Prayerbook of the Drowned (II)

The mutation struck without warning!

Alarm bells rang in his head. He quickly ducked, and the next instant, a burning flare slammed straight into the planks above his head. Flaming wood chips mixed with rainwater crackled down onto his head.

Boom!

Thunder roared. By the flash of lightning, Xia Lun saw his attacker—it was the short Black overseer. White smoke still drifted from the flare gun in his hand.

"Sorry, buddy, keep it busy for a while!" he shouted as he retreated into the shadows. Beside him, several pirates were trying to pull the first mate from the ruins of the forecastle.

Startled and enraged, Xia Lun instantly understood his intention—he wanted to use him to draw Monster's attention!

Squelch—

The limping Monster abruptly turned around. The tumors and tentacles beneath its feet moved with lubricated speed. When it saw Xia Lun, its remaining scarlet compound eyes seemed to brighten slightly.

There was no doubt that Monster possessed not only intelligence, but emotions as well. It was even quite vengeful.

It let out a broken hiss. Somehow, Xia Lun sensed a note of smugness within that chaotic sound. The next moment, Monster lurched toward him!

There was nowhere to evade!

Thoughts flashed through his mind. In an instant, Xia Lun entered Heightened Focus once more.

—According to the game panel, this was the last time he could safely use the skill today.

His gaze swept rapidly over the cracks in the deck beside him, the Black overseer hiding in the distance and snickering, before finally settling on the limping Monster's remaining compound eyes.

The sound of torrential rain and screams vanished at that moment. His field of vision narrowed infinitely. Even the round raindrops seemed to freeze in midair. All he could see were Monster's scarlet compound eyes.

His thumb pressed down on the revolver's hammer, and the cold metal answered with solid resistance.

"Click—"

The next moment, Xia Lun dropped to one knee, turned, raised his gun, and aimed. His movements flowed as smoothly as something from a textbook on kneeling shooting.

The instant the compound eye aligned with the notch rear sight, his index finger squeezed the trigger.

"Bang!"

A silver-gray bullet burst from the barrel. The blazing projectile spun through the rifling, tore through curtain after curtain of freezing rain, and smashed into one of Monster's compound eyes like a sledgehammer!

Gelatinous flesh flew everywhere, and mucus splattered in all directions!

"Click—bang!"

Xia Lun rapidly cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger again. Orange muzzle flash flared, briefly illuminating his cold face in the darkness.

Another of Monster's compound eyes exploded instantly, and its charging body abruptly stalled.

"Click—bang!"

The flashes illuminated the pirates' stunned faces, while Monster's last compound eye burst into fragments as well.

"Click—bang!"

The Black overseer's shocked smile froze on his face. Amid the flickering muzzle flashes, his head burst apart like a watermelon. The upper half of his skull seemed to have been struck by a spinning millstone, sheared into a red-and-white spray by the large-caliber round.

The next instant, Xia Lun exited Heightened Focus, and his perception of time returned to normal.

The choking smell of gunpowder immediately spread through the air alongside wisps of white smoke from the muzzle, while Monster's hysterical shriek exploded beside Xia Lun's ears.

—Monster had been completely blinded, but propelled by momentum, it still charged straight at Xia Lun like an out-of-control dump truck!

Without hesitation, Xia Lun rolled sideways toward the nearby crack. The instant he fell into it, he drove his short sword into the wall to slow his descent.

There was nowhere to hide on the deck, but there were plenty of places beneath it.

"Bang!" Monster slammed into the wreckage of the mast.

Splintered wood spun down into the gap, raining onto Xia Lun's head with the water. Along with it came half a torn rope hook.

Boom!

The mast's wreckage crashed over the gap, completely sealing the opening above Xia Lun. In an instant, the cabin was plunged into darkness.

The Monster raged wildly, venting its fury without restraint, but it could not find Xia Lun at all.

With the gap sealed, the Monster could no longer threaten Xia Lun inside the cabin. At the same time, Xia Lun would not be able to climb back onto the deck through this gap anytime soon.

His risky plan had ultimately failed.

Xia Lun sighed. Though he felt somewhat frustrated, he was not discouraged.

It was perfectly normal for risky plans to encounter unexpected complications. If something went wrong, he only needed to adjust the plan and come up with a new solution. Self-pity was meaningless.

—Besides, he had gotten his revenge on the spot.

"Thud."

Pulling the short sword from the wall, Xia Lun landed steadily on the cabin floor.

He closed his eyes and adjusted to the darkness for a moment, then opened them and looked toward the broken rope hook.

The next moment, he froze—he discovered, to his astonishment, that half of a torn Wax Book was still caught on the rope hook!

The plan had failed, but not completely!

Xia Lun quickly bent down and picked up the half-book.

The Wax Book felt slick and cold in his hand, like human skin that was still pulsing.

But Xia Lun could not care about that now. At this moment, the Wax Book in his hand was not a Wax Book at all, but a cure for a terminal illness!

He eagerly opened the half-book, only to find a long string of unfamiliar tadpole-like symbols.

Xia Lun read through them carefully, then realized a serious problem.

He did not know this world's writing!

Strictly speaking, his identity in this instance was that of a complete illiterate...

What was he supposed to do?!

Even someone as strong-willed as Xia Lun felt a helplessness like carrying water in a bamboo basket, only for it all to drain away.

He could not possibly learn to read from another group of equally illiterate pirates, could he?

Rather unwillingly, Xia Lun closed the white Wax Book and tucked it into his weapon belt.

Yet at that moment, a translucent cobalt-blue information panel suddenly appeared in the corner of his vision!

["Incomplete Grimoire" detected.]

[You have obtained the Grimoire, "Prayerbook of the Drowned" (Incomplete) (Completion: 31%).]

["Prayerbook of the Drowned" (Incomplete): A sinister tome written with corpse blood upon pages made from wax refined from the fat of drowned people. To ordinary people, this is a book without words. Yet to those who have died and returned to life, and to madmen, it is filled with blasphemous writing. Between those crooked lines are accounts of bizarre and insane secret arts.]

[You meet the prerequisites for reading "Prayerbook of the Drowned."]

[When you obtain the complete "Prayerbook of the Drowned" and pay sufficient Memory Points, you will gain the secret art specialty "Transcendent Regeneration."]

After the stream of cobalt-blue information came a line of glaring scarlet warning text.

[Warning: Long-term possession of a Grimoire will greatly impair cognitive ability and severely weaken mental health. Please exercise caution!]

[Note: The abilities granted by secret art specialties may be powerful, but compared to the cost of cognitive contamination, is it really worth it?]

"Transcendent Regeneration... this can definitely cure my lung disease!" Xia Lun's eyes lit up.

But the next moment, he fell into deep thought.

"Memory Points? What are those?"

"It feels like they were displayed in the initial character information?"

Just as he pondered this, a wisp of gray mist suddenly seeped from the sealed crack and shot straight into his body!

Xia Lun was startled, but the next instant, the information panel unfolded before him again like spilling mercury.

[Feat! You blinded the supernatural evil "Abyssal Hand" and gained 600 Memory Points!]

[Slaughter! You killed a powerful pirate and gained 30 Memory Points!]

"Is this just another name for experience points?" Xia Lun pondered, an involuntary smile appearing on his face.

So far, this game's difficulty truly was outrageous. In such a high-pressure environment, even the slightest improvement was precious.

His gaze moved downward, and he saw the detailed explanation of Memory Points.

[Completing feats, solving mysteries or uncovering world lore, gaining the recognition of others, or killing and harming intelligent beings can all earn you Memory Points.]

[By consuming Memory Points, you can enter the memories of beings you have killed or who recognize you while asleep. Through firsthand experience, you can safely master their relevant proficiencies, specialties, and skills.]

[Alternatively, after each instance ends, you may use Memory Points to exchange for any non-sentient item you saw in the previous game, then materialize it whenever needed.]

[Current Memory Points: 630]

[Note: Memories are what make faded things vivid again.]

After reading the information, Xia Lun suddenly fell silent.

"So the normal flow of this game should be solving mysteries, or gaining the recognition of people in the instance through social interaction, then gradually improving proficiencies and unlocking skills and specialties."

"—To some extent, it should be similar to the Cthulhu tabletop RPG I played in my previous life."

"Someone like me, who started out fighting and killing, then faced the final Monster alone, probably counts as some absurdly unconventional path..."

"But overall, compared to the normal route, the combat route is a high-risk, high-reward choice."

As Xia Lun speculated, he continued reading the rest of the information panel.

[You fought a powerful Monster—you have gained partial memories of the specialty "Reflexive Evasion." After obtaining specialty information three times, you may consume Memory Points during your next sleep to gain the complete training memories for the related specialty.]

[Reflexive Evasion: After long-term training, evading attacks has become a conditioned reflex for you. When facing attacks, your reactions will be faster. Furthermore, over time, this specialty can slightly enhance your explosive strength and endurance.]

[Note: Even partial memories of an incompletely mastered specialty will proportionally improve your physical capabilities over time.]

This is pretty useful, Xia Lun thought.

He continued reading.

["Proficiency" detected. Proficiency confirmed: Firearms Use (Mastery).]

[Firearms Use (Mastery) (Progress: 19% → 22%): You are an unquestionable expert in the use of firearms. Whether it is maintenance, assembly, reloading, or aiming, you are highly adept. Your precision shooting ability is enough to let familiar weapons perform at the limits of their capabilities.]

Looks like my shooting is still pretty good. As Xia Lun thought this, he swung out the revolver's cylinder, took four bullets from his belt, and calmly began loading them.

Even before being reborn, Xia Lun had been a shooting enthusiast. After his rebirth, the city where he lived had rather terrible public safety, so he had also spent considerable effort practicing firearms in his spare time.

With Heightened Focus assisting his learning, his shooting ability had improved remarkably quickly.

Before entering the game, in clay pigeon shooting at the range, Xia Lun could maintain a hit rate of over eighty percent even without Heightened Focus—back in his previous life, that was enough to enter professional competitions.

And from the perspective of transferable skills, his mastery of firearms was also an important reason why Xia Lun could throw flying axes and rope hooks so accurately.

After taking stock of what he had gained from his risky action, Xia Lun nodded in satisfaction.

"Next, I need to find a way out of the cabin, return to the deck, and obtain the remaining half of the Prayerbook of the Drowned," he thought. "As long as I obtain Transcendent Regeneration, I can be saved..."

"But no matter what, I should continue forward through the passage first."

With that thought, he flicked his wrist, spun the short sword around to change from a reverse grip to a forward grip, then raised his revolver and looked up at the dark, cramped corridor ahead.

The exit was right ahead.