The dead had come back to life!?
Bang.
He staggered backward in terror and landed hard on his backside.
"Plop, plop."
The Undead crawled out of the cargo hatch. Bright red flesh and yellowing fat sagged from the ghastly gunshot wound in its skull.
That was only the beginning. In the next instant, at least five blue-gray hands gripped the edge of the hatch. Their swollen, rotting fingers crowded together, making Daolunte think of writhing worms.
He wanted to scream, but the sight was so far beyond anything he understood that no sound came out.
Was this even real? Was he dreaming?
As terror gripped him, the First Mate Undead slowly lowered his head. A note fell from his shattered skull.
Daolunte froze. Only after a long moment did he snatch up the note and read it.
The writing was faint, and the paper reeked of whale oil. The crooked letters looked like a child's first attempt at writing, but he could still make them out.
"These Walking Corpses are driven by Secret Art. They are extensions of my will and your servants.
Act at once. Kill Xia Lun with the Matchlock, seize the helm, and head for Twin Bays.
Once you succeed, order the Walking Corpses to take the Forecastle's main companionway and let me out."
Daolunte read it several times in disbelief. Then he realized his mentor had controlled a Walking Corpse to write it, and he began muttering to himself.
"So that's it... So that's it..."
He lowered the note with trembling hands. The fear on his face gradually gave way to exhilaration. In less than a second, he understood his mentor's entire plan.
Everyone aboard, himself included, had misunderstood his mentor's intentions!
Though his mentor had become a monster, he had never needed to eat the corpses. He had kept demanding them to sow suspicion among the pirates and to stockpile bodies he could turn into Walking Corpses!
The hold was where the pirates stored their dead. His mentor now had at least fifty Walking Corpses!
The odds were overwhelmingly in their favor!
At the thought, Daolunte fell into an almost feverish ecstasy. He slowly got to his feet and looked toward Xia Lun's indistinct figure in the fog.
The Walking Corpses were still pouring onto the deck through the cargo hatch, while Xia Lun stood at the helm, oblivious as a puppet.
"Hah. That's all he amounts to." Daolunte scratched the festering sores on his face. The pain brought a strangely pleasant tingling. He grabbed the Matchlock and aimed it at Xia Lun.
But a few seconds later, he lowered the gun.
The distance was too great. He could not count on hitting Xia Lun with one shot.
Daolunte knew he would get only one chance to fire. If he missed, Xia Lun's marksmanship would leave him no chance of surviving.
He took a deep breath, then picked up the firestone, a measured powder charge, and a large lead ball from the deck. He slowly tucked them into his belt.
If he could not hit Xia Lun from this far away, he would get closer.
He bent low, keeping his center of gravity down and his body hidden in the fog as best he could. His footsteps as light as a hunter's, he crept cautiously toward the helm.
Cold, heavy fog rolled around him. With every breath, Daolunte felt something icy and unseen fill his lungs through his windpipe. He was so tense he even felt dizzy.
The smell of blood and rotting fat grew stronger. His deliberately quiet footsteps vanished into the fog.
Whether through luck or because of the fog, Daolunte encountered no one along the dozens of meters between the hatch and the helm. With the Walking Corpses behind him, he drew closer to the unsuspecting Xia Lun like a ghost in the mist.
Closer. Closer still...
Daolunte widened his eyes, struggling to fix Xia Lun's position. As he neared the helm, Xia Lun's figure grew clearer through the drifting fog. Soon, Daolunte reached the space beneath it.
There was still no one below the helm. The deck was empty. Everything had gone so smoothly it was almost unbelievable.
Xia Lun remained motionless in the thick fog, like a scarecrow, seemingly unaware and blind to everything around him.
Daolunte stopped and slowly crouched. He raised the Matchlock, pressed his cheek awkwardly against the stock, closed his left eye, and lined up the sight on Xia Lun.
"Phew..." He breathed out slowly, then jerked the trigger.
Click!
The crisp sound of the trigger echoed through the muffled fog. Only a moment later did Daolunte realize he had forgotten to load the powder and ball!
He was too nervous!
A chill shot through him. He looked toward Xia Lun in panic, but to his astonishment, Xia Lun did not turn despite the unmistakable sound. His face remained pointed toward the bow.
Daolunte instinctively leaned forward and squinted. As he studied the figure, he noticed a horrifying detail.
In the fog, several wisps of cotton drifted from "Xia Lun's" face, then dissolved into the rolling mist...
That was not Xia Lun at the helm. It was a dummy stuffed with cotton and dressed in rags!
His heart sank. Countless thoughts flashed through his mind, and he suddenly understood why he had encountered no other sailors along the way...
It had been a trap from the start!
Daolunte's scalp prickled. He instinctively tried to move, but in the next instant, a familiar, cold chuckle sounded beside his ear.
"Click."
The fog churned. A cold, hard gun barrel pressed against the back of his head, and he froze.
"Don't kill me, please..." Daolunte wanted to sound defiant, but beneath the cold shadow of death, the tough words in his head escaped as an uncontrollable, high-pitched plea.
"Do you have any other accomplices?" Xia Lun's voice came from behind him, accompanied by the footsteps of countless pirates.
"H-how did you know it was me?"
"I asked the others. None of you gamble by voting." After a moment's silence, Xia Lun spoke slowly.
It was a lie.
Xia Lun was not an all-knowing god. He had no way to confirm the infiltrator's identity. He had not even known whether an infiltrator existed.
In fact, he had simply used the Approved Specific List provided by the Game Panel when he gained Memory Points. He picked out those who seemed friendly to him but were absent from the list, then deliberately assigned them to duty over the past two days to draw the infiltrator out.
After all, if there was an infiltrator, he would have to act within those two days.
"Plop, plop..."
Xia Lun suddenly heard liquid dripping onto the deck. His eyes shifted, and through the swirling fog, he saw a pair of black leather boots smeared with congealed yellow fat.
Who was that?
Xia Lun frowned and instinctively looked up. In the next instant, his dark pupils contracted sharply!
A chill shot straight through his skull.
From the rolling fog emerged a black man's face, mangled beyond recognition, with only half a head remaining. With wet, sticky plops, dark skin peeled slowly from his face, dragging bright red muscle and yellowed, rotting tissue down with it!
"Plop, plop."
What the hell was that?! Was it the First Mate's corpse? Xia Lun jolted.
"Sa—" Daolunte, his face covered in sores, suddenly tried to shout. Before he could get out the second syllable, Xia Lun pulled the trigger without hesitation.
Bang!
Daolunte's head exploded. Red, black, and white matter splattered across the deck like the contents of a smashed sauce shop.
The blast from the muzzle briefly scattered the fog, while the orange flash faintly lit the distance.
As the pirates behind him drew a collective sharp breath, Xia Lun whipped his head toward the depths of the mist.
The fog rolled. Behind the First Mate's rotting, vacant face, countless shadowy figures surged forward, their heads bobbing as they charged through the white mist!
Xia Lun drew a deep breath, pulling air and fog into his lungs. As screams rose behind him, he roared.
"Fire!"
Bang, bang, bang, bang!
The deathly still fog erupted in noise. At last, the tense, horrifying voyage exploded into a barrage of gunfire!
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