“How do I leave this place?”
Xia De asked, holding the photo.
“You can’t escape. Once you’re on our ship, no one can escape! Servants of the Spiral, followers of the Scarlet, the Fishbone Pirate Ship that rides the eye of the storm, salute the great lord of the scarlet spiral! Praise you! Sing your praises!”
The hoarse voice screamed hysterically, and the photo struggled violently to break free from Xia De’s hand, but this time he held on firmly:
“I’m only asking once: how do I leave this place?”
“It’s impossible to leave! No one can leave! Oh!”
The blade stabbed again, this time as if to cut the entire photo in half, and the voice inside the photo immediately changed its tune:
“Go find the captain! Go find the captain! Only he knows how to leave! For thousands of years, everyone who has left here has gone to find the captain!”
It struggled again, trying to fly out of Xia De’s hand, but Xia De just wouldn’t let go. The faint light of the greatsword in his hand illuminated his face, and he squinted at the increasingly disheveled man in the photo:
“Are you a crew member of this ship? What’s going on with this ship?”
“Everyone’s gone mad! Everyone’s gone mad! The captain sought power from a great existence, wanting to become the strongest pirate king, and so that power devoured us, giving us an immortal form, making us unable to escape. The only purpose of this ship’s existence is to hunt for our Lord; no one can escape! Not even the captain!”
It laughed maniacally inside the photo, and the woman’s voice in his ear whispered a reminder, causing Xia De to immediately loosen his grip on the photo. But this time it didn’t fly away; instead, it floated in the air amidst the laughter. Unexplained cold green flames rose, instantly engulfing the photo.
And when the photo had completely turned to Ashes, Xia De looked at the position of the photo frame again. The shattered glass was intact, and the burned photo was still there. The man inside the photo had his eyes closed as if in Sleep, but Xia De had no doubt that if he stared for a while longer, he would open his eyes just like before, repeating all of his previous actions again and again.
“This ship was noticed by the evil god 【lord of the scarlet spiral】 during the fifth epoch, and the entire crew was transformed into immortal, strange existences, hunting on the sea for that evil god. After the transition between epochs, it even became a powerful relic. Is this the truth of this place? I still don’t understand why we crashed into this thing.”
Xia De’s eyes left the photo; the photo itself also contained a strong whisper element. If Xia De could take the photo out, it could also be considered a relic. It’s just that this ship was truly evil, and Xia De would not continue deeper with such a thing.
But this also indicated that almost anything on this ship was valuable.
“What are you going to do now?”
When the voice in his ear sounded, Xia De had already begun to walk further into the ship’s interior.
“Go find the captain. That madman just now didn’t seem to have enough sanity to lie. Moreover, since the righteous gods allow such things to exist in the material world, it means there are rules in this place, and it’s not without a way out.”
His boots carefully avoided the dry bones on the ground, and with every step, the floor beneath his feet made a sound that seemed to echo throughout the entire ship.
“Do you know where the captain is?”
“Of course not, but walking inward is definitely the right way, Princess said so. Although there were more than a dozen Ring術士 who encountered danger on the cruise ship, everyone else is gone now. I can’t expect others to find an exit, and even if others find an exit, it doesn’t mean I can escape.”
“Are you worried about your companions?”
Her melodious laughter was truly more effective than any potion in relieving headaches.
The further inward he walked, the more mutated the ship’s corridor became. The fungal growth on the walls continuously thickened, and human body shapes appeared on the surface of the fungal growth, as if the walls had absorbed and devoured human skeletons. The foul smell grew increasingly intense, and even plugging his nose with his hand couldn’t make the scent dissipate.
Xia De couldn’t imagine what could emit such a smell, but when he walked 30 steps inward from the photo frame and heard gurgling water and crackling burning sounds, he immediately realized that someone was cooking on this floor of the ship.
Holding his sword in his right hand and illuminating with his left, as he walked quickly forward, the skeletons on the floor and walls slowly reached out to him as if alive, and as the Moonlight flew along the wall, the skeletons’ arms fell to the floor like cut chives, but still continued to writhe.
The ship was still rocking violently, and the ship’s planks could not block the sound of the storm in this dark sea area.
More and more filth appeared around him, and even the air contained visible small particles. In the eerie darkness ahead, a faint green light was vaguely visible on the right wall, and the gurgling water and sounds like burning firewood came from there.
His sword cut through a skeleton that tried to grab his arm, and Xia De arrived at the entrance of a ship cabin room that was not blocked. This was the only room he had seen that he could enter since entering the ship’s interior.
Looking inside, the narrow room was about the size of Xia De’s bathroom. On both sides of the room, instead of bones, there were bloody, fresh red chunks of flesh. On the floor in the center of the room, skeletons formed a bonfire burning with eerie green flames. Four iron chains hung from the ceiling, connected to an iron pot, like one used by a witch in a fairy tale, suspending it over the bone fire.
The foul-smelling liquid in the pot was boiling, but surprisingly, there was no blood, corpses, or bones inside; the pot contained clear water, clear enough to see the bottom.
To one side of the iron pot, a creature with a human head, the upper body of a fish, the lower body of a skeleton, and the four limbs of a pig, held a rusty brass ladle and looked at Xia De. the moment its murky yellow eyes met Xia De’s, a strong sense of discomfort made him dizzy for a moment, and he almost lost his balance.
But the monster did not attack Xia De; instead, it grunted twice like a pig:
“Someone else has boarded the ship.”
The language he used, like the madman in the photo just now, was the delarion common language.
“Are you the captain?”
Xia De asked, the eerie green flames brighter than the silver light on his fingertips, casting his shadow from the doorway to the other side of the ship’s corridor, swaying like a monster.
Xia De noticed that his voice had somehow become exceptionally hoarse.
“Of course not, can’t you tell? I’m the cook.”
The monster grunted. Although it had a human head, there were clearly fish gill features on both sides of its cheeks. It stretched the brass ladle in its hand into the iron pot and stirred, and the foul smell grew even stronger.
“Want to know how to leave? Want to know the secret of this ship?”
It asked, its small human eyes narrowing as it looked at Xia De.
