Chapter 170: The Sunken Ship Belt and the Hidden Side Quest

The energy reactions of battle at first came only from below, but before long, sounds of fighting could be heard from all over the ship.

Wu Chang led his people outward and saw that, at some unknown point, a group of mummified corpses had appeared on the ship.

They were like mummies with their bandages unwound—their blood completely drained, their skin tinged purple, not a trace of moisture anywhere on their bodies, including their eyeballs, which had all withered into dried meat.

They could not see, but could sense their surroundings by other means, able to accurately locate those who had boarded and launch attacks against them.

The mummified corpses' bodies were withered and thin, but their movements were swift and their strength great; and being aboard the Sea Song, they seemed able to ignore gravity, running freely across walls and ceilings.

A crowd of mummified corpses surged out from all directions, running along different paths, and quickly arrived around those who had boarded.

When Wu Chang came out, he happened to see five or six mummified corpses slithering along the walls and ceiling in a serpentine path, chasing after Li Yubin and her group.

Judging by their movement speed, the mummified corpses' stats were no weaker than a level 25 player, and in terms of individual strength, they were by no means inferior to Qinglong in his normal state.

Having just entered the instance not long ago, the players were still in a semi-hostile relationship with one another, and none of them wanted to reveal too many of their trump cards.

The two players following beside Li Yubin were currently only fighting with fists, kicks, and firearms; neither of them was a player specialized in agility, and now facing the nimble mummified corpses, they could not gain the upper hand physically, and their firearms could not pierce the wind-eroded skin of the mummified corpses, so they could only protect Li Yubin while fighting and retreating.

In contrast, Li Yubin's displayed combat power was far stronger than that of the two players hiding their strength.

She was currently using a hair ribbon to tie her shawl-length hair into a ponytail, holding a fire axe she had found in the corridor, and was hacking her way toward the mummified corpses.

Judging by her movements and accuracy, Li Yubin clearly had never trained; there was no form between her moves, and she was purely swinging the axe by virtue of her physical strength.

The mummified corpses' bronze skin and iron bones, which even players found hard to break through, were like a layer of inferior thin sheet metal beneath her fire axe.

Once struck, the entire blade of the axe would sink into the body.

If only she knew a little technique—even just the Three Board Axes—these few mummified corpses alone wouldn't be enough for her to kill by herself.

Wu Chang could sense that Li Yubin possessed a Qi similar to Qinglong's within her body; what surprised him even more was that, as the battle wore on, the quantity and quality of the Qi within Li Yubin was rapidly approaching Qinglong's.

Is this the caliber of an A-rank instance on the verge of losing control, where even a random NPC can fight like this?

Wu Chang did not hesitate, and signaled the Four Vajras and Xiang Jianxing to go up and help.

Because of the ghost-wall maze during the day, the Xinyuzhou Sect controlled eighty percent of the passengers on the ship, and there were not many normal people left; a normal person like Li Yubin, who had both potential and combat power, had to be kept alive.

With Wu Chang's side joining in, the battle quickly became one-sided; the players needed to hide their strength, but the Four Vajras did not.

In less than a minute, several mummified corpses had their skulls smashed and were utterly still.

Seeing no more mummified corpses appearing around them, Wu Chang asked, "Where did these monsters come from?"

Considering they had just helped her out of a tight spot, Li Yubin unusually gave Wu Chang a pleasant look and said:

"We went to the bridge to investigate what had been piloting the Sea Song just now. As soon as we entered the bridge, we saw these mummified corpses standing inside motionless. They sensed our presence and came alive, launching an attack on us."

The bridge.

Wu Chang approached and examined the several mummified corpses; the clothes on the mummified corpses had already been stained black by bloodstains and dust, and their original appearance could not be made out.

He studied them carefully for a while before he could tell they were wearing crew uniforms.

Especially one of the mummified corpses—it was different from the other few; several of its front teeth were broken off.

Piloting the ship, the crew, broken teeth, and mummified corpses—all matched up with the first mate of the Sea Song seen earlier in the resentful wraith.

Could the monsters appearing on the ship all be the rebels who had been forced to kill each other back then?

No.

Wu Chang shook his head; he did not sense a large amount of occult energy from the several mummified corpses, but when the initial battle broke out, he had sensed a large amount of occult energy from the lower deck.

"Go to the lower deck!"

Could it be that the mastermind aboard the Sea Song was still on the ship? Wu Chang's face changed, and he immediately called for several people to head to the lower cargo hold.

Li Yubin looked utterly baffled, not knowing what had gotten into Wu Chang, but seeing the look on Wu Chang's face, he seemed to have discovered something, so she followed along to the lower cargo hold.

Others who had boarded were either being chased by mummified corpses or searching the ship for clues, looking for the communication equipment the captain had mentioned; very few people approached the cargo hold.

This made the deck where the cargo hold was located exceptionally quiet.

But it was precisely this kind of quiet that was especially suspicious. Judging by the energy fluctuations he had sensed earlier, the battle between the two sides in the cargo hold was extremely fierce, and they shouldn't be able to determine a winner in a short while.

If one side wanted to take down the other in a short time and unleashed their full power, the energy fluctuations would surely have been sensed by him.

Sure enough, reaching the end of the cargo hold, he saw through his eyes polluted by occult energy a barrier woven from occult energy threads before him.

Someone had used an occult ritual to isolate the situation inside, and judging by the form of the occult energy, the other party was a member of the Xinyuzhou Sect.

Although he did not know what was happening inside, whatever the Xinyuzhou Sect wanted to do, he could not go wrong by destroying it without thinking.

Li Yubin watched Wu Chang staring at the wall, thinking he had been possessed by some unclean thing; she raised the fire axe and called out softly:

"Li Zaishi, wake up."

Wu Chang turned his head to look behind her and said, "Look at what's behind you."

Taking advantage of the moment Li Yubin turned her head, he pulled the fire axe from her hand, channeled the thunder spiritual power within his body into the axe, and slashed at the occult threads before him.

Sssskraa.

Accompanied by the sound of cloth being torn, the wall before them vanished, and another section of cargo hold appeared before them.

Li Yubin rubbed her eyes, looking in disbelief at the corridor that had appeared before her, "How did you do that?"

This question was not only on Li Yubin's mind—Xiang Jianxing and the Negotiation Master wanted to ask it even more.

As players, they had not even noticed that the wall before them was actually a hidden door; how had their bargain-bin boss discovered it?

Combined with Li Yubin, who had just displayed powerful strength, the two began to suspect—was the plane rule of the Silent Voyage instance that the richer you are, the stronger you are?

Everyone's a Batman—superpowers cost money?

Wu Chang handed the fire axe back to Li Yubin and answered casually, "There's a door here—can't you see it?"

Everyone shook their heads in unison.

Wu Chang: "Then that's your problem."

With the occult ritual concealing their presence destroyed, the sounds of activity inside were immediately exposed.

The group had not walked far before they saw three people fighting in the distance.

To be precise, two players were fighting over a native of the instance plane.

One of the players wore a bishop's robe, and on the bishop's robe was not the emblem of the Xinyuzhou Sect, but the emblem symbolizing the Tranquil Sect.

That's right, the Yanshengzong Sect stirred up such a big incident — how could the Tranquil Church possibly sit still without sending out powerful players to get in on the action? Every time they stir up trouble, if these scoundrels aren't there, it always feels like something's missing.

Around the Tranquil Sect player, a magic circle composed of occult rituals revolved, the magic circle spreading outward with him at its center — wherever he walked, the magic circle walked with him.

In his hand he held a short baton of the kind a band conductor uses, as though he were conducting an orchestra; every time he waved the baton, the magic circle would fire off several different styles of attacks.

As a newly initiated Esoteric Knight, Wu Chang could sense the effects of energy conservation and spell amplification from the magic circle.

Relying on these two special effects, the Tranquil Sect player's magic came out as if it cost nothing, wave after wave of attack magic, like a one-man show.

Sword Star behind Wu Chang saw the scene and couldn't help muttering softly: "It's a Ritualist."

He noted the name down and continued observing the battle in the field.

The Ritualist's target of attack was an upright black wolf — the black wolf's appearance was eighty or ninety percent similar to the werewolves in film and television works.

The werewolf was tall, standing nearly four meters upright, with powerful claws; its fingers could easily pierce through a ship's hull, allowing it to hang itself anywhere.

The werewolf's movement pattern was similar to the mummies' — it kept leaping and tumbling between the walls and ceiling, its body speed extremely fast, leaving only a faint black afterimage in the air.

Although the werewolf's speed was fast, it was still faster than the Ritualist's attack magic, yet the Ritualist saw completely through the werewolf's movements, each attack pre-cast toward the position the werewolf would move to, making it look as though the werewolf had crashed into the Ritualist's magic on its own.

!

On the field the Ritualist held absolute initiative, but the werewolf wasn't giving anything away either — it possessed powerful regeneration, able to tough out the Ritualist's ceaseless attacks, and each time it was injured, its speed and strength grew another notch, as though stacking rage by taking damage.

Both were top-tier players; judging purely from the power they displayed, neither of their strength was inferior to Hearing Zhanghuo, more than a notch stronger than Sword Star at present.

Neither side had played their trump card; if they stalemated like this, it was uncertain who would be laughing at the end.

The plane native the two top-tier players were fighting over was an old man who looked nothing special.

Caught between the two, the old man could neither advance nor retreat, and could only find a thick-looking wooden crate and hide behind it.

The two players were quite tacit in agreement, both doing their best to keep the battle from affecting the old man, and also keeping the old man from leaving.

Interesting.

The person both top-tier players were fighting over — who knew what his background was.

The moment their group appeared, they had already been noticed by the two players, but Wu Chang still raised his voice, as if afraid they couldn't hear, and shouted loudly:

"I found non-human monsters in the cargo hold, and a mysterious person controlling the monsters with his mind. Li Yubin, you guys go call the others over first, we'll hold them off!"

Saying so, Wu Chang pulled out his phone, the lens pointed directly at the two.

This move completely threw the two players off.

In the Silent Route plane there were no supernatural abilities or werewolves; if Wu Chang really called people over, the two of them wouldn't be able to explain themselves clearly.

The Ritualist was fine — backed by the Xinyuzhou Sect, he might be able to escape unscathed, but the werewolf wouldn't be so lucky.

He had no faction behind him; if people insisted he was a monster and suspected he was connected to what happened on the Sea of Song, probably every plane native on the ship would think of a way to take him out first.

Even if he wasn't killed, completing the main quest would become extremely difficult.

The werewolf hesitated for a moment, then decided to stop here for now — they were in the vast ocean anyway, that old man couldn't run, there'd be plenty of chances to catch him later.

Having made his decision, the werewolf immediately threw back his head and let out a roar; visible sound waves spread from the werewolf's mouth, causing everyone present to cover their ears.

Taking advantage of the moment everyone's attention was diverted, the werewolf accelerated, ran along the ceiling over Wu Chang and the others' heads, and in the blink of an eye disappeared into the passenger cabin.

Originally it was seven against two; after the werewolf fled, it became seven against one.

To be precise, counting the old man, it was eight against one.

The Ritualist glanced at Wu Chang and sighed — if this native hadn't disrupted his occult ritual, today he would have succeeded.

He waved the baton in his hand, a small magic circle appeared beneath his feet, and the next instant his entire person vanished from the cargo hold.

Wu Chang recognized the magic circle the Ritualist used — it was a short-range teleportation array, and he let him slip away.

Wu Chang looked around, confirmed there were no other players nearby, then turned his gaze to the old man the two had been fighting over.

This side-quest native has no one wanting him, right? If no one wants him, I'll just pick him up and take him.

He approached the old man and said: "Come with me first, we'll talk after we get back."

The old man sized Wu Chang up a few times, thought for a moment, and said: "I see you have some ability, so I'll go with you first."

Wu Chang: "..."

How come you're being picky too.

Wu Chang and the others left with the old man; he gave Qinglong and the others a look, the group spread out to take positions, a few double doors blocked the way, and the frail old man was instantly blocked off completely.

Wu Chang took the chance to ask: "Are you a passenger on the Star Leap, or a passenger on the Sea of Song?"

The old man didn't waste words either, directly pulling out a Star Leap ticket with his name on it — Cui Chengze.

"I'm an exorcist, specializing in investigating all kinds of paranormal and mysterious disappearance incidents. Perhaps I touched on the truth of this shipwreck belt, which is why the mastermind sent those two just now to try to capture me."

Wu Chang pressed: "What is the shipwreck belt?"

Cui Chengze glanced at the expensive suit on Wu Chang and said in a sarcastic tone:

"A rich young master like you certainly wouldn't care about the lives and deaths of ordinary people; it's perfectly normal not to know."

"In this stretch of sea, every one to two years, ships will mysteriously disappear, just like the Sea of Song — no living people seen, no dead bodies seen. These ships don't truly sink; they drift in a stretch of sea ordinary people can't reach."

"Those mysteriously disappeared ships, just like the Sea of Song, wander aimlessly in that stretch of sea, waiting to be discovered by people. Survivors who luckily make it out of that stretch of sea call this stretch of sea the shipwreck belt."

Wu Chang raised an eyebrow, looked at Cui Chengze, and said: "You're one of those survivors?"

Cui Chengze looked at Wu Chang with some surprise and said: "Worthy of being a genius who can split through formation barriers — your intuition is frighteningly sharp. Let me take a good look at you."

Cui Chengze sized Wu Chang up and down several times, then clapped his hands together and said with a face full of regret: "What a fine piece of uncut jade — if I'd met you earlier and been the one to teach you, you would surely have become the greatest master of occultism in history!"

Wu Chang pursed his lips; when Cui Chengze said that line, the image of that beggar who tricked kids into buying picture-book manuals floated up before his eyes.

"Let's not talk about all this nonsense first — compared to studying occultism, I'd rather know about the shipwreck belt."

Cui Chengze's expression changed, and he shook his head saying: "No, the secret of the shipwreck belt is of great importance — unless you agree to help me, I absolutely won't tell you."

Wu Chang laughed — refusing a toast only to eat cephalosporin, huh.

He was just about to deliver some verbal threat, when "Perfectionism" reacted.

The hidden side quest had a reaction.

(End of chapter)