Bella felt quite depressed. She couldn't very well go down and row herself as captain, could she?
She temporarily assigned four Snake Eyes to row below deck.
Rowing a ship upstream, lifting it at a ninety-degree angle eight hundred meters up a mountain—four people couldn't do it, nor could four thousand.
Fortunately, the Flying Dutchman didn't need to follow physical laws. With the ship's current size, four people merely going through the motions of rowing was enough to ascend.
That little bit of rowing force was negligible, but when activating the supernatural power, it was a necessary step in the process.
After reorganizing the work assignments, this time nothing went wrong.
They accelerated along Mizushima Village's waterway, then followed the waterfall's curtain upstream, as if flying, shooting straight up toward the mountain peak.
The hull defied gravity, breaking free from earthly constraints and rapidly ascending. It even generated a protective barrier so everyone aboard wouldn't fall due to gravity.
"Faster! Faster!" Bella shouted excitedly.
She didn't know what it was like when Luffy's crew crossed Reverse Mountain, but right now she felt this was even more thrilling.
They climbed higher and higher. When they left the ground at six hundred meters, the magical energy concentration in the air rose another level.
Bella closed her eyes and focused, carefully analyzing the magical barrier surrounding Fountainhead Palace.
The result was somewhat reassuring. Fountainhead Palace's outer perimeter did have a barrier, but it could only be described as dilapidated.
When the Flying Dutchman climbed to the mountain peak, Bella spun the helm sharply left.
She used her spiritual senses to locate a weak point in the barrier.
"Concentrate everyone's power! Raise the ram!" she called out.
A bunch of people hurriedly strengthened the hull with their respective life forces. Jason raised that spine-like ram, which from afar looked like a sharp spear.
The Flying Dutchman prepared to force its way through using its own power.
The ram gleamed with dim, pure black light. Bella sensed the entire protective barrier's weak point, constantly adjusting position while the ship accelerated again, charging against the water flow toward the west and ramming straight into it.
"Pop!" The already crumbling barrier had no one supporting it from within. This defense couldn't possibly stop the Flying Dutchman, notorious throughout the Caribbean.
Among the three legendary warships of old—Black Pearl, Flying Dutchman, and Queen Anne's Revenge—all three operated during the precise era when mysticism rapidly declined and science swiftly emerged.
The three warships incorporated numerous magical crystallizations of that time. Many wizards, witches, and occultists who couldn't survive on land took to sea, and their extensive knowledge was used to strengthen the three legendary warships.
The fame of the three legendary warships had long vanished from people's minds—perhaps only some obscure history books still recorded them.
The age of sailing warships had long passed, and magic had completely left human sight.
But the foundations of the three warships hadn't disappeared. Even recovering only twenty or thirty percent of its strength, the Flying Dutchman remained that terrifying warship that struck fear into hearts.
The warship charged straight into Fountainhead Palace.
Only then did the guardian and guide of Fountainhead Palace react. A straw figure woven from countless rope knots slowly approached. This straw figure was truly crude—rough craftsmanship, and the driving spell seemed unsophisticated to Bella. Only the straw figure's size was remarkable—extremely remarkable, a full eight hundred meters tall!
The rope-knot straw figure loomed like a mountain, striding toward the warship.
Expressionless and lacking self-awareness, it only knew to follow established commands—to guide those seeking union, or expel intruders. Currently, the Flying Dutchman was an intruder in its view.
"Let me see the Snake Eyes clan's valor!" Bella spoke in tones befitting local warrior traditions.
"Yes!"
Led by Snake Eyes Shirahagi and Snake Eyes Shirafuji, the Snake Eyes clan raised their rifles. Six of them split off to operate the ship's cannons.
They certainly couldn't hit at eight hundred meters up, but their rifles could reach a thousand-meter range. This defied science, but the Snake Eyes clan managed it with crude matchlock guns through sheer skill.
The rifles opened fire immediately, all targeting the rope-knot straw figure's head.
Six gunners, relying on their clan's superior shooting talent and excellent vision, adjusted the cannon angles. The six cannons fired a salvo.
The cannons packed far more punch than rifles, and they used the Flying Dutchman's internal energy rounds.
The rope-knot straw figure moved slowly and had no awareness of evasion. It was hit squarely, its face erupting in flames. The cannonballs blasted massive craters in its head. The spell maintaining the straw figure's operation was disrupted by the energy turbulence, manifesting externally as increasingly sluggish movements.
The female ghost O'Rin seemed unwilling to let the old neighbors claim all the glory. She swept like wind to the top of the rope-knot straw figure's head. "Swish-swish-swish!" Her slender blade danced continuously, sword light brilliant as white snow. Each strike left several-meter-long wounds on the straw figure's head.
Wielding her blade, she danced all the way to the rope-knot straw figure's control core. Two minutes later, she emerged gracefully from within, carrying a censer-shaped vessel covered in spells, talismans, and various charms.
Having lost its energy core, the rope-knot straw figure's massive body crashed to the ground, never to rise again.
"Excellent! Beautifully done!" Bella accepted the spoils from Mizushima's O'Rin. In a formal gesture, O'Rin crossed her hands at her lower abdomen and bowed slightly.
Jason's new girlfriend had indeed performed admirably—her methods were crude but highly efficient.
Bella examined the rope-knot straw figure's energy core. This was undoubtedly a magical creation, though in the East, such things fell under the category of mystical arts.
After mystical arts reached Japan, they'd cobbled together bits and pieces, combining them with their indigenous Shinto religion to create all sorts of strange things.
When Buddhism entered Japan, they absorbed and added many Buddhist elements. This energy core before her eyes was, in Bella's view, a massive hodgepodge.
Given time, she could study it carefully. For now, she'd store it aboard ship.
With the rope-knot straw figure defeated, nothing blocked their path. The hull accelerated again, charging upstream against the water flow into Fountainhead Palace.
Between blue-tiled and vermillion-eaved structures, they moored the ship. Before them stood a vermillion bridge, with the gate called Okami Gate behind it.
Everyone stopped before the vermillion bridge. Standing on the wooden bridge—2.8 meters tall, wielding a long-handled naginata, wearing a yellow kesa over exquisite dharma robes, with a white monk's hood—was the Corrupted Monk. Single-handedly gripping her blade, she emitted sinister laughter from behind her hannya mask, as if she'd been waiting for them a long time.