(3/4)
Lucky Cruise Ship
Chapter 542: Guilty as charged
The first-floor casino hall was in chaos, with people and tables overturned everywhere.
The anchors could barely stand by bracing themselves against the gambling tables, their faces deathly pale and filled with panic.
They had all heard the system announcement that echoed through the entire cruise ship.
What’s going on…?
The Lucky Cruise Ship instance is opening?
That has to be fake, right?
This is the Anchor Hall—how could it…
Yet the countdown in their ears was anything but fake—cold, mechanical, utterly emotionless, devouring what little time remained.
“H‑How come we can’t disembark?”
The anchors pulled out their phones, only to discover in horror that the option to leave the ship had vanished.
Panic spread.
“What’s going on? Why doesn’t it work!!”
“Hey, I want to get off the ship, let me off the ship right now!!!”
In the midst of the chaos, one of the anchors even rushed a nearby casino security guard, grabbing him by the collar and screaming hysterically.
On the second floor, Mesvis stood before the enormous floor‑to‑ceiling window, looking down at the casino that had already fallen into disorder. He narrowed his eyes in pleasure.
“Ah… it’s starting.”
At the same time, the news that the “Lucky Cruise Ship” instance had opened swept across the entire streaming plaza, igniting the enthusiasm of all viewers almost instantly.
“Lucky Cruise Ship instance?! I’ve never even heard of it before…”
“A new one? Oh my god!”
“Ahhh holy crap, it’s a completely new instance that no anchor has ever entered before!!!”
“It seems like it mutated directly from the Anchor Hall…! And there are tons of high‑level anchors inside!”
Driven by intense excitement, the viewers surged into the Lucky Cruise Ship instance lobby like a tidal wave. In the blink of an eye, the viewer counts in the live rooms of anchors inside the cruise ship began skyrocketing, rising at a speed that was almost breaking Nightmare’s records.
The viewers who entered the instance lobby were shocked to find that this instance had actually merged with the previously running reality‑show event.
“What does that mean? I thought the reality show would end once the instance started?”
“No, no, apparently not…?”
“The previous time limit is gone, but the bounties are still there!”
“Ahhhh, this run is going to be fun!”
Inside a cabin.
“Heh, looks like it worked.”
Gazing at the countless corpses floating on the sea, the Gentleman curved his lips into a smile and slowly set his empty wine glass back on the table.
“Seems that even though you’ve already left the guild, your former president still hasn’t built up any real defenses against your prophecies.”
“…”
Su Cheng stood to the side, his expression indifferent.
“If I were the one giving him the prophecy, I doubt he would have walked into the trap so easily.”
The Gentleman rose to his feet with a pleasant smile.
“Alright, let’s go.”
“If we don’t leave now, it’ll be too late.”
【…8, 7, 6——】
Chen Mo shot to his feet, face dark, the unending countdown blaring in his ears.
“Lucky Cruise Ship… instance?”
Beside him, Wen Ya’s lips were tightly pressed together, her expression grave.
Although they had already known that the Lucky was a dungeon in the process of forming, none of them had expected things to advance this fast.
Chang Feiyu caught something from the corner of his eye. He stepped forward a few paces, braced one hand on the railing and leaned out to look toward the sea.
His face changed instantly.
The icy sea breeze swept in from the ocean, carrying a strange, sinister stench of rot. From the pitch‑black waters, countless pale corpses were drifting closer from afar. They floated silently in the water, their blurry faces submerged just below the surface, impossible to see clearly.
“Hey, look over there—”
【…3, 2, 1】
The countdown ended, and the familiar system voice suddenly became passionate and high‑pitched.
“Welcome to the Nightmare Live Room!
Our motto is—entertainment till death!!”
At the very instant the instance opened, Chang Feiyu’s eyes met those of one of the corpses in the sea.
“?!”
He jerked back a step in fright.
Under his horrified gaze, the corpses in the water slowly opened their eyes one after another. On their water‑bloated faces, pairs of ashen pupils stared wide, turning, grid by grid, toward the cruise ship.
Not good!
Splash—splash—
A strange water sound rose from beyond the balcony.
Chen Mo: “What’s going on?”
“The corpses in the sea,” Chang Feiyu ground out, “they’re coming aboard!”
Almost the moment the words left his mouth, a dripping, sickly pale hand clamped down on the balcony railing. Then a second, and a third…
At the side, the spirit medium Maggie’s face suddenly turned extremely ugly. She took two steps back, her voice trembling slightly.
“…There are a lot, a whole lot of them!”
“Move!” Wen Ya ordered sharply.
This was a first‑class cabin with a balcony. Once the corpses at sea came aboard, this place would be the first to be attacked.
The corpses in the water were endless. Even if they could withstand the first wave, once the corridor outside was also overrun, they would be trapped and die in the room.
They had to leave immediately.
They decided at once and rushed out of the cabin.
The corridor was in utter chaos.
The anchors living here clearly had the same idea as Chen Mo’s group. They all poured out of their rooms, sprinting toward the deck as fast as they could.
They had barely run a few steps when they collided with Chen Cheng, who had just bolted out from another cabin.
His jacket was on inside‑out, one foot was bare without a sock—he looked utterly disheveled.
“What the hell is going on?!”
Chen Cheng looked completely stunned.
“Why did an instance start?”
Wen Ya: “We’ll talk outside!”
While they were speaking, corpses had already started boarding the ship. Their whole bodies were dripping wet, cold, briny seawater pattering to the floor and pooling beneath their feet.
Pairs of lifeless, ashen eyes locked tightly onto the living in the corridor as the corpses slowly shuffled toward them.
There was no time for reunions. The group bolted toward the deck.
The air was thick with the smell of seawater and the oppressive stench of death.
The number of corpses was increasing at an uncontrollable speed. They climbed onto the cruise ship in an unending stream, swiftly occupying cabin after cabin and even spilling out into the corridors.
Even though Chen Mo and the others had reacted fast enough, they still saw corpses appear ahead of them in the corridor.
“Use items!” Chen Mo shouted.
Ji Guan, who was at the front, immediately activated his item.
A large net spread open at once, trying to force the corpses in front of them back.
The net brushed across the soaked faces of the corpses, but it was like snow falling into the sea—within the blink of an eye, it was dissolved by the seawater covering their bodies and vanished completely from sight.
Chen Mo’s pupils shrank.
“What grade is your item?”
Ji Guan’s face was also grim. “…S.”
Thanks to Wen Jianyan’s earlier analysis, they had already guessed this instance wouldn’t be easy. Precisely because of that, the moment they ran into danger, Ji Guan had taken out an S‑grade item straight away.
Yet even so… it still failed.
And the instance had only just begun!
What difficulty level was this, exactly??
“I’ll do it.” Kong Wei’s muffled voice came from behind.
He stepped forward, and the surface of his skin suddenly took on a metallic sheen. His already tall, muscular body became as solid as a bronze statue. He hunched his back like an American football player and charged forward, ramming into the corpses blocking the way and smashing a path open with his shoulders.
The others immediately followed.
…One meter, two meters, three meters.
After forcing their way through two corridors, Kong Wei’s pace gradually slowed. A pained expression appeared on his usually silent, determined face. At some unknown point, seawater had spread all over the metallic skin of his right shoulder and arm, and that skin was slowly taking on the ghastly pallor of a corpse.
“Fall back,” Chen Mo barked.
The next second, there was a loud metallic clang. Two massive chains appeared out of thin air in the middle of the corridor. In the next moment, they split apart and were yanked in opposite directions, forcibly tearing open a clear passage in the center.
This was Chen Mo’s innate ability.
“Go!”
In this way, the group quickly pushed through the narrow cabins and corridors. At last, before the interior of the ship was completely flooded with corpses, they reached the deck.
The sky and sea were both a pitch‑black expanse. The damp, chilly wind whistled by.
Along both sides of the railings, one pallid hand after another gripped the metal bars.
What had been a luxurious entertainment scene in the daytime had now become a hell on earth.
“He—”
Chen Cheng swung his tang dao viciously at a corpse’s neck, but the blade couldn’t bite any deeper. He was forced to put both hands on the hilt and press down hard.
“—damn—”
With a wet ripping sound, the blade finally sliced through, cutting the corpse cleanly in two.
“—it!”
But once the corpse was split, inexplicable rust began to spread across the tang dao’s blade, as if some invisible force were corroding it.
“We won’t last long like this!”
Blond’s voice trembled in the sea wind.
Ever since the cruise ship became an instance, his ability was no longer suppressed. As an anchor with enhanced vision, he could see far more than the others.
The dark ocean stretched endlessly in all directions, and everywhere his gaze fell, pale corpses floated.
The cruise ship’s hull was covered in a dense layer of corpses, arm upon arm, torso upon torso, so that aside from their bodies, almost none of the ship’s outer wall remained visible.
Chang Feiyu: “Can we get in touch with the president?!”
Ji Guan: “No!”
When Wen Jianyan had left, he hadn’t told any of them a thing. Right now, they had no idea where he was.
Wen Ya stood in place, slowly sweeping her gaze around.
“Go to the casino,” she said.
“What?” The others blinked in surprise.
“I said,” Wen Ya raised her voice, “go to the casino!”
Previously, Wen Jianyan had mentioned that the entire ship had been built with the casino as its core, and that the reason it could become an instance at all was because anchors were continuously pumping money into the place.
In that case, the casino might be the only solution.
And Wen Jianyan might be there too.
Prompted by Wen Ya’s words, the others quickly reached the same conclusion.
They exchanged looks, drew in a deep breath, and nodded.
Guided by their memories from the daytime, they sprinted toward the casino.
Before long, the brilliant lights of the casino appeared in the distance. The main entrance stood wide open, as if inviting everyone inside.
Within the brightly lit area, there wasn’t a single corpse or even a drop of seawater.
“…”
They exchanged glances and deliberately slowed their pace.
Cautiously, the group walked forward and stepped into the casino.
They couldn’t tell if it was just their imagination, but the place seemed subtly different from how they remembered it.
The entire stern of the Lucky was a casino, with direct access passages on every deck. The casino had been enormous to begin with, and now it felt even larger than before.
The place was packed.
Some anchors had been here from the very start, while others, like Chen Mo’s group, had arrived only after struggling their way through danger.
But everyone’s faces were ugly.
Big anchors or small, they had only come to this ship for a vacation. None of them had imagined they would be dragged into another instance mid‑holiday, and a fairly difficult one at that. It was a hard pill to swallow.
On the huge screen hanging in the very center, the rapidly ticking numbers from earlier had completely vanished, leaving only a blank space that made one’s heart race.
In the middle of that blankness was a blood‑red countdown.
3:02.
The countdown seemed to have started from the moment the instance opened, with a total duration of ten minutes; now, less than three minutes remained.
As for what would happen after the countdown reached zero…
No one knew.
Chen Mo and the others stood on the edge of the casino, still panting heavily.
“Has the president replied yet?”
As if suddenly remembering something, Wen Ya turned her head.
Ji Guan checked his phone. “…Still no.”
“Where on earth did he go?”
They looked at one another, their brows furrowing.
Seven minutes earlier.
Second floor of the casino.
After revealing all the remaining mysteries, Mesvis slowly turned around and smiled at Wen Jianyan, who was still standing there.
“I suggest you leave quickly,” Mesvis said, tapping the face of his watch with a finger. “If I’m not mistaken, once the instance starts, you’ll only have ten minutes left—I’m sure you don’t want to be late.”
While he was speaking, the attendants had already picked up the scattered blood‑red chips and returned them to their box, which they handed to the expressionless young man.
“…”
Wen Jianyan slowly lowered his gaze, looking at the chip box without reaching out to take it.
Instead, Figaro reacted first.
He stepped forward swiftly, snatching the box of blood‑red chips with one hand and shoving it forcefully into Wen Jianyan’s arms with the other. Then he grabbed Wen Jianyan’s arm in a vice‑like grip and muttered in his ear,
“We need to leave.”
Without waiting to see whether Wen Jianyan agreed, he half‑dragged, half‑pulled him toward the exit.
At the connection between the second floor and the first.
The staircase descended endlessly into the dark, the surroundings swallowed by boundless blackness. Only a dim yellow lamp lit the path directly ahead.
Dragged along by Figaro, Wen Jianyan stumbled and lurched forward.
Suddenly, halfway down the stairs, he stopped without warning and shook off Figaro’s hand.
“What are you waiting for?”
Figaro frowned at him. “Getting from the second floor back to the first isn’t that easy. We’ll need at least seven or eight minutes just to—”
“…The last answer was a free gift.”
Wen Jianyan slowly lifted his head, his gaze landing on Figaro. His expression was calm, his voice soft and even. The brief loss of composure from earlier seemed to have never happened.
“So that’s why.”
Of all the deals he and Figaro had made, only the last one hadn’t involved a real contract. And it was in that very answer that Figaro had hidden the truth about the heavy rake on the second floor, cutting off Wen Jianyan’s chance to discover the problem ahead of time.
Staring at Wen Jianyan from not far away, the expression on Figaro’s face gradually faded.
He narrowed his eyes, his gaze growing deep and unreadable.
“Looks like you’ve had two employers from the start,” Wen Jianyan said, letting out a short laugh with little humor in his eyes.
“Guilty as charged.”
Figaro smiled lightly and tipped the brim of his hat.
“If I remember correctly, you should still be holding a contract to assassinate me, right?” Wen Jianyan asked.
That had been the reason the Oracle hired him in the first place.
Only, during the ‘Yuying Comprehensive University’ instance, Figaro had failed.
Although he had maintained a brief period of peace with Wen Jianyan afterward, that was only because the instance hadn’t yet opened at the time, and anchors were forbidden to kill each other inside the anchor space.
Now that the ‘Lucky Cruise Ship’ instance was about to begin, those restrictions clearly no longer applied.
“That’s right,” Figaro said with a soft sigh.
“Even if you no longer trust me, rest assured, I won’t lay a finger on you until I’ve gotten you off the second floor alive—that is my integrity as a businessman.”
“No, on the contrary,” Wen Jianyan looked at him, “I’m actually starting to trust you.”
“…”
Figaro froze.
“That Straight Flush at the table—that was your handiwork, wasn’t it?” Wen Jianyan suddenly smiled.
Indeed, Wen Jianyan had used psychological warfare to set a trap for No. 8. But the only variable there had been his luck.
And Wen Jianyan knew exactly how bad his own luck was. So, after scrambling No. 8’s brain, he’d made more preparations and more arrangements.
Yet, in the very next hand, he’d drawn a Straight Flush, rendering all his subsequent preparations unnecessary.
It was a Straight Flush.
The probability of that appearing was only 0.00199.
If the instance hadn’t opened afterward, Wen Jianyan might have convinced himself that it was a sudden explosion of good luck. But everything that followed blew that notion apart.
Just as he’d said before…
At the gambling table, the easiest place to cheat—and the hardest place to detect cheating—was the dealer.
“Someone who basically lives in casinos like you—how could you only ‘understand the rules’ of Texas Hold’em?”
Wen Jianyan stepped forward. Under the dim light, his pale eyes were as sharp as blades, forcing Figaro to retreat half a step before he even realized it.
“‘In a game like this, once you’re caught cheating, the price is unimaginably terrible.’”
He stared fixedly at Figaro, repeating the man’s earlier words word for word.
“‘At least as far as I know, no one has ever dared to shoulder that price.’”
“To complete a job, you’re even willing to take that kind of risk,” Wen Jianyan said with a smile. “That’s a terrifying level of professional dedication.”
Under that piercing gaze, Figaro couldn’t help taking another step back.
He laughed dryly. “B‑But at least I helped you win 1.2 billion, didn’t I?”
—You aren’t really going to turn me in at a time like this, are you?
“True.”
Wen Jianyan smiled.
He raised a hand to smooth the wrinkles from Figaro’s shoulder, his eyes fixed on the other man’s rare nervous expression.
“So,” Wen Jianyan said slowly, “I think from here on out, we might actually be able to build a bit of mutual trust between us, don’t you?”
