By Fire as a Boat

The searing pain faded from his mind, leaving behind exhaustion on the verge of collapse and a sentence as clear as a brand—"Light... more light!"

Lin Jie's consciousness was forcibly dragged back from the brink of being torn apart.

He sucked in a huge breath, and blood-tainted air flooded his lungs, making him cough violently.

He was still sprawled across the cold, slick deck. The Deep Sea Resentful Woman that had been pressing him step by step was now circling hesitantly, fearful of the muzzle flash from his revolver.

There was no time to hesitate, no time to think.

That mad plan was his only lifeline now.

Lin Jie pushed himself up with one hand while gripping the Webley revolver that granted him calm with the other. Rather than firing wildly again, he aimed the gun at the sky and pulled the trigger!

"Bang!"

Another deafening blast erupted above the deck.

It was not meant to harm anything, but to draw every monster's attention.

At the instant most of the Grudge Women on deck had their "eyes" drawn by the gunshot, Lin Jie sprang up like a cheetah and launched a desperate charge toward the German-made hand lamp still radiating a stubborn white glow!

"Hiss—!"

Several Grudge Women reacted at once and swept in to encircle him.

They moved like streaks of gray lightning, their claws gouging deep furrows into the wooden deck.

Lin Jie saw nothing but the lamp.

He cast life and death aside, focusing every scrap of willpower into that charge.

Just as a Grudge Woman's claws were about to touch his back, he suddenly dove sideways. His body slid several meters across the puddled deck, and his fingers finally touched the hand lamp's cold metal casing.

He had made it!

Lin Jie snatched up the lamp, rolled across the deck, and raised it high, placing it between himself and the lunging monsters.

Then a miracle happened.

The lamp gave off not the yellow light of an ordinary flame, but a pure, steady white radiance.

When that light shone upon the Grudge Women, black smoke immediately hissed from their bodies. They let out piercing shrieks of agony and retreated wildly, as if they had encountered their natural predator.

It works... it really works! A surge of wild joy rose in Lin Jie's heart.

But that joy lasted only a second.

He quickly realized that the lamp illuminated only a radius of about two meters. He was like someone standing atop a lighthouse that could be swallowed at any moment, while more monsters watched hungrily just beyond the edge of the light.

He could not survive alone.

He had to turn everyone who could still move into part of the light.

He looked around and saw several surviving sailors and overseers trembling behind masts or piles of cargo. Their muskets had become useless, and despair was written across their faces.

Holding up the lamp, Lin Jie crouched low and began slowly approaching them.

As he moved, he shouted at the top of his lungs in broken English mixed with a few Chinese words:

"Light! Light is weapon!"

He pointed at the lamp in his hand, then at the Grudge Women shrinking back from it, showing everyone what the light could do.

"Fire! More fire!"

Then he pointed toward the cabins and mimed carrying things and burning them, trying to convey his mad plan.

At first, no one responded.

These sailors, hardened by wind and waves, had long since had every shred of courage crushed by supernatural terror. They stared at this suddenly appeared, seemingly crazed Eastern man with confusion and fear in their eyes.

Lin Jie understood that words were useless now. Only action could awaken their instinct to survive.

He took a deep breath, raised the lamp, and actually charged toward a lone Grudge Woman that was trying to crawl toward an injured sailor.

Like a shepherd driving away a beast, he used the light in his hand as a weapon, forcing the Grudge Woman back step by step until it finally shrieked and tumbled over the rail.

That scene finally rekindled a spark of hope in the survivors' eyes.

The first person to step forward was unexpectedly the Indian overseer who had once whipped the laborers. He might have been vicious and brutal, but he did not want to die either.

He understood Lin Jie's tactics. With an angry roar, he pulled a hand axe from his belt, charged toward the nearest crate, and began hacking at it with all his strength.

His actions became the fuse that ignited everyone's courage.

"Quick! Listen to him!" an older sailor shouted. "Bring out everything that can burn! Rum, kerosene, spare sails! Hurry!"

The desire to survive finally overcame their fear of the unknown.

Under the cover of Lin Jie's moving "safety lamp," the survivors rushed into the cabins like frantic worker ants and carried out anything combustible.

They smashed open barrels marked "Whale Oil" and splashed the thick oil across the deck. They pried open crates of rum and used the liquor as an accelerant. They even tore apart spare mattresses, linen, and parts of the cabin doors, piling them into a small mountain at the center of the deck.

It was a race against death.

With the lamp in hand, Lin Jie was like a standard-bearer on a battlefield, constantly moving along the edge of the defensive line and driving back the Grudge Women that tried to break through it again and again.

His nerves were stretched to the limit. Every swing of the lamp and every shout frantically drained what little strength he had left.

"Light it!"

At the older sailor's command, several torches were lit and thrown into the pile of debris soaked in oil and alcohol.

"Whooom—!!"

A wall of fire more than twice a man's height blazed to life at the center of the Sea Witch's deck!

The soaring flames instantly lit up more than half the deck as bright as day, and scorching waves of heat spread outward.

Accustomed to the icy gloom and darkness of the deep sea, the Grudge Women let out a collective shriek of pain and hatred before this sudden, extreme light and heat.

They no longer dared approach even an inch. One after another, they retreated into the shadows beneath the railings, their malicious red eyes fixed upon this "human territory" protected by fire.

They had succeeded!

The survivors erupted in thunderous cheers at having escaped death.

They gathered around the bonfire, gasping for breath as they watched the wall of flame separating them from death. Many were so overcome that they began to cry.

Lin Jie, too, collapsed onto the deck, nearly dropping the lamp from his hand. Looking at the primitive yet stirring scene before him, he felt as though he had crossed into another lifetime.

However, the crisis was far from over.

The ship's fuel would eventually burn out, while the Grudge Women waited silently in the darkness like patient vultures.

Just as the bonfire's glow began to weaken and everyone's hearts rose into their throats again, heaven finally opened its eyes.

Without anyone noticing, the sky had filled with lead-gray clouds.

The sea wind suddenly turned violent, and the calm ocean began to churn furiously. A long-brewing tropical storm swept in with unstoppable force!

Raindrops the size of beans poured down, trying to extinguish the flames on deck. Towering waves crashed viciously against the Sea Witch's hull again and again, making the steel behemoth groan in pain.

This sudden display of nature's wrath became the final straw.

The Deep Sea Resentful Women seemed to hate this chaotic, violent natural environment intensely.

After several unwilling hisses, they retreated one after another. As silently as they had appeared, they vanished into the bottomless black sea.

They were gone.

But for the survivors aboard the ship, their ordeal had only just begun.

They had to battle the raging wind and rain, a ship that could fall apart at any moment, and monstrous waves until they were utterly exhausted.

No one knew how much time passed. When the storm finally subsided and the first gray rays of dawn pierced the clouds, fewer than ten living people remained on deck.

The ship had completely lost power and could only drift with the waves.

But they had survived.

Lin Jie leaned against a broken mast, soaked to the bone and exhausted, yet clearer-headed than ever before.

He watched the sun struggle up from the horizon, then slowly turned his head.

On the distant horizon, a long, distinct outline of coastline appeared before every survivor's eyes.