Shrouded Seascape

Charles and Linda stared blankly at the battered young girl on the bed.

Neither of them had expected her to say such words.

However, the young girl's injuries were just too severe. Charles shook his head and replied, "No, you've fulfilled your duty, so you can retire now."

Grace struggled to sit up. Charles willed it, and an invisible tentacle helped her up.

"If I step down, who will take over my position?" Grace asked.

"You don't need to worry about that. Besides, what I'm going to do next will not require your services," Charles said calmly. He was planning on dealing with both Anna and the Pope before venturing into the darkness once again.

However, Grace shook her head stubbornly and said, "No, I have to stay, or the person taking over me is going to die!"

Linda became anxious at Grace's remark. Afraid that Charles would nod at Grace's words, she stepped forward and said, "What about you? Won't you die the next time this happens?"

"But—"

"Enough!" Charles waved his hand forcefully and said sternly. "No buts! You are no longer useful here, so you have to go down!"

Charles didn't even wait for Grace's reply as he turned and walked out of the infirmary.

Linda cast a surprised gaze at Charles' retreating figure. Having been together for so many years, Linda was confident that she knew her captain very well, and she was certain that Charles wasn't retiring Grace because she had become useless.

"You selfish lunatic!" Swann cursed. He was cursing in a low voice as he lay on his bed, but Charles still heard it. "You self-righteous and egotistical bastard! You're so dumb that even if you were to dig out your brain and feed it to the dogs, they're not going to eat it!"

Charles didn't really care about the target of Swann's cursing; he ignored the latter and made a beeline for the bridge to examine the map that he had drawn himself.

He moved his finger down three squares from where they had ambushed the Pope and saw a purple nebula nearby, which meant that it was a dangerous place.

If the Pope and Lily had fallen overboard, then there's a high chance that they entered this place. Judging from Grace's condition, the Pope must be seriously injured, too. Are they okay?

Lily's smiling face popped up in his mind, and his brows furrowed slightly. This was the second time that the little girl had left his side, and he couldn't help but feel anxious at the thought that Lily was in the hands of the Pope.

However, Charles immediately suppressed his emotions. Worrying was useless, as it wouldn't save Lily.

Click, click, claaack!

A series of clicking noises echoed, accompanied by the creaking of gears. Charles turned and saw two brass pipes connected to three bloody fingers pushing open the door to the bridge.

Swann hunched over like a hunchbacked and deformed dwarf staggered into the bridge.

"What's your next step? The Pope is still alive," Swann asked.

"He will definitely return to the Subterranean Sea. We just need to wait for him on the island below the Colossal Hole Fortress. Besides, I need to handle some matters down there."

Swann smiled contemptuously and asked, "Are you afraid? Afraid that he will ambush you while you're out here exploring?"

Charles looked down at Swann's deformed figure and asked, "The Pope is still alive. What are you going to do? Are you going to join me in dealing with the Pope again?"

"Hmph! Do you really think that's possible after what happened? If your woman had come here and worked with us, the Pope would have died in that ambush! Now, we're in such a mess, and it's all your fault!

"I can't trust you now, and I can't trust your woman, either. As the saying goes, rely on the water, the water flows; rely on the boat, the boat moves; I'll rely only on myself from now on," Swann muttered. His injured face revealed a hatred so extreme that it seemed to permeate even his bones.

Charles pondered over something before looking out the window to stare at the pitch-black void outside. "It's useless even if you have Ronker with you. The Pope managed to defeat you once even with that, so he can definitely defeat you for the second time."

Swann shook his head and laughed coldly. "No, no, no. He has become younger, but he's become significantly weaker as well. A Chosen One without the Divinity that had chosen them is like a captain without a ship.

"I just have to retrieve Ronker and wait for the golden opportunity to strike. He's definitely going to die by then!"

Swann's words made Charles remember the time when the former had attacked Hope Island, Charles couldn't help but think whether he should take this opportunity to kill the weakened Swann or not.

After all, he was very certain that Swann would target him next once the Pope was dead.

Charles stared at Swann, and invisible tentacles sprung up, wrapping tightly around Swann.

"Sorry, you can't leave yet. I still need your help with a few things."

Swann's pupils constricted as he stared at Charles in disbelief. "What...?"

"I said you can't leave yet. I still need your help. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but once the Pope is dead, I'm sure you're going to attack me next," Charles explained.

"That is absurd!" Swann raged. He turned around to leave, but the invisible tentacles around him wrapped his battered figure even tighter.

"You—" Before Swann could complete his sentence, three tentacles plugged his mouth, preventing him from speaking any further.

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The Narwhale returned safely to the nearest outpost by traveling down the marked return route. Charles wasted no time and immediately made a report about the Pope and spread the information through telegrams.

He also ordered everyone on the surface to be on alert and to put up wanted posters.

Charles didn't stay in the outpost for too long; he and his crew boarded the next train heading for the Colossal Hole Fortress on the same afternoon.

***

Amidst the chaos, Charles stood up abruptly and looked around in a daze at the blood-red mist that had abruptly surrounded them. Then, he walked forward, seemingly looking for something.

Charles walked for a long time when he saw a massive shadow moving in the depths of the fog. His heart tightened, and he ran frantically in that direction.

He ran for quite a while until he found himself standing before a cliffside. He swept his gaze across his surroundings, but he couldn't find what he was looking for.

Exhausted, Charles was about to lean against the cliffside when a colossal scarlet eyeball the size of a football field abruptly manifested on the cliffside!

"Gao..."

Charles looked up and saw the colossal scarlet eyeball staring at him. His face became overwhelmed with shock, and he retreated a few steps backward. A violent tremor ran across the mountain, and it distorted.

Moments later, Charles was stupefied to discover that the mountain had never been a mountain—it was a tentacle that was so massive that it seemed to pervade the earth and pierce the skies!

The blood-red mist dispersed slowly, and Charles finally saw what was on the tentacle. Bizarre-looking organs and appendages multiplied rapidly on the tentacle to form the colossal head of Anna!

Then, the sky itself seemed to part as a gigantic hand burst out of the tentacle. A writhing mass of tentacles riddled with glowing eyeballs was in the hand. The cross-shaped pupils of the glowing eyeballs told Charles that he was staring at his daughter. Sparkle was in Anna's gigantic hand!

Anna's colossal head parted into a monstrous maw that seemed capable of devouring the world itself. Then, she decisively hurled Sparkle into her mouth and chewed her up.

"Gao Zhiming~ Look! I have become a Divinity! Now that I've become a Divinity, our problems are no longer considered problems. They've become trivial at best!"

"No! No! No!!" Charles covered in cold sweat abruptly opened his eyes to find his crew members staring at him in surprise.

A train was speeding down a railway track that had been laid out on the surface world's semi-desert regions. The dim purple light shining down on everyone's faces through the window made everyone feel as if it was dusk.

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