Supernatural Incident

The Clover was a modern vessel powered by a combination of steam and sails. It had three decks and could accommodate quite a few passengers.

Now, a crowd had gathered at the foot of the stairs leading to the upper deck.

Among them were both passengers and Sailors.

When Sifa and Joyce arrived, they saw a man wearing the standard sailor's cap of the era and a thick coat stained with blood speaking passionately. In his hand, he held a brass revolver gleaming with metallic luster.

If the captain had not had the foresight to quietly gather a large amount of fresh water and food and store them on the lower deck when he noticed the chaos aboard the ship showing signs of worsening,

then people like Sifa would never have been able to hold on until now, much less still have ample strength left.

"Those Lunatics are finished. Without water and food, they've reached their limit. But we're different, gentlemen. We have plenty of strength left. We can fight!"

"Now, we must charge up there! We must take control of the Clover! We must punish those Lunatics! Only then will we have any hope of seeing land again, any hope of going home!"

At this point, the captain nudged up his cap with his revolver. His gaze swept over the crowd, and when it passed Sifa and Joel, he nodded.

"Don't be afraid, everyone."

A gentle yet courageous voice rang out. Sifa saw an unremarkable young man with a round, kindly face.

He was around Sifa's age. His approachable temperament carried a hint of shyness, yet he stood firmly beside the captain and said encouragingly,

"We're doing the right thing! You should all know what those Lunatics have done over the past few days."

"They put bullets, knives, and swords into the bodies of our wives, friends, even our children!"

"They beheaded those innocent people who were kind, restrained, and still sane. Even now, those poor souls' heads are hanging from the mast!"

"They're Lunatics, Criminals, murderers, and evil men! Tell me, gentlemen, do you still pity people like them?"

The people panted heavily, their eyes bloodshot as they growled like beasts, "No! They all deserve to die!"

Sifa strongly agreed. His blood surged, and he wanted nothing more than to rush up there and slaughter all those Lunatics at once.

"Tell me, do you want to forgive them?"

"Never!"

"Tell me, what are you going to do?"

Sifa blurted out with the others, "Fight! Kill all these Lunatics!"

Idiots! A bunch of idiots!

Suddenly, Sifa seemed to hear someone speaking. He snapped out of his fervor and suspiciously looked around.

He saw no suspicious person.

Yet he discovered that everyone around him was in a strange state of excitement. Their pupils were slightly dilated, their fingers trembling from agitation. They breathed heavily, and their eyes shone with madness.

They were like a pack of beasts!

Sifa shuddered violently. He had probably looked just like them moments ago.

Why was this happening?

Everyone seemed to have lost their reason. How were they any different from the Lunatics upstairs?

Wait.

This world had supernatural powers. Could these strange emotions have been affected by some Beyonder factor?

Was there a Beyonder among them?

At that moment, the captain growled in a low voice, "Then what are we waiting for? Follow me! Let's go punish those Lunatics!"

Holding his revolver, he was the first to charge up the stairs.

Including Joyce, the men roared from their throats, glaring with bloodshot eyes as they grabbed whatever weapons they could find and followed the captain.

In the crowd, Tris suddenly stopped and looked back.

Sensing his gaze, Sifa raised his head and saw that the round-faced young man was equally excited, though faintly restrained, as he asked, "Mr. Sifa, aren't you coming too?"

"How could I not?"

Sifa controlled his facial muscles, forcing his eyes wide and his lips into an upward curl, putting on a somewhat crazed expression.

"I can't wait to kill every last one of those bastards!"

He rushed past Tris.

I can't let anyone suspect me. If there really is a Beyonder among us, and if he caused this Catastrophe, I need to be even more careful. Sifa reminded himself inwardly as he kept pace with the others.

Before he could even charge up the stairs, gunshots, roars, and screams echoed from above.

The battle had already begun.

Sifa hunched over and moved along the cabin wall, using wooden crates scattered across the deck as cover as he carefully avoided stray bullets that could appear at any moment.

After confirming that no one was paying attention, he quietly slipped into the cabin. In the spacious carpeted corridor, he found a lantern.

Sifa lit the lantern. By its dim yellow light, he saw dark red bloodstains, already congealed, covering the carpet and walls.

Instead of joining the battle, he went deeper into the cabin and slipped into a second-class room.

Closing the door and placing the lantern on the round table beside him, Sifa sat down.

"This is insane."

Sifa held his forehead. "I can't panic. I need to carefully consider my options and prepare for the worst."

The worst possibility was that the madness and chaos engulfing the entire ship had been caused by a Beyonder factor, a man-made Catastrophe!

Kill them all!

Kill everyone except us, and won't we be safe?

We can smash their heads open, mash their brains, tear apart their bodies, dig out their organs, rip out their intestines. Hahaha, wouldn't that be delightful?

So what are you waiting for? Get moving, Li Zexi!

In the dim yellow light, the corners of Sifa's mouth rose little by little. The light shone upward from below, casting mottled shadows across his face.

His hand slid down from his forehead. Sifa's expression returned to normal, and he said in a voice only he could hear, "As a normal person with a higher education, I won't join the ranks of Lunatics, no matter which side they're on."

"But stopping them isn't realistic either. I'm just an ordinary person. Recklessly confronting an incident that likely involves Beyonder factors would be suicide."

"So I can only pretend I know nothing and find a way to protect myself until I get off this ship."

Suddenly.

Sifa froze.

At the edge of his vision, dark red liquid silently flowed through the lantern's light.

His movements stiffened as he slowly raised his head and shifted his gaze forward. Sifa saw a wooden door left slightly ajar.

Behind it was a bedroom. Through the gap, dark red blood slowly flowed out.

It spread over the floor, seeped into the carpet, and struggled to extend toward Sifa.

Huff, huff.

A strange, faint sound came from the bedroom, one that did not seem like something a human could make.

Sifa stared at the gap in the door, sensing intense malice flowing out from the darkness beyond it.

Very gently, not daring to make a sound, he stood up.

He gripped his revolver tightly, picked up the lantern, and backed away.

Sifa suppressed his curiosity and restrained his impulse to push open the ajar door, worried that he might trigger some hidden danger.

He silently withdrew from the room and returned to the cabin corridor. Only after closing the door did Sifa let out a breath.

But before his taut nerves could relax, someone called softly from deeper in the corridor, "Young Master Sifa, is that you?"

Already on edge, Sifa jolted again at those words. He hurriedly raised the lantern, trying to see farther ahead.

Unfortunately, the lantern's light did not reach very far. Sifa could only see someone standing in the gloom a short distance ahead.

The other person was also holding a lantern, but it dangled casually from his hand near his feet, illuminating the ground around him while leaving his upper body concealed in darkness.

He abruptly lifted the lantern. At once, a plain face with deep-set features appeared in the light.

The corners of that face were raised, exposing eight teeth in a stiff smile.

"Jack?"

Sifa blurted out the other man's name.

This was his personal valet.

For the journey to Enmat Harbor, his father had assigned him a personal valet to handle his daily needs, as well as a bodyguard to protect him.

When the mutiny and slaughter broke out aboard the ship, the bodyguard had already given his life, while the valet had been captured by those Lunatics.

Sifa had thought his servant had been killed. He had not expected him to still be alive.

But.

This state of his did not seem normal at all!

"It's me."

Jack maintained that stiff, eerie smile. "Young Master Sifa, please come with me. I know a safe place."

Not only did Sifa not step forward, he retreated instead. "I'm not going anywhere, Jack."

"Young Master is as willful as ever."

"You never listen to advice, always make your own decisions, always think you know best—"

Jack spoke quickly and urgently, but the smile on his face never changed. It made Sifa's hair stand on end and his scalp tingle.

"Do you know how annoying you are? Xifa Disraeli, you're a bastard! Scum! A mongrel! Human trash!"

"Ever since the day you defiled Rachel, do you know how badly I wanted to kill you? No, killing you would be letting you off too easily!"

"I'm going to chop you to pieces, feed your flesh to fish, and throw your bones to starving dogs. You deserve to die. You deserve it!"

Of course Sifa knew who Rachel was. She was the maid "he" had ruined.

From that alone, I also think your young master was no good. But that has nothing to do with me. Sifa felt somewhat helpless. Thinking about how he would have to clean up the original owner's messes in the future made him want to give a bitter smile.

Suddenly, Jack raised his other hand.

That hand held a revolver.

Bang!

Jack's head snapped backward. Amid the gunshot echoing through the corridor, his forehead split open, blood and bone fragments spraying everywhere.

Only when he saw smoke drifting from the muzzle of the Serpent-Scale Revolver did Sifa realize that he had actually shot his valet!

His body had moved faster than his mind, and it had been another one-shot kill. Was the original owner really such a good marksman?

At least that scumbag aristocrat had one redeeming quality. Sifa mocked himself with a smile. Suddenly, from the corner of his eye,

he saw a cold white gleam flash behind Jack, slicing through the air toward him.

There was someone else behind the valet!

PS: Please bookmark and recommend the new book~