Round Eleven: The Bottom of the Vortex

The Storkship tossed and rolled in the furious storms, seemingly truly a bird gliding over the sea. Driven by the wind and chased by giant waves, its bow rose high as if the entire ship were lifted above the water by successive waves—like a giant shaking his dark blue blanket, dislodging debris stuck to it.
The main mast creaked and swayed, but before anyone could understand what the sound meant, it snapped like it had been struck hard. The violent nature of the wind that suddenly hit the Storkship could be seen from the way the mast moved—it didn’t fall backward or forward but spun across the deck, breaking the already fragile foremast. The two heavy logs spun like wheels in the wind and flew off the ship. If Chloe hadn’t cut most of the ropes, this strike would have flipped the Storkship upside down. Even so, two unlucky sailors lost their lives: one foolishly clung to the foremast and was crushed between it during the impact, his upper body completely destroyed; the other was struck by a rope attached to the mast, which somehow wrapped around his waist and flung him into the air. Judging from the sound, his spine must have broken before he even flew.
Yet few people had time to appreciate this terrifying scene, as the surviving sailors were all immersed in their own fear—the storm roared violently, shaking the sea like a glass in a drunkard’s hand. In the raging wind and rain, they could only see a blurry mess, unable to even tell what they were holding. The fierce white waves surrounded them, splashing over them repeatedly, leaving them unsure whether they were moving forward or backward, up or down. It seemed the entire world had become a madly rolling die, with every side leading to the abyss of destruction.
“Let go of the wheel!” Moriel shouted silently to 47. Her magic connected her mind directly to 47’s, ignoring the effects of the storm. 47 immediately released the wheel, which spun wildly back and forth, showing just how chaotic the waters beneath the ship were and how violently the currents were swirling. The Storkship was pushed around, almost flipping over in a wave as high as a cliff. Fortunately, it narrowly avoided a dark ridge that suddenly appeared in the turbulent sea, with only its last crumbling mast scraping against the razor-sharp rocks and shattering. The pieces of the broken mast flew around like sand and stones blown by the wind. Soon after, another wave lifted the Storkship over this hidden deadly ridge. By the time 47 regained control of the wheel and looked back, the ship had disappeared into the waves, as if it had never existed.

“This ship won’t last much longer!” Rol, who had just been thrown off by the waves, struggled to grab hold of anything to pull himself back, moving with difficulty. His small eyes were wide open, and his sparse, messy hair flew wildly in the raging storm. “In a few minutes, the Stork will be completely destroyed by the storm!”

No sooner had he spoken than a loud crack came from the ship’s hull, providing strong proof to Rol’s prediction.

“There’s a tear above the waterline!” Chloé leaped aboard with a graceful somersault, her fiery red hair flying like a torch that refused to be extinguished by the wind and rain.

Morrill clung to the railing beside the wheel with one hand, while the other was held by Forty-Seven. Her face was pale. If not for Forty-Seven’s quick reflexes, she, who had been temporarily weakened by trying to glimpse the future, might have been swept away by the waves.

Chloé looked around. The sky was pitch black, and it was impossible to tell from which direction the raindrops were coming. Sometimes, the huge waves seemed to roll right over their heads. Everything on the damaged Stork that wasn’t secured was blown away without a trace. The sailors who still remained on board could only cling to their survival instincts—none of them, even those with the most experience at sea, had ever faced such a situation. If any of them managed to set foot on land alive, they could boast about this ordeal for the rest of their lives, right up until they couldn’t even go to a tavern anymore.

“And we’re approaching a massive whirlpool!” Rol pointed at the vortex storm towering like a mountain ahead of them. “There’s only one way now—head straight for it!”

“What?” Morrill and Chloé were both shocked by this idea.

“We have to! If we’re dragged in, it will take just one second for the force of the storm and waves to tear this ship and all of us to pieces!” Rol shouted, but even so, his voice was drowned out by the howling waves. “There’s no way we can escape this whirlpool! The only chance we have is to go in through the gap in the storm!”

Morrill stared at the storm. “Are you sure? Even if we make it into the whirlpool, how are we going to get out?”

Rol staggered away. “Let’s take a chance! Protect yourself, mage! I need to get the sailors ready too!”

“Decided? Then—our journey lies across the stars and seas!” Forty-Seven sharply turned the wheel. The sudden change caused the ship’s keel to groan loudly. After enduring the nearly fatal twist, the Stork drifted into the vortex-like current it had been avoiding all along, plunging into the embryonic form of a vast, dark abyss.

“Be careful!” Morrill almost crashed into Forty-Seven’s arms. It was almost pitch black on the Stork now; even with dark vision, nothing could be seen. “You’re going to kill us!”

“Don’t worry, I’ve figured it out!” Forty-Seven seemed to find some new joy in steering the ship. The sensation of facing the storm was similar to flying among the clouds. “Besides, even if the ship is destroyed, I won’t let you die!”

“Yes.” Morriel sighed, letting Forty-Seven feel her sigh.
In the brief moments after changing direction, the waves seemed to calm slightly, but it was just an illusion. The waves here could no longer be called individual waves—they had become a vast torrent that lifted the ship endlessly, rushing it toward the storm at lightning speed. The Storkship accelerated so rapidly it was almost like a wooden shoe skidding across ice.
In the blink of an eye, the Storkship turned into the vortex swirling around the storm and vanished. It was as if a sesame seed stuck to your lips and you simply licked it away and swallowed it.
But the crew of the Storkship, who had ventured into this ferocious vortex, saw something entirely different.
After luckily passing through the outer edge of the storm, it seemed much smaller, and the drenching rain and waves disappeared. The already heavily damaged Storkship no longer had to worry about water seeping into its cabin, as it was simply racing along a wall of roaring water, as light as a bubble, tilted almost to the point of capsizing, with towering waves above and a bottomless abyss below—a vast and swift vortex.
The sailors were stunned by the sight inside the vortex. The extreme fear they had felt in the raging waves moments earlier was replaced by awe and shock. Not everyone in the world gets the chance to see the clear sky above them amidst storms and vortices. Forty-Seven no longer needed to steer, as there was no room for human effort against the force of the vortex. In the face of true nature, any so-called strength could only protect itself; any attempt to change things was futile and would lead to destruction. There was nothing but waiting to be done.
“I told you damn well not to deviate from the course! Now we’re just at the mercy of fate!” On the other side of the vortex, Simon could finally let go of the wheel and catch his breath. “If luck is enough—if the amount of luck needed for a beggar to marry a princess is this little bit, then what we need now is an entire ship’s worth of luck! Once the storm passes, the vortex will disappear, and we’ll be sent back to the sea to continue searching for that damned Fishman Island!”
“We’ll return to the sea,” Orlando said, seemingly uninterested in whether Simon’s actions, which seemed like suicide to a novice sailor, were an attempt to harm the great Dark Sun Cultist. “And our enemies will be buried in the depths.”
Enemies? Before Simon could figure out where the enemies were, the Hyrick Cultists moved swiftly like a group of monkeys.
With navigation skills no longer effective, the gap in competence between the two sides became evident. The Hermit Crab, having survived such a storm, had lost no members—partly due to its unique structure, and partly because these newly recruited crew members were indeed far more skilled than Simon’s original men.

They took their positions like agile monkeys and chanted Hyrick’s divine name in unison—Saimon cursed inwardly. Still not giving up on the Sea Goddess, waiting to serve the God of Murder in the belly of a fish?
“There’s a ship over there!” Chloe, who was standing at the bow looking at the scenery, called back to Moriel.
Forty-Seven also saw the Hermit Crab, which looked like a leaf stuck just below the vortex: “Sink them?”
Wait, I need them alive—
Seeing that Forty-Seven was about to leap out, Moriel quickly grabbed him back.
But that didn’t mean the other side intended to capture prisoners either. The Migratory Bird, which was already gliding smoothly along the vortex wall, was suddenly pushed forward by something, causing its already sideways-tilted hull to nearly capsize.
What was that?
A large bulge formed on the shiny, rushing water wall, as if something was trying to push its way out. But nothing came out; only the water rose higher and higher, eventually taking shape under the control of incredible magic into a giant creature.
It had a massive body formed from waves, and its interior, also swirling like a vortex, seemed to contain a mass of ink-like substance constantly stirring—dark liquid swirling within this water monster without ever mixing, boiling against its indistinct head as if wearing a black crown. It moved forward along the vortex, faster than the Migratory Bird, diving into the sea before rising close to the ship and swinging its dark arms down with force. Wherever they struck, everything was swept clean as if hit by a huge wave. When it raised its arms again, a huge mass of water at the end, shaped like a fist, already trapped a poor sailor, who was then thrown into the abyss at the center of the vortex with a shake of its hand.
“A black water elemental?” Chloe jumped back from the bow. “Are you sure the people on that ship are truly followers of the God of Murder?”
Flying fireballs struck the water elemental’s head, causing a ring of clearly defined scalding steam. The blow sent it backward into the wall-like waters, but it soon reappeared in the turbulent vortex, blocking the Migratory Bird and seeming even larger.
But this time, it was met by the icy wind created by Moriel. A mass of substance resembling frozen ice formed in Moriel’s hand and flew toward the water elemental’s body. The ice-bound spell ball penetrated the water elemental, causing it to freeze rapidly. The intense cold radiated from the spell ball froze it from the inside out, turning its flexible yet powerful body into rigid ice blocks that floated in the vortex. It seemed to make one last effort to sink the Migratory Bird, but it shattered under the subsequent blows and could no longer pose a threat—that was the result of Forty-Seven throwing a heavy anchor.
“I’m losing patience,” he muttered under his breath.
Orlando’s eyes grew even darker as he watched the giant water elemental he had summoned destroyed.
“It’s not enough!”

Priest Xyrik on the Hermit Crab was now cutting his wrist arteries and spilling their dark-red blood into the vortex, while frantically reciting spells filled with excessive praise for Xyrik. Orlando joined them, but instead of self-harming, he took out an object that resembled the crystal used by O’Sullivan in the Swamp Temple—Priest Xyrik’s prayers grew even louder.

Their prayers failed to summon more water elements, but a thick mist gradually rose from the depths at the center of the vortex—though it might have been caused by the chaotic currents swirling at the bottom. The sunlight filtering through the eye of the storm created magnificent rainbow-like halos, giving the impression of being in either heaven or hell; perhaps the two were no different apart from their visual appearance.

“Something’s not right!” Rol wiped the seawater from the ship and tasted it before spitting it out immediately—the unusual bitterness numbed his tongue. “They seem to be up to something!”

“I told you we should have sunk them! A few would have survived anyway!”

But Morriel stubbornly held onto Forty-Seven, seemingly just to spite him and prevent him from getting his way. “We’re almost there! We must take that ship!”

Indeed, due to its design, the Migratory Bird was much faster than the Hermit Crab in the vortex. After a period of frantic spinning, the distance between them had narrowed significantly. If they waited a little longer, Forty-Seven and Chloe could jump onto the Hermit Crab—

The seawater in the vortex had turned a strange dark brown, and the small waves were extremely turbid. If it weren’t for the dense reflections of light, it would have looked like a rusty funnel.

There were casualties among the Xyrik followers. One priest, due to excessive blood loss, staggered and fell into the sea, disappearing instantly. No one cared for him—proof that he had lost the favor of the Dark Days. Orlando threw the crystal he held toward the center of the vortex. It traced a parabolic path through the boiling mist and fell into the water after traveling only a short distance compared to the size of the vortex.

But as the object entered the water, the entire vortex trembled.

“Damn it!” Chloe barely finished speaking before the Migratory Bird started spinning wildly.

A violent shock erupted from the depths of that gaping abyss, turning the howling waves into terrifying screams. A massive current rushed into the vortex from somewhere, suddenly pulling it downward, causing it to tumble down along the waves—the same fate befell the Hermit Crab.

Those fools! Simon stumbled into a corner of the cabin, barely holding back from cursing loudly. If he had known this would happen, he would never have set sail.

Orlando stood calmly on the deck, staring down at the boiling abyss.

“I call upon you in the name of the glorious Xyrik! By his divine power, I open a passage to the World of Water Elements to guide you forth!” he shouted. “Destroy our enemies, the Dark Princess of Water Elements, the Queen of the Black Tides, Olydra!”
“In the name of Xyrik?”
The roaring waves echoed, forming a deafening roar of mockery. The sound waves seemed tangible, pressing against the eardrums of those who heard them as if under immense water pressure, making them feel as though they were in the bottomless depths, on the verge of bursting from the unequal pressure inside and outside.
“In the name of Xyrik??”
Vast currents of black water surged from the center of the vortex, stopping the two poor boats from moving forward and pushing them back up from the abyss. The endless black waters joined the swirling vortex, resembling enormous unfurling skirt folds: “You foolish wretches, how dare you—try to scare me in the name of Xyrik?!”