An Alliance

The air was thick with the smell of gunpowder and blood.

Xia Lun stepped steadily out of the white smoke, but he was nowhere near as healthy as he looked—he was badly wounded.

Pain surged through his nerves like a tide, but thanks to the pain tolerance brought on by years of severe illness, he still maintained a calm, even cold expression.

Although he had activated the last use of Heightened Focus he could safely use today the instant the gunfire rang out, Heightened Focus was not time stop. Dodging a storm of bullets at close range was simply unrealistic.

Of the six bullets, he had dodged three. One of the remaining three grazed his cheek; another struck his blade, partially dislocating his wrist; the last pierced his upper abdomen. Even Xia Lun was not entirely sure what damage it had caused.

Xia Lun silently summoned his status panel and glanced at it from the corner of his eye.

[Mental Health: Calm]

[Physical Health: Severe Illness; Critical Injuries (abrasion, wrist dislocation, fractured ribs, hemothorax pneumothorax [alleviated by the "Underwater Breathing Potion"], internal bleeding)]

The situation had fallen into a stalemate once more. Xia Lun and Monster were again like two sides afraid to make the first move.

Monster had been thoroughly frightened out of its wits. It had no idea Xia Lun was badly injured, so it did not even dare reload; meanwhile, gravely wounded Xia Lun had also lost the ability to launch an attack and did not dare reveal the slightest sign of weakness.

"Boom—"

A dull rumble came from the deck, and the ship's tilt suddenly increased sharply—this ship had, at most, half an hour before it sank completely.

Worse still, the groans of the walking corpses were drawing closer. If not for Geliide's desperate last stand, those walking corpses would have already joined the battle.

He could not drag this out any longer. He had to use Symptom Reading directly to obtain Transcendent Regeneration!

Xia Lun's eyes turned cold as he made his decision in an instant.

With that thought, he took out the Prayerbook of the Drowned, torn in half, right in front of Monster.

Monster was startled. Seeing Xia Lun make a move, it took two steps back like a bird startled by the twang of a bowstring.

When it realized Xia Lun had openly taken out a book and begun reading it, its first reaction was that it was a trap!

Suspicion kept it from acting. Hesitation and fear seized Monster's mind.

It neither dared to risk everything nor dared to immediately turn and flee. Instead, it made the stupidest choice possible: wait until the walking corpses arrived as reinforcements before continuing its escape.

Just like that, Xia Lun openly flipped open the Prayerbook of the Drowned. The slick, icy wax pages were still covered in dense, tadpole-like script he could not recognize, but this time, following what the Doctor had once told him, he tried to skip past the words and directly feel the content of the text.

One second, two seconds, three seconds...

At some point, Xia Lun fell into a brief daze. Then, the words on the book seemed to suddenly move.

At some unknown moment, a layer of red phosphorescence appeared across the book's surface. That pure-colored light gave off an inexplicably filthy sensation, as if invisible mold and maggots crawled within it. One glance alone felt enough to make someone ill.

He looked around, only to find darkness all around him. A few bubbles slowly slipped from his nose and floated upward...

At that moment, it felt as if he had suddenly arrived in the lightless depths of the sea.

The next instant, the words began to leap. Their outer contours trembled, blocks of color peeled away, and the blocks and lines recombined before twisting into lines upon lines of Chinese characters.

Xia Lun had just wanted to examine them closely when, in the next instant, all the Chinese characters on the pages shot into his eye sockets like black arrows. They burrowed along his optic nerves into his brain, turning into fine strands of fuzz that slowly wriggled and crawled through the folds of his brain...

Itching, hallucinations, agonizing pain!

The next moment, Xia Lun took a deep breath, gathered his will, and forcibly ignored the discomfort.

"Boom!"

The hallucination abruptly vanished. The Prayerbook of the Drowned in Xia Lun's hand let out a scream, then several cracks split open across its cover. Countless fine bubbles like those in cola poured from the fissures, and within half a second, the entire book dissolved into a puddle of murky water.

The filthy water ran through Xia Lun's fingers. Half a second later, even the water stains disappeared, and every trace that the Prayerbook of the Drowned had ever existed vanished completely.

Countless scarlet messages flashed wildly, streaking past Xia Lun's vision in an instant.

[Warning: Your mental state has greatly deteriorated!]

[Current Mental State: Calm]

[You have obtained the occult specialty "Transcendent Regeneration"!]

[Transcendent Regeneration: Wounds are cracks in the surface, and shortcuts to the depths; but every wise person knows that the surface is the depths.]

[When you are sick or injured, you will gain extraordinary self-healing abilities. However, as the price, your mental state will decline rapidly.]

[Proficiency Progress!]

[Symptom Reading (Beginner) (1% → 80%): The Grimoire exists in all times and spaces, while Symptom Reading is the only path to occult arts. However, even among methods of Symptom Reading, there are correct and incorrect ones. Incorrect reading will drive a person completely insane.]

[Warning: Your mental state has greatly deteriorated!]

[Current Mental State: Calm]

The next moment, Xia Lun suddenly felt a numb itch on his cheek. He subconsciously touched the side of his face, then discovered in astonishment that the graze on his cheek had already healed.

"Plop."

Next, he heard the rustling sound of flesh squirming. He looked down and saw countless bud-like clumps of muscle suddenly growing around the edge of the wound in his upper abdomen. Those flesh buds stuck together and fused, slowly sealing the wound—his gunshot injury was healing at a visible rate!

This was too incredible! His terminal illness could definitely be cured! Xia Lun was instantly overjoyed.

But the next moment, he suddenly felt that the recovery inside his chest was somewhat sluggish. After thinking for a moment, he realized that compared to the rapid healing of superficial injuries, the hemothorax pneumothorax caused by fractured ribs was clearly far more complicated.

Perhaps he could perform some medical intervention?

Xia Lun hesitated, but a moment later, he made up his mind.

He thrust his hand into the wound. After feeling around with his fingers and locating the broken rib, he curled his hand slightly, gripped the displaced fracture, and violently bent it outward.

"Crack!"

Amid a bone-splitting sound that made teeth ache, blood plasma full of bubbles erupted from beneath Xia Lun's collar like a geyser. Monster stared, dumbfounded, at Xia Lun across from it as he deliberately reset his own rib. Terrified, it even forgot to sway its tentacles.

Is... is that right? It could not help questioning itself.

Yet as his body healed at high speed, Xia Lun suddenly felt his vision blur. Weakness seeped from every part of his body like mist, and the next moment, he felt an indescribable hunger.

At this moment, Xia Lun's entire body visibly shrank by several sizes. He looked unbelievably frail. His once sharply defined face had become utterly gaunt from lack of fat, like a dried corpse.

Yet his black eyes were exceptionally bright, as if all the flesh and blood in his body had burned itself into those sunken sockets.

"Looks like it does not create energy and nutrients from nothing to heal injuries after all," Xia Lun muttered. He raised his eyes and slowly looked toward Monster, which resembled a black sea cucumber. "I still need to replenish my energy."

His nose twitched. Amid the smell of gunpowder and blood, Xia Lun caught a rich scent of cooked protein. The aroma was incredibly thick, like steaming meat stew sprinkled with turnips, celery, and crumbled cheese, making his mouth water.

The scent awakened a primal hunger. Hunger washed over his reason like a tide, and he subconsciously swallowed.

The next moment, Xia Lun took a deep breath and used meditation to sense the movements of his stomach and intestines, barely suppressing the boiling hunger and thirst.

Although this black sea cucumber looked unbelievably delicious, it had ultimately once been human. He should not eat it.

But...

Suddenly, a heart-rending cough accompanied by blood came from behind him.

Xia Lun froze for a moment, then abruptly tore himself free from his hunger and turned around.

In the room not far away, Geliide's battle with the walking corpses had also reached its end.

Before the orange firelight, shattered remains of walking corpses littered the ground. Geliide knelt weakly, carrying a poleaxe whose blade had been chipped and curled from use. The fire cast her shadow long and far.

At that moment, she was coughing painfully. Within several breaths, she vomited up a large amount of organ fragments—the time granted by her final burst of life was ultimately limited. She could no longer hold on.

More than a dozen reanimated walking corpses staggered toward her. Geliide snorted, wiped the corner of her mouth, then reached for her jacket—only to grab nothing.

"Damn it, I should've known better than to show off by stepping on my pipe." She coughed, then shakily stood again. "What a goddamn loss."

She threw down her axe and sneered at the crowd of corpses gradually closing in.

"Clang." The axe hit the ground with a dull thud.

Monster, which had already fallen into despair, suddenly felt a spark of hope rise within it. It suddenly realized that it still had a chance of winning.

—As an ascender that had already transformed into an Abyssal Hand, it could actually survive briefly in water; Xia Lun, on the other hand, clearly lacked that ability.

In other words, as long as it found a way to stall until the ship sank, it would still have a chance!

And stalling would not be difficult. There were countless corpses aboard this ship that it could transform!

But the next moment, its unfinished plan went straight down the drain.

The bald female captain, Geliide, tremblingly pulled a flint from her pocket. Without the slightest hesitation, she used it to ignite the fuse of the gunpowder barrel beside her!

"Why?" Xia Lun could not help asking. "Geliide, this is not your revenge. You do not need to go this far!"

Sparks sprayed from the fuse like fluttering fireflies. Geliide turned her head, and flickering flames reflected in her chestnut eyes.

Geliide grinned, revealing a mouthful of rotten teeth yellowed by tobacco.

"Because we are allies!"

[Recognition! Having gained the recognition of pirate captain Geliide, you have obtained 300 Memory Points.]

The next moment, the fuse burned down, and distant white light burst forth!

"Boom!"

Amid the deafening explosion, the walking corpses were directly reduced to ash by the shockwave and flames!

"You're all insane!" Monster shrieked in despair. "Why? Why? Why are every one of you so crazy?! Stay away from me!"

The next moment, its voice abruptly vanished—Xia Lun pounced on it, and after several strikes, completely ended the Monster that no longer had any will to resist beneath his sword.

[Slaughter! You have killed the supernatural Monster Abyssal Hand. You have obtained 1500 Memory Points!]

Then, everything was over.