port Leyton for landing.