Lucky Cruise Ship
Chapter 602: Heart
The battle erupted instantly!
The moment Wu Zhu’s voice fell, countless shadows of “Carl Bell” emerged from the darkness, pouncing forward fiercely!!
An Xin, supporting the heavily injured Qi Qian, dragged him out of the cage, narrowly avoiding the attack of one of the shadows. However, before he could find his footing, another shadow swooped down in front of him. Its faceless visage was like a gaping black hole, reaching straight for the faces of An Xin and Qi Qian.
—Not good!
An Xin was shaken to his core.
He knew all too well that once they made eye contact with “Carl Bell,” they would be appraised by an invisible force and fall into a disadvantageous position again!
Just then, a familiar voice came from above:
“Get down.”
An Xin instinctively ducked.
With a sharp swish, a pitch-black blade cut through the air, tearing the black shadow in front of him in two.
In the next second, he felt the weight on his shoulder lighten as the Vice President, who had been leaning heavily on him, was taken away.
He looked up and met Chen Cheng’s lowered eyes. The other’s tone was as cool and punchable as ever:
“What are you standing there for? Run.”
Just like that, the two of them carried Qi Qian and began a rapid retreat.
At the same time, the “Tenants” wearing pitch-black masks had unknowingly flooded the area, engaging with the countless shadows split from Carl Bell, keeping each other in check within the darkness.
“Carl Bell was heavily injured before, so it can’t maintain its previous form, but it still has a true core. On one hand, its authority has been weakened to the extreme, and its means of counterattack are greatly limited. Just one final strike can complete the mission. But on the other hand, it will be very difficult for us to pinpoint the location of its main body…”
Before everything began, Figaro had explained to everyone.
“However, as a ‘Successor,’ I have a way to lure out Carl Bell’s main body, but there will probably only be one chance. So, I will lead its main body close to Vice President Qi. When I approach, please ensure he is ready to strike. Otherwise, all our efforts will be wasted.”
And among everyone present, the only one who could strike at Carl Bell was Qi Qian.
His talent was extremely special, enough to withstand the side effect of a “non-challenger” killing a management level once. Naturally, Figaro could too, but he clearly didn’t want to give up his identity as an “Anchor,” so he wasn’t prepared to actually make the move.
The plan was very clear from the start.
The “Tenants” controlled by Wu Zhu would pin down the vast majority of the shadows. Figaro would be responsible for finding the real Carl Bell among them, and Qi Qian would be responsible for delivering the final fatal blow.
Chen Cheng looked down, glancing at Qi Qian hanging on his shoulder, his eyebrows raising in distrust:
“…But, can you really do it?”
Qi Qian, being gripped by one arm, looked even more shockingly pale under the lights. He lifted his eyelids to look at Chen Cheng. His voice was still weak, but there was an unconcealed ruthlessness in it:
“At least better than you.”
“Hah, still got some fight in you,” Chen Cheng smiled faintly. “Don’t slap yourself in the face when it’s time to kill Carl Bell later.”
Not far away, Figaro’s figure finally appeared in the chaotic battle. The moment he appeared, he almost immediately attracted all the firepower. Regardless of whether they were entangled by the “Tenants,” those black shadows broke away from the fight recklessly, pouncing towards him with a fierce demeanor.
The aggro pull was incredibly solid.
A huge scythe cut through the air, tearing apart two black shadows that approached in the blink of an eye, creating a vacuum zone that no one could step into.
A shadow slowly stepped into it. Its pace was slow, seemingly resisting some invisible suppression, yet it remained unharmed. From the center of that hollow face came Carl Bell’s eerie, twisted, and completely distorted voice: “I tolerated your wanton entry and exit of my floor as a challenger, and even mercifully established a long-term cooperative relationship with you—but what is your repayment to me?”
“You betrayed my trust, not only bringing rats with ulterior motives into my floor but even betraying your identity as a challenger, letting others do the dirty work—”
“I’m sorry,” although apologizing, Figaro didn’t sound very sincere, “but isn’t cooperation just like this? Someone can always offer a higher price…”
“Is that so?” Carl Bell’s voice became increasingly distorted. The black shadow slowly expanded, and the lights overhead sizzled, flickering on and off. “Then that price better be enough to save your life.”
Not far away.
“Figaro has the aggro.” Chen Cheng narrowed his eyes. “Here it comes.”
Qi Qian swayed as he pushed away Chen Cheng’s support, standing up straight.
Figaro, locked onto by Carl Bell’s aggro, was fleeing for his life, and the end of his escape route was exactly where they were positioned now.
The atmosphere grew taut.
—Success or failure depended on this one move!
Several meters away.
“Wrong,” Blond suddenly spoke.
“…” Beside him, Wen Ya was stunned and instinctively turned to look.
Blond was covering his eyes with one hand. Through the gaps between his fingers, eyeballs red as blood were faintly visible, almost shocking to behold. His gaze seemed to be uncontrollably chasing the “Carl Bell” behind Figaro, his breathing heavy and chaotic.
“What do you mean?” Wen Ya asked urgently.
Amidst the ambush of countless black shadows, even with the “Tenants” sharing the pressure, they were inevitably separated.
“The one chasing Figaro isn’t the real Carl Bell.”
Blond’s eyeballs trembled, his voice very low.
“How is that possible?” Wen Ya was startled. “Figaro is the one confronting it. As a challenger, he should be the one most capable of distinguishing the real from the fake. How could it not be real!”
“I, I don’t know,” Blond gritted his teeth, “but it’s not, definitely not—I can see it.”
He had once seen through Lucy’s body with his own eyes. Inside that small chest wrapped in sludge-like black substance was a slow-beating, bright red heart.
If Carl Bell were a similar existence, then no matter how deeply buried the traits that once belonged to a “human” were, they still existed.
However, the shadow chasing behind Figaro was filled with nothing but murky darkness inside. There was nothing else.
Suddenly, Blond’s eyeballs moved, locking onto one of the shadows, and he abruptly raised his voice:
“It’s over there!”
At the edge of vision, a shadow was wriggling in the darkness. It moved silently, and its destination seemed to be neither Chen Cheng nor Qi Qian, but—
Not good!!!
“It’s going for the President!”
Almost at the same time, Figaro led “Carl Bell” to the planned location.
Qi Qian suddenly exploded into action!
Light burst from his eyes; his movements no longer sluggish. The injuries previously inflicted on his body seemed to vanish completely. Beside him, Chen Cheng moved with the flow, his pitch-black Tang sword acting like an extension of his arm, slicing through several shadows in front of him. In the blink of an eye, he cleared an unobstructed path for Qi Qian.
A blood-stained steel knife appeared in Qi Qian’s hand. As he closed in, he thrust it through “Carl Bell’s” body with unstoppable momentum—!
But the moment the blade cut into its body, Qi Qian felt an eerie sensation.
There was absolutely no resistance, just like… passing through air.
The “Carl Bell” in front of him let out a cackling laugh, its body dissipating from Qi Qian’s fingertips like smoke.
He wore a stunned expression, clearly not anticipating this turn of events.
In the next second, a shiver ran down Wen Jianyan’s spine. Sensing something, he instinctively turned his head.
Approaching shadows eroded the air around him, the sudden drop in temperature making his hair stand on end.
A hollow face materialized in the darkness, suddenly closing in at an unpredictable speed!
“!”
Wen Jianyan was horrified and squeezed his eyes shut.
At the same time, the nearest “Tenants” collapsed one after another. Dark shadows dispersed from them, intertwining and condensing into a solid wall, firmly blocking the space between Wen Jianyan and Carl Bell.
Wu Zhu stared coldly at the opponent.
“Hehehe…” The real Carl Bell let out a cackling laugh, speaking incoherently, “A god stripped of authority and memory, now reduced to a monster only fit to keep company with the likes of us. How pitiful, guest. You want to protect him… that human? This is not the source of your power, nor is it a territory you can command. On this ship, all beings are equal. You are truly pitiful… The thing you protect will eventually become the sharp knife that stabs into your heart—just like when I first met you years ago—”
Almost instantly, Carl Bell’s size swelled violently. All the “Carl Bells” on the field were absorbed. The pitch-black body that could barely be considered humanoid was torn open by something grotesque, expanding to over twenty meters high in the blink of an eye, reaching the ceiling directly.
It transformed into a terrifying monster covered in wriggling tumors. On its pitch-black, oozing body, cracks opened one by one, revealing eyeballs rolling around wildly. Eerie gazes shot out from them, all firmly locked onto Wu Zhu’s figure.
From the body that had lost its mouth came high-pitched, fanatical, overlapping chants:
“What is the value of your existence? What is the value of your feelings? What is the value of your past? Come, let me appraise you!”
Not far away, Figaro’s face changed drastically.
Bad, this was very bad.
Did a cruise ship management level really have such energy?
He had always known Carl Bell was no ordinary NPC, but its current appearance and the level of horror it displayed far exceeded his previous expectations!
He looked towards where Wen Jianyan had just been standing.
It was empty. Both Wu Zhu and Wen Jianyan had disappeared. It seemed the mutated Carl Bell was powerful enough, boosted by the power of so many terrifying eyeballs, to forcibly use the “Appraisal” authority even on a non-human!
And based on Figaro’s experience, the two of them probably weren’t coming back.
“…”
Figaro slowly took two steps back, his eyes darting towards the distant exit.
But before Figaro could act, he felt his arm being gripped tightly.
He was startled and turned his head sharply.
“I knew it.”
Chen Cheng grinned at him, showing his teeth. “A dog can’t change its habit of eating sh*t.”
Qi Qian stood beside him, half-supported, his gaze icy.
“You have to be reasonable,” Figaro smiled bitterly. “It’s really not that I don’t want to help you. If we don’t run now, none of us will be able to escape. We’ll all die here!”
“There is a way.”
Blond stumbled over, panting heavily. When they saw him clearly, everyone felt a jolt in their hearts—his eyes were completely crimson, looking as if thick blood would drip from them in the next second. It looked eerie and terrifying.
“There is a way.”
He repeated.
“Eight meters off the ground, two and a half meters to the right. That’s its heart—as long as we kill it, everything will end.” Blond clenched his teeth tightly. “Trust me, I can see it.”
This was an auction.
An auction in progress, but with no participants.
On the auction stage not far away, an auctioneer who looked exactly like Carl Bell stood there. Below were empty auction seats.
Wen Jianyan looked around.
Although he didn’t know why he had suddenly come here, he knew this was definitely not the place where they had just been fighting Carl Bell.
Wen Jianyan looked up at the stage—Carl Bell wore a fanatical smile, raising his hands high, his mouth opening and closing, saying something unknown. Wen Jianyan couldn’t hear the specific content, only some vague murmurs, as if separated by a thick membrane.
Wen Jianyan was stunned, seeming to suddenly realize something, and reached out in front of him.
His fingers touched a familiar cold barrier.
It no longer flowed. Relying on its last instinct, it silently and densely wrapped around him.
So that was it.
Connecting it to everything that happened before the scene change, Wen Jianyan’s heart sank involuntarily.
It seemed Carl Bell’s target wasn’t him from the start, but Wu Zhu, who was distracted because he was attacked.
Although he hadn’t witnessed the entire process of Carl Bell’s mutation, he could feel the sharp drop in temperature around him and hear the terrifying chanting echoing throughout the cabin.
For Carl Bell to achieve all this, he must have used some rule-breaking method.
Because Wu Zhu was being “Appraised,” he—who was wrapped in the black shadow, which was part of Wu Zhu—was dragged in as well.
However, also because of the airtight protection of the black shadow, although Wen Jianyan was dragged in, he wasn’t affected by the “Appraisal” but unexpectedly became a bystander.
Just then, in the center of the auction stage, a huge scale made of flesh and bone appeared.
On the left was a gradually forming cage. Black iron pillars made of flesh suddenly closed, were broken from the inside by some invisible force, and then resealed a second before falling apart, as if an unbound beast was trapped inside, struggling madly to break free.
And the right side was empty.
Is this… the process of appraisal?
Wen Jianyan’s heart pounded.
On the auction stage, Carl Bell held a small black box in both hands. He stepped forward step by step. A vague voice came from outside the membrane—intermittent, seemingly from a great distance, like background noise, from which only individual words could barely be discerned.
“…Appraisal… normally impossible to complete, but if… right here… then it’s a different matter…”
“…”
Wen Jianyan’s gaze locked tightly onto it, his breathing becoming uncontrollably rapid. Some premonition told him… what was inside was no ordinary object.
The box was placed on the high scale and slowly, slowly opened.
Inside was a golden, slowly beating heart.
Under the light, its surface overflowed with brilliance, dazzling like a living gem.
Blood flowed down from the surface of the heart like a golden tear.
“…!”
Wen Jianyan was horrified.
He didn’t need clues or reasoning. He realized immediately—
The owner of that heart could be no one else but Wu Zhu.
Could it be that this was what Wu Zhu had been searching for? His heart?!
And this was the reason Carl Bell could appraise Wu Zhu, who was also an anomaly. Because Wu Zhu’s heart was right here…
On this ship!
Wen Jianyan’s heart beat like a drum. He instinctively lunged forward, but the barrier in front of him firmly blocked his way.
As the heart was placed on the other end, the scale made of flesh and bone began to slowly swing up and down, as if truly beginning to measure the value of existence upon it.
…Bad.
Wen Jianyan realized instantly what might happen next.
“Let me out!”
Wen Jianyan slammed against the barrier in front of him with all his might, pounding and kicking. Blood roared in his ears as he shouted at the cage on one end of the scale:
“Wu Zhu! Let me out!”
He wasn’t sure what he could do once the barrier disappeared, but he knew he couldn’t let the situation develop any further, nor could he just stand by and watch.
However, the barrier remained silent and solid, unmoving.
Damn it!
Wen Jianyan was sweating with anxiety.
“Wu Zhu—you f*cking—”
Suddenly, without warning, a sticky, strange sound came clearly to his ears, like the grotesque noise of a sharp weapon cutting through flesh.
“—!”
At the same time, intermittent vague sounds came from afar. The floor seemed to be impacted by some terrifying force, trembling along with it.
Wen Jianyan paused involuntarily, looking back in shock.
What happened?
Meanwhile, outside the mountain of flesh.
The bowstring was drawn full, vibrating slightly under the immense force. An Xin clenched his teeth tightly, the taste of rust spreading in his mouth. His pupils shrank to the size of pinpoints. His fingers were taut, continuing to exert force even as bloody gashes opened up one after another.
“Hum—!”
With a resounding twang, the arrow pierced through the air, carrying the force of a thousand jun, flying straight towards the only opening on the massive mountain of flesh—a spot that had taken four arrows to breach.
Flesh tore, and the mountain of flesh let out a sharp, terrifying wail. Countless blood-red eyeballs on it rolled around, seemingly enduring infinite pain.
“Go!”
Chen Cheng supported Qi Qian, bending low to run forward. Figaro followed close behind. The three moved on the steep surface of the flesh mountain as if on flat ground. Seemingly sensing danger, the countless eyeballs on the flesh mountain stared dead at them—
Figaro took a deep breath and stopped abruptly. He pulled off his glove. The blood-red gem on his finger cracked under the unbearable load, blocking some invisible attack for them.
Finally, Chen Cheng and Qi Qian reached the target location.
Chen Cheng let go of Qi Qian’s arm: “Here.”
Even at this moment, he had the leisure to mock:
“Time to see if you can do it.”
“…” Qi Qian gave him a deep look. He took out something and placed it in Chen Cheng’s hand. “Keep it safe.”
Chen Cheng looked down at the object in his palm and froze—it was a small paper figure, with lifelike features, looking exactly like Qi Qian. This was the manifestation of Qi Qian’s talent. After his “death,” as long as the paper figure wasn’t destroyed within a certain period, he could awaken again.
Before this, it had been guarded by Tong Yao, until… she died on this floor.
After Tong Yao’s death, the paper figure automatically returned to Qi Qian’s hands. But the situation at the time was too complex and critical, so he hadn’t had time to entrust the paper figure to An Xin before it was too late.
“Of course, I don’t think you have the ability,” Qi Qian sneered. “If you can’t hold onto it, give it to An Xin. He’s much more trustworthy than you.”
Chen Cheng: “…”
Looking down on people, are we?
But before he could mock back, Qi Qian leaped into the gap in the flesh mountain, swallowed by the wriggling black flesh in the blink of an eye.
The foul-smelling wind blew fiercely against his clothes. As he fell, the blood-stained knife appeared in his hand again.
Several meters below, a deformed and twisted chunk of flesh, barely distinguishable in color from its surroundings, was visible.
A heart.
Qi Qian took a deep breath, bent his knees, and using the momentum of his fall, gripped the knife in a reverse hold and stabbed down viciously!
“—Ahhhhhh—”
The mountain of flesh emitted a piercing roar. Countless eyeballs widened abruptly, pupils shrinking to trembling pinpoints. Its body expanded visibly, expanding, expanding, and then…
“Bang!!!”
The swollen skin was squeezed by some invisible force, and all the liquid held inside exploded outwards. Pitch-black rain dripped down, covering the entire area.
“—” Wen Jianyan sucked in a sharp breath of cold air and snapped his eyes open.
The moment he looked up, he saw the pitch-black, half-forged iron cage in front of him.
The shape of the iron cage was extremely grotesque, seemingly torn open from the inside again and again, and reforged again and again, resulting in such a hideous appearance. A pitch-black iron bar pierced through the man’s shoulder, and another was nailed into his thigh—one could almost imagine how he had struggled fiercely when “locked on,” willing to break out of the cage at any cost, even letting iron bars grow from his own body.
While Wen Jianyan was dazed, Wu Zhu lowered his head, grabbed the iron bar in his shoulder with one hand, and slowly pulled it out.
“…!”
Wen Jianyan instinctively took a step forward. Before he could stop him, Wu Zhu had already repeated the action, pulling the iron pillar from his thigh as well. He let go, and the broken iron bar fell to the ground with a clang, rolling away.
Wu Zhu stepped closer and touched Wen Jianyan’s face with fingers stained with golden blood.
“You’re okay.”
He seemed relieved.
“…” Wen Jianyan was stunned, momentarily unsure how to respond.
Suddenly, a strange sound came from not far away, “Gegegege—” like the groan of an iron beast before death. The sound assaulted everyone’s eardrums, echoing in the vast space, evoking inexplicably ominous associations.
Blond turned his head sharply. When his gaze fell in the direction of the sound, his bloodshot pupils contracted abruptly. His voice distorted as he screamed in terror:
“The ship… the ship is cracking!”
Perhaps due to the extraordinary manifestation of Carl Bell’s power, the ship’s hull, which had been intact just moments ago, now showed spiderweb-like cracks one after another. Cold seawater, carrying the stench of corpses, flowed in through the cracks, gathering into pools drip by drip, releasing an unparalleled chill.
Bad news.
Everyone’s breath hitched. They seemed to just remember that they were currently on the ocean—and floating in that ocean were countless terrifying corpses.
“Bang!” A jet of water burst through the hull, and from that breach, several pale, bloated fingers struggled to reach in.
“Quick, leave this floor!”
Wen Jianyan reacted first, shouting loudly.
Under his lead, everyone turned and ran outwards as if their lives depended on it—
Without Carl Bell, the entire auction seemed to be falling apart. The “Tenants” who had been attending the auction earlier were nowhere to be seen, leaving only an empty, fading, and shrinking hall.
Behind them, cold seawater surged, flooding the entire cabin in the blink of an eye. Under this sudden pressure, the hull of the Lucky Cruise tilted subtly to one side.
Inside the invaded cabin, corpses slowly stood up from the seawater, turning their pale, stiff faces, seemingly searching for traces of the living.
