Rise from a Poor Family: My Martial Arts Counterattack

Chapter 626 The Mysterious Ghost Ship

The sea stretched as far as the eye could see, so calm that not a single wave could be seen.

But it is precisely this eerie calm that carries a sense of oppression.

The East China Sea has never been peaceful.

There are countless sea monsters in the sea. Although many have been killed by the martial arts experts of the East Sea Divine Palace and various islands, those were all in the shallow waters near the major sea areas. However, there are many sea monsters in the deep waters away from the major islands, which is why the East Sea Divine Palace is able to conduct shipping trade.

Today, however, this vast sea is so quiet that even the sea monsters are nowhere to be seen, just like the calm before a storm.

A few dozen breaths later, a black dot appeared at the horizon, and it kept growing larger. When it was a thousand feet away, a ship with a black mast could be seen slowly sailing towards it.

This is the ghost ship.

On either side of the ghost ship, beneath the calm surface of the water, there seemed to be some terrifying entity that could devour everything. All the waves were constantly churning and sinking. If the ghost ship hadn't been constantly moving, the waves around it would probably have collapsed.

"Is this the ghost ship?"

Even from a distance of a thousand feet, Murong Yan's face was somewhat pale. You must know that she has already stepped into the second stage of the Innate Realm, but even so, just looking at this ghost ship made her feel that her soul could hardly bear it.

Murong Yan looked at Lin Chen. Lin Chen's soul had also fallen, but to her surprise, Lin Chen stared at the ghost ship without showing any signs of discomfort.

"Yan'er, you should leave here first. This ghost ship is very strange. It can not only devour divine thoughts, but also affect the soul."

Lin Chen also noticed Murong Yan's situation and asked her to step back. The reason he was unaffected was that he did not use his divine sense at all and only observed the ghost ship with his naked eyes from beginning to end.

Although his soul had fallen to the Innate Realm, his physical strength had not decreased. He could still see the ghost ship clearly with his naked eyes.

From the outside, the ghost ship was unremarkable, just an ordinary ship no more than ten feet long. But Lin Chen noticed that the ship's hull resembled the mouth of an abyss, and wherever it passed, the seawater silently collapsed, forming a vortex that swallowed everything.

Seawater, soul...

"Lin Chen, be careful. Don't be reckless if you sense something is wrong."

Murong Yan did not insist on staying here any longer. She knew that Lin Chen was saying all this for her own good. This ghost ship was too eerie, but the more eerie and mysterious it was, the more likely it was to hide a big secret.

"Do not worry."

Lin Chen gently rubbed Murong Yan's head, waiting for her to drift away. At that moment, the ghost ship was only a hundred feet away from him.

"Let me see what secrets this ghost ship, which even innate experts dare not approach and myriad phenomena realm experts are wary of, holds."

As the ghost ship grew clearer in front of him, Lin Chen took a step forward, walking across the sea towards it.

Thirty zhang, twenty zhang, ten zhang...

When Lin Chen was only ten feet away from the ghost ship, he felt a terrifying suction force pulling his body down. Fortunately, his physical strength far exceeded that of an ordinary Xiantian Realm expert, and he managed to resist the downward suction force. With a stomp of his right foot, he leaped up and landed steadily on the deck.

squeak!
The moment Lin Chen landed on the deck, the familiar, tooth-grinding sound of stepping on the old deck was clearly heard. Lin Chen looked down at the deck, which showed no particular features, but many of the wooden planks had cracks from being exposed to the wind and sun.

Ignoring the current eerily quiet environment, this deck is no different from the deck of an ordinary ship that has been sailing for decades and has been exposed to the elements.

"That's really quite strange."

Upon stepping onto the deck, Lin Chen discovered that his soul was imprisoned.

Wow!

The sails on the mast were suddenly blown about, making a sound.

Lin Chen's gaze instantly fell on the entrance to the cabin ahead. The sails were being blown by the wind, which was not from the sea breeze on the surface of the sea, but from inside the cabin.

The entrance to the deep cabin resembled the throat of a giant beast, with thick darkness seeping out from within.

Even more bizarrely, in the stillness of the wind and waves, the decaying canvas suddenly billowed, and a chilling current of air surged out from the cabin, carrying the smell of decay, as if the breath of something ancient had pierced through time and space.

Lin Chen didn't rush into the cabin, but stood on the deck, watching the ghost ship move forward steadily.

This stop lasted for an hour.

An hour later, Lin Chen stepped into the dark entrance to the ship's cabin.

Squeak...
The old wooden planks on the deck creaked under Lin Chen's feet, the sounds only amplifying the eeriness of the silence. The moment he stepped into the cabin, the darkness vanished from Lin Chen's sight. Although the cabin was dimly lit, the layout was still clearly visible.

An old table with an extinguished oil lamp on it, a fur of an unknown animal hanging against the wall, and in the innermost part of the room a narrow wooden bed with a folded quilt on it.

All of this arrangement indicates that this is a place for the people on the ship to live.

It's so ordinary that there's nothing remarkable about it.

Snapped!
Flames appeared at Lin Chen's fingertips as he tried to light the oil lamp on the table, but he failed several times in a row.

Unable to light the oil lamp, Lin Chen didn't persist. He picked up the animal pelt hanging on the wall, but when he put it on the table and turned back, he found that the pelt had been hung back on the wall.

Lin Chen's eyes narrowed. Right under his nose, the fur had moved from the table to the wall, yet he hadn't sensed any energy fluctuations.

After staring at the fur on the wall for a while, Lin Chen picked up the oil lamp on the table, moved it to a different position, and then shifted his gaze. As he expected, when he looked back, the oil lamp was back in its original position.

"No matter how things change, everything here will return to its original state."

Having made his judgment, Lin Chen walked out of the cabin, returned to the deck, and left the ghost ship a moment later.

"Lin Chen, have you found anything?"

A thousand feet away from the ghost ship, Murong Yan walked up to Lin Chen again.

"No, the entire ghost ship is just like its name suggests; it's an empty ship with nothing special about it."

"That's really strange. Could it really be an empty ship?"

Murong Yan was puzzled, as she couldn't comprehend the existence of the ghost ship given her level of cultivation.

"To see the lineup of this ghost ship, we may have to wait until we reach the depths of the Annihilation Storm."

Lin Chen had a guess in his mind: the ghost ship was heading into the depths of the Annihilation Storm, and its secrets might only be discovered once it entered the Annihilation Storm's range.

"You're going to follow the ghost ship into the Annihilation Storm?"

Murong Yan's face showed worry. There were two major dangers in the East China Sea: the ghost ship and the annihilation storm.

The Annihilation Storm is fraught with danger. Once caught in its fierce winds, even a Xiantian expert would surely die. And even a Wanxiang Realm expert would not want to take such a risk.

"Don't worry, with my physical strength, ordinary storm gales won't cause me much harm, and I'll return immediately if I sense anything amiss."

"Then be careful."

Murong Yan did not stop Lin Chen. Perhaps there really were some rare and precious treasures in the unknown sea area within the annihilation storm that could solve Lin Chen's soul problem.

"But there's no rush. At the speed of this ghost ship, it will take some time before it can enter the area of ​​the Annihilation Storm."

Although he had decided to board the ghost ship, Lin Chen did not plan to do so immediately. At the speed of the ghost ship, it would take several more months to reach the range of the Annihilation Storm.

Where is Senior Sister Jiang right now?

Lin Chen looked at Murong Yan. How could he possibly hide the private contact between Senior Sister Jiang and Murong Yan from him?

He knew that Senior Sister Jiang would inquire about his condition from Murong Yan every now and then. If his condition worsened, Senior Sister Jiang would come immediately. However, after learning from Murong Yan that his condition was still good, Senior Sister Jiang did not rush to come. Instead, she searched for ways to resolve his soul problem throughout the Yan Dynasty.

Lin Chen didn't try to persuade Senior Sister Jiang. He knew her personality; he knew she couldn't be persuaded with just a few words.

"Sister Jiang should be in Tianya Domain at the moment."

Tianya Domain is the northernmost region of the Yan Dynasty.

Lin Chen could understand why Senior Sister Jiang would choose such a remote place. Large domains like the Red Dust Domain and the Thousand Machine Domain are located in the central area of ​​the Yan Dynasty. The entire domain has long been explored by martial artists, and there are no hidden places yet to be discovered.

However, only in remote areas like Tianya Domain, which are in the Yan Dynasty, are there special areas that have not been discovered. These areas may contain rare and precious materials or secret caves left behind by powerful figures.

"Then let's go to the End of the World."

(End of this chapter)