Chapter 168: Ghost Ship

"Don't panic, speak slowly," Wu Chang said, his expression utterly unruffled.

He was not surprised in the slightest. As an A-rank instance on the verge of losing control, a shipwreck or accident was almost a foregone conclusion; if the journey had been smooth all the way to the destination, that would have been the thing worth marveling at.

But in the eyes of the secretary, the Four Vajras, and the Sword Star and Negotiation Master who followed behind, what they saw was powerful composure and confidence.

What does it mean to remain unmoved in countenance even when Mount Tai collapses before one's eyes?

Truly worthy of being the actual controller of the Xingtian Group, the Emperor of Gao Mu's underworld, and the hidden character refreshed with low probability in instances.

What a thick, sturdy thigh.

The secretary said: "The captain says that at four in the morning, a heavy fog rose over the sea. The ship's satellite positioning and electronic systems inexplicably failed, so the captain could only switch to manual mode."

"According to the original route, around six this morning we would have passed a Danshan Island for resupply. But when the time came, not only did we not see the signal lighthouse of Danshan Island, we couldn't even make out the island's outline through the fog."

"The captain can only confirm that the Star Leap has gone off course, but where exactly it's drifted to will have to wait until the fog lifts and the ship's electronic equipment is repaired."

Wu Chang went up to the deck on the seventh floor, looked down, and saw the passengers on the lower levels falling into chaos. Many were gathering toward the bottom deck, while the crew were doing their best to maintain order and get people back to their rooms.

Ordinary passengers panicked at the mishap, and the upper-class guests on the sixth and seventh floors were not faring much better.

Even without opening the door, one could hear cursing from all sides. The difference from the lower-deck passengers was that while the passengers cursed the damned weather, the VIPs cursed the captain and crew.

Their curses were full of vigor, but everyone knew that what they faced now was nature. Out on the vast sea, the power and wealth they wielded in human society counted for nothing.

In the face of death, all are equal.

When the crowd panics, it is the perfect time to gather information.

Wu Chang did not stay in his room; instead, he led the group down to the lower decks of the cruise ship.

On the way down to the third floor, he indeed saw Park Changmin leading a group of priests, taking the opportunity to proselytize to the panicked tourists.

Most of the tickets for the third and fourth floors of the Star Leap were group tickets, and the third floor had been jointly booked by three private high schools.

Everyone on board was a senior-year high school student on a school trip. They had just entered their final year, facing the brutal sprint toward the college entrance exam, and this trip was meant to be their last carefree time.

They never expected that no sooner had they set sail than disaster struck.

After hearing the secretary's report, Wu Chang frowned and hurriedly asked about the students' grade level. Learning that in Gao Mu's country elementary school began at age eight and that all senior-year students were already of age, he breathed a sigh of relief.

It seemed that large-scale malicious incidents targeting minors were a taboo subject even the Abyss Game dared not touch; the administrators of the Abyss Game had a will to live too.

Among the three high schools on board, one was a church school. Its students already had faith, and although their denomination differed, the Xinyuzhou Sect had engaged in piggyback marketing from its founding, always claiming that it and many mainstream denominations worshipped the same supreme deity.

The misattribution effect, combined with Park Changmin's persuasion, had already drawn quite a few teachers and students into the Xinyuzhou Sect's prayer ranks.

It wasn't only teachers and students; many passengers who didn't normally believe much in religion, now desperate for spiritual support to help them endure their fear, also joined in the prayers.

Wu Chang could clearly see that once these people joined the prayers and the thought "if only the Lord truly existed" arose in their hearts, the mysterious-energy web shrouding the Star Leap would branch off threads that sank into their bodies.

Where the threads entered, cracks invisible to the naked eye appeared on the skin, and within the gaps of those cracks, an eye could faintly be seen gradually taking shape.

Disaster and death are the best catalysts for the spread of religion.

Just as the Xinyuzhou Sect was gradually taking control of the situation, cheers suddenly erupted from the crew out on the deck.

"Look over there! Land!"

Hearing the crew's shouts, people once again surged toward the deck, looking in the direction the shouting crewman was pointing.

At the ship's two-o'clock position, a dark mass could faintly be seen. People gazed hopefully at the dark mass, wishing it to be Danshan Island where the route was originally meant to stop.

Unfortunately, their wish was soon dashed. When the ship turned its bow and sailed up to the dark mass, people realized it was only a patch of black reef.

Apart from stone, there was nothing on it—no trace of any human activity at all.

The shift from hope to disappointment hit people hard. They trudged back to the hall with heavy steps and resumed their prayers.

They prayed to the Lord to let them see land once more.

Experience proves that one should not, after a single setback, immediately conclude that life has hit rock bottom and start despairing of the present situation.

One must believe that fate is not so fragile—how could it possibly bottom out from a single setback? This was nothing, not even the beginning.

One should at least endure three or four setbacks, and only when one feels utterly hopeless about life, should one declare that life has hit rock bottom.

Amid the people's prayers, a dark mass appeared again ahead of the ship. The people grew excited once more, cheering and celebrating the Lord's greatness.

But soon they could no longer laugh; the closer they got to the dark mass, the more familiar it looked.

When the ship pulled up to what lay ahead, the people confirmed—this was the very same reef they had passed before!

When they had passed the reef earlier, an enraged passenger had hurled his can of beer at it; that white aluminum can was still lying on top of the reef now.

What was going on?

People began glaring angrily at the crew, accusing them of circling the reef.

But the captain quickly appeared to explain to everyone that the ship had been sailing in a perfectly straight line without the slightest deviation, and he invited several school teachers and a few upper-class VIPs to the bridge to bear witness.

Before long, a dark mass appeared again ahead of the ship; upon approaching, they found it was still that same reef.

This time the people were thoroughly panicked. Not only had they drifted off course at sea, they had fallen into a ghost-wall loop.

In an instant, all manner of unsolved-world-mystery tales—the Bermuda Quadrangle, century-vanished ocean liners suddenly reappearing, the Flying Dutchman—flooded into people's minds.

Some passengers with weaker nerves could no longer bear the pressure and began screaming and shouting.

Just as at last night's banquet Wu Chang had noted down those targets who did not actively approach him, in a situation like this it was only natural to focus special attention on those who were not panicking.

The first to be flagged was naturally Park Changmin. The occult ritual on board had been set up by the Xinyuzhou Sect, and as the highest-ranking member of the Xinyuzhou Sect in the open, he was clearly involved in the plan.

The next one who showed no panic during the course deviation, and remained composed even after entering the ghost-wall loop, was the captain, Jiang Junxi.

Most of the sailors on board were in a panic, but Jiang Junxi, the first mate Li Yuanzhi, and four or five other crew members alone remained perfectly calm.

Especially the second time they passed the reef, his invitation of passengers to bear witness and his speech clearing his own name seemed as if it had been rehearsed many times before, not something improvised on the spot.

After the captain and his group came the few people Wu Chang had jotted down in his little notebook last night.

Of the six people recorded last night, five of them were faking their panic—acting stiffly. They thought that blending into the crowd would keep them from being noticed, not knowing that someone had had his eye on them since yesterday.

Wu Chang casually ordered Sword Star and the Negotiation Master to probe the few. Eager to show off, Sword Star made no secret of his ability to sense others' inner fluctuations. After walking a circle around them, he confirmed that sure enough, their faces were panicked as hell while their hearts were steady as old dogs.

The Xinyuzhou Sect's Park Changmin, Captain Jiang Junxi, and last night's sneaky five-man squad—that made three groups of suspicious targets.

On this little Star Leap, there truly were hidden dragons and crouching tigers.

Wu Chang finally turned his gaze to Li Yubin, who had appeared last night. To his surprise, that woman, who aside from his original body held the highest status, was completely unprepared for the scene before her.

She thought the reef was abnormal, and while constantly taking photos of it, she foolishly wanted to take a lifeboat to the reef to examine it closely.

Thanks to the two players beside her persuading her, they managed to drag her away from the lifeboat.

Wu Chang had Xiang Jianxing go over to confirm as well, and the conclusion was inner panic and disbelief.

Wu Chang stroked his chin. He had previously assumed Li Yubin was playing a persona; even if she wasn't the mastermind of the ship's affairs, she was one of those behind the scenes.

Now it seemed she had been implicated by coincidence. Could there really be a child from a plutocratic family this naive?

Leaving Xiang Jianxing and the Negotiation Master to investigate the situation, he turned and returned to his room to continue completing the second transfer task.

For this dungeon run, he planned to change his strategy and no longer rapidly push forward the dungeon-clearing progress.

As a qualified lurker, the enemy is in the light, I am in the shadows — that is the most ideal state. As long as he kept wearing the skin of Li Zaishi, most players would not only not be on guard against him, but instead, like Xiang Jianxing, would approach him with the goal of obtaining clues, willingly becoming his workhorses.

He would use behavior that didn't fit the logic of his identity to circle out suspicious figures, and naturally others would do the same.

To stay hidden, he had to act like a native.

While Wu Chang underwent the occult contamination that altered his flesh, he was also pondering his next move.

As a native, he couldn't act as though his goals aligned with the players', or at least he couldn't be like the players, with goals and actions both crystal clear.

No, he should think about it from a different angle. The native identity wasn't necessarily a constraint on his actions. After all, the role he was playing was Li Zaishi, the underground emperor of Gao Mu nation.

To avoid being suspected by the players, he didn't necessarily have to be circuitous — he could also be more aggressive than the players.

When the players all thought he was too aggressive, so aggressive that he seemed like a native, naturally they wouldn't suspect him.

Immersed in the occult modification, feeling his body visibly grow stronger, time passed especially fast.

In the blink of an eye, the sky outside darkened.

Of the five features on Wu Chang's head, only the tongue remained to be strengthened. The rest — eyes, ears, nose, and mouth — had all undergone occult contamination, becoming a state between energy and flesh.

!

He was preparing to push through in one go and complete the modification of his tongue as well, making his head's transformation complete, when from his occult-modified ears suddenly rose a faint, indistinct murmur, interrupting his action.

He listened carefully and found that the calling sound at his ear was calling his name.

The voice was extraordinarily intimate, making him unable to resist wanting to respond.

He stood up and followed the call of the voice, walking from the bedroom all the way to the seventh-deck.

Following the direction of the call, there lay the depths of the sea.

A strong impulse surged up in his heart — jump off the ship, transform into a giant whale, and swim over!

The moment this impulse arose, it was cut off by his cold snort.

Enough is enough, why are you still pushing your luck? You want me to swim over — why don't you come over yourself?

Wu Chang restrained his inspiration and actively sealed his ears' occult perception ability, and the calling sound in his mind immediately vanished.

The calling sound had vanished, but his expression remained solemn.

The calling from just now was not the first time he had heard it. Back in Quiet Town, when he had just obtained the Deep Sea Kin transformation and performed the giant whale transformation, he had felt a similar calling in the sea.

That kind of calling came from the seabed, tempting him toward the ocean depths.

At the time his inspiration and will were still low, and he had nearly fallen for the other's trick. He hadn't expected that in the Silent Voyage dungeon, he would hear a similar calling again.

Why would this happen? Quiet Town and Silent Voyage — the two dungeons aren't even in the same plane.

Could it be that all sea-related planes are connected to the calling from the deep sea?

Impossible.

Wu Chang shook his head in denial. He had great faith in the solidity of planar barriers. Even someone like Eileen, who had become a god within the Wasteland Realm, was suppressed by planar rules. How could the Wasteland Realm possibly accommodate a powerful existence spanning multiple planes?

Before he could figure out what the calling from the seabed was, his occult-modified eyes saw the ship seemingly break through a thin membrane.

They had passed from the looping sea region into another stretch of sea.

The sign of entering the new sea region was the disappearance of that looping landmark-like reef. At the same time, the thick fog covering the sea surface thinned, leaving only a hazy layer of water vapor.

The field of vision broadened, meaning it was easier to discern direction, and easier to find the correct shipping lane.

Everything seemed to be developing in a favorable direction.

But Wu Chang did not think so.

From the moment the Star Leap sailed into the new sea region, the occult energy on the ship had grown heavy. Besides the ritual's core node on the fourth deck, a secondary core node had appeared in the captain's cabin.

The Xinyuzhou Sect's plan seemed to have entered the next stage. They could no longer hold back and had begun to make moves.

Wu Chang stood on the seventh deck, gathered energy in his eyes, and strained to look into the distance.

Under the effect of the energy, his gaze pierced through the remaining thin mist on the sea surface, extending endlessly into the distance.

Strictly speaking, the occultism mastered by humans is not occultism itself, but merely the rules of occultism.

People use the rules of occultism to leverage a certain energy that originally belongs to the world, shaping that energy into the form they desire.

And occult contamination is actually occult energy itself, the origin of occult energy.

It's just that this energy is too powerful — so powerful that an ordinary human body simply cannot withstand it.

The ultimate form of the Mystic Knight, the goal from the very design, is to fuse flesh with the origin of occultism, achieving a realm where one bypasses occult rules and directly manipulates occultism at will.

Now Wu Chang's eyes could already do something similar.

When he activated his eyes with energy, his occult-transformed eyes could directly see through the illusions created by occult energy, and could achieve the effect that only a wizard's Eagle Eye spell could produce, without needing to understand occult rules.

As the Star Leap sailed forward, at the far end of his gaze, the shadow of another ship soon appeared. From its scale and appearance, it was also a passenger liner, no smaller than the Star Leap.

There were other ships in this stretch of sea?

He carefully looked toward that ship, wanting to see clearly what was on board — was it a large force of the Xinyuzhou Sect that had long been waiting here, or unlucky souls like the Star Leap who had been abducted?

When the two ships drew a bit closer, he saw red dots on the hull of that distant ship.

Dense, countless red dots.

Every red dot was a wraith.

Over several kilometers away, he could not directly read the information within the resentment; he could only quickly descend to the third deck and wait for the two ships to draw closer before observing closely.

As he made his way to the third-floor hall, he saw that the number of worshippers from the Xinyuzhou Sect had more than doubled.

Almost the entire hall had joined their prayer.

After a full day of effort, the eyes of every new member had opened at least halfway.

In no time, these new believers would become mature seeds, just like the exemplary worshippers who participated in team-building.

A shrill alarm sounded, interrupting everyone's prayer.

The crew of the Star Leaper spotted another passenger ship approaching head-on.

The Star Leaper sounded its alarm while manipulating its signal lights to flash warnings far away, signaling the other vessel to stop.

But the other vessel showed no reaction whatsoever and continued steaming toward them.

When the two ships were less than a kilometer apart, the approaching vessel slowly came to a halt, motionless on the sea.

A crewman shouted through a loudspeaker toward the other ship, but received no response whatsoever—only an eerie stillness in place.

The Star Leaper slowly drew nearer; the passengers gathered on the deck gradually saw the name on the other ship's hull.

Song of the Sea.

Such a familiar name.

As people pondered the meaning of the name, someone soon remembered: two years ago, a passenger liner had departed from Pen Island bound for Midy Kingdom, passed through Gao Mu, and vanished at sea shortly after leaving—still undiscovered to this day.

That vanished liner's name was precisely Song of the Sea.

A ghost ship that had disappeared for two years now appeared before them, intact and unharmed.

The moment this news spread, everyone aboard was plunged into terror.

(End of Chapter)