"Crack… Hiss…"
The entire passenger ship let out a teeth-grinding groan, and the deck warped into a terrifying arc beneath Luo En's feet.
The porthole glass at the end of the corridor shattered with a "bang," and the salty seawater, carried by the strong wind, poured into the cabin.
"Meow!" Lachi's fur bristled all over, and her amber pupils contracted sharply.
As a cat, she had a genetic fear of water, and even as an Assassin, she was no exception.
"Lachi, calm down."
"It's alright…" Luo En tried to soothe her.
Despite his words, Luo En also felt a sense of powerlessness in the face of the current crisis. This was his first time encountering a shipwreck.
Damn it… I'm not a Sailor.
With a vortex of this scale, if he were dragged down, even as a Beyonder, there would be almost no chance of survival.
"Lifeboat…" Luo En suddenly thought of something.
"The lifeboats are on the aft deck…"
He had to leave before the ship sank, otherwise, being caught in the vortex would be the end. Luo En hugged the Orange Cat tightly and quickened his pace, running towards the aft deck.
Before he had taken two steps, he felt a bad premonition.
"Oh no, this ship can't hold on much longer."
Violent tremors echoed all around. The entire ship suddenly let out a tearing roar.
The floor beneath his feet abruptly collapsed, and Luo En, in the instant of falling, flung the Orange Cat towards the relatively intact left corridor.
"Meow-ow—!"
Accompanied by an earth-shattering cracking sound, the passenger ship broke in half from the middle.
Amidst the flying splinters of wood, Luo En grabbed a dangling rope and barely managed to steady himself.
…
"Ah… where am I…"
"My head hurts so much."
A violent jolt woke up a certain unfortunate Calamity Priest.
Looking at his soaked body, he was a bit confused.
"Wait, my potion seems to be completely digested…"
"Clang!"
Before he could even celebrate, a broken mast, without any warning from his spiritual intuition, crashed heavily onto his head, directly knocking him into the churning seawater.
…
"Captain! The main mast is broken!"
Tracy's pirate ship was also in chaos. She clutched the helm tightly, her knuckles white.
"Damn it, how could something like this suddenly happen…"
Tracy had been a pirate for many years and had seen all sorts of situations. She could tell at a glance that the abnormal natural climate before her must have been influenced by Beyonder factors.
Could it be the Storm Church? Impossible… She looked at the passenger ship not far away. If it was just to deal with pirates, there was no need to involve an innocent passenger ship.
"Turn the helm quickly!"
"Throw everything overboard, get out at all costs!"
"Quick!"
She roared at her subordinates, but her voice was drowned out by the thunder. A bolt of lightning struck the sea less than ten meters away, its blinding blue light reflecting her pale face.
Before she could give the next command.
"Boom-crack!"
Another bolt of lightning accurately struck the middle of the pirate ship. Tracy was thrown into the air by the blast wave of the explosion and plunged directly into the icy seawater.
…
"Damn it, what's wrapped around me?"
The seawater had already reached Luo En's chest, and he desperately pulled on the rope, trying to climb up. But something grabbed his leg.
"A person? No, that's not right, a person doesn't have that much strength."
Although people can indeed unleash unimaginable strength in desperate situations, Luo En was a Sequence 7 Beyonder after all; no matter how strong an ordinary person was, they couldn't possibly hold him back.
"Could it be a Merfolk?" Luo En suddenly remembered what Edwina had told him about the most common type of Monster in the sea.
"I'm being dragged down!"
"Damn it, let go!" Luo En vigorously shook his leg, trying to shake off the "Merfolk."
The Calamity Priest desperately clutched the calf of the person in front of him. He had been choked awake by the seawater, and by the time he regained consciousness, he was covered in injuries and on the verge of drowning.
The leg in front of him was his last hope of survival, and he would not let go no matter what.
If only I had known, I wouldn't have betrayed the Life School of Thought… he wailed inwardly.
"Damn it!"
"Kick you to death, kick you to death!"
After several kicks failed to dislodge it, Luo En became enraged.
"Ah." He painstakingly freed one hand and pulled out "Phantom" from his embrace.
"Bang bang bang!"
After three continuous gunshots, the pulling sensation on his leg finally disappeared.
"Finally got rid of it…" Luo En put away his pistol and breathed a sigh of relief.
However, before he could celebrate, an even larger wave crashed over him.
…
"Brando, where are you?" Anderson had lost his previous composure, calling out Luo En's alias with a hint of anxiety.
This sudden shipwreck had disrupted all his plans.
"Damn it, he's lost." Feeling the turbulence beneath his feet, Anderson uncharacteristically felt a hint of powerlessness.
As a Hunter, losing a target was a very shameful thing, but the current situation was clearly abnormal.
He looked up at the storm gradually gathering on the sea surface.
"This should be related to the Storm Church, right…"
"I wonder if the old men of the Church will listen to my explanation."
…
Luo En floated on the relatively calm sea, looking around blankly.
He seemed to have been directly blown out of the storm's center by the strong winds, thus avoiding the vortex.
Debris, debris, everywhere his eyes could see were fragments of ships; the sea surface was a mess.
Just then, something in the distance caught Luo En's attention.
A life raft!
Luo En didn't hesitate and immediately swam towards it.
"Was it thrown out by the waves?" Luo En examined the small boat in front of him. Although it was covered with large and small gaps, its main structure was still intact, and it wasn't leaking.
"Finally, lucky for once…"
After climbing aboard, Luo En gasped for air. He had been in the sea for several hours.
"Clang!" Before he could catch his breath, the small boat was hit by something.
"A corpse?" Luo En looked down and found a corpse with an unwilling expression and a face full of scars.
"Wait, this person looks familiar?" Luo En felt as if he had seen this face somewhere before, but the scars made identification difficult.
"Burn marks… how strange."
"This is? Beyonder characteristic!" To Luo En's surprise, not long after, transparent substances began to precipitate from the corpse.
Had it only drowned recently? Otherwise, the characteristic wouldn't have just precipitated… Looking at the scene before him, Luo En began to analyze the situation.
"Poor guy, he was so close to being rescued…"
Adhering to the principle of 'take it if it's free,' Luo En collected the characteristic from the corpse and placed it in the spatial pouch of 'Block 3,' planning to study it slowly after returning to land.
Then he offered a prayer for the corpse.
"May the Steam protect you, and may your luck be better in the next life…"
…
"Lachi!" After temporarily escaping danger, Luo En suddenly remembered his Orange Cat.
"Where are you!"
"It's over, cats are afraid of water." Looking at the vast sea, Luo En felt a hint of despair.
In a shipwreck like this, even people couldn't escape, let alone a cat.
"Meow!"
"Lachi! I'm here!" Hearing the cat's meow, Luo En's hope rekindled.
He saw his cat lying on a floating object, rising and falling with the waves.
Luo En immediately used his hands as oars and paddled vigorously in the direction of the cat.
"Meow!" Seeing her owner, Lachi cried out excitedly.
"Lachi, I'm glad you're okay."
"Wait? What's that?"
As Luo En got closer, he noticed that the object under Lachi's feet was a bit off.
"This is? A woman?"
It was a huge crystal, like ice yet like crystal, encasing a graceful black-haired girl.