Under the bruised purple sky, the black sands stretched out like a frozen sea of glass, beaming with a heat that burnt the skin.
In the center of this desolation sat the sinkhole Leo had carved with his own mad effort.
Inside the crater, the ship stood like a dark monument. The iron-wood hull was a jagged silhouette against the orange glare of the sun, its timber so dark it seemed to suck the light out of the air. It was a ruin, yet it held a terrifying majesty. The splintered masts looked like skeletal fingers reaching out for a sky it would never sail again, and the tattered, salt-crusted sails hung like the skin of a ghost.
And then, there was the snake.
Leo coiled himself at the edge of the pit, his golden scales clashing violently with the black grit beneath him. From his high vantage point, he looked like a vein of precious ore running through a mountain of coal. His long, serpentine body rippled as he breathed, his muscles still twitching from the exertion of swallowing the sand of the desert.
The silence was broken only by the hiss of sand sliding down the sides of the sinkhole, piling up against the hull of the shipwreck.
Leo stared at the golden serpent figurehead at the bow. It was an uncanny, frozen version of himself, arrogant, powerful, and trapped in an eternal roar.
And now that he had unearthed a discovery, the desert felt different. The shifting sands in the distance seemed to be moving with more purpose now, as if his discovery had tripped a wire in the very foundation of the so-called Seek.
Leo narrowed his eyes. He was hungry, he was tired, and he was way out of his depth. But for the first time in three days, he wasn't just wandering. He had a target.
'I hope this helps.'
With a cautious, heavy movement, Leo began to slither down the steep slope of the sinkhole, his golden body descending into the dark shadow of the ship.
Even though he was large, the ship was much larger. He looked like a tiny worm scavenging its body. He only looked long if he measured himself from the bottom of the ship, which he had done earlier.
'What did they do? Sail a whole continent in this ship?'
In fact, Leo knew that "continent" was an understatement. It was as if this ship was meant to transport a whole realm.
'Who would have such bizarre ideas?' he thought as he studied the hull of the ship on the right side.
The ship was built with intricacy. Whoever built it had taken their time examining each and every single part of the vessel. On its body, several runes, sigils, and lines were etched, which he had no definition for. Slowly, he studied one rune and moved to the next, noticing they all formed a single word.
He then recognized this as Auric Codex, and the sigils and lines beautifying it were just making it confusing. Getting to the end of the ship, still on the right side, he was able to crack the word.
It was Aquarius.
'Aquarius?'
That translation created a lot of questions. Was it the name of the ship or the owner? Or was this desert actually a large ocean named Aquarius?
'Who or what is Aquarius?'
Concluding that it might be the ship's name, he crawled upward, aiming to find a clue about the Castle of Light.
The ship was even longer than he thought.
Seconds passed. Then minutes. But he still hadn't reached the main deck. It was as if something was pushing him back, preventing him from getting onto the main deck.
He had actually reached the main deck before, when the ship was still buried in the sand. That time he had fallen into it, but now going upward was strangely hard.
Deciding not to jump to conclusions yet, he continued scaling.
After a while, he reached the main deck. He had just been paranoid.
The main deck was just like a mundane ship, except where the steering wheel should have been was an unknown instrument that looked like a wooden piano, but this one had more keys.
In fact, the deck was filled with all kinds of instruments maintained by an unknown source, which strangely made Leo feel that maybe the ship had just landed yesterday; however, given the look of things, if he were being calculative, it was as if the ship and the whole desert at large were lost in and out of time.
Shaking the weird thoughts away, he moved to where the doors to the inner decks were. He used his tongue to try opening one, but unfortunately, he couldn't fit in.
'A ship is this big but yet you make such a tiny door.'
Truly, the door was too small even for an average human. So if this had actually been a realm transporter, it meant it wasn't for humans, maybe creatures smaller than humans, and the only ones he knew of were goblins.
But goblins were rarely seen in deserts or even beautiful ships.
'Maybe the ship was only for one person.' Leo snorted. 'Ridiculous. Such a huge ship for one person?'
Losing hope in trying to enter the door, he decided to test one more thing.
Suddenly, he threw his whole body up and was flying for a few seconds until he fell back onto the main deck with a great force that sent a shockwave through the hull. He studied the ship to and fro and sighed.
'Exactly what I had thought.'
The ship did not even have a single splinter or scratch from the impact. It was indestructible.
Slowly reverting to his childish behaviors, he jumped again and again and again until the ship groaned. He immediately stopped.
'Ugh. I know.'
He would have rolled his eyes if he weren't a snake now.
It was time to rest. He coiled his body at the center of the deck, lost in thoughts about Jean, Mirage, Taren, and even... Fang Rui. He seemed to be missing the bastard a lot lately.
He stared at the horizon; nothing was in sight. But fortunately, the sun was already setting and soon the moon would rise, causing the black sands to glow.
He had traversed a great distance, thinking he'd eventually give up and die at such a young age, but it looked like the world didn't exactly want it that way. Today he had found a ship.
Maybe not tomorrow, not the day after, or in the coming days, but he'd also find the Castle of Light and get back to Earth.
'Still, this is way too much for a thirteen-year-old.'