Avenger

Hearing the familiar light chuckle, Xia Lun suddenly raised his head, then saw Captain Geliide among a patch of collapsed wood.

At this moment, the bald female captain was leaning against the wall, her chest visibly caved in.

"Damn it, Xia Lun, you finally told a funny joke, cough, cough, cough..." Geliide's voice was quite hoarse, her utterances mixed with wheezing that sounded like a broken bellows.

Hearing that leaky-sounding voice, an ominous premonition instantly rose in Xia Lun's heart.

He stepped forward, took a closer look, and then found that Geliide was severely injured. Several of her ribs were snapped inward, piercing her lung lobes like sharp daggers; and her abdomen was a bloody mess, with huge open wounds revealing cluster after cluster of viscera minced by high pressure.

The bald captain coughed a few times, and pink, bubbly blood spatters dripped onto the ground like a suddenly punctured water balloon, mixed with shattered internal organs.

--Under the existing medical conditions, Geliide's injury was an incurable fatal wound. She was now a step away from death and could die at any moment.

Seeing yet another acquaintance facing death, Xia Lun could not help feeling a sense of vexation. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and tried his best to resolve the anger in his heart.

"Don't wear such a bitter face, smile more. In this line of work, dying is normal."

Geliide struggled to fish out her pipe, painstakingly brought her mouth to the pipe's edge, and then took a fierce puff. White smoke slowly billowed from her nostrils and her blood-soaked chest.

"Listen up, you need to get out of here right now, otherwise the ship will sink later and form a whirlpool, and then you won't be able to leave."

"Where is the monster?" Xia Lun asked in a deep voice. "I'm here to kill it."

Geliide raised an eyebrow. Under the flickering firelight, the terrifying scar on her face seemed to come alive: "That bastard is right ahead. It's also heavily injured. Listen, I have an idea."

She paused, then took another puff from her pipe.

"My injury is definitely a goner, and as it happens, there's a small unexploded gunpowder barrel ahead. So, instead of you going sword-to-sword with that monster in a desperate fight, why don't you wait for me to finish this puff, and then let me take the gunpowder barrel and go down with that damned brigadier general--how do you like this plan?"

Xia Lun shook his head. "Unnecessary."

"It is necessary!" Geliide jerked her head up, her tone suddenly turning irritable. "Don't play the hero here, Xia Lun. The brigadier general and I have a blood feud, but you don't--it makes no sense for you to risk your life fighting that monster. Let me do it."

With that, she grabbed the wood in front of her, pushed hard, and abruptly stood up.

Her movements were extremely swift, as if the fatal injuries on her body completely did not exist.

Seeing this, Xia Lun immediately associated it with the specialty he had seen during his first dream--"Nonhuman Toughness".

Geliide walked to the pile of wood without a word. Her calloused hand grabbed the gunpowder barrel, and with a slight heave, she tucked the gunpowder barrel under her armpit just like an office worker carrying a briefcase.

She coughed twice, then spat out the pipe in her mouth. The pipe dropped with a clatter and was then crushed under a boot.

"Geliide, there is a secret art text on the monster, and I am determined to get it," Xia Lun said in a deep voice. "So, I'm not playing the hero. I have my own vested interests to consider."

Geliide was stunned. She seemed somewhat surprised by Xia Lun's candor, yet the next moment, the rustling sound of squirming flesh suddenly came from afar, followed by a rapid approach.

The monster came on its own initiative!

"Click." Xia Lun's left thumb gently pushed the hammer, while his right hand gripped the short sword tightly.

"Xia Lun, translate for Geliide," the monster's hissing voice slowly sounded. "The three of us, let's talk."

"What is there to talk about?" Xia Lun sneered. "What, it has come to this point, and you still want to play some kind of reconciliation trick?"

As he spoke, he looked up at the monster.

Behind the orange firelight, the monster's figure loomed vaguely. Amidst the flames, an eye-catching milky-white glimmer was clearly visible--the lower half of the Prayerbook of the Drowned was still safely stuck in the monster's rear left.

In an instant, a vague train of thought appeared in Xia Lun's mind.

The monster waved its tentacles and repeated, "The three of us, let's talk."

"It's already like this, and the monster still wants to chat with you?" Geliide asked, raising an eyebrow.

Xia Lun shook his head. "It says it wants to chat with both of us."

As he spoke, he quietly walked toward the monster's left side.

"It wants to chat with me? Does it understand human speech?" Geliide almost laughed out of anger.

"Understand..." the monster hissed. "Understand."

"It says it understands," Xia Lun continued to translate. At this moment, he was even closer to the monster.

Geliide frowned slightly. She glanced at Xia Lun's position and found that he was still within the blast radius, so she quite unwillingly put down the flint in her hand: "Then let's talk. Brigadier general, what do you have to say?"

"Geliide, do you remember the White Whale? Do you remember Captain Haya?" the monster hissed. "Ah, of course you don't remember, but now, you will remember, because I've come to seek revenge on you and your running dogs."

Xia Lun was stunned for a moment, and countless thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant.

He thought of the "whaling ship captain's suicide" mentioned by the old man, of the scarred crew member Daolunte saying "I'm like the old captain," and of the monster's behavior of not attacking the originally captured crew...

The true identity of this monster was the captain of the original whaling ship!

Xia Lun suppressed the shock in his heart, and while translating, he continued to slowly approach the monster's flank.

"Captain... Haya?" Geliide's face showed confusion. "Haya who?"

The next second, Geliide seemed to realize something. Her chestnut pupils suddenly dilated, her face turned pale instantly, and her lips lost all trace of color: "You... you aren't the brigadier general?"

At this moment, this pirate leader, who seemed utterly fearless even in the face of death, clearly showed a look of terror, and her breathing suddenly turned heavy.

"Hhahahaha." The monster hissed smugly and cheerfully. Even without Xia Lun's translation, Geliide could tell that the monster was laughing.

After a few seconds, the monster stopped laughing wildly. It lunged forward abruptly and, like a stage actor reciting lines, hissed with cadence.

"Geliide, you might have forgotten me, but I'm going to help you remember. Ten years ago, the North Borlan Sea, a stormy day, you plundered my ship."

"Not only did you rob the treasure, but you also killed people for fun. The gunner among you insulted my daughter right in front of me and threw her into the sea; the old man among you used my brother as a target to practice marksmanship; and you, Geliide, are the chief culprit behind all of this!"

Xia Lun listened with a deep frown, but he still translated these words verbatim.

"You... I..." Geliide's lips moved, seemingly wanting to say something. The next moment, as if she had figured something else out, her expression grew even paler. "The news that the 'brigadier general' had boarded this ship--was that leaked to me by you?! The brigadier general never came here at all?"

"That's right, I am that mysterious informant," the monster swayed its tentacles smugly. "You constantly kept your eyes on your enemies, and I did the same. After surviving by a fluke, there wasn't a single day I didn't want to exact revenge on you. I know everything about you like the back of my hand."

Xia Lun continued translating. By this time, he had come within ten steps of the monster, and the monster now seemed so carried away by its own smugness that it completely failed to notice Xia Lun's position.

"Who on earth are you?!" Geliide questioned with a trembling voice.

At this moment, she had already realized that her death was utterly meaningless, and the brigadier general was simply not here.

"I am Captain Haya," the monster wiped its tentacles leisurely. "Right, I am also the captain of this whaling ship--to be honest, I gave you a chance, but unfortunately you still returned to your old wicked ways, continuing to take robbery and murder as your trade. So, you walked right into my trap yourselves."

While loudly translating, Xia Lun quietly threw out a grappling hook, silently hooking down the lower half of the Prayerbook of the Drowned.