Grand Voyage : Surviving on a Ghost Ship-Chapter 263 - Climbing the tower

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Suna went back to her room to sleep and rest.

Yang Yi, on the other hand, had nothing in particular to do. He sat on the deck with the old captain, fishing.

He didn’t catch anything, and his mind wasn’t really on fishing anyway.

From their earlier exploration, it was clear that the Sanctuary had been abandoned for a long time. It had also been thoroughly looted by the local natives, leaving almost nothing of value behind.

But one thing bothered Yang Yi. Inside the Sanctuary, they hadn’t found any player corpses.

It could be explained by the passage of time. Player bodies might have long since disappeared.

Still, the complete lack of any trace was puzzling.

Moreover, the overall structure of the Sanctuary was remarkably intact. It didn’t look like the aftermath of a major battle.

Most of the visible damage appeared to have been caused later by the natives, and their goal had clearly been to loot valuables, not to fight.

If there had been a large-scale, high-intensity battle powerful enough to wipe out tens of thousands of players, the Sanctuary would never have remained this intact. Fracture or even sinking would have been the far more likely outcome.

Yang Yi turned his head, his gaze settling on the intersection of the Sanctuary’s cross-shaped structure, where a ruined lighthouse still stood.

This part of the ship showed obvious damage, as if left behind by combat.

But damage at this level could not possibly have caused the deaths of tens of thousands of players.

There had to be more secrets hidden inside.

Yang Yi wanted to take a look, even though the lighthouse had likely already been stripped clean.

Still, that location had been the captain’s quarters. There might be some clues left behind.

He kept fishing as he thought about these things, but his heart was no longer in it.

After a while, he stood up, set the fishing rod aside, and decided to go up the tower to see for himself.

If he went alone, the round trip wouldn’t take too long. About an hour should be enough.

He manoeuvred the Nightmare Star closer, planning to enter through the breach at the cross intersection, then climb up the outer wall and ascend the tower from the outside.

He still had over sixty points of stamina left, more than enough to support this action.

That said, security on the Nightmare Star couldn’t be neglected either.

After some thought, Yang Yi took out the gauntlets of the Penitent Armour and put them on.

He had taken the armour off after returning earlier.

This time, he put it back on to create a doppelganger guard to watch over the deck.

If anything happened to the Nightmare Star, Yang Yi would sense it immediately and could rush back at once.

He handed the crystal greatsword to the Penitent Armour, then walked to the edge of the deck, turned up the brightness of the container at his waist, and jumped into the breach at the cross intersection.

The moment he entered, the scene inside gave him a completely different feeling.

This place looked like it had been through an intense battle. The walls, floors, and interior furnishings had all suffered severe damage.

Judging from the marks and destruction, it had been caused by large-caliber firearms, kinetic weapons, and even energy weapons.

Some of the impact craters bore clear scorch marks, with the metal at the edges having partially melted at one point.

Still, Yang Yi didn’t find any player corpses. He did find some native skeletons.

The area had also clearly been looted. There was nothing of value left.

From the layout, this had originally been an administrative hall. In the centre was a vertical elevator leading upwards, exactly as shown in the structural diagram.

The elevator doors were open. Yang Yi walked over and took a look.

The elevator car was suspended halfway up the shaft, dozens of metres above.

Climbing up through the shaft using the internal ladder was not a realistic option.

If the elevator were to fall unexpectedly, he could easily end up injured.

Yang Yi didn’t choose that route and headed straight for the stairwell instead.

The staircase was right next to the elevator, normally used as an emergency evacuation route.

But its condition was poor. Bullet marks were everywhere, evidence of fierce close-quarters fighting.

Yang Yi climbed up several floors before debris blocked his path.

From the look of it, the upper section of the stairs had collapsed and fallen down, forming an impassable pile of rubble.

Clearing it would take a great deal of time.

And even if he cleared it, there would be no stairs left above anyway. He would still have to climb.

Yang Yi exited through a breach in the wall to the outside.

This spot was right on the outer wall of the Sanctuary. When he looked up, the lighthouse loomed above, about metres tall.

From here on, climbing was the only way up.

If it were a smooth metal lighthouse, climbing it would have been troublesome.

But a damaged lighthouse, riddled with gaps and breaches, was much easier to scale.

Yang Yi immediately entered his wolf form and began climbing upward, relying on sharp claws and agile movement.

Along the way, he noticed traces left behind by others who had climbed here before.

On the metal wall, someone had affixed makeshift supports resembling climbing rungs, providing footholds.

At first glance, it didn’t look like much. But once you climbed to this height, the presence of a foothold like this was obvious. It had clearly been placed there by human hands.

Most likely, it had been left behind by natives who had come here before.

With the help of these improvised climbing rungs, Yang Yi made it up the lighthouse without much effort and entered the topmost room.

The room was open to the air through a massive hole, as if a violent explosion had taken place.

More than half of the room had collapsed, burying the elevator shaft at its center.

Yang Yi began searching for any clues that might remain.

This was the captain’s quarters, the highest-permission area on the ship. It was very likely that something had been left behind.

But after a few minutes of searching, he couldn’t help but curse under his breath.

The natives who had come here were truly like a swarm of locusts. They had taken almost everything that could be carried away.

They hadn’t even spared the collapsed rubble.

A passage had been cleared through the debris, just wide enough to crawl through, and anything valuable inside had been dug out.

Yang Yi leaned closer to take a look and noticed a desk buried in the rubble. It was the kind of executive desk commonly seen in offices, made of metal. Even under the weight of the debris, it hadn’t deformed much.

All the drawers were open, and the contents had been completely cleaned out by the natives.

Still, Yang Yi spotted something. He immediately cancelled his wolf form and crawled inside, stopping in front of the metal desk.

The desk was slightly deformed but showed no signs of rust. There were clear scratch marks on its surface, especially noticeable under the light.

Yang Yi already had night vision. Even without using his third eye, he could see the scratches clearly. More importantly, they were neat and orderly, forming lines of simplified Chinese written in standard script.

“Zone C, Medical Sector, Laboratory No. 3.”

Yang Yi frowned and read it aloud.

Nearby, there were also inscriptions in English, Russian, and other languages, all conveying the same message.

With the system’s assistance, Yang Yi could read these foreign languages. Moreover, this was an encrypted script that only players could understand.

To the natives, it would have been easy to overlook. They hadn’t come here to do archaeology, after all.

He didn’t crawl back out right away. Instead, he quickly pulled up the Sanctuary’s structural diagram.

Zone C was located at another harbour.

Aside from the central area, the ship was divided into four regions in the cardinal directions: Zones A, B, C, and D.

Zone C was the technology-focused sector, with the medical area taking up a significant portion.

He took a photo to record the information, then searched the surroundings again.

In addition to the desk, he found a similar message on a fragment of wall. Because of the damage, only half of it remained.

There were likely more such messages elsewhere. Some objects bearing them may have already been taken away by the natives.

This desk had been left behind only because it was bolted to the floor and buried under the rubble.

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