The Defeated Dragon

"Who are you and why did you disturb my long sleep?!"

The female mage looked like she was made up of green light since her cloak was burning in green fire. Liszt was unable to see her face but she was a pet.i.te woman with a hoa.r.s.e voice. Her image combined with the old ship environment made everything look extremely sad.

Liszt has seen thirty-six ghosts before, so this one did not cause him any horror.

He just thought it was interesting that human beings can actually exist in the form of spirits and still retain their own consciousness. Liszt took back the battle axe and replaced it with the Red Blood Sword and mobilized his qi, ready to fight anytime. “Are you Curtis Truth?”

“Curtis …” The Phantom Sorcerer bowed her head as if remembering. It was a long time before she raised her head again and the green light in her eyes flashed. “That was my name before my self-exile. Knight, why did you disturb my long sleep?!”

Self-imposed exile?

Liszt was a little puzzled. He did not have the chance to open the magic book that had a note ' To His Highness Annette-Curtis Truth'.

But thinking about it, he speculated that the book may have been a form of suicide note written as a book.

“It is not that I want to disturb your sleep. In fact, you have disturbed my trip. My ship was caught in a storm at sea. Then your ghost ship leaned over and dragged us into this puzzling ghost ship.” 

“Ghost ship …” The ghost mage fell into her thoughts again. It must have been hibernating for a long time and her brain must have slowed down.  It has been more than a hundred years since Andy Sapphire became the Grand Duke. "The Goat is now a ghost ship…Annette … Uncle Cohen … “

The light flickered again and the ghostly mage fell into the memory of the past. Her voice became more and more ethereal.

Liszt didn't care about the atmosphere at all and rudely interrupted, “Stop!  Wait a moment! My friend is trapped by the ghost ship's hallucinations and my crew is still killing each other on deck. Can you lift the illusions of the ghost ship first? “

“I have exiled myself. The Goat has become a ghost ship and it's not something that I can control!  … eh?” The ghost mage's voice suddenly sharpened, “My sleeping place! You! d.a.m.n you! You ruined my sleeping place! … “

"Your sleeping place? You mean the carved runes on the sides?"

“d.a.m.n! That's where I used the souls of the entire ship's crew as casting materials to set up the Curse Magic Circle for self-exile!” The mage's spirit  trembled with green light, and the whole ghost ship shook with her.

The decayed wood fell piece by piece as if it were ready to fall down on them anytime.

“You used the souls of a ship's crew as casting material?”

Liszt's scalp was tingling. What was infront of her was a ghost of a female mage who did a cruel spell before her death. No wonder some pale faces called her crazy.

"If you're dead, you're dead! There's no use bringing a ship with you!"

“I let them die because they deserve to die! The Goat is either a traitor to Annette  or a follower who is willing to give everything for him!”

The tone was quite uncomfortable.

Liszt was not in the mood to wrangle with the dead mage anymore, so he shouted directly at the spirit,  “Well, I have no time to talk about more nonsense. Now is the time for you to release the ghost ship's control over my friend. If you don't want to, I'll tear down the Goat piece by piece, leaving you with no place to sleep! “

“Where have you taken my sleeping place? It is a soul trap contraption made from the remnant soul of a dragon. It cannot be destroyed by the likes of you at all. Where are they?!”

“Burned.”

“Burned? Impossible! “

"It has burned!  Why else would it not be here?" Liszt was holding the Red Blood Sword tightly. He was determined to get more information about this soul trap contraption.  He would have to blackmail the female magician first to get any sort of information about it.

The ghost mage trembled all over, and the ghost ship followed, creaking and cracking incessantly, as if it would fall apart at any moment. “If it has burned, then you will die!”

She suddenly turned into a green light and pounced on Liszt.

Liszt broke out his fire-attribute qi and raised his Red Blood Sword . He let out a Fire Wave attack. When the green light got into contact with the Sword, it instantly exploded.

Boom!

The ghost mage was immediately blown to pieces, reshaped into magic runes, spinning in the air, and reappeared into the image of Curtis Truth.

She stared at Liszt bitterly and didn't strike again. “You didn't burn the soul trap. You can't burn the soul trap! My soul has merged with the soul trap after self-exile. If you burn the soul trap, I will disappear and not continue to exist!”

“It seems that you have regained your sanity.” Liszt, still holding the red Blood Sword, was still on guard. “The soul trap did not burn, but it is in my possession. If you want it back, you must first remove the illusion of the ghost ship and let my friends regain consciousness.”

Liszt's Magic Eye has seen that the people on the deck were still circling around and occasionally killing each other.

Many people have already fallen.

“Give me back my soul trap or all of your companions will die…” The ghost's voice has gone back to a normal human voice.

“In that case, I will have to tear down this ghost ship and find my own way to save them.” Liszt commanded Tremblingwoods, “Tremblingwoods , multiple rock thorns!”

Whoosh!

Whoosh!

The rock thorns were scattered randomly, thick and thin, filling the ghost ship cabin with wood chips.One could see the rock thorns fall into the sea one after another, as if all the wood on the ship was unreal. However, it was clear that many wooden boards were broken by rock horns and those could not be recovered.

“w.a.n.g w.a.n.g!”

For a period of time, Tremblingwoods  has been unable to develop his strength. Now that he has received commands, the beast did not hold back. . 

The level of violence far exceeded Liszt's expectations.

From the punctures it had received, the ghost ship soon made an overwhelming creaking sound, and the keel of the entire ship seemed to have fallen apart. Moments later, the outline of the ghost ship drawn by magic slowly dimmed.

They watched the ghost ship fall apart bit by bit.

The ghost mage breathed violently, her chest rising and falling to a fast beat until she could no longer bear it. She opened her mouth and said, “Let your dog stop! I will tell you how to break the ghost ship's fog of exile..”

"Fog of exile?.."

“Between the real and the unreal, the exiled souls are the source of magic! Ghost ships, traveling in the ocean of exile, will take everything they encounter. ” The ghost mage said irritably, “You don't understand anything. Now, do as I say!”

“Say it now.”

“The bow image opens the real gate. The sheep's head flag on the mast is the beacon of exile. Take down that flag and put it on the head of the bow image, and you will be able to guide the ghost ship from exile to the real world, and then you will be free from the ghost ship. “

“What about you?”

“Return my soul trap to me and I shall continue my exile … I have brought disaster to Annette and Uncle Cohen. Only the exile of the souls forever is my resting place and also my atonement.”

At that moment, the ghost mage's face that was not visible under the hood before had cleared up.

It cannot be determined as beautiful or ugly for it was only made up of light, but her face made of the light had a pious appearance.

Thump, thump,thump!

Liszt hurriedly left the cabin, went up on deck, kicked away two knights who were killing each other, and rushed directly towards the mast.

He believed that what Curtis said was true. After all, her soul trap was already in his hands and he was capable of destroying the ship. The other party wouldn't dare to play any tricks.

The mast was high, but for an elite earth knight, it was an easy climb up.

The flag of the sheep's head was at the top of the mast. It flutters even without wind. The green flame was not because the flag was burning,  but the flame was around the goat's head. Liszt wasn't sure what it was made of initially, but he later realized that the goat head was actually a real goat head, not a picture.

“Pull out the sheep's head flag and put it on the image at the bow of the ship. This will open the door to the real world.” He stretched out his hand to pull out the flag.

Suddenly,  Liszt had a tight feeling in his heart.

He has always been cautious, and at that moment, he was not. “Why did I believe Curtis so easily? This is an evil mage who used the souls of sailors as a casting material! I should not believe a single word she says!”

He looked down.

He quickly pressed down his urgent mood, sank his will into the gem s.p.a.ce, and decided to open the magic book first, trying to find some answer from this suicide note.

On the first page.

There were two lines of bright green snake text. Liszt has no idea what pigment was used to write it.

“My everlasting love Annette, when will everything be peaceful?”

“I had to make this decision, just to meet you again.. Even in exile, even if it costs eternal destruction… How can two sinful souls, the blood of countless living beings and all sins be borne? “

The text was a little mysterious and also has the faint vibe of a  pretentious female Wen Qing.

Liszt  didn't understand.

On the second page.

It was a preface.

“When I heard of Uncle Cohen's devastating news , I died in my heart just because I knew it was mine and Annette's evil thoughts that have dragged the whole family down……Maybe we should settle for this short but wonderful love, rather than hope for life and steal the power of the Sapphire dragon.”

“The Dragon Realm Master Plan has failed, and Annette's soul has been banished… I have lost my love.. My family.. Now the world has no meaning for me. Perhaps I should continue to study the notes of ancient magicians and transform myself into a lich walking between life and death. “

“If I can walk freely in exile, perhaps I can see Annette again, then all this torture and pain will have some meaning!”

After turning this page, Liszt's thoughts turned to the  word “lich”.

There was no time to think about it. He opened the third page.

The third page was very strange.

There was a picture of an eye in the middle of a triangle…The Eye of Truth, representing the sorcerer's understanding and exploration of the world.

But at every corner of the triangle, there were written words.

The top corner intended for 'matter', next to it was “Alchemist”, “Vampire”, “Necromancer”; the corner on the left for 'magic' , there was “Mage” and “Druid” beside it; on the right corner for 'spirit' , next to it was “Witcher”, “Black Wizard”, “Prophet”, “Succubus”, and “Shaman”.

Written under the eye of truth was the word 'knight'.

The following line was written in a snake text: 

“The heresy, like a beast, desecrating magic, crudely circulating their qi, oppressing the sorcerer's living s.p.a.ce! If one day the age of magic comes, burn all the knights and let the wizards rule the world and seek the truth!”

If this was Curtis's own writing, it meant she was a fanatical believer in magic.

Also, the words were biased towards religious cults, which was not good.

Liszt instinctively disliked the notion of “heresy”. His eyes stayed on the words alchemist, wizard and druid for a few seconds, then he no longer delved into the matter and continued to turn the pages.

Starting from the fourth page, the content of the book becomes a research note. The subject of the research being the repeated experiments on the possibility of soul stripping.

From what Liszt can understand, it seems that a wizard developed the “Box of Death” technique from the ancient times. The technique requires placing the soul in the life box, thus becoming the everlasting witch, spanning both life and death, the reality and the illusion, and becoming the superior state.

This kind of record did not distinguish truth from falsity.

Curtis mainly repeated this technique to verify the method of stripping the soul.

At first, she experimented on small animals, then slowly turned to human beings, and finally developed into wizards of the same kind. On page 16, she completed the experiment and verified that the soul can be detached from the body and exist for a short time, but there must be something that the soul can fit into.

At the beginning of page 17, she conducted a second research project, the life box experiment and creating it.

Twenty-five pages were full of experimental notes on this subject, as if she were a genius. Curtis succeeded in the experiment of the life box on page 42 and developed the soul trap, which can be used as a life box to store souls, as well as the magic circle that stores the exiled soul in the magic circle itself.

"So it was the four walls that I have destroyed? With this magic circle, one can strip one's soul and banish the soul into the wood. “

Time waits for no one, Liszt has no time to think. He quickly turned the pages, wanting to find more content about the ghost ship.

He turned over about 30 pages, skipping the four small research notes on the lich life box. At last, he saw on page 74 the drawing of a ship, a very fine three-masted schooner, and even the sheep's head flag on the main mast was clearly visible. This was the Goat, well, what it was before it became the ghost ship. 

The next 26 pages are all about the transformation of the Goat, and setting up of the magic circle.

Curtis extended the life box technology to the whole ship, locking the souls of all crew members in the ship to protect her life box.

According to the last part of her suicide note, the ship will gradually break through the line separating the real and unreal and enter the place of exile as the magic circle continues to erode.

A place of exile.

Mages believe that there is a place at the boundary where magic, matter and spirit transform into each other. In there, time and s.p.a.ce do not have rules. Eternity and brevity reflect each other. Only souls can walk in it. This place was the place of exile.

People who commit serious crimes are usually exiled to this state by the n.o.bles.

To put it bluntly, this kind of magic was cast to euthanize people. Only magicians believe this kind of death for human beings, that the soul would enter exile.

Curtis's ultimate goal was to use the Goat to break the boundary between exile and the real world and send her soul into it.

Then go after her lover Annette.

However, she did not expect that the Goat would become a ghost ship, wandering between the exile and the real world. Her soul was not sent into exile, as what she had wanted.

“Woman, are you crazy?!  Are you that crazy for love? One person's death was not enough, but you  also had countless people dead!” Liszt had gooseb.u.mps all over his body and secretly panicked. “With the sheep's head flag stuck on the bow image, it means we will not be leaving the exile place at all, but heading for the exile place forever. This woman is still trying to hurt me!”

It was critical that he had the idea to open the book.

“Therefore, to return to the real world, we must first destroy the sheep's head flag and the bow image!”