WTNL Chapter 627

Lucky Cruise Ship [End]
Chapter 627: Heart

“…”

An Xin’s mind went blank. He opened his mouth, a familiar name stuck in his throat, yet not a single syllable could come out.

He simply moved instinctively, his hand reaching out subconsciously—

“An Xin!”

A low shout came from behind, yanking An Xin violently back to reality.

Not far away, Chen Mo had stopped at some point. He turned his head, looking over from a distance, and urged, “We need to go. Hurry up and follow.”

In his daze, An Xin turned his head to look at the elevator one last time.

The elevator doors had closed at some unknown moment, swallowing the figure of his old friend.

The cold metal doors stood silent and transverse, like an unbreakable iron curtain.

“…”

An Xin’s voice was dry and hoarse as he said, “…Coming.”

---

They hadn’t felt it when they were deep in the core of the instance on the sixth basement level, but upon returning to the first floor of the cruise ship, they finally realized just how severely the entire ship was tilting.

And… that the sinking of this ship was imminent.

The floor had tilted irreversibly to a severe angle. Tables, chairs, and wine glasses had all slid to one side, tangling together in a chaotic mess, all submerged in seawater.

The main gates of the first floor had been breached from the outside. Mixed into the scent of cold, briny water was the smell of rotting corpses.

Everywhere they looked, there were terrifying floating corpses, their skin pale and bloated, dripping with seawater.

And beyond the gates… was a pitch-black darkness where one couldn’t see their own fingers. The sound of rain arrived with the roaring of the waves. Unknown dangers lurked in the places light could not reach, silently waiting for them. It was a scene that involuntarily struck fear into the heart.

A mechanical voice echoed in the air.

The voice was fragmented, almost unrecognizable.

“■■ Instance—Error—■■ Closed—■■■■ Deck!”

“Stipulated time—■■■ Leave!”

“Count■■—”

According to the Nightmare’s hint, the evacuation point was located on the deck.

In that case, if they wanted to leave, they had to cross the first-floor lobby, rush out of the casino, and enter the dark rain outside.

Their gazes swept over the floating corpses; their bodies slowly tensed, their expressions graver than ever before.

Although they had once used the floating corpses to break open the door and escape Dan Zhu’s pursuit, with the shift in the situation, what was once an aid had now become an obstacle.

“Don’t get bogged down in fighting later,” Wen Jianyan said in a low voice. “Charge straight out and run toward the deck.”

“Yeah.”

Everyone nodded.

Although they agreed verbally, they had no confidence in their hearts.

It had to be known that at the start of the instance, they had a direct confrontation with these “things”—almost all low-level items were unusable. Only the anchors’ Talents and items exceeding SS-rank had any effect.

Even then, their escape had been incredibly difficult, let alone…

They were far too exhausted now.

Blond could barely see.

To destroy the Brain in a Vat and forcibly break through walls, the others had also heavily overdrawn their Talents. Kong Wei’s body was half-petrified; Chen Mo and Wen Ya were slightly better off, but their faces were abnormally pale.

And among them…

Chen Cheng’s consumption was likely the greatest.

Since entering the sixth basement level, his Talent manifestation, the “Tang Dao,” had almost never been sheathed.

And his blade edge was bought with damage equivalent to what he inflicted on himself.

He hadn’t said a word about his condition, but with his occasional raising of the hand, one could glimpse that the bandages under his cuffs had been thoroughly dyed red with blood, leaving not a speck of white.

“No need.”

Just then, a deep voice sounded.

Wen Jianyan was startled and turned to look in the direction of the voice.

Wu Zhu was looking at him. “As long as you wish it, they won’t see you.”

“You can do that…?” Wen Jianyan paused.

“En,” Wu Zhu responded.

The next second, the shadows that had previously escorted them out of the sixth basement level covered them overhead like a curtain.

In the blink of an eye, what little light remained was swallowed up completely, leaving only a darkness as deep as the ocean.

Wen Jianyan felt his wrist being caught, and the other’s voice came to his ear:

“Follow me.”

The darkness blocked their vision, but it couldn’t seal off their other five senses.

Although everyone was blinded, they could smell the distinct, fishy rot of corpses in the air. The smell grew heavy, and just when it became almost unbearable, it began to fade—clearly, under the cover of darkness, they were being led away from the corpse-filled, danger-ridden first floor of the cruise ship.

The ground beneath their feet changed from smooth to rough.

Losing the shelter overhead, the sound of rain was instantly amplified.

Raindrops crackled as they smashed down, but it was as if they were blocked by an invisible dome; not a drop landed on their bodies.

—They had now left the casino and arrived on the open-air deck.

Wen Jianyan keenly felt the fingers gripping his wrist tighten slightly for a second. He turned his head. “…What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Wu Zhu said.

Wen Jianyan’s heart sank, vaguely guessing the reason.

There were too many people.

Before, Wu Zhu only had to protect him alone, but this time, he had to shelter seven whole people—furthermore, the difficulty of escorting them now compared to the start of the instance was night and day. Although Wen Jianyan couldn’t see, just from the cold aura in the air and the stench of rot so intense it was unbearable, he could guess what a terrifying hellscape lay outside this dome of darkness.

“Everyone stay close, speed up.”

Wen Jianyan turned his head, his tone urgent.

He didn’t know if it would help, but it was better than nothing.

“Do you know the evacuation location?” Even though he couldn’t see, Wen Jianyan still subconsciously turned his head toward Wu Zhu.

“En.”

Wu Zhu’s answer was brief as always.

“We’ll be there soon.”

“…” Wen Jianyan took a deep breath and slowly asked the question that had been weighing heavily on his heart since leaving the sixth basement level. “If… if it’s just an administrator who hasn’t taken office yet, can they leave this instance?”

He had another purpose for entering the sixth basement level, and that was to let Yang Fan leave the instance in human form.

However, because the position of Captain was now inherited by no one, and the two candidates closest to the position were forced to stay behind—Yang Fan’s problem remained suspended, with no one left to solve it.

Thinking back to Yang Fan’s name vanishing from Dan Zhu’s ticket… Wen Jianyan’s fingers curled uncontrollably.

In the sound of the rain, Wu Zhu remained silent for longer than before.

Finally, he spoke.

“He did not choose to stay of his own accord, so…” Wu Zhu answered, “Perhaps it is possible.”

Su Cheng’s assimilation was the result of an active choice.

He had walked alone, stepping into the darkness.

Precisely because of this, his fate was permanently entwined and deadlocked with this ship.

Dan Zhu’s maniacal laughter was like a prophecy—there was no precedent for this, and the practitioner would pay the price.

But as for Yang Fan…

Perhaps there was still hope.

The sound of rain overhead became more urgent.

Wu Zhu’s pace quickened at some point, and the group, wrapped and propelled by the darkness, was forced to speed up, stumbling forward on the tilted, slippery deck.

Unsure if it was an illusion, the gloomy rain seemed to have a life of its own as it fell hurriedly, smashing greedily and urgently against the top of their heads. Every second felt more desperate and oppressive than the last.

The entire ship was being shaken by an invisible, colossal force. The sounds of crashing waves, attacking rain, and raging wind mixed together, swallowing human senses whole.

Wen Jianyan heard his heart pounding wildly against his ribs, chaotic blood flow rushing against his temples, his lungs wheezing like bellows.

In this frenzy of noise, he could only vaguely make out the increasingly urgent, increasingly blurred mechanical sound.

“■■■■ Closed—■■■■ Deck!”

“■■■ Leave! ■■—”

“How much longer?!” Across the wind and waves, Wen Ya’s hoarse shout came from behind.

“Almost there.” Wu Zhu’s answer was short and clear.

Just then, he suddenly felt… the tactile sensation of the deck beneath his feet seemed strange.

Slippery, sticky, and—soft.

The feeling was so familiar. Wen Jianyan racked his brain to recall it as he ran.

Suddenly, Ma Qi’s voice seemed to flash through his mind again, and in that instant, the answer swept through his brain like a beam of light—Right!

This texture was exactly the same as the stairs on the sixth basement level!

Almost the instant Wen Jianyan realized this, a massive wave suddenly slammed into the side of the ship, and the angle of the cruise ship’s tilt steepened abruptly.

“—!”

Unable to see, Wen Jianyan’s pupils shrank, and he instantly lost his balance.

“Careful!” Wu Zhu said urgently.

The surrounding darkness flickered, then began to gradually fade.

Wen Jianyan steadied himself and looked up wretchedly, seeing his surroundings clearly for the first time.

They had now arrived on the deck.

The casino had been swallowed by darkness—as if erased directly from this world, vanishing completely from sight without a trace.

Looking out, there was a pitch-black ocean with no end in sight. The cruise ship was rocked back and forth by giant waves. Amidst the violently rolling surges, this massive steel beast appeared so fragile and insignificant.

Overhead was a lightless firmament.

And the pouring, gloomy rain.

The black rain was dense and continuous, connecting the sky and ocean into a giant black curtain of water.

Beyond the rain was heavier rain; the whole world was a void.

Beneath their feet, soaked in the rain, the originally hard deck took on a texture like human skin—no, not just the deck.

Railings, walls… everything in sight had turned into a structure adhered together by corpses.

Pale faces, their features vaguely visible, were squeezed together tightly without gaps, intertwined, eyes closed, appearing to have fallen into eternal sleep.

Without warning, a question—or perhaps an answer—flooded his mind.

A chill surged from his bones. Wen Jianyan shivered, feeling as if his blood had frozen along with him.

This was a corpse ship sailing upon the sea.

Everything was made of corpses, with only one exception—

The complex corridor where the Captain’s room was located.

The walls there were made of dense, tiny pipes transporting strange mucus, and those pipes led to the Toy Factory on the fifth basement level, where that mucus endlessly produced malicious ghosts.

Dan Zhu’s Talent parasitized corpses, but her flowers could affect those pipes transporting liquid.

So, where was the source of the pipes?

Wen Jianyan shouted loudly:

“Wait!”

“What is it?!” Across the sound of the rain, his teammates’ urgent voices sounded unreal.

“Attack the faces in the deck—use whatever means you have!!” Wen Jianyan tried his best to raise his voice, but still couldn’t drown out the sound of the rain.

Even though they didn’t know why Wen Jianyan suddenly made this decision, items, Talents, and all methods were employed.

However, when blades sliced open the deck, what shattered was real wood and cement. Those sleeping faces seemed like shadows existing in another dimension, completely immune to attacks.

“It’s no use!!!” In the crackling rain, Chen Cheng strained his throat, screaming with all his might, “These—things aren’t in the same reality as us—attacks won’t work!”

Not existing in reality…

Wen Jianyan suddenly paused.

He seemed to think of something. He looked down, quickly opening the livestream interface—the stream was still disconnected—his fingers trembling slightly under the pressure, searching urgently until he finally found the target item.

The Bronze Dagger.

Wen Jianyan gripped the God-slaying dagger, crouched down, and stabbed backhand ruthlessly into one of the faces on the ground!!!

From the slit cut by the dagger, thick, strange liquid gurgled out, merging instantly into the rain.

“—!”

Below, pale eyelids suddenly snapped open, as if awakened from a dream. Chaos-filled, hollow pupils stared straight at him, the mouth gaping wide, emitting a shrill, miserable scream.

“Aaaaaahhhhh!!!!!”

And deep within its throat, Wen Jianyan saw the familiar pipe transporting the viscous liquid.

“…”

His fingers trembled, reflexively tightening.

Extracting “liquid” from the corpses that formed the ship’s hull, then transporting it to the “Toy Factory” to output and manufacture more malicious ghosts—

With this, the final piece of the puzzle was complete.

What Wen Jianyan found was not just the starting point of the pipes, but the source of all the instances he had experienced.

The structural layout of the Xingwang Hotel.

The suppression principles of the Changsheng Building.

The hierarchy of Yuying Comprehensive University.

And… the operating rules of the Dream Amusement Park.

Whether it was the instance framework built from corpses, the value system built on currency, the strict hierarchy and inheritance/replacement system, or even the “Brain in a Vat,” the “God Creation Plan,” the “Ghost Factory,” the faceless masks, the ghosts needing body fragments, the ubiquitous No. 1…

More or less, they all existed within this single instance.

But the difference was, some were merely concepts, some were prototypes, and some had fully matured.

Those instance concepts created by the Nightmare Livestream all originated from this damned ship.

This Lucky Cruise Ship was the fucking Nightmare Blueprint!!

Beneath his feet, the pale human face let out a shrill scream. Like pushing the first domino, tiles fell one after another; eyes opened one by one, faces woke up in succession.

Though not stabbed by the dagger, every face waking from the nightmare seemed to be suffering immense torture. They opened their mouths, screaming in unison.

“Ah, aaah, aaaaaaaaaahhhhh!”

In the blink of an eye, the entire ship came alive.

No—more accurately, it woke up.

Pale faces bulged out from the deck, eventually spreading to the entire hull, emitting terrifying screams of pain in the corrosive rain.

Amidst the screams were intermittent words:

“■■■ No!!”

“I want to sleep■■!!”

“Don’t wake us■ up!! Don’t!!! ■■■—”

On the pitch-black ocean floated a massive ship composed of human heads. Every face was hideous, bewildered, despairing, angry, fearful… swaying amidst the fierce waves and storm.

Just then, Wen Jianyan felt the back of his hand being grabbed.

He turned his head subconsciously.

Through the curtain of dark rain, the man’s eyes were cold and bright, like burning golden candles: “This way!”

Led by Wu Zhu, the group began to sprint wildly again.

Soon, they arrived at one side of the deck.

It was vastly different from memory here; eighty percent of the deck was already tilted and submerged in seawater. Only the bright red lifebuoys were still faintly visible—Wen Jianyan remembered this place. Before the instance started, he had turned right here based on Su Cheng’s prophecy—but why did Wu Zhu bring them here?

The more important question was, where exactly was the instance evacuation point?

Before he could voice his myriad of questions, he saw Wu Zhu look up. Without seeing what he did, the lifebuoys broke free from their ropes one after another, landing in front of them.

He extended a hand, suspending it flat in the air. A sharp fingernail sliced open a wound on his pale wrist.

Drip, drip.

Golden blood fell onto the lifebuoys.

“Wait?” Wen Jianyan lost his voice. He lunged forward, grabbing Wu Zhu’s arm. “What are you doing?”

“If I don’t do this, you will be swallowed by the sea.” Wu Zhu turned to look at him.

“That’s not what I’m asking!” Wen Jianyan gritted his teeth. “According to the original process, we just need to get to the deck to evacuate. Why do we need lifebuoys? Are we going to fall into the water—”

Seeming to realize something, Wen Jianyan’s pupils contracted slightly, all words stuck deep in his throat.

Through the waves, rainstorms, screams, and wails—

The content of the system’s mechanical broadcast became increasingly broken, but this time, he seemed to finally hear the specific content within.

“■■ Instance ■■ Closed—■■■■”

“Not at—bzzt—unable to leave.”

“Un-un-un—able-able-able—to lea-lea-leave.”

“…Nightmare never planned to let us evacuate from the start, right?” Wen Jianyan heard himself ask in a dry voice.

Suddenly, all doubts were answered.

Why the livestream was closed ahead of time.

Why they couldn’t hear the true countdown numbers from the start.

Why, since coming up to the first floor, they hadn’t seen a second living person besides themselves.

Nightmare never planned to pick them up!!!

“Correct.”

Wu Zhu gazed at him.

His voice was as arrogant, cold, and inhuman as ever: “But I can make it happen.”

He tossed a lifebuoy stained with his blood—Wen Ya caught it instinctively, looking back in astonishment.

“Get in the water,” Wu Zhu said.

Everyone looked at Wen Jianyan in unison, seemingly confirming something.

Do they really do this?

Do they really… trust this guy’s words?

Knowing that below the deck was no ordinary ocean; if they chose wrong, they would be doomed eternally.

After a brief silence, Wen Jianyan shouted:

“—Listen to him!”

---

One by one, the members of their squad fell into the pitch-black ocean.

The small red lifebuoys floated on the black water, rising and falling in the waves, appearing so fragile and tiny, as if a single wave could swallow them all.

Yang Fan’s lifebuoy was almost soaked in golden blood. The second before he entered the water, some invisible black existence on the ship seemed to wrap tightly around him, obstructing him. However, severed by the golden blood, it eventually broke apart in failure and retreated.

Finally, the last person entered the water.

Only Wen Jianyan remained on the deck.

“Take this.”

Wu Zhu stepped forward and touched his neck.

Wen Jianyan looked down in astonishment.

Cold, heavy.

It was a golden heart, like a gem.

Shrunk to the size of an ornament, hanging between his collarbones.

“You didn’t put it back in your body?” Wen Jianyan froze. He seemed to suddenly realize something. He raised his head, staring fixedly at Wu Zhu. “—Why?”

Wu Zhu didn’t answer immediately.

“Although Nightmare doesn’t plan to pick us up, it doesn’t seem to be planning to stop us from leaving… it’s completely different from last time.” Wen Jianyan’s throat tightened under some ominous premonition. He stared at Wu Zhu and spoke slowly:

“Because… because this time its target is you.”

“Just like the last instance’s target was me.”

Yuying Comprehensive University was opened for Wen Jianyan to become a god.

Thus, under the subtle guidance of the instance rules, his “identity” changed, increased, and eventually, he was inevitably sent to the position of Headmaster.

This time—Nightmare was repeating its old trick.

Though the target was different, the method hadn’t changed.

Suddenly, all the fog dispersed. All answers were as clear as day, definite, and unconcealed.

No matter the dimension, the Lucky Cruise Ship was unique.

As the blueprint for all instances, the Lucky Cruise Ship’s status was crucial to the extreme, and central to the extreme.

Logically speaking, such an existence should be protected forever, locked away tightly with its secrets, never to leave the dock—yet, Nightmare still used a reality show to initiate observation, forcibly mutating it into an instance.

Why?

Why go to such lengths, sparing no effort to turn the [Lucky Cruise Ship] into an instance?

The reason Nightmare schemed so deliberately and worked so hard was precisely because only in this way could it eliminate the greatest threat to its existence.

And aside from the Lucky Cruise Ship, no other instance could achieve this.

After all, the Lucky Cruise Ship could exist without Wu Zhu’s power and could isolate all his power. That was why it could seal Wu Zhu’s heart inside for so long without him knowing, such that even after he personally stepped inside, Wu Zhu couldn’t locate the position of that part of his soul.

This was a situation that had never occurred before.

Wu Zhu couldn’t invade from the outside and even had to be “let” in—let in by Wen Jianyan?

No…

He was let in by Nightmare.

Since he couldn’t enter, then… the reverse was also true.

That meant he couldn’t leave.

It was also here that Wu Zhu’s main body entered the viewers’ field of vision for the first time—for the Nightmare Livestream, “Observation” and “Being Observed” were the core sources of its authority and the most critical means of control.

The waves roared; the rain was torrential.

“Damn it, damn it!!!” Wen Jianyan tightened his fingers, his nails almost digging into Wu Zhu’s arm. He heard buzzing in his ears, unable to even hear the wind and rain outside clearly. “I will absolutely not let it succeed—”

It had nothing to do with personal feelings.

Wu Zhu was a key combat asset.

A key ally.

A resource that could not be lost.

“Listen…” Wu Zhu began.

“—I’ve got it. You go into the ring right now,” Wen Jianyan gritted his teeth, speaking extremely fast. “Damn it, I could bring you in, I can take you out—”

“Listen!!”

Wu Zhu gripped Wen Jianyan’s jaw between his thumb and forefinger, forcing him to look up at him.

Wen Jianyan froze, instinctively shutting his mouth.

He held onto Wu Zhu’s arm weakly, looking up at him.

The Ouroboros ring at the base of his finger flickered. The barrier overhead was already shattering under the rain’s erosion. Raindrops fell, hitting the surface of the snake body, hanging on the blood-red gem eye of the snake like a teardrop about to fall.

“I am staying, not only because I must stay.” Wu Zhu tightened his fingers; Wen Jianyan could almost hear his bones creaking under the force. “But because without me, this ship will instantly vanish into the sea. However, as long as I stay, the ship cannot sink.”

He leaned close to Wen Jianyan, his golden eyes burning like fire.

“You can return.”

Wu Zhu paused, then slowly said, “You can still save your friends.”

He didn’t care about any humans.

Not just didn’t care.

He hated and loathed all humans.

And those humans who got close to Wen Jianyan, or even occupied a space in his life, were existences Wu Zhu wanted to wipe from this world immediately.

But…

Wu Zhu’s fingers slid down, tracing from Wen Jianyan’s wrist to his palm, fingertips slowly rubbing—across the hideous, raised scar in the young man’s cold, damp palm.

He had seen the other’s pain, disguise, and even emptiness, despair, and self-isolation.

Wu Zhu didn’t know where the strange emotion rising in his heart came from, nor how to define or explain it.

His other hand pressed against the young man’s cheek, thumb grazing the cheekbone and stopping at the corner of the eye.

But Wu Zhu knew one thing…

He didn’t want to see that kind of expression on Wen Jianyan’s face again.

“…”

Wen Jianyan looked up, staring blankly at Wu Zhu who was close at hand. His mind was blank, and all sounds seemed to fade away.

Suddenly, the man in front of him leaned down and kissed him without warning.

It was a kiss filled with the scent of blood and rain.

Amidst the suffocation, the world covered by pitch-black rain seemed to tilt entirely toward him.

In his dizziness, Wu Zhu leaned down and bit hard on Wen Jianyan’s earlobe, leaving a bleeding tooth mark, his cold lips grinding to kiss away the blood.

“Don’t forget, I am not human.”

“So I won’t be stupid enough to think for your sake like a human—me staying on the ship myself while letting you go have fun alone outside? Impossible.”

Curse-like whispers sounded in his ear, swallowed by the rain.

“If one day I really am to die, or completely disappear… before that, I will devour your flesh and blood, chew your bones into dregs, and make you one with me, never to be separated, forever.”

Malicious, bloody, ferocious—

Unconcealed, selfish to the extreme.

Non-humans couldn’t learn self-sacrifice, nor could they ever learn to abandon their own desires to put others first.

He would only hold on deathly tight to what he wanted, fearless even if everything was destroyed and they sank together.

“I never prepared to let you go.”

In the pitch-black night rain, the man licked the blood from his lips, his golden eyes seizing his prey.

Like sinking sharp teeth into his throat.

“You are mine.”

“Even if it costs everything, I will drag you down to hell with me.”

“However, before that…

Go.”

Take my heart and leave here together…

My dear.

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