At night, a Bat landed in House Town.
It hung upside down from a clothesline outside the second floor of a wooden house, its eyes fixed on the distant Black Knife.
Since Julian had been unconscious for some time, Conrad had no choice but to send a Bat to gather information.
These ordinary bats had vision far inferior to Julian's, but Conrad possessed the ability to temporarily strengthen a bat's five senses. At this moment, this Bat could be called a clairvoyant.
Conrad had no wish to offend Hawkins. After all, there was no deep-seated hatred between them.
Before Hawkins harmed his interests, he had no intention of making the first move against him.
"No one? There's the smell of blood!"
What the Bat saw was swiftly conveyed to Conrad's eyes on distant Bottle Island.
As a vampire, Conrad was extremely sensitive to blood and could accurately determine its freshness.
There was fresh blood aboard the Black Knife, no more than twenty-four hours old. In other words, someone had been injured.
Then he discovered fresh blood atop another building. The Bat flew up to inspect the roof, then followed the blood trail to a storage room, where it found Arthur's blood as well.
Gradually, Conrad reconstructed the scene in his mind.
"So that's how it was."
After discovering the wine barrel shattered by a blowdart tube, Conrad finally understood what had happened.
Still, he was curious. Who had put a bounty on Hawkins? And whoever it was had managed to hire an assassin possessing a Cursed Relic—the price they paid could not have been small.
Was it Dempsey, or Aldrich?
Compared with himself, Liam, and Mallory, Hawkins was undoubtedly a far greater threat to Dempsey and Aldrich.
For a long time in the past, Hawkins had only operated in the Pras Sea and Sylvia Sea, so his conflicts with Conrad's group had not been severe.
"But where did the Son of Pirates go? Did he learn that there was a bounty on him and abandon ship to flee?"
He had not fed for a long time. His craving for blood was nearly driving him mad, and only sleep allowed him to retain his sanity. It was not until he caught the scent of an unfamiliar Bat and an unfamiliar person that he awakened from his slumber.
Conrad's gaze fell on Julian. He did not want Julian to die, because Julian was an excellent set of eyes. As long as Julian became a Bat, he could use him to gather more intelligence.
In an instant, he used his ability to control the Bat and began transforming it. It gradually changed from a Bat into a tiny winged man.
"Julian, perhaps you don't know this, but Jabus has already gone mad," Conrad said quietly as he looked at Julian.
Julian looked at Conrad and narrowed his eyes. "What do you want me to do?"
"Join Hawkins!" Conrad answered.
Only if Julian joined Hawkins could he obtain intelligence steadily. Hawkins's every move would be unable to escape his eyes.
To be honest, Conrad had raised his assessment of Hawkins's danger again and again. From the scattered clues in House Town just now, he could confirm that Hawkins was far more terrifying than he had known. Thus, he needed more intelligence and more preparations.
Though those preparations might not necessarily be needed, if Hawkins chose to become his enemy, he would kill Hawkins with thunderous force.
Julian said hoarsely, "Hawkins won't trust me."
"Could it be... Hawkins truly possesses the power to see through people's hearts?" Conrad asked with interest.
If that was the case, Julian truly could not lurk at Hawkins's side. Still, Conrad did not intend to give up on Julian. After all, Julian was his most natural set of eyes. As long as he lived, he had value.
Julian said seriously, "What makes Hawkins most terrifying is not merely his unfathomable strength, but also his inscrutable thoughts!"
"So that's how it is. He truly is a frightening man. Then forget the suggestion just now," Conrad said decisively.
The Bat slowly returned to its original form and hung upside down beside Julian. Julian also sensed that something was wrong and wisely closed his eyes.
The red liquid crawled onto the ship, gradually forming a human shape.
"Where are they?"
The humanoid swept his gaze around and found that there was not even a patrolman on deck. Was this really a pirate ship?
Under normal circumstances, a pirate ship would definitely have people on patrol. There would even be combatants keeping watch atop the lookout platform, ensuring enemies could not quietly sneak aboard.
Yet the Black Knife was completely deserted. There were no patrolmen, not even a single sailor.
The humanoid entered the cabin and found it equally empty. In a burst of rage, he transformed into a liquid giant within the cabin and burst the Black Knife apart.
"Could some other bastard have beaten me to the punch? Damn it!"
After venting his rage, he smashed through the bottom of the ship and entered the seawater, cursing inwardly.
With its hull breached, seawater immediately flooded into the cabin, and the entire ship slowly sank beneath the water.
Conrad used his claws to untie the ropes binding Julian and said flatly, "You're free!"
After saying that, he flew away with icy aloofness. Julian had wanted to say something, but upon seeing this, he immediately gave up.
Julian had not fed for a long time, so his most urgent task now was to find someone to drink blood from. He spread his wings and swiftly flew away in the direction opposite Conrad, which suited Conrad's intentions perfectly.
At noon the next day, Hawkins and Mark emerged from Eternal Space.
"Captain, where's the Black Knife?" Mark asked, his eyes wide as he looked at Hawkins.
Hawkins answered with a dark expression, "Under our feet!"
"Someone sank our ship?" Mark immediately grasped the key point and became furious.
Hawkins swam ashore and twitched his nose. Every scent left behind by animals the previous night passed through his mind, and then he found the scent he needed.
"Julian didn't die. Instead, he flew away. That means the person who scuttled the Black Knife was one of Jabus's former subordinates?"
Hawkins was a little angry. Had he known keeping Julian alive would lead to this, he would have killed Julian from the start.
The truth was, he had not spared Julian out of kindness. He mainly wanted to see how tenacious the life force of a transformed animal like Julian could be.
Simply put, he wanted to observe how long Julian could starve before dying.
He just had not expected Julian to be the reason the Black Knife was sunk instead.
"No, the Black Knife can still be salvaged!"
After turning it over and over in his mind, Hawkins ultimately decided to keep using the Black Knife.
His body was Hawkins's body. If he gave up the Black Knife, then the game would no longer be interesting.
After making his decision, he jumped back into the seawater. Mark had just emerged from the water when he saw Hawkins dive in and quickly asked, "Captain?"
"Wait here!" Hawkins left behind those words before swiftly diving down.
The Black Knife lay crookedly on the seabed, with many fish swimming in and out of its cabin.
Hawkins landed on the deck, then swiftly entered the cabin and quickly found the reason the Black Knife had sunk.
A hole nearly one and a half meters in diameter had been punched through the bottom of the ship. It would have been stranger if it had not sunk.
Hawkins examined the hole and found it rather irregular, as though it had been punched through by a fist. He glanced up at the ceiling, then reached a conclusion.
There had been a creature that was likely small in its original form, but it had expanded at the spot where he now stood, then punched through the ship's bottom and finally left.
In other words, it was a monster that could grow large or small and possessed extremely powerful aquatic abilities!
After the hull was punched through, the ship would certainly take on water. Escaping through that hole would be as difficult as fleeing from the center of a whirlpool. Therefore, the other party was immensely strong and had powerful underwater mobility, enough strength to break free from a whirlpool.
Hawkins emerged through the large hole and looked around, but he found no trace of the other party's escape.
He temporarily gave up searching for the enemy and instead carefully examined the Black Knife. Finally, he slowly approached the side of the ship and plucked several barnacles from the planks.
Barnacles could be called ship-killers. In the past, Hawkins had needed to spend tremendous effort scraping barnacles off the hull.
But now Hawkins felt he could put waste to use. Strands of his hair rapidly pierced into the barnacles one by one, and he began modifying them.
In fact, he had long entertained the idea of modifying the Black Knife.
Now that the Black Knife had been scuttled, there was no better day than today.
After modifying the barnacles one by one, Hawkins directly placed them onto the hull, then found quite a bit of seaweed and began modifying it as well.
Compared with modifying his own DNA, modifying other organisms was much easier. Hawkins did not need to worry at all about their genes collapsing. Even if an individual's genes did collapse, he could simply find several similar ones and start over.
Soon, the seaweed was modified as well. He implanted it into the bottom of the Black Knife, then swiftly floated back to the surface.
In fact, he had already remained underwater for over an hour.
He swam to shore, where Mark handed him a towel and asked, "Captain, do you have that Internal Circulation Organ in your body?"
"Otherwise, wouldn't I have drowned after staying underwater for so long?" Hawkins replied carelessly as he wiped the water droplets from his body.
Mark said seriously, "Captain, can you send me back to Eternal Space?"
"What's wrong?" Hawkins turned to look at him.
Mark said solemnly, "I want to keep cleaning the toilets!"
"Wait a little longer!" Hawkins refused, while looking out at the sea.
Mark wanted to ask why, but he soon saw countless bubbles rising from the water. His eyes widened as he thought of an unbelievable possibility.
Sure enough, in the next moment, a massive black shadow rose from the seawater. Then the mast thrust out of the water, and the Black Knife surfaced from beneath the sea!