Dark clouds blanketed the sky, and a cold, thin mist drifted across the sea, making the light even dimmer. This was the Ghost Sea, a place even pirates were unwilling to visit.
Baha, crouched on the crossbeam of the mast, was completely unfazed by the sinister scenery. Bubu Wang was different. He had curled up in the lower hold beneath the deck, poking his head out and looking around nervously, his mind wound taut.
Suddenly, something bumped into Bubu Wang. It was a cursed being whose body was half-submerged in the wooden wall of the hold.
Bubu Wang shuddered. Realizing that the cursed being had bumped into him, he bared his teeth at it, as if saying, You scared the life out of me!
The cursed being sank back into the damp wooden wall, while Bubu Wang continued climbing the wooden ladder and peeking onto the deck, his expression tense. In truth, there was one thing Bubu Wang had yet to understand: cursed beings were far stronger than ghosts. To cursed beings, ghosts were meals that delivered themselves.
The Ghost Sea could not trap the Doom—or rather, the reason this sea had become what it was was because of the Doom.
The surrounding mist gradually dispersed. In the evening, dim yellow sunlight shone over from the horizon. One cursed being after another crawled out from beneath the deck and stood there, staring blankly at the sunset.
"My hometown is over there."
A cursed being raised its deathly pale hand and pointed toward the horizon. Its clothes had long since been soaked beyond recognition by seawater, but one could vaguely tell that it was wearing the uniform of an Empire naval officer.
The crew enslaved by the Doom fell into two categories. The first had once served as sailors aboard the