The Chang-Driving Pufferfish's Advance

The ship pitched, and the waves churned.

Ye Xuanyin and Yan Qi barely managed to grab the gunwale and steady themselves.

Qin Mao clamped the ship's wheel tightly under his left arm, gripping [Just Verdict] in his right hand as he narrowed his eyes at the sea, trying to find the eerie creature.

A while later, with a thud, the Ten-Thousand-Li Divine Radiance shuddered from another impact.

"Brother Yan, Brother Qin, I'll find its position. You two attack!"

A strange gleam shone in Yang Fan's eyes as he scrutinized the sea.

"I remember you saying that [Navigators] can't sense eerie creatures, right?" Qin Mao asked in surprise.

"That's right!" Yang Fan nodded, his gaze fixed firmly on the sea.

"But [Navigators] are especially sensitive to seawater and ocean currents, so I don't need to sense it. As long as it doesn't dive too deep, watching the tiny changes in the water is enough..."

"There!"

Yang Fan swiftly pointed at a patch of sea off to the side.

In the dim moonlight, Qin Mao focused his gaze. Sure enough, an incongruous ripple disturbed the moonlight reflected there.

He immediately raised his gun and fired!

Bang-

The Fish-Bone Bullet plunged into the sea, kicking up a small spray, then nothing happened.

Thud!

Before long, something slammed hard into the ship again.

The other three turned in unison to look at him.

"You missed?"

Qin Mao sniffed and glanced awkwardly at his gun.

"This lousy gun pulls to the left..."

He muttered to himself, explaining why his shot had missed.

"My turn!" Yan Qi pulled a handful of little white fragments from his pocket and scattered them over the deck. The moment they landed, they began moving and assembling themselves.

Qin Mao examined them closely with his sharper-than-human eyesight. "A pile of... leftover fishbone fragments, shrunk down many times over?!"

The bone fragments rapidly assembled themselves as though they had lives of their own.

They also kept expanding. Although this wasn't as quick or convenient as throwing out a skeleton directly, it wasn't much slower.

Soon, a Fish-Bone Skeleton about 1.7 meters tall appeared before them.

Its body was pieced together from assorted fishbones. Fish tails, backbones, spines, and heads were clearly visible, and its two arms were extraordinarily long. It could barely be called humanoid.

The skeleton's most striking feature was its head. Though also made of fishbones, it took the shape of an enormous fish head.

"Clack, clack, clack-"

The fish head slowly opened its wide mouth. The skeleton's arms snapped off a rib and stuffed it into its mouth, pushing it out through the back of its head. Then its hands gripped the tail end of the rib behind its head, while the fish's mouth pointed down at the sea at an angle.

Then both arms hauled the rib backward. The bones crackled under the strain, as though it were drawing an enormous fish-headed bow with all its might.

"There!"

Yang Fan pointed, and the Fish-Bone Skeleton instantly locked onto the target and released its grip. Like an arrow loosed from a bow, the rib shot into the sea.

The one-minute firing interval had also elapsed, and Qin Mao fired another shot.

Boom! Water sprayed everywhere. It looked tremendously powerful.

But a ripple swiftly swam away. Clearly, both had missed again.

Yan Qi scratched his head. "New move. I'm not too used to it yet."

Qin Mao tapped the barrel. "Too much recoil. It's unstable."

Ye Xuanyin clenched her little canine teeth, speechless. "Seriously, you two! Can you actually do this or not?!"

"Don't panic. Try again!" Yang Fan's expression barely changed as he asked how much ammunition they had.

Yan Qi counted the Fish-Bone Skeleton's remaining ribs. "Five more shots!"

Looking at the three silver roses and two skulls on the barrel, Qin Mao replied, "It holds six rounds. Four left! But there's a one-minute firing interval!"

"All right, got it!"

Soon, the Chang-Driving Pufferfish returned, gathering strength as it aimed at the underside of the ship and charged again.

Its meager intelligence told it that as long as it ate the people aboard this ship and the ship itself, its power would achieve an even greater breakthrough!

"There! One foot underwater!"

Whoosh-

Bang-

Yan Qi said, "Misjudged it. Refraction!"

Qin Mao said, "The wind speed and humidity are way too high!"

Ye Xuanyin said, "Aaaah! Do you even hear yourself?! It's a target barely fifty meters away, and you're talking about wind speed and humidity? You think you're a sniper rifle?!"

Splash-

The ship rocked, and the waves churned. This time, the fish's head struck one of the few magma-dark-red planks, and the heat sent it springing away as though electrocuted.

Soon, after two more rounds of ramming, the Chang-Driving Pufferfish was thoroughly enraged and decided to hit them hard.

These morsels are hateful. Why can't they just let me eat them? All they do is hide inside these troublesome shells. They even ruined all my beloved corpses...

It swiftly swam over a hundred meters away and dove deeper beneath the surface, staring with its large, vacant eyes as it searched for a weakness in the hull and quietly gathered strength.

The Ten-Thousand-Li Divine Radiance was quiet for a moment.

"Where's the creature? Did it run?"

"No, it should still be here, but it's dived deeper."

Yang Fan searched carefully but found nothing. To get a clearer view, he let go of the wheel and hurried to the gunwale, gripping the railing as he peered down into the sea.

As ill luck would have it, just then, the hull jolted hard and pitched violently!

Perhaps there was something wrong with the timber. Under the tremendous inertia, the section of railing Yang Fan was holding tightly snapped off.

The boy tumbled into the sea, wood and all.

"Team Leader Yang, swim up!"

Qin Mao threw down the crude ladder made from hemp rope and broken pieces of wood.

Although the bottom of the ladder was still ten or twenty centimeters above the water, Qin Mao thought it was close enough.

After all, he remembered Yang Fan mentioning in an earlier chat that he had been captain of his school swim team. He surely had to be a strong swimmer.

Yet, to his surprise, the moment Yang Fan hit the water, he began flailing about without any coordination.

If he hadn't been clinging to that floating section of wooden railing, he might already have sunk.

"Help... help me... glub, glub..."

"Oh no! Team Leader Yang's Sequence can't swim!" Ye Xuanyin's expression changed drastically.

Yan Qi looked grim. "I'm from the west. I never learned to swim."

Qin Mao shook his head too. "Neither can I."

And the flintlock was still on its firing cooldown.

Meanwhile.

Seeing food fall into the water, the Chang-Driving Pufferfish grew excited. It couldn't wait to rise swiftly toward the surface, exposing a sliver of its dorsal fin as it sped toward the boy at full power.

The only thought in its head now was to devour this delicious human at any cost and turn his remains into a puppet.

Then it would repeat the same trick.

Until the ship sank and it had eaten everyone!

"Wooo-!" The Chang-Driving Pufferfish swayed its head and body on the surface as it charged toward him.

Now that it was so close to the surface, even without Yang Fan pointing out its position, all four could clearly see its course... straight at Yang Fan!

Team Leader Yang's life was in peril!

"Yan Qi, Qin Mao, I'm putting my life in your hands!"

Before her words had faded, Ye Xuanyin dove into the sea and grabbed Yang Fan by the back of his collar, keeping him from drowning as she dragged him steadily backward through the water.

"Wooo-" Another one had fallen in!

The Chang-Driving Pufferfish grew even more excited and charged straight at them like a runaway train.

At this critical moment, Yan Qi forced himself to calm down, his eyes wide and fixed as he concentrated all his attention.

One shot. I only have one chance...