Chapter 34: The Warship I
Host: Draven Zane
Powers: Flight, Superior Marksmanship, Expert Martial artist, Short distance teleportation, Metal Manipulation
Powers limit: 5
Soul energy absorbed: 4000
To increase the power limit: 1500 Soul energy needed
Legendary Points: 600
Legend Status: The Killer of Veland
Bases of Operation: Abandoned Steel factory
When Draven teleported out of prison, the dark clouds surrounded the island and greeted Draven with a heavy downpour. The prison guards were quick enough to sound the alarm as the heavy bell rang throughout the island louder than the thunderclaps.
The soldiers who patrolled the outside were in disarray, without knowing what had just happened. The ones who weren't affected by the chaos were the actual patients. The mentally ill patients roamed around the courtyard as if nothing had happened. Even the heavy downpour failed to get a reaction from them except some of them began to giggle and chuckle.
Draven pitied the patient.
"They should be inside and treated with care. Not those criminals," Draven sighed.
"We can pity them later. The alarm sound might wake on our favor," Margoth began to explain his thoughts to Draven,
"Port City might send their troops along with Layne family guards to the asylum island,"
"Which means there will be fewer soldiers to stop us when we take the warship built by the Layne family," Draven finished Margoth's thoughts.
"Let's go," Margoth sounded excited as Draven opened his wings to fly to the Port City.
The black armor Draven wore perfectly concealed him from the dark storm clouds and the night sky. None of the soldiers or the citizens in the streets of Port city bothered to look up at the sky. Instead, they were busy scattering towards their homes.
The Layne family airship yard was located on the northern side of the city, on top of the mountain. The lush green mountain stood majestically, holding the airship yard.
It was better to call the airship yard a mansion than a simple shipyard because it didn't look like a typical shipyard. Instead, several stone towers stood guard on all four corners of the square building with an opening in the center. Only through the open space did the Layne family ship builders launch the airship into the air. Compared to Asylum island, the airship yard of the Layne family was highly guarded with soldiers wearing full plate armor, archers, and defense weapons such as trebuchets, cannons, and giant crossbows. In addition, the sheer size of the building made Draven or any human being puny.
Since Veland did not have many gifted supervillains, these defenses were more than enough to keep any intruders from infiltrating the airship yard. However, they weren't prepared for someone like Draven, who could fly, teleport, and control metal objects.
These powers were enough for Draven to get UFH's attention and if they learned what he was doing in Veland, Draven would become a priority target. At that time, Draven would either be offered to join UFH in exchange for a pardon for his crimes or simply be marked as a supervillain to be sent to any one of the prisons.
While hovering in the air under the cover of dark clouds, Draven stared at the airship yard on the ground. The four walls were manned by several groups of soldiers while the walls themselves were fitted with artillery weapons to blast anyone in the sky. Luckily, no one had noticed Draven.
Draven slowly flew closer to the open space so he could see what they were building down there. When he flew for a couple of minutes, the airship stationed at the yard stunned both Draven and Margoth.
"What a magnificent beast?" Margoth materialized ver Draven's shoulder with wide eyes.
The airship resembled the shape of a sword. Two colossal fans were powered by Etherian energy; one was fitted on the long blade-like structure while the other was under the hilt. These fans were designed to lift the airship vertically while one large red propeller was used to move the ship forward. The entire hull of the ship was painted with dark black paint with the corners brushed with a tinge of red.
At that time, Draven noticed a group of people moving towards the airship. However, since Draven was way high in the sky, he couldn't see their faces as they all looked tiny.
"Let's go join them," Draven closed his wings, starting to free fall.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Draven used short-distance teleportation to quickly descend to the open space before the guards could notice him.
Meanwhile, on the ground, a golden-haired youngster wearing matching golden robes was leading a group of men and women with parchments and quills.
"Welcome to the next generation of warship, ladies and gentlemen. I am Barnabas Layne, and I am here to present to you our latest addition to the long line of warships, the sword. We are still working on the name," the youngster joked, making the newspeople chuckle a bit.
"You sir? Do you want to get dried up? You looked soaked," Barnabas stared at Draven with his hazel eyes as the rest quickly glanced at Draven over their shoulders.
"I am fine, Lord Barnabas," Draven smiled. He was quick enough to mingle with the group of news reporters before they could even realize when Draven appeared behind them. By teleporting directly behind them, Draven passed all the security checks. So no one bothered to mind Draven, whom they thought as another news reporter. Thanks to the giant fans producing strong gusts of wind, the heavy water droplets got vaporized before they could drench the people on the ground.
"Lord Barnabas," a quickly young girl wearing glasses quickly raised her hand to take Baranabas's attention from Draven,
"Can you tell us more about the airship?"
"War, warship," Barnabas corrected the girl with a gentle smile,
"The sword is the result of seven years of hard labor. It's not a warship but the warship. The sword will redefine the word warship. Let me tell you about some of its capabilities,"
Instead of getting into the airship having no idea, Draven stayed behind to listen.
"The first and the most awesome thing about the sword is its operating crew. We infused Jade Palace magic with Etherian technology to build a set of contraptions that would enable two people to fly the entire ship. Gone are the days for twenty or thirty highly trained and disciplined crew to fly a warship,"
The news reporters immediately gasped for air in shock and surprise,
"When in combat, the sword only requires one man to do the flying and the other to use the weapons. Currently, the sword has ten cannons on each hillside and two in the front. But after the first test flying, we will focus on equipping the ship with more weapons and contraptions,"
"This day keeps getting better. Isn't it Draven?" Marogth devilishly chuckled inside Draven's mind.
"Lord Barnabas, you said this warship is powered by Etherian energy. Don't you think it'd be expensive to fly a ship using etherian crystals?" a man with a red goatee asked Barnabas.
"Thats where the sword outshines," However, Barnabas grinned ear to ear as though he was expecting such a question,
"The sword does not simply use the etherian energy from the crystals. Instead, the multiple intrusive arrays inside its power room extract the energy from the crystals and power the propellers. But here's where it gets interesting, the arrays are highly efficient, and the sword is built with sturdy but light weight Iritrium metal. As a result, one medium size crystal could make the ship fly for a week. Three crystals would make the sword battle ready,"
"Lord Barnabas. You mentioned arrays. Are they also designed by Jade Palace?" another girl asked Barnabas,
"The one and only," Barnabas proudly grinned,
"Lord Barnabas. What stops the sword from falling into the wrong hands? You must have heard about the killer running around the capital,"
The grin on Barnabas's face froze for a moment, but he quickly regained his usual playful smirk,
"The ship takes advantage of magical arrays of Scarlett Mountain to ensure what you said doesn't happen. Unless you are bound to the ship by blood, you cant even move the ship an inch and you will be zapped by lightning bolts if you try to,"
"What do you mean bound by the blood?" surprisingly, the one who asked the question was Draven.
"Nice timing. Why don't I just show you?" Barnabas clapped, grinning.
"Come on. Follow me to the inside," Barnabas gestured at the group to follow him inside the warship.
As he approached the warship's back, he took out a box made of black metal and tapped it in a rhythm.
It almost sounded like someone playing harp. Soon, the ship's long hilt opened up, extending a long set of stairs to climb inside.
"Wow, is this magic?"
"I think it's a fusion of magic arrays and the invention of the scholars,"
A couple of news reports mumbled to each other while following Barnabas up the stairs.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone