The Divine Martial Stars

The ferocious and frenzied mood of the stampede made worse by the crimson moonlit glow of the blood moon formed a paradoxical juxtaposition against the abrupt stillness and serenity now demonstrated by these beasts and monsters.

It was as if someone had hit the mute button to extinguish all forms of noise and sounds in this world, and the entire area became an absolute silence.

Pick anyone and these beasts were just mindless animals of relentless rage and carnage that would not hesitate to tear one another into pieces at any other time. Yet right here, gazing at the Lunar Specter a legion of well-trained rank-and-files, the animals and monsters all stood to attention crisply.

So were the demons, or more aptly put, wraiths, now that Lu Ye had a better look at them, that now teemed the air around the spectral ship like a bunch of moths struggling to remain in flight.

“W-Why do they look like they’re afraid of this ship!?”

One of the shivering scavengers stammered.

“T-They won’t come up! Whew, we’re safe!” said another, gasping for fresh air.

At least that was a sentiment Li Mu could concur with.

“They’re afraid of this ship, although they look like they’re also waiting for something,” said Li Mu, “We do not have to worry about those wraiths and beasts for now. But…”

Li Mu began to cast his sights on everywhere else.

The beasts and the wraiths would never be afraid of this ship. They have no reason to. So it must be something onboard the ship.

This means, being on board the ship could be more dangerous than being outside the ship.

Of course, Li Mu did not articulate his suspicions to everyone.

The last thing he needed was for Feng and the scavengers to panic.

Li Mu strode to the prow of the ship and looked around.

What filled his blood-surfaced line of sight was a seascape of beasts, many of whom bore appearances that he had never seen before. Some towered at a hundred meters over the others and with its incredibly savage presence, they thundered to the forefront of the horde.

Wraiths looked even more outlandish. Further elaborations by Feng indicated that wraiths were born by the malevolent emotions of the deceased, whether beast or human. Some landed on the ground among the beast horde and the animals immediately withdrew with fright, giving these wraiths a wide berth.

Due west, Li Mu spied a female wraith enrobed in white, her long disheveled hair billowing in the air. She would have looked every bit the semblance of a normal human if not for the tremendously ghastly presence she emanated that could make even the most predatory beast squirm with fright and it looked like she was the most powerful entity in the west side.

Due south, standing at the front of another horde was this alabaster white snake almost more than ten meters long. With scales that glitter like silver in the moonglow, it lumbered over the rest of the lesser beasts, a leader of the horde in its own right. In contrast to the other larger beasts, its girth did not look gargantuan or intimidating enough. But its shimmering coat of scales and its deep sapphire-like eyes plus two protruding scales shaped like wings under its neck did not make it look any friendlier or tamer at all.

At the east, a muscular stallion would have been reminiscent of any other adult destrier if not for its well-chiseled muscles and white feathered feet that would have made it look like it was galloping on snow during flight. With a short solid spiral protuberance at the top of its head like a unicorn’s horn, the jet-black stallion stood at the head of its side of the horde, its very airs and graces uneclipsed at all by those of the white female wraith and the silver-scale snake.

North-side, Li Mu spied a fiery-red scorpion with an arching tail of more than a hundred meters in height breaking away from the horde and stepping out into the open. With an exoskeleton that gleamed with a metallic sheen and the venomous tip of its tail sparkling dangerously, no one would dispute such a fearsome specimen as to how deadly it could be.

Three beasts and one wraith.

These must be the deadliest and strongest creatures in these parts of the wilderness.

“Ah! I’ve heard of that stallion before! That’s Schwarzdrachen! It was said that a general of Legion Kommodore tried to tame it, but to no avail…” exclaimed Feng suddenly, a finger of his thrust in the direction of the black stallion.

Oststern might be a village so far away from civilization that the people there hardly understood anything about the outside world. Still, the news does come in every now and then due to sources such as Feng who had once served in the military before.

“Schwarzdrachen, eh?”

Li Mu peered at the magnificent steed again with interest.

Without any remarkable offensive capabilities, it was rare for a relatively domicile beast like a horse to have what it takes to become a Beast King. Yet this horse has a name and therefore a reputation. That must mean that this particular destrier must be a very special animal. Perhaps one blessed with extraordinary greatness.

The winds whistled forlornly in the scarlet moonlight.

Still, the beasts and the wraiths made not a move. Their quiet vigil seemed to indicate that they were expecting something.

Even the Beast Kings—the female wraith and the three wild beasts—shed not so much as a momentary and perfunctory glance at Li Mu and the others who were cowering on the deck of the ghostly vessel.

In the meantime, Li Mu could still feel the rusted sword trembling, albeit at a slightly relaxed and consistent pace.

“Stay here and don’t wander around. I’m heading inside for a look,” Li Mu told Feng and the others.

“What?” An astounded Feng gasped, “Hold up, Li Mu. You’re heading inside? It could be dangerous inside! Look at how the beast and wraiths refuse to get any nearer, there must be something wrong with this ship! No. How about we come with you? At least we might be able to provide you some assistance if needs be.”

Everyone concurred.

But Li Mu shook his head. “No, if anything goes wrong, I won’t be able to keep everyone safe.”

He bit his thumb. Droplets of his magic-infused blood dripped on the deck’s surface before they began to move as if through the contrivance of a hive mind, conjoining each other into a distinctive pattern.

The deep scarlet lines tinged with shades of gold stretched and bend around, forming a magical ward that circled around Feng and the rest of the scavengers, keeping them all within its circle of protection. Next Li Mu injected his power into the ward, invoking the Spiritual Qi in the atmosphere to finish the spell. The completed ward—now in the semblance of a large golden bell—slammed down and kept everyone safely inside.

Taoist Craft: Shroud of the Golden Bell!

With one of the richest atmospheric Spiritual Qi Li Mu has ever encountered, the Taoist crafts he used were just so many times—a hundred times, in fact—more potent that when he used them on Earth.

“Stay inside here and under no circumstances are you to step out of this golden bell at all. Wait for my return.”

Li Mu spun on his heels and walked away.

A gaping hole yawned at where the entrance to the captain’s cabin should be, and the darkness prevented Li Mu from seeing what was inside. He paused there for one second, contemplating if he should use this way of entry before he decided against it and headed for another entrance at the aftercastle where he popped a hatch and stepped inside.

CREAK!

The rusted hinges groaned as if in protest.

Rotten and decayed the timber of the ship might be, but Li Mu could find hardly any specks of dust.

Li Mu could still see almost everything inside the cabins despite not having much light inside. Inside, he found a spare rudder, a large sand table used as a map, racks filled with weapons, and other articles of furnishing. Every single one of these items had seen better days after such a long time of disrepair and neglect. But what was more intriguing was the sketch of a map hanging on the inside wall. Li Mu couldn’t recognize the area depicted on the map but whatever it was made of, it seemed to be lasting better than the rest of the other items here. Lines of red, yellow, green, blue, and even silver denoted different areas and regions. At the top of the map was the heading inscribed in two large red characters and of a language that Li Mu couldn’t identify either except that they looked impressive enough.

There were other legends and symbols scattered around the map, but Li Mu did not know how to read them as well.

From there, Li Mu reached the aftercastle, which has three levels: the first level being the captain’s cabin, the second the armory, and the third which appeared to be the observation deck. Li Mu looked around and found nothing else of value aside from the map. Nothing else there indicated any clues as to Wang Shiyu’s psyche and soul.

Li Mu rolled up the map and tucked it into keeping.

Somehow, he has this feeling that the map would become very useful in the future.

With the aftercastle completely searched, Li Mu explored the bottom decks and found nothing. All the while, the trembling of the rusted sword changed every now and then like a compass trying to triangulate a bearing.

Something seemed to have happened here and from the looks of things, Li Mu could only surmise that it must have been a very fierce battle. The hole at the entrance into the captain’s cabin looked like it was left by a cannonball blast and the innumerable nooks and crannies everywhere appeared like marks left by weapons. Yet strangely, there was not even a corpse around somewhere. Not even the skeletal remains of dead crewmen.

Finally, Li Mu found a ladder that he used to reach the berth deck below.

There, he located the crewmen’s quarters, the cargo hold, the gun decks, the ship’s magazine—where all gunpowder and ammunitions were kept, and the galley. The entire inside would have looked like the lavish interior of a five-star hotel with more than ten decks above the waterline, where every vast and spacious deck was connected to one another by the use of magical waypoints and conventional stairs. But Li Mu could only guess how well-furnished this ship was based on his observation and imaginings of the ship that was now, with the cluttered mess, broken stairs, smashed walls, and cell-like cabins, become a dark, and creepy shipwreck no longer fit for the residence of anything living except for the supernatural.

Li Mu knew that time was of the essence.

Therefore, he did not dawdle around. He moved around, sensing from the varying degrees of the rusted sword’s trembling until he found where it was pointing him: the inner depths of the cargo deck. He ran for it.

“I must be getting close! I must be!”

The closer he got to the deepest levels of the ship, the stronger the trembling became. In fact, Li Mu could have sworn that he felt heat emanating from the rusted sword as if it was urging him to go faster.

He leaped off the edge of the top landing.

SMACK

He landed at the bottom of the deepest level.

He found himself in a spacious sublevel cabin.

Wooden boxes and crates stacked into heaps everywhere around him, each of their lids held fast by strips of paper that were magical talismanic seals. There was no telling what was stored inside these crates, but Li Mu positively felt a dreadful peal of foreboding hanging over him the moment he reached here. He set his eyes on his main purpose, a locked cabin just ahead of him that was radiating a strange unknown presence intermittently from inside.

Whoosh!

The rusted sword tore out of his grasp and smashed the lock open as if with a mind of its own.

Ignoring his initial surprise, Lu Ye opened the door.

Silvery glows poured out from inside and upon a marble desk were three large pearls the size of a man’s fist and the glow was pulsing from the pearl on the left.

“A luminous pearl?!”

Li Mu thought, bewildered.

He looked at the rest of the pearls and found the one on the right clear and transparent like a crystal ball and inside was a familiar figure in white striding around as if she was being trapped inside. One look at her and Li Mu could feel his heart racing.

“Isn’t that Shiyu?!”

Like an apparition held captive inside the pearl, the lithe and petite figure that mirrored Wang Shiyu in every way and spirit paced around alone inside her spherical cell. That must be one of the missing fragments of Wang Shiyu’s psyche and soul!

Li Mu was just so overjoyed.