When Isaac Hall gained practical experience and readjusted the sails, as his sailing skills became more proficient, the gap between him and the second-to-last contestant had widened to several days’ journey. Unwilling to remain at the bottom, Isaac Hall adjusted his course, planning to take a shortcut straight through the Stormy Sea to catch up with the teammates ahead.

The Stormy Sea is plagued by storms all year round; in this area, there are over 330 days of wind and thunder out of 365 days a year. Even large oil tankers equipped with advanced global positioning devices often sink and disappear in the Stormy Sea. Before the race, all contestants had been warned that it was best to sail around the Stormy Sea. For this reason, several race supervision boats patrolled outside the Stormy Sea to prevent solo sailboats from accidentally entering. But perhaps because Isaac Hall had fallen too far behind, the supervision boats assumed he had given up the race and returned to the starting point. So, when Isaac Hall arrived at the edge of the Stormy Sea, he could no longer see those patrolling supervision boats. This allowed Isaac Hall to enter the Stormy Sea unimpeded. Thus, disaster struck.

Why is there no muscle soreness?

Previously, although Isaac Hall often operated lathes and milling machines himself, making and designing parts, and had specially undergone several months of physical training for this long-distance sailing race, after that all-out struggle in the Stormy Sea, it was impossible for his body not to show any signs.

“How could my muscles not be sore? How am I not hungry? Not even the slightest discomfort? In my memory, that lightning bolt had hundreds of billions of terajoules of energy, and it only pushed me thousands of nautical miles, yet my body is completely unaffected—this is just ridiculous.”

Isaac Hall was utterly baffled, repeatedly checking his position, when suddenly, he realized why he felt a chill down his spine.

Flocks of seagulls were flying above the sea, a sign of approaching land, and those black lines on the distant horizon indicated that land was right ahead. Yet, the sea was eerily calm, so quiet it was frightening. Across the entire surface, apart from his own sailboat, there was not another vessel in sight.

“How is this possible?” Isaac Hall couldn’t help but shout. In his memory, the coastal waters near Yingkou had long been divided up—kelp farms, fish farms, crab farms, one sea field after another, packed tightly together, filling the entire nearshore area. There were also ferries, fishing boats, and cargo ships, coming and going nonstop. How could it be so quiet?

“This... Even if this isn’t the Yingkou sea area, it’s not lunchtime right now. On the coast of any country, it’s impossible that I’d be the only boat sailing— even at lunchtime, it shouldn’t be this quiet!”

The sailboat sped across the water, charging toward the shore like a galloping horse. Through his binoculars, Isaac Hall was surprised to see the coastline lush and green, covered with towering ancient trees—in other words, there were no cities, no docks, not even a trace of human habitation.

“Yingkou?!” Perhaps because it was so deathly silent, Isaac Hall nearly shouted this word at the top of his lungs.

Unwilling to give up, Isaac Hall steered his boat along the winding coastline for a long time. In the distance, the seawater gradually became fresher, and Isaac Hall raised his binoculars, searching with difficulty. At last, a large river flowing into the sea appeared in his view.

There were no signs of riverbank engineering; the left bank was all marshland, while the east bank was slightly better, with a somewhat even embankment rising just above the river, but it didn’t look man-made. On the neat east bank, as far as the eye could see, a few scattered thatched huts made Isaac Hall breathe a sigh of relief, yet also filled him with unease.

Yes, this was the mouth of the Liao River. Isaac Hall double-checked several times before confirming this fact. But why did the world before his eyes look so ancient? Ancient to the point of being terrifying.

Carefully steering the sailboat into the middle of the river, Isaac Hall raised his binoculars to observe the thatched huts on both sides. These huts, made of branches and mud, clearly hadn’t been inhabited for a long time—the roofs had collapsed, the walls were damaged, and the wooden pillars and beams hadn’t even been simply debarked. The crude construction of the huts made Isaac Hall wonder if he had arrived in the Stone Age.

With a slight adjustment of the helm, Isaac Hall pointed the bow toward the riverbank, intending to bring the boat ashore and investigate. Suddenly, the sounds of horses neighing, laughter and curses, mixed with intermittent screams, reached his ears. Isaac Hall’s hand trembled, and the boat spun lightly in a circle on the river, coming to rest crosswise in the middle.

Silence. Apart from the sea breeze and the sound of waves, there was nothing else. Isaac Hall almost thought he had imagined it. But soon, a girl in a white dress appeared in his view, stumbling out from the sparse woods behind a thatched hut. Several burly men followed her, sporting strange hairstyles, bare-chested with leather pants, waving wooden clubs, fighting with several cavalrymen as they retreated. At the same time, they shouted at the girl in an unintelligible dialect. Judging by their tone and gestures, it seemed they were urging her to run.

Isaac Hall stood at the helm in a daze as several cavalrymen swung hook-shaped long weapons, circling the club-wielding men like cats playing with mice. Several times, the cavalry tried to bypass the men to chase the girl, but the men didn’t hesitate to throw their clubs to block them.