Chapter 552: A Mysterious Ship

Next came professional soccer teams, fielding not just players from one race, but rather the top players from each race.

Yun Bing couldn't help but be impressed at the humans' ingenuity and creativity. She initially expected that it was a good thing for the alien races to be resolving their tensions on the field, but she had underestimated their ability to cause problems.

At the beginning, with the alien races dedicating all their effort to the soccer field, everything seemed to be progressing well, but there suddenly appeared huge flocks of soccer-crazed fans who would take to the streets and brawl if their beloved team lost a match.

At the very least, these brawls only ever took place outside the soccer stadium, unlike in the past, where they could break out at any time, at any place.

Yun Bing was worried that soccer would spike even more unrest, but she could hardly ban it given how much interest and dedication the alien races had shown toward it.

A positive side effect of these 'professional' teams was that the alien races were starting to mingle and understand each other, both on the level of soccer players and of their fans. If nothing else, soccer was a shared lingo and shared interest, and that similarity allowed these disparate races to connect.

The division between alien races had transmuted into the division between soccer fans.

Yun Bing, who had to supervise such affairs carefully day in and day out, felt a creeping sense of fatigue take over her. "Zhang Lie, when will you return?"

Almost as she was unable to hold out any longer, there was finally news that the sura were attacking. Their main force was a hundred million sura strong, and Yun Bing's eyes lit up with thankfulness.

This would be a battle on a scale large enough for all the alien races to need to cooperate, and the fights that broke out every now and then outside the soccer stadium would be gone once and for all.

Yun Bing never considered how strong these sura were, because from her perspective, no matter how strong they were, Renhuang was surely stronger.

By a deserted island on the sea of mists, the lapsed governor of Renhuang, was resting leisurely with Zhu around a campfire over which several large prawns were cooking.

Zhang Lie picked up a skewer of prawns and bit into it. "Zhu, are you sure there's a boat-type lifeform around here?"

"I don't know if it is a boat-type lifeform, but my father told me that we need to be traveling with one to get past the sea of mists."

"But we've been here for over half a month! Where's this supposed lifeform?"

Zhu had recounted that there were lifeforms that would appear around the sea of mists that were necessary to traverse it. If Zhang Lie and Zhu were to fly into the sea of mists, they would lose their sense of direction in the blink of an eye, never to emerge again.

That said, even after half a month, they hadn't seen a single hint of these supposed lifeforms. Zhu picked up another skewer, and her eyes brightened. "These prawns are so good!"

Zhang Lie folded his arms. "Don't just eat! When will these lifeforms appear?"

Zhu shrugged. "I can't say. At any rate, when my father came here for the first time, he found such a lifeform and got on it curiously. It brought him into the sea of mists, where he found a dazzling array of boats within. My father guessed that those were the boats that had gotten trapped within, never to emerge again."

"If we don't see this supposed lifeform by tomorrow, let's leave."

They had already wasted half a month on the island. Who knew when these lifeforms would show up? It might, in the worst-case scenario, be a decade or two. Zhang Lie didn't have that much time to waste.

As they were talking, fog rose into the air and enveloped them both. Zhang Lie frowned. "It's still early. Where did this fog come from?"

Suddenly, a huge shadow appeared before his eyes. Zhang Lie pulled Zhu back with him and glanced at the shadow in shock—it was a huge beast of steel, with a gigantic body and a hull studded with cannons.

This was, this was... a warship!

An old, deserted warship, slowly rusting away, the likes of which could only be seen in museums. It was surrounded by an aura of antiquity, of history long lost. Cannon fire pocked the hull of the warship, leaving indents and bullet holes behind.

If Zhang Lie hadn't been to a museum in his youth, he wouldn't have recognized it.

He glanced at the warship through the lens of his dragon's pupils, only to see no soul in sight. In other words, the warship had no trace of life. In the human world, that would have been obvious; how could a warship gain sentience? In the dimensional world, however, things were far less concrete.

That said, how could it be possible that a human-made warship could have found its way to the dimensional world? No technology that was brought in from the outside functioned here, but right before him was a massive warship.

After a momentary bout of shock, Zhang Lie smiled. "Interesting. Let me find out just what you are!"

Zhang Lie's aura rose. He was about to punch the boat when Zhu suddenly pulled him back. "What are you doing?!"

Zhang Lie frowned. "You can see that warship, right?"

"Of course! That's the boat I mentioned from earlier. Although it doesn't look much like what my father described, this should be a boat. If you destroy the boat, Mister, how will we enter the sea of mists?"

According to Zhu, the warship came from the sea of mists, so they would have to head within to uncover the truth.

"I'd like to see just who managed to send a warship from the human world here." Zhang Lie leapt up onto the deck, bringing Zhu with him.

There was no discernible change in the warship when they landed on it. It followed its set trajectory and slowly made its way into the sea of mists.

Zhang Lie took the opportunity to go through the entire warship, only to find everything exactly as it should be, at least in reference to the warship he had once seen in a museum.

How could a warship from the human world have appeared in the sea of mists? Most importantly, there was absolutely no one on the ship.

"Could this be a ghost ship?" Zhang Lie murmured to himself.