Chapter 145: Something is coming

Deep within the sprawling, cavernous interior of the massive black warship, luxury and utility existed in a strange, seamless balance.

Aside from the thousand private residential rooms stacked across multiple tiers, the vessel was equipped with extensive modern amenities, including clean sanitation facilities, private restrooms, and a grand, expansive dining hall designed to accommodate hundreds of passengers at a time.

Inside this massive restaurant, the atmosphere hummed with a warm, civilized energy.

Dozens of passengers filled the hall, scattered across long oak tables and private booths.

A few travelers moved leisurely between the serving counters and their seats, while families sat gathered together, feasting heartily on warm stews, roasted meats, and freshly baked bread while sharing stories of their upcoming journeys.

Their faces beamed with relaxed smiles, the ambient chatter creating a comfortable murmur that kept the restaurant from feeling overly noisy or chaotic.

Seated alone at a corner table near the shadowed back wall, however, Andres Mogulis cut a stark, frustrated figure.

He leaned far back in his wooden chair, his arms crossed over his chest, wearing a grumpy, deeply unsettled expression.

Before him rested a full plate of hot, steaming food, completely untouched and rapidly losing its heat.

While the rest of the ship dined in peace, Andres’s mind raced furiously, completely drowned in a turbulent sea of anxious thoughts.

Ever since his ill-advised, brazen attempt to approach the seventh successor out on the deck earlier that day, things had gone sideways.

He had wanted to test the waters and normalize his presence, but instead, he had severely underestimated his target.

Craig von Darkstar had immediately seen through his superficial excuses and pegged him as a threat.

Now, with the seventh successor actively noticing, probing, and suspecting him, Andres found himself trapped in a mental loop.

He was genuinely kicking himself, cursing under his breath and regretting why he had ever bothered revealing himself in the first place.

Looking back, he was genuinely shocked by how different Craig was compared to the intelligence dossiers on the other ducal successors.

To any other arrogant young noble of high birth, a wandering mercenary would have been treated as an insignificant peasant—dismissed, ignored, and regarded as nothing more than an annoying pest beneath their notice.

But Craig had not done that.

Instead, the seventh successor had maintained a razor-sharp, calculating skepticism from the very first second, transforming that skepticism into heavy, dangerous suspicion.

Andres instinctively knew that if he didn’t actively resolve this growing tension and clear the air before they reached the Northern Continent, a catastrophic incident was bound to erupt.

Yet, paradoxically, he wasn’t the least bit worried about his own physical safety.

Deep down, beneath his undercover persona as a southern mercenary, Andres held absolute confidence in his true power.

He knew, with unyielding certainty, that aboard this massive warship, no individual—not even the formidable Sword Master class ranker guarding the seventh successor—was stronger than him. He possessed the raw power to turn the deck upside down if things turned violent.

Still, the sheer psychological headache was driving him mad.

Andres inhaled a deep, weary breath, his gaze drifting aimlessly across the bustling restaurant while his meal turned entirely cold.

"Tch," Andres hissed quietly, biting down hard on his lower lip. "Why the hell is this damn assignment turning out to be so hard?"

He exhaled a low, frustrated growl, muttering his internal frustrations under his breath. "I am the Seraphim assigned to watch the seventh successor... I am an elite asset of the upper echelons. I cannot afford to make stupid, amateur mistakes."

Just as he finished whispering his self-reproach, a sudden, gentle tap brushed against his shoulder from behind.

Startled out of his spiraling thoughts, Andres snapped his head around with an involuntary defensive twitch.

Standing right beside his table was a young girl who appeared to be in her early teenage years, looking up at him with a wide, innocent, and entirely fearless smile.

"Uhm, excuse me, mister? Is anything the matter?" the girl asked sweetly, tilting her head. "You look awfully nervous and grumpy for some reason."

Staring into her completely unguarded, innocent eyes, the tension in Andres’s shoulders suddenly melted.

He let out a dry, self-deprecating shrug and flashed a warm, disarming smile.

"What do you think, little one?" he asked gently, playing along.

The girl giggled, shaking her head. "Well, I don’t think I have a smart answer to that question... but you look really troubled, tho. Like you’re carrying the weight of the world." She paused, her eyes widening playfully. "Maybe your wife is—"

Before she could finish her speculative sentence, a sudden, panicked gasp echoed from a nearby table.

A young mother, who had been anxiously watching her daughter wander off, rushed across the restaurant floor in a flurry.

She grabbed her daughter’s hand, pulling her back defensively while bowing profusely toward Andres.

"Oh, I am so, so sorry, sir! Please forgive her, she has no manners—" the mother stammered, flushing red with embarrassment.

Andres laughed out loud, waving his hand dismissively to put the flustered woman at ease. "Please, madam, do not worry in the least. She did not offend me at all. In fact, she gave me quite a good perspective."

As he spoke, Andres flashed a genuine, softening smile down at the little girl, instantly soothing the mother’s anxiety.

After exchanging a few more polite, lighthearted pleasantries, the mother offered a grateful nod, gently guiding her chattering child back to their family booth across the hall.

Left alone at his corner table once more, Andres slowly rose to his feet.

He looked down at the cold, unappealing meal he had completely neglected, sighed deeply, and decided he had lost his appetite entirely.

He reached down, adjusting the brim of his brown straw hat over his brow, and turned away from the table.

Without looking back, he walked out of the bustling restaurant, navigating the carpeted corridors until he pushed open the heavy bulkhead doors and stepped back out onto the open deck of the ship.

The moment he crossed the threshold, the peaceful, mundane atmosphere of the interior vanished, swallowed instantly by the fury of the open sea.

The weather had taken a vicious, unannounced turn for the worse.

High above the black warship, the night sky violently ruptured.

A deafening crack of thunder tore through the heavy clouds, sounding like the fracturing of a mountain.

A jagged, blinding fork of purple lightning flashed across the heavens, illuminating the churning expanse of the ocean in a brilliant, momentary glare.

A fierce, howling whirlwind slammed against the iron hull of the vessel, whipping sea spray high into the air and lashing violently across the deck.

Massive, mountainous sea waves crashed against the sides of the ship, pushing and shoving the colossal warship with immense hydraulic pressure.

Yet, despite the punishing assault of the tempest, the ship’s internal stabilization runes and heavy engineering kept it remarkably steady, cutting through the swells like an iron knife.

Andres stood near the gunwale, his dark coat whipping wildly in the wind.

His eyebrows knitted tightly together in sudden, intuitive suspicion.

He raised his head, staring upward through the blinding rain toward the storm-choked moon, before lowering his gaze to look past the illusionary shimmer of the concealment spell, peering directly into the dark, fathomless depths of the world beyond the protective boundary of the Northern Ire Sea.

A sudden, chilling sensation crawled up the back of his neck.

The senses derived from his in-depth spirituality was trembling, vibrating with an unnatural, violent frequency.

Andres’s gaze darkened into absolute obsidian.

He gripped the wooden railing tightly, his instincts screaming a warning into his mind.

"Something... is coming...!"