Chapter 277: Flesh and Blood Tree

Senior's body phased out once more, then abruptly solidified; his attempt to enter the mirror world was interrupted, and for a moment he bizarrely lost the ability to mirror-flash.

Yodson, on the other hand, suddenly turned translucent and phased into the mirror world, then emerged from the bay window of the captain's cabin.

Rekton narrowed his eyes slightly at the sight, then chuckled softly and said:

"That magical item of yours that can alter luck has begun to backfire. It seems you used it earlier than I expected."

"Heh, true enough — the Rose School, which indulges desire, is nothing but a sitting duck before a devil. It's easy enough to ignite the emotions and desires within you."

As he spoke, star after star appeared, densely packed and dazzlingly brilliant.

These stars tightly encircled Senior, shedding ray after ray of radiance that converged into a majestic Light Giant Pillar.

Having been repeatedly cursed by Edwina, and having lost both the ability to mirror-flash and to produce sound, Senior had no way to escape the range covered by the starlight.

He tried to make the deck beneath him suddenly turn black, becoming a muddy abyssal sea, from which grew a twisted crimson vine covered in fangs and eyes.

This crimson vine grew wildly upward, but soon dissolved beneath the starlight, collapsing and dissipating, taking the muddy abyssal sea below along with it until both vanished without a trace.

Then frost laden with deathly energy condensed, spreading frantically in all directions, covering the deck, layering upward, and covering Senior himself.

The next moment, this frost abruptly lost its support and rapidly melted away beneath the starlight.

The unfortunate Senior had his control over frost stolen once again.

"Cough~ Cough! Cough!"

Then he began to cough, coughing more and more severely, as if he were about to cough up his lungs, unable even to maintain the Beyonder ability to resist the starlight's erosion.

Rekton looked at Edwina beside him with some surprise; she was holding a mirror in one hand while the other hand simulated a witch's illusory black flames, burning Senior's image on the mirror's surface.

Noticing Rekton's gaze, Edwina tilted her head slightly and said in a low voice:

"He seems to have caught a cold due to some rather unfortunate reasons, which makes the curse I used erode his body more quickly and powerfully."

Rekton nodded gently, unsurprised:

"Before we encountered the 'Death Omen,' he had already used that magical item, which was how he successfully evaded our notice."

"Lucky people always gradually become blind, especially a Beyonder accustomed to indulging desire."

Edwina turned her gaze, looked deeply at Rekton, and then said thoughtfully:

"You seem to have anticipated this."

"Not quite anticipated — it is merely a Prophet's intuition."

Rekton chuckled in response.

The starlight surrounding Senior instantly condensed into a sphere, crushing and dissolving his flesh as though it were solid; in just a few breaths,

the starlight gradually dissipated after condensing, leaving only a semi-transparent figurine scattered on the deck, and a silver necklace with a pendant shaped like an ancient coin hanging from it.

On Senior's person, apart from this magical item and his corresponding characteristic, everything had been dissolved and disintegrated by the starlight.

Rekton stepped forward and picked up the Wraith's Beyonder characteristic, as well as the silver necklace that could make a person briefly become very lucky.

Hanging from the necklace was a silver pendant resembling an ancient coin; both its obverse and reverse were covered with mysterious patterns and symbolic marks, and engraved with a line of Ancient Hermes script:

"However lucky you are now, you will be equally unlucky afterward."

Narrowing his eyes slightly, he offered his summary of this magical item:

"Luck is always conserved. One should not excessively crave fortune that does not belong to oneself."

Perhaps this was also a kind of law of this pathway.

He casually handed the semi-transparent figurine-like Wraith characteristic and this magical item to Edwina beside him:

"Keep these spoils for now. Next, I will go aboard Senior's Flesh and Blood Tree to take possession of his property."

Edwina was meticulously smearing the surface of the strange mirror in her hand with her palm, which continuously oozed blood.

After finishing all this, she set her mind at ease and casually handed the blood-smeared mirror to First Mate Blue Walls beside her.

She reached out to take the Wraith characteristic and the silver necklace, curiously glanced at the coin-like pendant hanging from it, then paid it no further attention.

Then she turned to look at Rekton and said:

"That ship possesses certain anti-divination properties. Although we can confirm it is in this sea area, finding it on the vast ocean won't be easy. Do you have any special tracking method?"

Rekton nodded slightly, reached into the air as though grasping something, then pulled a ball of yarn from the void — this was the 'Ariadne's Thread' that could guide the way.

Rekton pinched one end of the ball of yarn, then let it fly from his hand; the ball of yarn rapidly rolled forward, plunging into the spirit world, and as if drawn by something unknown, rolled swiftly in a certain direction.

He turned his head to look at Edwina and said:

"Lead the Golden Dream away from this sea area first. I will deal with the Flesh and Blood Tree. If you show up there, it will inevitably provoke retaliation from the Rose School afterward."

"No problem."

Edwina nodded gravely; retaliation from the Rose School would certainly be a powerful strike from a demigod or even a Saint — that was not something the Golden Dream could withstand.

Anu, the raven with glossy black feathers, received Rekton's signal and flew over from the side.

Its eyes glowed with a faint green light, devoid of any vitality, like a gaze from the dead, eerily scanning across the deck for something.

Then it slightly parted its sharp beak, and as a chill wind brushed past, Senior's remnant soul was swallowed into its belly, temporarily preserved.

Rekton nodded to it, then his figure swiftly faded and vanished from the spot.

In the spirit world, he followed the direction indicated by 'Ariadne's Thread,' advancing continuously.

Without taking much time, the ball of red yarn rolled out of the spirit world.

On a deck of dark crimson hue, as though covered in a layer of bloodstain that could not be washed away, a bright red ball of yarn suddenly emerged from the spirit world.

"Hey! Where'd that ball of yarn come from? Did one of you sneak a woman aboard?"

A dark-skinned pirate sitting against the gunwale spotted the ball of yarn that had rolled out of the spirit world, and with a grin he shouted to his companions nearby.

The pirates on the surrounding decks were all drawn by his voice and looked this way.

They saw the ball of yarn still rolling across the deck, behind it a trail of red yarn left along its rolling path, extending all the way back.

The pirates' gazes followed the yarn and they saw a young man wearing a light brown long trench coat and gold-rimmed glasses, the end of the yarn casually pinched between his fingers.

"Who are you? How did you get aboard?"

Sounds of alarm and shouts of rebuke rang out one after another.

The pirates aboard the Flesh Tree quickly grew alert; they had no intention of surrounding Rekton, and instead began scattering away from this area.

As members of the Blood Pirate Fleet led by the Blood Admiral, they were not comparable to those ignorant fools; a person who could appear aboard the Flesh Tree without a sound was absolutely a major figure—whether enemy or ally, not someone to be provoked.

To the Rose Sect, which indulged its desires, the ordinary people aboard these pirate ships were nothing more than toys for them to play with at will.

And the vast majority of ordinary pirates had only chosen to join the Blood Pirate Fleet to indulge themselves freely and acquire vast sums of money; to them, there was no loyalty whatsoever.

The temperature on the deck plummeted; white frost even gathered on the gunwales, and a cold, transparent layer of ice rapidly spread across the deck.

Then a howling hurricane swept up, carrying bone-chilling cold as it rolled toward Rekton, and the damp air condensed in midair into beautiful, dreamlike snowflakes.

"Living corpse..."

Rekton murmured aloud, paying no mind to the surrounding low temperature or the hurricane howling toward him, strolling freely across the deck.

Behind him, patches of white, ethereal feathers gathered, pure and beautiful, like the wings of angels recorded in the holy scriptures.

The next moment, Rekton's body suddenly tore open with pitch-black cracks, and pools of liquid-like black shadows flowed out; these shadows constantly writhed, curled, and stretched.

The flesh on his body also began to separate piece by piece, like pages of books flipping ceaselessly; eye after eye scrambled out from the pages, from the pitch-black shadows—cold, majestic, brimming with auras of madness, destruction, misfortune, and disaster.

The aura of madness rapidly spread; the howling hurricane and drifting snowflakes in the air vanished without a trace in an instant, leaving only the pirates wailing in agony on the deck.

Some of them sprouted cold, indifferent eyes on their bodies; some had their flesh writhing and tearing open into cracks from which pitch-black liquid flowed; some had their bodies suddenly swell, sprouting tufts of gray short fur and tearing open one terrifying maw after another filled with sharp fangs.

The madness quickly spread across the entire Flesh Tree; the pirates lost their reason, becoming unhinged and deranged.

(End of this chapter)