"Ten years ago…" Charles held the skull and looked around at the forest that had no traces of human existence.

The existence of a human skull here meant that humans had been here before. Ten years ago, Charles was still struggling for his own survival in the Subterranean Sea, but there were already people living on the surface.

Did the Foundation come up here earlier? Or could this skull be from a native of the surface world? Perhaps the reason behind the emptiness of the surface world was that the people on the surface had already flown up and lived in the skies.

The skull was covered in the same eerie moss as the trees nearby, and as Charles stared at the skull, more questions popped up in his mind. Unfortunately, there weren't any more clues to be seen, so Charles decided to set aside those questions for now.

"Let's go and continue our exploration," Charles said. He looked up and swept his gaze across the slightly tilted aerial forests on both sides. He bent down slightly and tossed the skull onto the moss-covered ground.

"Captain, are you sure you don't want to take that thing with you?" Dipp asked, looking down at the skull.

"No need. It's just a clue. We need more than just a clue to reach a proper answer," Charles replied, "It's dangerous carrying that skull with us as well. Only god knows whether that skull has been relicfied into a relic with serious side effects."

With that, Charles led the crew members out of the dense forest. The four airships climbed up, moving slowly away from the jungle.

"Emma, what was your exploration plan?" Charles asked. He wanted to know more about Emma's journey during her previous exploration.

"To avoid complete annihilation by a dangerous entity, we only send out three airships at the time. Two of the three airships are responsible for the exploration, while the remaining airship is responsible for the recordkeeping.

"The exploration plan states that whenever the two airships responsible for exploration have stopped on an island to explore it, the airship responsible for recordkeeping must maintain a certain distance from them and must record the two airships' exploration through telescopes and cameras."

𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

"That's our safest way of exploration, but the airships that had gone up to explore the next island had all been shot down. We deduce that the entity must be extremely skillful at mid-air battles. Otherwise, they couldn't have annihilated everyone.

"We also noticed something strange. There were no corpses within the wreckage," the one-armed woman, Emma, explained, sparing not even a single detail.

"How many airships did you send up in total to explore the third island?" Charles asked.

"We sent out three batches, so a total of nine airships. There's something wrong with the third island. We didn't have to pay such a steep price to reach the second island and explore it," Emma replied.

This was bad news. The fact that nine airships had fallen just to try and reach the third island meant that the third island was extremely dangerous.

"So you have no clues whatsoever about the so-called third island, right?" Charles asked.

"Uh… yes, we have no clues, as everyone was annihilated except for me, who is the sole survivor of our exploration party," Emma said. Her face showed a hint of grief as she recalled the faces of her deceased friends.

Charles looked at her in surprise, "Your ship had also been up there before?"

Emma nodded and explained, "I was a carpenter of one of the airships, and we were on our way to explore that island. However, I had sustained some injuries during our previous exploration, so the captain told me to go back to my cabin and rest.

"I went back to my cabin, and after the ship's doctor changed the dressing on my wounds, a sedative was administered to me, which made me fall asleep. When I woke up, I found myself surrounded by flames, and the ship's doctor was gone."

"The deck was already slanted, but I managed to reach the deck with a parachute on my back. I turned and saw that the gas bags of our airship had caught fire, becoming a massive fireball. We were attacked."

"Hmm..." Charles stroked his chin with his eyes slightly narrowed.

It seems like their minds might've been taken over. Perhaps I should tell Anna to come over here and take a look at her.

Emma seemed to have seen through Charles' thoughts as she immediately said, "Governor Charles, it wasn't mind control. The second batch of explorers that we sent out had brought relics against mind control, but they still ended up disappearing."

It seemed that the explorers were no fools. They had suspected that the minds of the first batch of explorers had been taken over, so they decided to prepare a countermeasure against it. Unfortunately, their countermeasure didn't work.

Charles glanced at the airships outside and asked, "So what's the plan this time?"

"Captain Luke there had once explored a submerged island," Emma said, pointing at someone on a nearby airship, "and for some reason, his brains and the brains of his crew were left behind on the island.

"He's confident about handling whatever entity is above us. Apparently, it's impossible to manipulate their thoughts and consciousness unless the attacker is attacking their brains directly on that submerged island."

Charles followed Emma's finger and saw a captain wearing a tricorne hat.

Noticing Charles' gaze, Luke took off his hat and placed it on his chest before bowing toward the former.

Luke's bow allowed Charles to see the shriveled-up crown of Luke's head. Indeed, Charles couldn't see Luke's brain, and a huge chunk of the latter's skull was covered only by a thin layer of scalp.

I guess explorers really are people from all walks of life. To think that he's still alive despite losing his brain.

Charles thought before withdrawing his gaze.

The pressure on everyone's heart grew heavier as time ticked by.

Emma stared intently at the forest next to her as if she was looking for something. When her eyes landed on a small blackened patch of the forest, she immediately cried out, "Captain! We've arrived at the territory of those invisible creatures! We have to be careful!"

Charles said nothing and glanced behind him. The two vampires of the Narwhale morphed into their bat forms and circled the Narwhale with their maws wide agape, emitting sonic waves.

Invisibility was useless against bats capable of echolocation.

Moments later, the airships activated their countermeasures. Some airships were shrouded in a purple mist, while others seemed to be covered in powder. These were all ways to deal with invisible enemies.

In the eyes of these explorers, the unknown was terrifying, as it was impossible to be prepared against it. In other words, as long as they had enough information about an enemy, these explorers would have dozens of ways of dealing with just about anything.

"They're coming! Three! Starboard next to the smokestack!" Audric exclaimed.

At his warning, the crew members on deck drew their weapons and sent a volley of attacks under Audric's guide. A few crimson spots briefly appeared in mid-air as the crews' attacks swept past the target location.

Dipp's figure vaporized into a mist just then, and the mist covered most of the deck in the blink of an eye.

Clearly, Dipp had also received a blessing from Paiper, which had greatly enhanced his mist ability. This was proven by the spider-looking shadows in the mist, which seemed to be ever-changing as well to confound the enemy.

Charles whipped out a black spike and flung it toward the invisible creature, pinning it to the ground. They then proceeded to make quick work of the invisible creatures.

When the invisible creatures were no more, Charles pointed at the forest next to him and asked, "Is there anything else in there aside from these invisible creatures?"