The cold sea breeze brushed past their ears. The air reeked of rotting corpses, the stench mingling with the briny smell of the sea until it was almost unbearable.
Though the groaning Manhunter's Head lay right beneath his feet, Xia Lun took his time removing the waterproof papers from the Drift Bottle. He frowned slightly, noticing something odd.
"There are three waterproof sheets in the bottle, but they don't seem to be made of the same material." Xia Lun showed them to the others. "Brace yourselves. I'll read the first one."
"Lord Xia Lun, could we wait a moment? Could you smash that head? It's terrifying to look at..." Manhunter rose shakily from the ground. "That thing's bad luck, no question. What if it lunges up and bites someone?"
"Bites someone?" Xia Lun glanced down at Manhunter's Head. "That's a fair concern, but you don't really need to worry."
Before he had even finished speaking, he drove force through the tip of his foot. With a bang, every rotten tooth in Manhunter's Head's mouth was blasted to powder.
The head groaned in agony. Tooth dust ran onto the deck with its pus. It certainly couldn't bite anyone now.
"With that taken care of, let's not waste any more time. I'll read it."
Xia Lun cleared his throat and began reading the first sheet.
"3-4: After countless hardships, I finally killed the Gatekeeper with 'her' help and escaped from the Sea Abyss. I became a real person again and returned to reality. The journey was a nightmare, but this time, I had finally gained true freedom."
That passage took up about a quarter of the first sheet. Everything after it was covered in black stains and appeared completely illegible.
Something stirred in Xia Lun's mind. He focused, and Text Sense went