"There are hidden stairs here?"
The pirates all looked at their Captain, Edwina, who didn't answer. She walked to the cliff embedded with skulls and her gaze fell on one of them.
Lex looked at that skull, and at first didn't notice anything unusual, but after a while, he found four faint indentations on the skull's forehead, which seemed to be just right for four fingers.
Edwina stretched out her gloved hand and tried to press it on the skull. Sure enough, the indentations on the skull perfectly fit her four fingers.
"Skulls must be touched frequently to leave marks, and since these are indentations, they must have been caused by force. Which means..."
Edwina suddenly pushed hard, pressing the skull inward. At first, the skull remained motionless. A moment later, it retracted a little, and then a series of 'click-clack' sounds echoed from within the mountain. In the empty space where the stone steps should have been, a section of gray stone steps slowly and shakily extended from the cliff face.
Upon seeing this, Jodeson immediately shouted, "Quickly find the skulls with indentations and push them in! Hurry!"
After a busy period for the pirates, more and more stone steps emerged from the cliff. Although there were gaps of about ten centimeters between these steps, and a height difference of about thirty centimeters, a staircase leading to the mountain top finally appeared.
However, Edwina did not let the pirates ascend immediately: "These stairs haven't been used for who knows how many years. They might break in the middle of walking, and accidents could happen."
Lex volunteered: "Captain, let me scout ahead."
The Iceberg Admiral knew he could use the flames spurting from his feet to actually hover and stay aloft. The incident of intercepting the Big Eater on the Sea was still vivid in her mind, so Edwina nodded in agreement: "Be careful."
Lex made a gesture to reassure her, then, holding his 'Devil May Cry', he stepped onto the first suspended stone step.
He tried to step on it, feeling that the stone step beneath his feet was unmoving, so he then stood on it completely.
Lex walked up, step by step, and after about a hundred steps, he reached the mountain top.
Seeing that Lex was already standing on the mountain top, waving his arms and signaling, Edwina then signaled for herself to ascend the suspended steps first.
Behind her was a Bearded Man pirate. After maintaining a distance of three or four steps from the Iceberg Admiral, he stepped forward.
Bearded Man tried to put force on his foot, and only when he felt the suspended step could bear his weight did he step onto it completely.
But as he was about to take another step, he suddenly felt a wave of weakness, as if the flame of life within him was rapidly extinguishing. He heard a soft gasp from his companions behind him, and his vision suddenly tilted. He realized he was about to fall into the Void beyond the stone steps.
Bearded Man quickly reached out, wanting to grab onto something, but as he raised his arm and it entered his field of vision, he realized his arm had almost shrunk by a circle.
Moreover, its surface was wrinkled like tree bark, and several brown spots had appeared, as if he had suddenly aged.
"What's going on?"
He exclaimed in surprise, his voice deep and hoarse, as if it came from the mouth of a seventy-year-old man.
And he was only forty-two this year!
Then he lost all his strength and fell into the Void beyond the stone steps. He saw the distant, suspended stone steps. At the bottom of those stone steps were densely carved symbols!
"Am I seeing things?"
Danitz rubbed his eyes: "How did Sandro suddenly get old?"
"No, you're not seeing things, I saw it too." Barrel, whose waist was bloated, sounded sharper than usual due to nervousness, "Sandro just stepped onto that stone step and instantly aged."
"His hair turned white in an instant, his body instantly thinned by a circle, his skin, everything about him, aged in the blink of an eye!"
"Oh my god, I was just about to follow behind the Captain, but Sandro got ahead of me. Otherwise..."
This scene was also witnessed by Lex, who was at the edge of the mountain top. He frowned and said, "But I'm perfectly fine, and so is the Captain, so why..."
"Sandro must have been attacked by the power of death. He is just an ordinary person and cannot resist this invasion. But we are different, we are Beyonders."
Edwina decisively ordered: "It's too dangerous to proceed. Apart from the Second Mate, Jodeson, Danitz, and other Beyonders, everyone else return the way we came."
"First Mate, escort everyone back to the Wavebreaker and stand by."
Since there was already a precedent, the pirates did not dare to insist, and the team immediately returned the way they came.
Iron Skin patted Danitz on the shoulder, looking at him with a solemn expression, then sighed and walked back.
Barrel took off a wooden pendant necklace and hung it around Danitz's neck: "This is my amulet, I hope it can protect you."
"Bullshit, I'll be fine, okay? Don't make it sound like you're seeing me for the last time." Danitz grumbled as he tucked the amulet into his collar and jumped onto the first suspended step, "You guys be careful on your way back, don't let evil spirits possess you."
Immediately, Barrel and Iron Skin both turned around and cursed in unison: "Bullshit!"
Soon, Edwina, Jodeson, Danitz, and several other Beyonders from the ship all reached the mountain top.
However, just as they had previously guessed, this volcano was dead. There was no abyss or crater below the volcano, only a 'ground' formed by the cooling and solidification of boiling magma that had reached the vicinity.
The Nether Lord lay across this crater. Only up close did they realize how massive this black sailing ship was. If its stern hadn't been damaged, the complete ship would probably have been over a hundred meters long!
That's as long as three Wavebreakers put together!
It was truly a Sea behemoth. For a sailing ship of such a scale to be attacked and have its stern damaged, one could only wonder what kind of ship could have made the Nether Lord flee in such disarray.
One must know that ironclads had not yet been invented at that time.
Lex was busy observing the Nether Lord when he suddenly heard Danitz exclaim: "Look over there, they're moving, those corpses are moving!"
He lowered his head and looked into the shallow pit below the crater, seeing some mummified corpses lying near the Nether Lord. They seemed to sense the arrival of uninvited guests, so they picked up their long knives, long swords, and their weapons.
They stiffly got up and turned towards Lex and the others. Their faces were already mummified and stained with gray and black. Their bodies were shriveled, with no sense of flesh and blood. Their eyes were empty, and they charged towards Lex and the others like mad dogs. Midway through their run, a fireball whistled over, hitting the chest of one of the mummified corpses, exploding in a wave of flame.