"It's just that the floating island brought the first major loss to the ocean-going fleet**, in less than a month, the original more than 400,000 people were directly reduced by 100,000, plus the seriously injured members who died one after another in the next month or so, nearly 130,000 people died that time. After that, the fleet dismantled more than 20 ships and reorganized the fleet, which had a certain effect. It's just that the impact of that **, until the fleet was ready to return later, was not completely eliminated. "Every major loss** is accompanied by the death of a large number of people, and in an unknown territory, the ocean-going fleet simply cannot have sufficient equipment and personnel to support every operation, as it is on the left continent.

In that deep blue sea, although there are not many stormy weather, at a glance it is all the boundless sea that meets the sky, and it looks like more than ten years. This sense of loneliness brought to the crew was no longer the initial shock, but a deep fear.

The salt has eroded into everyone's bones, and the fifteen-year journey is also a doomed result.

After the floating island appeared, the fleet circled around it several times, and the airship on the Venitez was dispatched to explore the general situation first.

It is called a floating island because it was not long after the ship's observers saw it that there could be no continental shelf to support such islands in such a deep sea area. The floating island itself appears to be moving slowly with the currents, and after a few circles on it, the airship brings back thousands of photographs for the fleet's biologists and oceanographers to do for preliminary analysis.

Discover new things in uncharted waters, that's what the ocean-going fleet will come out to explore. The entire fleet spent the next few days excited by the appearance of the floating islands, so much so that the increasing death toll was forgotten by most of the people. After a few days of airship exploration, a team of surgeons and half of ordinary people, a total of more than 300 people, landed on the floating island and began a closer investigation.

Chilman was on this first team. After that, the fleet sent dozens of teams to the floating island, which was responsible for establishing the initial camp, drawing a rough map of the floating island, establishing the signposts for future researchers' actions, and exploring several caves on the low slopes of the floating island.

As the first team, Chilman went to the floating island, and saw not the rocks that should have been eroded by the storm in the deep sea, but the strange plants that fell mottled on the floating islands. Later, the plant was named the Necrophila Tree. It resembles moss, has a more tenacious vitality, and is perfectly adapted to the environment under salt. The leaves are tiny, almost nonexistent, but the rhizomes are unusually deep, like an ancient tree growing downward.

Chilman and the others tried to dig up a complete rhizome, but a piece of ghoul grass the size of an adult's hand, they dug down the rock to a dozen meters away, and still did not see the end of the rhizome. The next day, someone dived underwater to explore why the island, which is about 30 kilometers in diameter, floats on the surface of the sea, only to discover that the surface of the island is covered with rocks, but underwater, all the rocks are attached to a huge piece of wood.

The nature of floating islands is similar to that of icebergs in some cold regions, but the volume ratio of the two above and below the water is much smaller. The piece of wood has been soaked in seawater for many years, but it is all black, like unburned charcoal. There is no sea life attached to the huge log, and there is not even a single area where there are aquatic plants.

This anomaly delayed the ocean-going fleet's landing plan for a time, and it was not until the discovery of preserved stone paintings and an ancient ruins in the cave that the original vigilance was thrown aside little by little.

"It was the fifth day after the first team landed on the floating island. As a researcher of history, after discovering strange characters and stone paintings, Nonoska knew that it was time for her to go to the island. Because within the church, researchers like me have no direct access to ancient history and ancient sites. Learning bizarre writing in a research institute is always through printed paper, not even physical photographs. ”

"That's probably one of the reasons why you went to the Ocean Fleet because of recruitment. Hilarili said as there was a knock on the door of the room, and before the two could respond, Chilman walked in with a thick stack of documents, his face puzzled and thoughtful. But the conversation was not interrupted by Chilman's intrusion, and Hilarili continued to pick up her words, "Like a collection room in ancient history, several caves are connected to each other to a delicately slotted cavity. ”

"It's like a place of sacrifice that often existed in ancient history. Nonoska retorted. Chilman, who had just come in, wanted to interrupt the conversation between the two, but after hearing about the "place of sacrifice", he chose to join in.

"I thought that when we met again, we didn't want to reminisce about more than 30 years ago. ”

"It's not because of the latest news from within the empire about the ancient ruins, the necropolis with the fossilized bones of beluga whales. "As we speak, we think of the time when we were exploring." After all, in those thirty years, it seems that the whole trip did not bring anything back, but everything that happened during this period was related to Moby Dick, at least in the stone paintings and strange words we obtained. ”

"What's the use of knowing!" Chilman's temper returned to the state he had been in when he was still looking for ways to make money in the dark world after leaving the Venitez, "The ocean exploration is over, and in addition to the rich rewards we deserve, in the end it can be regarded as an unexpected gain, and the only thing that can be regarded as an unexpected harvest is this ancient historical information without a head and no tail." ”

"You may not know whether it is good or bad, and it is impossible for the two of you to be unclear about the surveillance of us after the Sect. Helpless and with a sigh of finally recognizing reality, Chilman knew that he and Nonosca would never escape the control of the Church, and that they could only get rid of it when they died.

"Not necessarily. There was a strange tone in Hilarili's voice, and she looked at Nonosca, "On the Left Continent, we do. But in the Empire of St. Dorag, we can learn a little bit about that history and guess part of the goals of the Holy See. ”

Chilman shook his head, but asked rhetorically, "When you talk about the place of sacrifice, it should be the first major loss." ”

Seeing that the two did not object, Chilman went to the table and sat down, put the information in his hand on the table, and pressed it with his elbow, and then continued, and picked up the unfinished words of the two, "The first ** is all because of the floating island." I don't know how long it took for the floating island to reach the sea where the ocean-going fleet was located. However, for a long time, the corpse-eating tree, a second-class creature that does not exist in the three-phase continent, has eroded the entire island. After more than 20 days of exploration, we didn't find anything unusual on the island. It wasn't until the fleet decided to use the island as a temporary camp, and the vast majority of the people took turns to rest on the island for half a year, so that their feet knew the taste of the land, that the danger really came. ”

"Until then, as a member of the makeshift response team, I initially lied about the conjecture that the fog had a powerful hypnotic substance. But before I landed on the island, I already believed that the cause of the accidents on the first four subsidiary ships was hypnotic substances. ”

"You know, I was the one who applied to dive underwater to explore the bottom of the floating island. Chilman lowered his voice, "When I saw that huge piece of charred wood, I felt that it had life, though it was intuitive. Later, this idea was also verified, as a fragment of the collapse of the World Tree in ancient history, the Ghoul Tree evolved into a self-aware second-class creature, and the reason for the fragmentation of the World Tree is not indispensable. ”

"But even if we know this, and know that even if the World Tree falls, it has a power that cannot be reduced for a long time, but it doesn't seem to make much sense now other than satisfying our curiosity. Not to mention the fragments of ancient historical information. ”

Chilman is not a good thinker, and his focus is on practical action.

This is true in the church. Nonoska looked at Chilman, half agreeing, half retorting, "But the place where we are currently is already the Saint Dorag Empire, in a land called the Houxiang Continent. Here, according to Peginz Chiris's "Strange Creature Observations", the center of the Southern Forest in the mouth of the empire seems to have a new world tree. ”