"Oh! What a burst of luck! You actually caught 27 today!"
Qin Mao marveled.
Yesterday's luck had been so-so, with only four.
He had barely started killing before it was over.
That unsatisfied look in his eyes had frightened the surrounding survivors into retreating to their cabins.
They feared this fish-killing maniac would lose control of his murderous urges and bring his hammer down on their heads, too.
Qin Mao sat happily on a low wooden stool.
He slipped two fingers of his left hand into a fish's gills, scooped it up, and pinned it against the deck.
The Ram's Horn Hammer raised high in his right hand came crashing down.
[Ding-you killed a fish and gained 9 Kill Points]
Satisfaction washed through his entire body.
To relieve the tedium of killing fish, he even made up a song on the spot.
"First yellow croaker fell ill, second carp came to see..."
"Third salmon bought medicine, fourth silver carp brewed..."
"Fifth pomfret died, sixth catfish carried..."
"Seventh mandarin fish dug a hole, eighth octopus buried..."
"Ninth escaped fish sat on the ground and cried."
"Tenth grouper asked him why he cried. Ninth escaped fish said: fifth pomfret should've been charcoal-grilled, not buried..."
Whenever he sang a verb like "see," "carried," or "buried," he couldn't help raising his voice.
The words and the iron hammer landed hard together, his body jolting violently.
His strange, warbling tune and smiling expression of delighted enjoyment.
Instantly cleared everyone from a five-meter radius on the bow deck.
Qin Mao was hammering fish and singing away.
Suddenly, a shadow came between him and the setting sun.
"Brother, you're here!"
Qin Mao wiped the bloody water splashed on his face, looked up, and grinned.
The corner of Wang Tai's mouth twitched slightly, and his SAN dropped a notch.
...This Shipwright had seemed so refined when he first arrived.
Who knew he was a freak?
He nodded, outwardly unruffled. "A side effect of the [Apocalypse Shipwright] Sequence?"
Qin Mao paused for a second.
Then he nodded vigorously. "Ah, yes!"
He underlined that point in his mind: so Sequence Transcendents had side effects, and apparently each Sequence had different ones.
Information extracted +1!
Following that topic, he confirmed his deduction through Wang Tai's words:
When Transcendents of different Sequences awakened and gained mysterious powers beyond ordinary humans, they also acquired different side effects and minor ailments.
Or perhaps "price" was a more fitting word.
Take [General], for example.
They had to actively recruit troops, and their strength depended on their subordinates. Without an army to command, they were only a little stronger than ordinary people;
Then there was [Divine Smith].
They could forge Curios from curio materials, but as their Sequence level rose, they became shorter, fatter, and darker-skinned;
And [Undead Bone Master].
They had to sleep with a skeleton every night, or there was a chance the god of death would take them in their sleep;
Or [Diviner], whose price was gradually losing their sight.
Wang Tai spoke at length about the side effects of different Sequences.
It was an eye-opener for Qin Mao, and his fish-hammering slowed without him noticing.
He pretended to relate deeply and gave a bitter laugh.
"Looks like none of us have it easy! I awakened on a dugout canoe after getting separated from my fleet."
"The price of the [Apocalypse Shipwright] Sequence is having to kill as much as possible every day! Fish count, too."
Looking at Qin Mao's face, full of helpless, bitter amusement, even someone as thick-skinned as Wang Tai couldn't hold back.
"You look pretty happy killing them to me..."
Qin Mao blinked.
"I have no choice. No choice at all!"
"Brother Wang, you mentioned the Blood Moon Sea earlier. What's that?"
Hadn't the moon been an eerie, dismal green since the apocalypse began?
The Blood Moon Sea was merely an opening.
What Qin Mao really wanted to learn also included the Hope's experiences, awakening as a Sequence Transcendent, Curios, and other information.
Wang Tai patted Qin Mao on the shoulder and walked to the ship's side.
Resting both elbows on the railing, he lit a crumpled Tazi cigarette and took small drags.
"Brother Qin, these secrets you're asking about... our Hope Fleet paid countless lives for them."
"Strictly speaking, I shouldn't tell you so easily, but I felt like we were old friends from the moment we met. I truly see you as a brother..."
"My hometown is in western Hunan. After the anomalies descended, I fled to the coast and set sail on July 9, 2040. I heard some people set sail back in June, when the anomalies first appeared..."
Through Wang Tai's account, Qin Mao saw this apocalypse from another perspective.
On June 2, 2040, the first anomaly appeared in Japan.
On June 3, they appeared all over the world. Humans began dying on a massive scale, and firearms and explosives were ineffective against the anomalies.
People hid wherever they could to survive, only to discover that there was no longer any foothold for them on land.
The anomalies, meanwhile, favored the land and shunned the sea.
So the surviving humans set sail in droves.
Wang Tai had been closer to the sea than Qin Mao's hometown of Bashu.
He had managed to escape to the coast in July, setting sail two months earlier than Qin Mao.
For some unknown reason, the harbor had still been packed with wind-powered sailing ships then.
It seemed someone had foreseen this world-ending catastrophe and prepared large numbers of ships for people to escape in.
The fleet Wang Tai belonged to was called the Hope Fleet, consisting of three large ships and one small one.
Each of the three large ships had Sequence Transcendents stationed aboard.
The small ship was packed with ordinary survivors.
After entering the sea, the fleet headed east.
Back then, fish hadn't been so hard to catch, and there had still been plenty of normal fish in the sea.
The fleet survived by fishing and gathering supplies on islands.
As they traveled, they simply felt that there were more "islands."
There shouldn't have been so many islands out in the East Sea!
But with even anomalies appearing, this little irregularity seemed insignificant.
Their only headache was that anomalies occupied the vast majority of the islands.
Polluted fish and the occasional anomaly also gradually began appearing in the sea.
Fortunately, the fleet had Transcendents.
Everyone aboard the "Hope" sailed for more than half a year, weathering countless battles.
After escaping death an unknown number of times, they finally reached an uncharted stretch of sea.
A sea entirely unlike the waters they had traveled through, shrouded in blood-red moonlight-the Blood Moon Sea!
The wind and waves were fiercer there, the climate more changeable, and the anomalies more terrifying.
There were even unspeakable abyssal behemoths.
One day, for some unknown reason.
The Hope Fleet's Sequence Transcendents came into conflict with another fleet and an anomaly a hundred meters tall.
At first, the three sides were locked in a stalemate.
Then, for some unknown reason, the other two sides suddenly joined forces.
First, they killed all the Hope Fleet's Transcendents who had gone into battle, then sank the fleet's three large ships.
Only this remaining small ship saw things going badly and escaped, retracing its course all the way back.
It was the present-day Hope.
Even so, the small ship was caught in the aftermath of the Sequence Transcendents' battle, and a huge gash was torn in its starboard side.
For some unknown reason, the enemy didn't pursue.
"The Hope Fleet originally had nearly 400 survivors and five Sequence Transcendents. After that battle, only the few dozen people aboard the Hope remained."
"The only Sequence Transcendent who escaped back died of his severe injuries. Before he died, he gave me this [Just Verdict] and told me to lead humanity's surviving embers as we continued fleeing."
Wang Tai took out the elegant, classical Flintlock with its walnut stock and gently spun it once in his hand.
"You've been here long enough. You must have asked around and learned all about it by now!"
"Yes! I heard about it from the crew."
Qin Mao nodded.
"One bullet in exchange for one life. It's hard to say whether that's fair, but..."
"Brother Wang, you set sail on July 9. At most, it's been two months since then, yet you said just getting to the Blood Moon Sea took over half a year, not even counting the return trip. That's rather suspicious..."
Before you continue