My older sister is a villainous rich girl

She approached me and came to my bedside—

"Dressed in pure white, like a beautiful bride—"

"She wore a beautiful red rose" (Away from the lowlands, away from the lowlands, my love)

"My love, please wait for me a moment, I will return to your side—"

Even if I am stranded, even if I am rotten—

"Even though my bones lie weeping in the mud and sand of the lowlands, I will still dream of you at night, my pure and beautiful bride."

Ross, who hadn't slept well to begin with, suddenly woke up in bed, his face ashen.

Chapter 755 The Giant Ship Oslushica

The sea was engulfed in a fierce storm. The ship, which was already quite large when it was moored in the harbor, was tossed about in the storm like a leaf, completely unable to control its direction.

Amid the violent shaking, Ross frantically tried to climb onto the deck, only to bump into Captain Reynolds, who was yelling orders at the sailors as he made his way down the stairs.

“I was just about to call you.” Reynolds’ face was extremely grim. “Wake up all your men and have them follow my instructions to control the ship. If the ship sinks, we’ll all have to pray to the gods to protect us and allow us to swim all the way back to Lornes in this once-in-a-century storm.”

What's that singing outside?

Although the sailors often sang ship songs to boost morale during voyages, Ross found the direction from which the sound came strangely unsettling.

In these sea conditions, are there still so many sailors singing outside the deck? The sound seemed to come from afar and then near, but it didn't seem to be right next to them.

“I don’t know, we might have encountered something terrible.” Reynolds dodged past a sailor who was frantically carrying ropes along the way. “According to my observations of the stars and weather, we shouldn’t be encountering such a large storm, and this ship’s song—”

With a deafening crash, the cabin creaked painfully, as if it were about to break apart. The violent impact sent the crew, who were struggling to maintain their balance, tumbling and falling to the ground.

Before he could finish speaking, Reynolds slammed his head hard against a box that had rolled down beside him.

Damn it!

Based on his experience, he knew that it must have really hit something.

Visibility on the sea was extremely low at night; there were no stars, no moon, and no guiding light, making even the heavens and earth seem distorted and upside down. A pitch-black behemoth, several times larger than Reynolds's Whale Song, seemed to suddenly burst forth from the depths of the underworld, grazing the Whale Song roughly beside it.

The eerie song was still being sung.

"Oslushika, Oslushika, the tears of the gods."

"Oslusica, Oslusica, stars in the sky."

"Oslusica, Oslusica, beautiful giant ship."

"Oslusica, Oslusica, our graves."

From the observation deck atop the mast, Aikos gazed at the colossal ship before him, so dark it seemed to have absorbed all the light of the world, and felt a pang of displeasure. He had used his own magic to deflect most of the impact, preventing the Whale Song's hull from shattering completely.

After all, it's just a clone. The magical power (magical girl power, or magic power for short) stored in its body was pre-inputted and it doesn't have the ability to replenish itself. Even if the clone is only kept in place without using energy-consuming magic, it will naturally dissipate after two months. But now, facing a crisis, he has to take action, which will undoubtedly shorten the lifespan of this body significantly.

Worse still, this ghost ship could even block his detection; he had no idea such a behemoth lurked in the waves until it crashed into him. He had been marveling at the spectacle of the storm, completely absorbed in the moment, when this thing struck him with a powerful blow, nearly knocking him off the mast.

The sailors who were still trying to turn the tide on the deck were too frightened to speak, clinging tightly to the fixed objects around them as if they were grasping at their lifeline.

In extremely rough seas, once you leave your ship, it's practically the same as death.

Glancing at them, Eikos leaped up and jumped alone toward the pitch-black behemoth that was devoid of people but constantly emanated singing.

The ghost ship was more stable than expected during the storm.

However, his senses, which he had sent out to probe, were much duller than usual, like struggling through sticky mud, each step requiring more magic power. In order to prevent himself from dissipating even faster, he had no choice but to withdraw his senses.

He walked quickly toward the captain's cabin.

Whatever is unusual about the ship, clues can usually be found in the captain's cabin.

They kicked open all the locked cabin doors with brute force. The singing had stopped without them even realizing it. There was no light inside the cabin, only a musty, rotten smell, as if no one had lived there for a long time.

He passed by the restaurant, kitchen, sailors' quarters, and storage room, and finally found a lounge in the bottom deck that was significantly more luxurious than all the rooms above, with no sign at the door.

Echo stepped inside and began rummaging through the items without any hesitation.

"The ship's name is Oslushica, which doesn't seem to be Lorne language. It means 'Tears of God'... Is that what they sang about in the ship's song just now? Why does this name sound familiar?"

After thinking about it for a while without any clue, he calmed himself down.

"Ok?"

There was also an unmailed letter inside the table.

[Dear Monroe: How have you been lately? I've finished handling the matter you entrusted to me. I hope we can have another drink together when I visit the Duchy of Milstein again. If you ask me, you're a born adventurer, not someone who should go back home to inherit some family business. What's the point of being a nouveau riche, stuck in a fiefdom that's like a chicken farm, guarding a bunch of ignorant subjects? Why not sail with me? A man's romance should lie in challenging the unknown. I'm doing well, waiting for your reply.]

From Oslusica, your friend Sivis.

Aikos was slightly taken aback.

Monroe? Grand Duke Laird also used this pseudonym. The person in the letter also happens to be from the Duchy of Milstein. Is it a coincidence of names or an old acquaintance?

The task entrusted to me... could it be to bury that wooden box that is suspected to contain treasure?

I have a feeling that the appearance of this ghost ship may not be a coincidence.

As he pondered the relevance of Millistan's affairs to the present moment, he suddenly remembered hearing the name Oslushica somewhere before.

He had overheard a bard singing a song in a tavern in the glorious city of Buffalo.

"In that land where the gods weep, distant songs surge with the waves, and on the damp shore lies the colossal ship Oslusica, its holds concealing the world's most precious treasures..."

His expression turned serious.

This is no coincidence!

The lyrics sung by the Buffanian bard should also be a secret clue, suggesting that Grand Duke Laird's treasure is hidden in the hold of the now-stranded giant ship, Oslusica.

So what about the box you dug up yourself?

He immediately returned to the Whale Song, bypassed the guards unnoticed by the ashen-faced and desperate crew, went to the bottom of the ship, and opened the treasure chest that had been dug out from under the reef.

Inside was a whole box of gold bars, and a peculiar star-shaped badge with an eye carved in the center, its surface shimmering with light like a teardrop.

Then, under his gaze, tears began to flow, enveloping him in layer upon layer of illusion.

Chapter 756 Enemy or Friend?

His senses seemed to be shrouded in layers of mist, making it extremely difficult to mobilize his magic. Wayne was only in a daze for a moment. When he regained his senses, the ship, the sea, the waves... everything that had been in front of him had disappeared. Only a very strange mist and a sound that seemed to come from afar were left.

He listened intently, but could only glean fragments of words from them, unable to piece together a complete sentence.

The ground beneath his feet seemed flat, but when he looked down at his body, Wayne was horrified.

Without realizing it, she herself had turned into a lost creature that barely maintained a human form. Her body as Ekos had disappeared, and her connection with the royal capital had been severed, making it impossible for her to freely control the two perspectives.

If he still had a physical body, his face would be very pale right now, but Wayne forced himself to calm down and carefully consider the series of events that had happened.

Judging from the letters on the ship, it is highly likely that Archduke Laird foresaw something before his downfall, so he entrusted his friend at the time, Captain Sivis of the ship Oslusica, to hide the peculiar star-shaped emblem overseas, and secretly drew the map of the voyage on the ceiling of his bedroom.

However, after burying the treasure, Oslusica ran aground and sank, turning into a ghost ship...

When the Whale Song, carrying the treasure, returned to port, the ghost ship seemed to receive some kind of summons, returning to the badge and activating it.

When Wayne first saw the treasure chest, he could sense magical fluctuations inside, but because they were not aggressive and the frequency was very stable, he thought they were magical treasures kept by the Laird family.

After all, the Laird family's treasure was probably just to accumulate capital for their future comeback. Gold and silver jewelry didn't need to go to such great lengths. Only magical items were too valuable to be worth such a roundabout way.

But inside that rather large box was only a badge the size of a dinner plate, and the magic it activated could forcibly seize and trap one's consciousness within this mist!

The treasure left behind by Grand Duke Laird shouldn't be a trap, right...? But considering that Oslushica had become a ghost ship, he wasn't so sure. What if the grand duke had gone mad back then and deliberately set a trap to keep the secret, killing his friends and everyone on board, making them the ghosts guarding the secret?

If it weren't for Eikos's timely intervention on the ship, Oslusica's appearance alone could have sent the entire crew of Whale Song to the bottom of the sea to feed the fish.

And he, far away in the capital, might not even know what they had experienced at sea.

"So, the legendary curse of Archduke Laird wasn't supposed to be in the Palace of Radiance, but here?" He suddenly found it a bit of a dry joke.

He recited Xiaobai's bizarre incantation again.

The distant, intermittent noises in the mist ceased, and the space fell into an eerie silence. Suddenly, a beam of light flashed from another direction, as if guiding him there.

Is it really effective?

He was just trying his luck, nothing more than a last resort.

He "drifted" towards the light with his mind, passing through the mist and experiencing a refreshing coolness that was quite strange.

Gradually, the light grew brighter and brighter, and the surrounding mist thinned out. A large door, almost as tall as a person, suddenly appeared before them, and the endless light that seemed to engulf everything was pouring into this misty land from behind the door.

There was a somewhat familiar pattern carved on the top of the door.

"This is... the Holy Relic of the Holy See, the Triple Ring of Light?" A hint of surprise flashed through Wayne's mind. He had not expected that the interior of this space, which had intricate connections with Grand Duke Laird, a dark mage, would look more like the territory of the Holy See.

The light was so bright it was almost blinding that Wayne couldn't tell what was behind him, but he could sense that the light had led him here to invite him into the doorway.

Without much hesitation, he slowly stepped over the door frame, feeling as if he were passing through an invisible curtain of water, with a cold yet gentle touch.

The world became quiet and peaceful.

A deep, resonant voice echoed from all directions, as if one were inside the body of some creature.

The voice buzzed at him, "You've finally come. I've been waiting for you."

Wayne was silent for a moment. "You knew I was coming?"

"Of course, the trouble I've caused you can only delay things for a very short time, and I know that very well. Once you've recovered your strength, you'll have no reason not to collect my remaining wishes, since they're already your spoils of war."

Although the voice was emotionless, its tone was definitely not friendly. Confused, Wayne could only respond with silence.

"But I still don't understand, why was this world chosen, why was I chosen?" The voice, of unknown origin and identity, was filled with doubt. "You are the first extraterrestrial visitor I have ever seen, and in my millennia of exploration, I have never discovered a second world capable of giving birth to intelligence. We may be weak now, but in a universe more barren than a desert, how precious are our wisdom and spirituality? Why would you want to destroy all of this?"

How would I know!

Wayne was internally ranting and raving, but outwardly he could only pretend to be indifferent.

However, the other party's highly informative words captured Wayne's entire attention. The first visitor from outer space? An alien?

Strictly speaking, I don't belong to this world, but is this world really in the same universe as my past life? I've only transmigrated into an anime, so how could I possibly find my former Earth during space travel?

The being opposite is an ancient monster that has lived for tens of thousands of years. Even the so-called God of the World might not be that old... Wait, could it be the "Remnant Wish of God" that the previous Pope was looking for? Is it because its true form has already perished and it has no choice but to hide here?

Thinking about this, Wayne felt very strange.

I feel like I've been caught in a carefully designed game, tricked without my knowledge.

If I were to appear as an enemy, I would likely have no choice but to fight it. However, I currently lack even a physical form and cannot mobilize the magic within me, putting me in an extremely unfavorable situation. Even though the mysterious being opposite me is significantly weakened compared to its prime, it might still have some trump card up its sleeve when facing a mortal enemy.

If they're determined to take me down with them, then I'll have no one to blame but myself.

But what if the other side is that "God of the World"...?

Aren't I also a hero personally certified by the Pope himself?

Chapter 757 You should stop her

Wayne composed himself and spoke calmly.

"How do I appear to you now?"

The voice paused for a moment before saying, "In my world of consciousness, your appearance is merely a phantom of consciousness. Moreover, appearance may be meaningless to you, but I still want to know if, within my curse, you have witnessed anything that is still worth keeping this world alive."

Wayne pondered for a moment.

"Actually, I don't quite understand what you mean. You say I'm an extraterrestrial who wants to destroy this world, but I'm clearly just an ordinary person who came here to find the treasure of my ancestors."

"—An ordinary person?"

A giant light bulb materialized from the void, but upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a strangely shaped eye.

It stared at Wayne's phantom for a moment, seemingly lost in thought.

"You carry the aura of that being." The voice continued to echo from all directions, hollow and resonant, as if some indescribable being had inserted its eye into its belly, the gaze of that eye seemingly piercing through Wayne's soul. "Strange... how come there are still traces of receiving my blessing?"

“You must be the fallen God of the World,” Wayne said with certainty.

"The God of the World?" The echoing voice was lost and low. "No, I am merely an elevation of will, an ant suddenly finding itself living in the universe. We have learned to use magic, but we will never understand who created magic, who set the rules of the world, who defined the boundaries of exploration. You have not yet answered my questions."

His thinking is quite philosophical... Wayne never thinks about these questions because all the original rules of this world can be explained by time travel, and he easily accepts them as the inherent settings of the original work.

Instead, he tries his best to avoid breaking the established framework, because that would mean the plot would go off track, the future would become more unpredictable, and the fear of the unknown would stop him.

Although so far, his efforts have been largely unsuccessful.