Chapter 4426 — I'll Ram You to Death!
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
Yet in the very next instant, Wei Zhao's eyelid gave a sudden twitch. After he made the turn to starboard, the jade pendant's warning did not fade at all—instead it grew shorter and fiercer still!
Still not out of danger? Wei Zhao was startled, and instinctively checked the position of the ship ahead. It really was off to the right—no mistake about that.
Not daring to dally, he swung the bow around at once, turning hard to port and circling wide. Moments later, the jade pendant's warning finally fell silent.
"Could it be that the man ahead has finally slipped up too?" Wei Zhao wondered privately. Though this whole way he had been certain the man ahead must know a safe route—otherwise he could never have come this far—and in theory, so long as one followed closely, nothing should go wrong.
Still, when it came to a choice between the man ahead and his own jade pendant's warning, Wei Zhao did not hesitate for a moment to trust the pendant. After all, men make mistakes—but the jade pendant never did.
What Wei Zhao did not know was that shortly after he turned about, once the ship ahead had passed, a gigantic whirlpool suddenly appeared in the sea—so violent and surging that it could drag any sailing ship down into it, wrecking the vessel and killing all aboard as surely as night follows day. Only a leviathan of the seas on the order of the Treasure Ship could possibly pass through safely.
Had Wei Zhao not turned in time, but foolishly kept following the ship ahead, the outcome was easy to imagine: once his vessel was destroyed, there would be no one to hear his cries for help, no god to answer them. Even with Wei Zhao's strength, there would have been not the slightest chance of survival.
"Heh heh, now let's see how you die this time!" Listening to the surging roar of the whirlpool not far behind him, Wang Baitiao threw back his head and laughed like a madman aboard Ship One. There was no need even to look in such a case—anyone following behind, even the King of Heaven himself, was dead beyond a doubt.
Unlike hidden reefs, which at least have a definite existence, a whirlpool is a headache of quite another order for any seasoned seafarer. The reason lies in its unpredictability.
No one knows where or when it will appear—but once it does, it is a catastrophe of utter destruction. Any standard sailing ship dragged into a whirlpool meets the same miserable end.
As a local boss who knew every inch of his turf, Wang Baitiao had the whole of the Demon Cold Sea at his fingertips; the distribution of reefs everywhere was engraved on his heart. Yet even he could never calculate when or where a whirlpool would appear. This particular whirlpool, however, was the one exception.
For no other reason than this: it was no ordinary whirlpool, but a legendary lure vortex.
The notion of a lure vortex exists nowhere else. Only here in the South Continent Sea has it been handed down by word of mouth from generation to generation. At first hearing it sounds like pure fantasy, but in truth it arises from the dense reefs of these waters, combined with certain peculiar topographical features—nature-made, and a rare natural wonder in its own right.
They say that in ordinary times the lure vortex lies hidden beneath the surface, still as glass; the common eye can neither see it nor sense it. But once a ship passes over its location, the currents it stirs up act like bait dropped into the water, and the hidden, formless giant whirlpool appears on the instant, swallowing the ships that follow in the blink of an eye. This is the legendary lure vortex.
For the first ship to pass, the lure vortex is perfectly harmless; but for the ships following behind, it is a catastrophe of utter destruction. In the past, many an expedition fleet of the South Continent had safely weathered every other peril, only to die at the hands of a lure vortex.