A one-shot kill

Over the dark green sea, the wind blew eerily, carrying whispers.

A bead of sweat seeped from Yan Qi's forehead.

He controlled the Fish-Bone Skeleton, making it snap off another rib and thrust it into its mouth.

Off balance, the skeleton swayed as it aimed its mouth at the sea, its hollow eye sockets carrying an aura of death.

"Go!"

At his command, the skeleton released both hands, and the rib arrow shot out in a white streak.

"Whoosh!"

Although the Fish-Bone Skeleton moved slowly and its skill took a long time to wind up, its arrows packed considerable power.

A white light flashed. The next second, a piercing shriek erupted beneath the sea.

A small patch of seawater bubbled and boiled, wisps of black smoke rising from it. Then a pufferfish over a meter long floated fully to the surface.

Its dull, vacant eyes looked indescribably eerie beneath the sickly green moonlight. Numerous broken rib fragments jutted from its back, and green blood bubbled out, giving off black vapor.

"It hit!" Yan Qi let out a long breath of relief, his expression excited.

During that brief interval, Ye Xuanyin had also dragged and hauled Yang Fan back aboard.

"Thank you, Little Yezi. Cough, cough, cough..."

The boy kept coughing up seawater, staying far away from the broken railing, still shaken.

But before the four could recover for long, the Chang-Driving Pufferfish on the sea suddenly sucked in seawater, rapidly swelling into a ball.

The bone spikes, which had never penetrated deeply, began popping out one by one as its skin stretched taut.

From the look of it, it had suffered only superficial injuries!

Once it expelled the bone spikes, it would resume its attack!

"Brother Qin, didn't you say this weird creature was easy to deal with and weak without its thralls?" Yang Fan asked plaintively.

Qin Mao was equally confused. "Yeah, that's what my buddy told me..."

Those words were still fresh in his memory:

Hey, Brother Qin! A Chang-Driving Pufferfish without its thralls is useless, no different from a two-stage firecracker. If we run into one someday, your Brother Wang will catch it and make you sashimi!

Wang Tai had indeed said that.

But how could Qin Mao have known that bragging and making grand promises in conversation were already ingrained in Wang Tai's bones? Besides, he had only heard this secondhand from his old captain.

During that time, the Fish-Bone Skeleton hurriedly fired another arrow.

But against the inflated pufferfish's incredibly resilient body, the rib failed to even scratch its skin and bounced straight off.

"It's the Stomach Sac's power..." Yan Qi was helpless.

Yang Fan and Ye Xuanyin seemingly lacked powerful means of attack.

The four exchanged glances.

"We can't seriously injure it, so keeping up this stalemate won't do either side any good. Why don't we try escaping at full speed?"

Based on what they knew, the boy immediately made a suggestion.

"No, I want to try one more time!"

Watching the Chang-Driving Pufferfish still floating on the sea, swelling larger and larger as it kept expelling bone spikes, Qin Mao was eager to try.

Since he had never handled real guns or live ammunition growing up, his marksmanship was abysmal.

But now that a stationary target over a meter across had presented itself, he feared he would regret it for the rest of his life if he did not take a shot.

As it happened, the one-minute firing interval for [Just Verdict] had elapsed.

With that, he planted his feet apart and raised the Flintlock flecked with green rust.

He raised the gun, narrowed his eyes, and aimed.

He pulled the trigger!

Bang-

A Silver Rose on the bronze barrel rapidly vanished, as though it had never appeared.

At the same time, a Fish-Bone Bullet crossed over fifty meters with terrifying force and slammed beneath the Chang-Driving Pufferfish's left fin!

The slippery mucus and taut skin covering the fish struggled with all their might to keep this foreign object out. In the end, however, it forced its way through skin and flesh inch by inch, driving inside with unwavering, unstoppable force.

Then it triggered its "explosive burst" effect inside the body and detonated with a bang.

The Chang-Driving Pufferfish immediately stopped swelling. Like a toy with its batteries removed, it instantly lost all signs of life and floated blankly on the sea.

[Ding-you killed a Chang-Driving Pufferfish and gained 15,000 Kill Points]

A sea breeze blew past, rocking the pufferfish's corpse a few times without resistance.

"That's it?!"

The other three stared in shock at the gun in Qin Mao's hand, unable to believe that Qin Mao had dealt with the defenses the Undead Bone Master could not penetrate with a single shot.

"Awesome, Qin Mao! Let me have a look at your gun sometime!"

Ye Xuanyin widened her beautiful eyes, revealing two dimples, her little canine teeth gleaming.

"Damn, buddy, you're a cow on a plane-your badassery's sky-high!"

Yan Qi gave him an emphatic thumbs-up.

Even Yang Fan, the eighteen-year-old Prospective Male College Student who always played the composed, aloof type, had a sparkle in his eyes as he looked at the gun in Qin Mao's hand.

This was Qin Mao's first time using [Just Verdict] against a weird creature, and he was surprised himself. All he wanted to say inwardly was, Well done!

As expected of an Epic Curio ranked in the two-thousands. All the effort I put into Owner-Binding it wasn't wasted!

But there was still a matter of life and death at hand.

"Stop talking! Get down, hurry! I heard this thing explodes when it dies. Plenty of survivors have died because they weren't prepared!"

Grabbing them one at a time, Qin Mao quickly pressed all three onto the deck and waited quietly for the Chang-Driving Pufferfish's death explosion.

One minute.

Two minutes.

Three minutes.

There was no movement on the sea.

"Does exploding take this long?"

All four raised their heads a little in unison and peeked down from the deck.

Where the round pufferfish had been, there was now nothing at all. The waves rippled across an empty stretch of water.

"Look over there! There it is!" Sensitive to ocean currents, Yang Fan immediately spotted the weird creature's current location.

Following his pointing finger, they saw a shriveled hide floating limply on the sea seventy or eighty meters away, drifting farther and farther with the water.

"Damn it! Why didn't it explode?"

"Curio Material, Curio Material, please don't sink..."

Qin Mao quickly turned the Ten-Thousand-Li Divine Radiance around and gave chase, then swiftly hooked it onto the deck with a makeshift fishing rod.

A limp pufferfish hide lay before the four of them.

Its internal organs and everything else had vanished, leaving only a thin hide about a meter long, with dark triangular bone spikes scattered across it that looked as though they had been forged from refined iron.

Whenever a human approached the hide, it would unconsciously open its mouth and blow bubbles, while giving them the feeling that their limbs were being controlled and would no longer obey them.

[Curio Material]: Complete Chang-Driving Pufferfish hide

[Description]: The complete Weird Skin of a Chang-Driving Pufferfish. Possesses a certain Mental Property. The hide is tough, and the bone spikes possess the Explosion Property. They can be used separately to craft Curios.

"Good stuff! Tsk, tsk! One hide, four people. Captain Yang, how do we split it?"

The four exchanged glances, a hint of eagerness in all their eyes.

Yang Fan looked around at everyone and slowly said, "We're all Sequence Transcendents. I believe everyone has heard at least something about Curios and Curio Materials."

"Killing weird creatures yields Curio Materials, and Curio Materials can be used to craft Curios. They're treasures as rare as food and Vehicles."

"And treasures attract covetous eyes. What's even more frightening is an unfair distribution that tears a fleet apart and makes its members slaughter one another."

"So, how should we divide it? Let's all share our views!"

The atmosphere aboard the Ten-Thousand-Li Divine Radiance grew heavy.

Qin Mao secretly swept his gaze over the others, studying their faces. All four fell silent, saying nothing.

The greatest difference between humans and animals was that animals could throw themselves at whatever they wanted without a care, while humans had to weigh many considerations.

Qin Mao already had his right hand behind his back. One bullet had recharged in the Flintlock, bringing its current total to four.

Although he had gotten along quite comfortably with these three, if they tried to attack him over this Curio Material...

Then within seven paces, the [Just Verdict] in his hand... was absolutely guaranteed to act faster than anyone else!