The Defeated Dragon

Bam!

Liszt kicked the cabin door open with his foot, holding the Red Blood Sword in his hand.

When he entered the cabin, he discovered that the reason for the large concentration of magic in that area was because the walls of the whole cabin were carved with many magic runes.

In the square cabin, there was only a simple square table and a bench. There was a book on the table, and a box of ink with a quill pen in it.

The green magic runes keep flashing, creating a mysterious and magical atmosphere.

“w.a.n.g w.a.n.g!”

Right after Tremblingwoods  squeezed himself into the cabin, he barked straight at the wall. Liszt immediately looked at the wall where Tremblingwoods' eyes were locked on, and saw another grim face.

The pale face shouted, “d.a.m.n it!”

“Curses!” Liszt raised his Red Blood Sword and stabbed it in the face.

But on the other side of the wall, between the cracks in the magic runes, there appeared another pale face with fuzzy facial features. It let out a sharp noise. “Curtis, you madman!”

“Quiet!!”

Liszt wanted to have another sword right then to make more of those ghosts…he didn't know if they really were ghosts…explode. He stopped, thinking that those apparitions seemed to be doing no harm. He would just instead listen to what they were saying.

He will not 'kill' anymore.

After shouting this sentence, the human face immediately withdrew.

Then, on the third wall, a pale face emerged, shrieking, “They are coming!”

On the fourth wall, another miserable pale face appeared and screamed, “Lord Mage, save us!”

“So this is like the message the crew left before they died?” Liszt took a deep breath and walked to the edge of the table in the middle of the room. He still had his Red Blood Sword in hand and used it to touch the book on the table.

The books do not seem real, because their outlines were also drawn by magic.

At that moment, the face that should have disappeared back into the first wall appeared again, and screamed, “Mom, I want to go home!”

“w.a.n.g w.a.n.g!” Tremblingwoods  called out.

Liszt ignored it.

When the sword touched the book, it felt like it had touched a real object and it  did not seem to trigger any traps.

Liszt was relieved so he picked up the book using his hands.

It was very thick and heavy. The cover said “To His Royal Highness, Annette – Curtis Truth”. He looked at it once and immediately tried to put this magic book into the gem s.p.a.ce.

It was easy to put in. This was a real book, not something between reality and illusion that was part of the hallucinations brought by the ghost ship.

Of course, it was also possible that it is indeed a book between illusion and reality, but it's property was fixed by the special nature of the gem s.p.a.ce in order for it to continually exist inside.

At that moment, again, a grim pale face appeared on a wall, shouting, “Loyalty to His Highness Prince Annette!” 

“Your Highness Annette ?” Liszt's hands kept moving and as he crammed the ink, quill pens, tables and benches into the gem s.p.a.ce. “If I'm not mistaken, this.. His Highness, Prince Annette… is he a prince of the Sapphire family? A prince who did not become a grand duke?”

Sapphire family names begin with an “A” or “An” to honor their ancestors.

The first generation Grand Duke was the Dragon Knight Anderson Sapphire, the second generation was Amphora Sapphire, the third generation was Andy Sapphire, the fourth generation was Anchek Sapphire, and the fifth generation Grand Duke  was Andrew Sapphire. This is common knowledge among n.o.bles.

If one does not know the dukes of the present and past generations, he is not qualified to be a n.o.ble.

“There is not a Grand Duke named Annette…”

While thinking.

Another pale face appeared and screamed out, “We are finished, Andy's fleet!”

“What?”

Liszt's heart was thumping, Andy was the name of the third generation Grand Duke!

One side of the fog noises was Andy's fleet while the other side shouting at them was loyal to Annette. Annette must be a member of the Sapphire Family who was against Andy for the position of Grand Duke. It was also likely that Annette was Andy's brother.

And, given that Marquis Cohen was killed in a court coup, it might be that Cohen supported Annette's cause.

But Andy had won.

“Well, I know those court secrets now , so what should I do next?” Liszt looked at the empty cabin, then at the dense magic runes on the wall, thinking quietly.

The pale faces were still emerging on the wall.

The screams were repeating as well.

“They are coming!”

“d.a.m.n it!”

“We are finished, Andy's fleet!”

“Dedicated to His Highness Annette!”

“Mom, I want to go home.”

“Your Excellency, the Great Mage, save us!”

“Curtis, you madman!”

“No!”

The shrill screams annoyed Liszt the most , it didn't give him time to think deeply.

The more time he spends  here, the more people above deck may die … all killing each other, just like Captain Morrodo's son, the sea ship that has encountered the ghost ship before with only two sailors that returned.

“Forget it!”

Liszt put the Red Blood Sword  back into the waist sheath, took out a stainless steel battle axe from the gem s.p.a.ce, and then aimed it at the wall of the cabin.

Bang!

The wood splinters and magical runes flew everywhere. Tremblingwoods  wanted to chase the magic runes, but he saw the magic runes pa.s.s through him and fly back to the wall. Even the wood split by the battle axe gradually began to dissipate while the walls slowly recovered.

"What?"

Liszt couldn't believe what he saw. He threw the axe two more times but only a large piece of wood fell to the floor. Also, while the wood board would gradually dissipate, new wood would appear on the wall. He was quick to pick up the boards on the floor and threw them into the gem s.p.a.ce.

A moment later.

The new wooden panels on the wall disappeared and no longer came back.  The magic runes that should have been carved on the wooden panels also lost their hinges and were only hanging in the air.

Liszt smiled. “It works!”

The next step was to keep on hacking the walls using the axe and throw the destroyed wood panels into the s.p.a.ce one by one. “I don't care what happened to your ghost ship. I am taking down all the walls on which you engraved the magic runes, and we'll see how you will still pretend to be a ghost!”

“If it's not enough to tear down these four walls, I'm going to take 160 catties worth today!  I'm going to tear down the whole ghost ship!”

Bang!

Bang!

In the background, Tremblingwoods' “w.a.n.g w.a.n.g” and the pale faces' screams would emerge and disappear. Liszt abruptly cut down all four walls of this cabin with the battle axe, and threw each board into the gem s.p.a.ce. Only the pillars outside of the wall were left, and were already shaking.

The magic runes all fell out of the wall and were suspended in mid-air.

When Liszt had finally brought down the last piece of wooden board, the magical runes seemed to be affected by a chain reaction and all spun quickly. To Liszt's surprise, the runes scattered and reorganized and conjured a female mage shrouded in a magical cape.

Under the hood,  two bright green eyes stared coldly at Liszt.