Chapter 1011: Chapter 551: Soup of Life, the Queen’s Return (Part 2)

They need to continuously relay the gathered intelligence back using the whale oil lamp and law network, but they’ve already encountered trouble as soon as they entered the fog zone.

It’s not only the law network that was affected; this fog simultaneously obscured external light sources on both the reality and mystical planes. The deeper they went, the darker it became.

Gradually, it felt like a layer of dark yellow shadow was shrouding everyone’s heart.

The Navigator’s whale oil lamp seemed to be under tangible pressure, with the visible reduction in its illumination range, and something seemed to be stirring beneath the orange-red water.

However, Jeanne was not too surprised by such a situation.

How could the mission to pursue the Noah’s Ark not be dangerous?

The crisis-ridden Sea of Monsters has always been like this; no adventurers who dared to venture deep into it ever returned alive.

Even Jack Harold, the Legendary, Kingly Title, and Pseudo-God combined stronger never considered crossing the Sea of Monsters but chose to painstakingly open up the first, second, and third circulation zones.

The Noah’s Ark, lost thousands of years ago, most likely has been soaking in the Sea of Monsters.

With so many years passed, imagining what it must have experienced is not hard, even if done absent-mindedly.

The difference lies only in the level of danger, and it would be completely abnormal if it were pristine.

Before departure, they had already received full settling-in fees, risking their necks to venture here, long disregarding personal life and death.

Purely because the value of Noah’s Ark is simply too enormous, even if it harbors a Seventh Order True God, they would need to transmit back the full length of its... blood bar to feel at ease to die.

High reward accompanying high risk should be naturally expected, shouldn’t it?

If not a solid batch of Fifth Order Legends perishes to tangibly experience the pain, no one can suppress the ambition of the upper echelons on the continent.

Even if Byron showed them the strongly polluting memory lingering in Heather’s mind, no one would quell their adventurous thoughts. At most, they’d wait until they are better prepared before embarking.

Those high-levels who have long been preparing for Noah’s Ark evidently foresaw this scenario and prepared contingency plans ahead of time.

"Bring up ’Torch.’"

Upon Jeanne’s command, two sailors lifted an unlucky ghost.

This was a wooden humanoid puppet but with its jaw, arms, and legs all removed, leaving only a trunk like a human stick.

Judging by appearance, it seemed to be a person from the Star Moon Empire.

His eyes still showed glimmers of humanity and lingering intense hatred.

Manifestly, he was a living puppet crafted from a Lighthouse Sequence Transcendent, with vast amounts of ’useless’ organs excised using [Strange Arts: Flesh Is Futile], leaving only a small amount of flesh and wooden body.

The Church and Puppet King, along with Remit slave merchants, originally cooperated to produce such "Artificial Lantern Person," also used as "torch" to illuminate the Sea of Monsters.

The "torch" from Queen Isabella’s faction was a gift from the Orthodox Church.

All of them also had their Puppet King threads removed, without any backdoors, absolutely wouldn’t suddenly "blue screen," a "pure version."

At present, even in the eyes of those Saints and the Pope of the Orthodox Church, who themselves belonged to the Holy Temple Sequence Extraordinary, Isabella held a significantly higher status.

Conversely, Puppet King Louis, who cooperated with the heretical Star Moon Empire, was significantly downgraded, and new internal support inclinations appeared.

No wonder Puppet King Louis was eager to ally with Bloodsail Mihawk to change the situation.

Whoosh—!

The "torch" was directly ignited by spiritual flame over its entire head.

The blazing pure white flame immediately illuminated a large foggy area, causing whatever lurked beneath the orange-red seawater to loiter without advancing, evidently repulsive towards such brightness.

One by one, torches burned out and were again ignited, after several hours, the Numa Nande finally reached before that ship-shaped dark shadow.

Arriving here, the sailors finally beheld the true face of the Ark.

A towering ancient wooden vessel, void of any open decks or sails, resembling a dreary sepulchre.

The previously audible beast roars suddenly vanished without a trace.

The weathered, dilapidated hull bore numerous fissures wider than humans, from which orange-red liquid slowly seeped into the sea below.

"Full rudder to port, prepare to dock."

Upon realizing the gull messengers dispatched by the Beast Master would lose contact immediately upon entering the ship’s interior, Jeanne Don Quixote reluctantly ordered the Numa Nande to slowly approach the Ark’s flank.

Thud!

"Legend says the Noah’s Ark conceals a vast secret realm comparable to a Divine Kingdom, providing sufficient space to house all existing species of the time.

Moreover, as a mythical warship, it surely possesses a mythic ship spirit governing everything.

Our mission is to explore the secret realm within the ship, uncover its operational rules.

Ideally, locate the mythic ship spirit’s hideout, or even seize its most crucial warship key to present to Her Majesty the Queen.

The minimal mission objectives also involve establishing a robust forward camp within the secret realm, preparing to receive subsequent high sequence support personnel.

Orders: Night Owl Death Knight squad follow me in, others stay to provide support."