Chapter 1332 Splinters

Chapter 1332 Splinters

The ketch was thrown into the air by the powerful current, like it had been a thousand times already, and then plummeted down. Bruised and battered, Sunny gritted his teeth and prepared to endure the violent shock of the impact — just like he had endured a thousand of them already. The seething water seemed as hard as stone when the bottom of the wooden boat hit it. He held on to the side of the ketch, feeling a grim sense of fatigue and hopelessness overwhelm his mind. The darkness was as oppressive as it had been before, the mist was as blinding as it had been before, and the fury of the storm was as chillingly dreadful as it had been before. However, this impact was different from all the previous ones. ...Sunny failed to see the moment the wood split, but he heard it. Even through the howling of the hurricane wind and the roaring of the falling waves, the cracking sound seemed clear and deafening. By the time he turned, Nephis was already falling. She hit the deck with a dull thump, leaving a streak of blood on it, and tumbled forward. A split second later, her back hit the protruding fittings of the dismantled mast, violently arresting her fall.

A stifled groan escaped from her lips. 'What... what happened?!'

It took Sunny a moment to notice a jagged piece of broken wood that she was gripping with both hands, still, her knuckles white. Then, he hurriedly glanced at the stern of the ketch. His pupils narrowed. The steering oar... was gone. There was only the piece Nephis was holding and a scattering of wet splinters on the deck. The rest of it had shattered, and was washed away by the raging current.

Sunny froze for a moment, both terrified and relieved — relieved because it was not the deck itself that had cracked, terrified because the ketch had become completely uncontrollable now. The next wave was already approaching, and with no one to steer the boat to face it directly, it was going to hit them from the side. Which meant that the ketch would most likely roll.

Even if it didn't immediately, there would be the next wave, and the next, and the next... and a thousand more after that.

His reserves of essence were already breached, a lot of it spent by the Crown of Twilight. Well... one way or another, they were going to find out. As the ark of shadows was being carried by the raging current, Sunny, Nephis, and Ananke tried desperately to endure the arduous strain of being tossed around by the harrowing cataclysm.

Sunny and Nephis were laying on the wet deck, secured to it by the bonds of shadows, keeping Ananke's small body between them. Pressed tightly against each other, the three of them had no other choice but to suffer the painful impacts of the waves and cling to the last, desperate vestiges of hope. The violence of the storm, the bone-chilling cold of the mist, and the muffled roars of the wind filled their hearts with dread.

'We will survive this... we will...'

Sunny kept repeating these words inside his head, as if trying to will them into existence. His reserve of essence was diminishing slightly with each minute.

And so were their chances of making it out of the storm alive.