Li Anjie walked toward the crowd. "I'm really fine. Fan Jiayuan avoided the adventure, but I didn't!"
Chen Shaofei stood in front of Li Anjie, smiling at Nan Yue. "I told you! It's simply—"
His voice trailed off because Li Anjie's hand had been placed on his shoulder.
It was a simple movement, but he felt as if his soul had been emptied.
The feeling was hard to describe. Simply put, he found he could no longer control his body.
Li Anjie kept one hand on Chen Shaofei's shoulder while his other hand reached for Zhao Linli's arm nearby.
But that other hand had already fallen onto the deck.
The stump was filled with dried black blood, like a corpse that had been dead for a long time with no blood left to flow.
Zhao Linli froze in terror. Nan Yue's black mist had just severed Li Anjie's arm and had not yet been retracted.
She grabbed Zhao Linli by the collar and pulled him back.
"I suggest you stop while you're ahead. You can't leave anymore, but if you try to take any more lives, I won't leave you with an intact corpse."
Li Anjie's expression vanished. He looked at Nan Yue coldly for a moment before turning to walk back behind John and the others.
Chen Shaofei, who had been furious just moments ago, now looked like a soulless doll as he slowly followed Li Anjie toward that part of the deck.
The remaining scavengers finally understood. The people Nan Yue had pointed out as having issues were indeed already dead.
"Whoa, your leader is quite something."
Long Qinghe was somewhat surprised. He hadn't expected these dead scavengers to be able to kill others through touch.
However, this ability must have only appeared once they reached the deck and the departure was announced; otherwise, they would have harvested everyone's lives like a plague long ago.
"Zhu... Zhu Xi Ning..."
Su Qian, who had been in the crowd, suddenly realized something. She looked at her roommate in a panic.
"My... my photo didn't change either, but I didn't avoid any adventures!"
Zhu Xi Ning remained silent. Su Qian grew anxious.
"Say something! Why... why is Nan Yue looking at me too!"
"What did you see at the banquet?"
Su Qian fell silent.
She knew that everyone else had seen the guests turn into their long-dead forms at the banquet.
But...
She hadn't seen it.
The person she danced with had looked like a normal person the entire time.
She had felt something was wrong then, but she hadn't dared to say anything.
Perhaps deep down, she had already secretly sensed something.
"But... but I... I completed the adventure."
Zhu Xi Ning looked at her, her gaze filled with sadness.
"I know you completed the adventure. So, what wants your life isn't the rules themselves."
Zhu Xi Ning's ability allowed her to perceive things through intuition that others could not.
For instance, now that they were on the deck, she could see a man crouching on Su Qian's back.
A... headless man.
He was like a man-eating flower that had caught its prey, hugging Su Qian tightly.
He had likely crawled onto Su Qian the moment she used his head to clear Jessica's task.
If they had noticed earlier, there might have been a way.
But after so many days...
In Zhu Xi Ning's eyes, Su Qian was already a walking corpse. She was just like those guests who were still 'alive' only because they didn't know the truth.
Once the truth was known, what remained of her life would dissipate.
Su Qian's face turned a pale blue-gray. Whether she remembered something or felt something, she stopped speaking and stood stiffly in the rain.
"The Devil's Bay was completely wiped out the first time it ventured into these waters."
"It's just that this sea is very peculiar. The dead don't dissipate; instead, they are trapped here forever."
Nan Yue's voice was faint, yet it was surprisingly clear amidst the sound of the rain.
"But what happened in the past still leaves traces."
"Like the perfectly clean lower hold. There are no visible personal belongings on the ship because they were likely washed away by the sea during that destruction."
"Like the blood-soaked corridors and rooms. And then there are..."
"Your memories."
"You have no memory of dying, yet you know far too much about Devil's Bay."
Nan Yue's voice sounded almost like a lament. "The only thing Devil's Bay can keep is a part of you. Everything else that was real vanished into the waves long ago."
"I'm sorry, but you can't go home."
As soon as Nan Yue finished speaking, all the scavengers watched in horror as the crew before them and even the passengers in the cabins behind them changed.
The aura of the living vanished from their bodies. Their forms bloated, becoming a pale white and dripping with water.
They were covered from head to toe in barnacles.
Clusters of barnacles competed to latch onto their bodies, growing so thick that if their faces weren't still visible, it would be impossible to tell they were once human.
"Ugh..."
The scavengers, whose mental stability had been teetering after days of this mission, now had almost zero resistance to pollution.
Several scavengers began to retch at the sight.
"You're right."
Joseph's once deep and hearty voice became deathly still.
"We are the only ones trapped here forever."
His eyes were like those of a fish dead for days, bulging and rotating as they stared at everyone.
"But there are always new people joining us."
As Steve's voice fell, cries of alarm rang out from the crowd.
Nan Yue frowned and endured. The sensation of barnacles forcing their way out of her skin was extremely unpleasant.
And seeing the state of Steve and the others, it was hard not to want to reach out and tear the barnacles off her own body.
She didn't want... didn't want to become like them!
Some people did exactly that. After Zhao Linli tore two off, he knelt on the ground. The sensation was no different from tearing off his own skin.
More importantly, two more barnacles immediately burrowed out of the bloody wound.
The shock of watching them wriggle out of the skin was heavy. Even the usually calm Zhao Linli clutched his hair, his eyes bloodshot.
"Calm down."
Nan Yue's voice cut through the cries of the others. "Touching the water causes the mutation, but that doesn't mean we can't go back."
This wasn't an extreme mission; it was impossible for there to be a scenario where everyone was guaranteed to die.
Nan Yue's words brought those on the brink of madness back to their senses. It was as if they had found an anchor point. They didn't dare look at themselves, staring only at Nan Yue instead.
In truth, the state of Nan Yue and her group wasn't great either. Barnacles had grown on Gu Xiang Kai's exposed arms.
He frowned and poked at them, muttered a few words, and then lowered his hand.
He felt it was fine; they were just a bit ugly.
As an intuition-based scavenger, Zhu Xi Ning's mental stability was excellent. She stood with her eyes slightly lowered, as if nothing were happening.
Rate on N.U.
