The Rise of the Black Plain

Two weeks later...

Minos was sailing alone through the vast Ancestral Sea, at this instant, more than 75% of his course to where the signal from the previous map was taking him.

Minos had been traveling with haste to the central parts of that sea for the past few weeks since sending the great shark into the Spatial Kingdom, having ignored several floating and even land-based islands in his path.

There were no large islands in the Ancestral Sea. The nearest island of relevant size to that sea was Stone Island and the Marine Empire, which lay in the South Sea.

But small islands, the size of human cities with up to 5,000 inhabitants, existed in this sea, some located in the most central area of this gigantic territory.

In particular, the land islands closest to the center of the Ancestral Sea had a volcanic presence as a typical distinguishing feature, from which people could even see them hundreds of miles away.

Due to this area's dense spiritual energy, the natural phenomena there were more intense. Storms and tsunamis happened frequently, while eruptions were not uncommon to witness on these islands.

Minos was at this moment watching one of these islands as ash was spewed from that place, reaching tens of kilometers in altitude above that area.

Meanwhile, some of the floating islands in the area were moving through the air, constantly changing position.

But these islands would not depart from that area. That's because, just as a floating island relies on spiritual energy to lift it into the sky, it suffered some interactions with elements in the Spiritual World that directed them to specific locations.

If sentient beings didn't manipulate most of the floating islands in the Spiritual World so that they stayed near their territories, most of them would end up near places like the one Minos was in.

What attracted these floating territories was what was most commonly found in the deepest parts of the Spiritual World's seas.

Because of this, when floating islands appeared on a continent, it was expected that these islands would make their way to one of the central areas of the great seas.

However, this did not mean it was easy to find a lost island just because of this characteristic!

Each island was different, and what made these floating areas head out to sea had its variations.

It was practically impossible to determine an island's path if it was abandoned!

Because of this, some sea states arose, using this characteristic to build their kingdoms along several floating islands, which they did not control, making it difficult for anyone outside their domain to locate them.

Only relevant natives of these areas could locate them using a particular type of compass, which contained the sign of specific floating islands.

But without such a thing, one could not know where one of these land masses was because of their random movement that happened at high speed.

There were cycles in this movement, but each island had its own cycle. Even Spiritual Demigods would have to live on one of these islands for the entire cycle to understand it.

Only the people in these sky realms had successfully done this, but even they kept such information confidential.

Because of this, even the Spiritual Church had no way to go after its lost island just by going to the central areas of the seas of this world.

The same was true for the Eastern Empire and other powers who didn't dare casually try to investigate these areas where mighty beings lived.

Henricus Longus also didn't know how to locate one of these shires by himself, so Minos didn't know how to find one of the areas with human presence in that part of the Ancestral Sea.

So as he sailed through that part of the journey, he couldn't help but wonder what was on the islands above, some that he couldn't even see due to their altitudes.

'Who knows in the future...' He wondered, knowing he didn't have time to stop at those islands.

For all he knew, there should be another city of sea beasts on his way besides the City of a Thousand Races. So he need not worry about getting a spiritual judge in one of those lost territories.

Thus, he was sailing with no intention of taking to the skies to one of these floating islands but rather going ahead with his plans.

Amidst this, he was enduring the terrible winds of that area, where he already felt that he would soon have to face a storm on the high seas.

'If I were a little weaker, I would have already died a couple of times just from the natural phenomena of this place...' Minos thought, marveling at the power of nature.

Not long ago, he had faced a rain of ice sheets in the middle of the sea.

Such a thing was one of the possibilities of the Spiritual World, which mixed Natural Laws, high concentration of energy, and natural phenomena.

Some places had a higher concentration not only of energy but also of specific laws. So when you combine this with ash from a volcano, lava, and water from heavy clouds, all kinds of strange natural phenomena could arise overnight.

Minos felt that he would have to face another of these extreme phenomena very soon, and he couldn't help but prepare himself by moving his yacht and giving the commands to its arrays.

Amid his movements, he slowly began the sea becoming more agitated while dark clouds began to close the skies.

Stronger and stronger winds began to appear, while the sounds in the surroundings became frightening to people less accustomed to high-level storms.

When the storm began, spears of ice began to cut the air towards the underwater world, while waves so strong they could knock out Spiritual Emperors appeared there.

Ice rocks as large as yachts like Minos' began to fall from the sky, creating waves as they crashed into the sea, stirring things up even more.

Amidst this, while feeling a strange aura, Minos suddenly looked up into the sky and opened his eyes wide, seeing an extremely rare phenomenon happening.

"Oh, shit!" He muttered as he noticed an island falling above where he was sailing!

...