Volume 13 - CH 7

Chapter 7: The Ghost of Flames

Location: Taiwan Time: 7:18 AM

“Yuli, it’s not broken.”

Right after the surroundings suddenly fell silent, the burnt-black door nearby was abruptly kicked open. The whole door flew off crashing on the ground, and Yǔ lǐ‘s grimy face rushed out.

What’s not broken?

As soon as he heard him say that, Yuli visibly relaxed.

Does that room have something important?

“Chu! Get back!” Before I could recover, someone suddenly pushed me hard from the side, pushing me far out of the range of the stairs.

With a boom, a large cluster of flames directly rushed past in front of me, and smashed into the stairs.

The handrails of the stairs were dented.

Yǔ lǐ jumped over, grabbing my shoulder and pulling me back: “Be careful.”

Before I could reply, I saw the raging fire start to go down. It wasn’t the kind of extinguishment that came from touching water, but rather, it strangely became smaller and smaller until it finally vanished. Senior just stood in the same spot. Only the place where he stood was completely unaffected by the flames: [The one who signed a contract with me, allow the attacker to witness your ferocity.]

That Ghost Tribe pounced almost at the same time.

Roaring flames abruptly whirled out in the whole corridor, the blazing heat making me immediately burst into sweat. The high temperature caused the air in the ship cabin to start to distort. I saw Senior at the other end brandishing the Illusionary Weapon in his hand to block Jeres’ attack. The second the flames touched the weapon, they sprayed out in all directions.

…At a time like this, why am I just looking on!?

Suddenly realizing this, I immediately raised Minas in my hand and a bit unhesitatingly fired a shot in the direction of that wildfire aristocrat.

The frozen bullet instantly passed through the Ghost’s head, and with a bang, it knocked out bluish-black brain matter that splashed on the floor beside him.

He didn’t collapse. The head that had a big hole slowly turned to look at me at a very unnatural angle: “All of you will have to die…”

“Go die first!” Taking advantage of my failure, Senior abruptly chopped his head off with one shot.

The Ghost’s body swayed, not falling. Just when I thought it would be finished like this, his body and the head that fell on the floor were suddenly swallowed up by the raging flames, before the flames disappeared in less than a few seconds.

“Careful, that’s how he hid himself before!” Upon seeing this, Yuli quickly told us: “I cut him in half, and it didn’t have any effect at all!”

Senior narrowed his red eyes, looking at the tiny embers in the surroundings: “Jeres, you want to play this kind of trick in front of me?”

There was no reply. I gripped the gun in my hand and felt my hair standing on end on my skin.

Who knows where he’s going to appear—-

A burnt plastic smell filled the air, stifling, and making one a bit dizzy and want to throw up.

It was only when I smelled this that I remembered I forgot to bring senior Gasai’s talisman. Because I’ve been living too comfortably onboard these days, I didn’t even think of bringing it.

Senior walked over, directly forming a fist and punching my head: “You better have a bit more awareness of danger!”

Hugging my explosively-smacked head, I tearfully rushed to escape to the side. Senior, right now it should be a very dangerous situation; don’t be distracted and come over to hit me!

Is hitting me more important than hitting ghosts!?

“You…”

Just when he was about to say something, the embers nearby suddenly started burning and interrupted Senior’s words: “Tut! It’s annoying enough!” He turned around, took out a white crystal and held it in his hand. His fist clenched, and when he reopened it, that white crystal had already become crystal powder, the reflection of the fire bright enough to attract one’s attention: “The guide of directions, hidden things have nowhere to hide.”

Saying that, the crystal’s powder scattered throughout the air, falling on the floor, walls and ceiling. Apart from the flames, there were also some lonely faint glows in the vicinity.

At the same time the crystal powder came near, I saw a huge black shadow immediately appear on a certain wall.

Without saying a thing, Senior straightforwardly launched his Illusionary Weapon, and half a second later, the long spear emitted a heavy sound, penetrating the wall completely. That black shadow fled quickly, and had moved away before the spear could hit it.

Perhaps also knowing that it has been pinpointed, the black shadow slowly emerged. It was that Ghost, without a doubt.

“Don’t play this trick anymore; it doesn’t work on me.” Narrowing his red eyes, Senior looked at the Ghost before him, coldly snorting: “I don’t have time to keep you company. If you want to get revenge, take out your real skills.”

His words had just ended when the entire corridor was suddenly filled with blazing flames. The air seemed to heat up right away; when I breathed it in, my chest started to feel very stuffy.

I coughed and wiped away the sweat that kept dripping.

I’m dying…If he keeps playing like this, am I going to become a dried human here…

“Yǔ lǐ, take the human away first.”

Then, I heard Yuli’s voice speaking like this.

Things happened quickly.

Having just decided whether or not to help Senior first, before I had the time to express it, I abruptly felt my eyes becoming blurry. Long white fur suddenly rushed in front of me, and a second later I was gripped by a big mouth and picked up—-

Don’t suddenly eat me!

“Don’t try to run!” The flame Ghost abruptly roared and I saw black and red flames swiftly rolling over from around us, fiercely pouncing toward the ceiling before pulling it down.

“You go up first.” Holding the long spear, Senior instantly appeared before us. An icy air spread from the tip of the spear, and with a violent sidelong swing from Senior, all the invading flames were abruptly blown out by the cold wind: “Head straight up to the deck! Don’t let the people onboard see them!”

Ah, at this time, I know, using a teleportation charm, that kind of thing…

“I’ll go up right away.”

I only heard Senior say this sentence, and in the next second, the surrounding scenery immediately distorted as well. In a blink, the cabin that was charred black vanished in front of us.

Ice-cold seawater dripped onto my face.

The wind directly held water droplets and sprayed them on me. The still rather hot feeling from just now turned cold in a second, and it all had the sensation of a sauna rapidly changing temperatures.

Yǔ lǐ who was gripping me opened his mouth, letting me fall on the deck: “Thank you…Ahh!” Right after saying thank you, I immediately noticed the deck’s strange state.

The entire deck area was covered with large black unidentified lumps. Some of them were even twitching. Moving every now and then, they looked a bit horrifying.

Only discovering it upon looking closer, there were tiny scales all over those black lumps, which also shook while being stained with a sticky liquid, allowing one to even see the goosebumps rising up.

“Ziray?” Looking at all the pretty much identical things on the deck, I hurriedly glanced around and didn’t see the five-colored rooster head, whom we left here to handle the sea people just earlier.

Oh no, it can’t be that he was dragged into the sea while fighting sea cucumbers to become a sea chicken?

“What!” Less than a few seconds later, the sea chicken fantasy was broken. The five-colored rooster head jumped in from outside the railing, his beast claw even holding…Don’t tell me that thing is an eyeball!

You didn’t have anything better to do than to poke out an eyeball in your hand? And what did you do to the sea person who had that eyeball!?

“With this uncle here, the sea people won’t be able to advance one step.” Plucking out the large eyeball in his hand and throwing it back into the sea, the five-colored rooster head crouched down on the iron pole, very self-satisfiedly grinning.

His whole body was soaked too and he looked a bit worse for wear, but there were no injuries on him. He can probably still keep going.

“If the sea people’s remains aren’t immediately eliminated, they will soon regenerate.” Yǔ lǐ supported Yuli over to a relatively clean place at the side. Then with a flip, he turned back into that huge beast form. His fox-like head opened its mouth wide, and spurted out golden flames with a boom, burning all those large black lumps on the deck.

“Tsk, there’s not even enough time to fight them. How do you expect me to clean up the scraps!?” Issuing a statement of protest, the five-colored rooster head swung his two beast claws, before staring outward from the ship.

Cautiously leaning on the railing near the five-colored rooster head, I saw that the outside of the hull was still surrounded by a black dense mass, all of which were below the surface. But all around us were those round bright eyes under the sea; it looked particularly sinister.

Wait a minute, I suddenly thought of something: “If the people in the cabins look out the window, wouldn’t they be scared to death?” Speaking of which, it seem like I haven’t heard any screams starting just now, right?

“There’s the Old Man’s barrier. All they should see outside the window is the black sea. Everything else, they won’t be able to see.” The five-colored rooster answered me like this.

“And we’ve just spread a sleeping drug on the entire ship.” Returning to human form, Yǔ lǐ then quickly told us: “Except for your people, the rest should all be asleep.”

So that’s the case. No wonder I kept thinking that it was a bit troubling there was no further commotion. According to normal patterns, when the people in the cabins finish screaming, there will probably be some directly rushing up to the deck to confirm the situation, but obviously this didn’t happen.

Below the deck, there was also my dad, mom and Ming Yue. Are they also asleep now?

“Don’t worry, the sleeping drug isn’t strong. Once we resolve this matter, they will wake up, having just slept for a while.” As if seeing my hesitation, Yuli parted his lips to speak, as if comforting me.

“Nn, I know.” Smacking my face hard, I took a big breath, picking up Minas and directly firing a shot at the weird black things about to climb up below. After the things underneath let out a strange, wail-like sound, they fell back into the sea, rapidly disappearing beneath the surface of the sea.

When would you consider it finished?

When all these sea people are eliminated?

Yǔ lǐ swung his hand and a long crude knife appeared in his hand. It didn’t have patterns and whatnot, simple and somewhat blunt.

“There must be one to two heads in a zone with sea people. As long as the leader of the sea people is killed, the sea people gathered here will all leave.” Yuli narrowed his slender eyes and looked at the entire black sea.

The sky was still black, and it was already the usual time to go to work…and also start having traffic jams, right.

“Ha, could it be that the sea cucumbers’ leader is a sea ginseng!?” The five-colored rooster head very excitedly looked at the sea: “In all my life, this uncle has never seen a sea ginseng before! Come out now!”

[T/N: The Chinese characters for sea cucumber and ginseng are similar, and both are used for medicinal and culinary purposes]

It’s normal for you to have never seen one, because there is simply no such thing.

“If you still don’t come out, I’ll jump down to find you.” Hooking the railing with his beast claws, the person crouching beside me leaned his whole body forward, setting an absolutely wrong example that is not suitable for children.

That older brother has practiced it; to all children going onboard, please absolutely do not copy.

If you fall, you’ll die!

Just when the five-colored rooster head made the move to jump down into the sea to grab the leader, the temperature on the whole deck suddenly rose rapidly. The originally icy-till-it-stung–a-little abruptly became sweltering hot.

In the next second, I saw a teleportation array appear on the deck all of a sudden.

The wildfire aristocrat came crashing out from the array, with a hand embedded in his neck. Then Senior, who was choking the other person, charged out of the array, pushing the Ghost to let his whole back hit the railing on the other side of the ship.

With a huge bang, I saw that railing dented by the Ghost crashing into it.

Withdrawing his hand, Senior didn’t give the other person any opportunity to recover and defend himself. Turning his hand, a black dagger appeared in his palm and he pierced it into his opponent’s left eye.

Then came an explosion sound that I was familiar with.

Senior jumped two steps back, and a mass of black liquid just so happened to fall in front of his feet with a slapping sound.

What I saw, was the Ghost with half of his head blasted off by the explosive charm and Senior whose clothes were burned in multiple places.

Everything happened in an instant, so fast that I didn’t blink at all.

Exactly the same as just now, the Ghost whose head was blasted apart suddenly started to draw fire and burn, and a second later, a completely whole human figure walked out of the flames again.

“Oho, it’s a new one. Is this Ghost a liquid-flame person?” Seeing something that wasn’t a sea person appear, the five-colored rooster head excitedly turned back to jump onto the deck.

This flaming person’s sister was killed by you not long ago!

“One of Bishen’s seven experts.” Not turning his head back at all, Senior only tossed him a simple explanation.

I think Senior seems to be deliberately omitting the fact that he came to find the foe who killed his sister.

“Is he very strong?” The five-colored rooster head’s eyes were shining.

“This is my opponent.” Senior very straightforwardly told him this sentence.

Dark red flaming flowers began to bloom on the deck. As far as the eye can see, fires could be seen leaping everywhere. They looked a bit odd, especially since the sky right now was completely black, giving one a bad feeling.

“Give me, give me.” The five-colored rooster head showed great interest in the flaming person.

“Go deal with the sea people.” Completely not giving him the chance to go near, Senior turned his hand and his Illusionary Weapon appeared.

“Tut!”

Moving in the blink of an eye, Senior kicked off the ground and charged forward. The flaming person wasn’t moving slowly either. In half a second, a large amount of violent fires burning madly appeared in the gap between the two.

The weapon in his hands waved, and those flames abruptly solidified into ice before shattering on the ground. Senior paused and stepped on those shattered ice, and in a blink the flaming man was already in front of him.

“You’re pretty good at regenerating, aren’t you.” The spear slashed open the Ghost’s chest but didn’t pass through. After that, frost immediately began creeping over the wound quickly: “Just stand here for me.”

I saw ice swiftly wrapping around the Ghost. He didn’t even have time to struggle before he became a big block of ice.

From start to finish, it felt like an instantaneous event. Senior stood before the big ice block brandishing the long spear to smash the ice. Inside every piece of ice was a small part of the Ghost. Some had a finger, joint or eyeball and whatnot…

Then a certain array opened up beneath those fragments.

This I know. It was the action to send back the Ghost.

The things inside those ice fragments suddenly melted. At first it had seemed like they were going to fall on the ground, but being wrapped by the ice pieces, they didn’t have any way to gather together and be reborn at all.

“Chu! Behind!”

Just when I was watching Senior send those things back, he didn’t even turn his head before directly shouting at me.

Behind?

I turned my head and saw a huge black hole, which was even connected by threads.

After two seconds or so, it came three centimeters closer again, and it was only then that I realized it was a large mouth; who knows whose it is.

“Get out of the way!” Just when I was planning to take out my gun to deal with the mouth, a crash suddenly came from the side, and the entire mouth was kicked shut. After that thing flew out, I saw that it was a fat black sea urchin-like thing, and the one who kicked it flying was the five-colored rooster head: “Bastard! You dare to lay hands on my reserve food!”

Who’s your reserve food!?

This needs to be clarified.

“Ziray! Who did you say was your food!” I immediately grabbed my gun and protested to him.

The five-colored rooster head did a flip, landing on the railing nearby as if he was in a stunt show, steadily standing upright, “Sorry, sorry, I’m too used to shouting that and misspoke.” He grinned and turned to look at that sea urchin that fell: “Hey! You’re not allowed to make a move on this uncle’s subordinate!”

I’m not your subordinate either; don’t automatically add it in!

The sea people below the ship, after seeing that several companions were not only unable to climb onboard but were also sacrificed, started to attack slower than before, even moving back a little.

If it continues like this, I guess it should be slightly safer…right?

When I turned my head to ask Senior, he was still standing in the same spot. What’s strange was that those fragments on the floor didn’t have any sign of being sent back at all, and that dark red flames had also started appearing around the ice fragments.

That feeling abruptly became extremely bad, and I wanted to go over to help with anything…

“Move back!” Senior suddenly ran over, throwing me to the ground before a large black shadow covered us and I vaguely saw Yǔ lǐ‘s big head.

Less than half a second later, successive thunderous explosion sounds came from the deck like some kind of blasting fume.

Struggling to open my eyes, I saw that several small holes had been blasted into the deck a bit further behind us, even emitting a bit of smoke.

“Bastard!” Flipping himself up using the ground, after the explosion sounds stilled, Senior immediately got up. Yǔ lǐ gave way to him, and after that, I saw dark red raging flames, all the pieces of ice gone.

On the other end of the flames, Yuli was shielding the five-colored rooster head. The area in front of them had been blasted and covered with holes as well, a shocking sight to see.

Yǔ lǐ shook his head around, then stood guard with his immense body next to them.

Those pieces of flesh that had been shattered were all gone. Then as if rewinding everything, a human figure once again appeared in the flames, before that Ghost walked out completely uninjured.

There’s simply no way to deal with him.

The sea let out a muffled roar.

It was a very peculiar, restrained noise, yet it also resonated as loud as thunder.

After the sound fell, I saw a huge water column suddenly rush up by the railing behind the five-colored rooster head, just like the enlarged version of the water column that whales would always spurt on TV.

A black thing rushed out from inside along with it.

“The sea people’s leader!” Following Yǔ lǐ‘ shout, I immediately looked toward that huge water column too, and with the imposing manner of a thunderbolt, that shadow inside broke out of the water—-

I saw a huge shark flying across the horizon.

In that instant, it looked like a shark. When it flew over from left to right, I then noticed that the size of that shark was at least several times bigger than a normal shark. Its tail was extremely long and there were actually strange white spikes on it.

After landing in the water, the shark’s long tail slapped the hull, and the entire ship violently shook for a long while. Then the balcony outside a certain room was actually forcibly broken off by that tail’s spikes, breaking into several chunks and falling into the sea.

The whole ship began swaying.

After the weird huge shark attacked, the black sea people below started to gather beside the ship again, making the ship that was originally swaying sway even harder. More and more splashes hit the ship, and the even higher ones sprayed up on the deck. The floor that was originally dry because of the high temperature once again became slippery.

“There’s another over there.” The sharp-eyed Yuli pointed to a place further away outside, and sure enough, a huge white shark appeared circling the rear of the ship; it dragged along the same exact spikes on the surface of the water. All that’s missing now was the background music.

We’re going to die. If the two come over together, we’re doomed.

“Do you understand now? I combined not just one water zone, but two. You can just disappear from this world together with Katherine.” The flames on the deck burned wildly, and Jeres’ face twisted frighteningly within the flames. He wore a smile as he floated up, looking at us condescendingly: “There is no road to life here.”

The surrounding temperature rose.

“We’ll clear one for you to see.” Glaring at the Ghost above, Senior opened his hand, and his Illusionary Weapon reappeared there: “A road to life has to be cleared by oneself. It can’t be blocked by your mouth!”

“Ha!”

At the same time the two were confronting each other, the whole ship abruptly shook, and even came with a large collision and some strange shattering noise.

“Oh no!” Senior turned his head to look outside the railing. Standing above, the five-colored rooster head immediately kicked off a sea person that climbed up, and looked around—-the ship suddenly tilted to one side.

“F**k! That fish’s fin broke a hole in the ship!” Just when the five-colored rooster head yelled this, the ship seemed to have lost balance, and was starting to be pulled to the side.

“Tsk!” No time to care about the Ghost above, Senior ran up to the railing, and after withdrawing his Illusionary Weapon, he smacked the hull.

Just as Senior’s hand stuck itself to the ship, I felt the surroundings suddenly cool down, expanding in range as if Senior was the center. The white frost covered the hull at an extremely fast speed, and the sea beside the ship completely solidified into ice, forcing the sea people and the sharks far away.

The ship’s tilting stopped, and the spot that was broken had layers upon layers of dense ice frozen over it. The surrounding seawater was also frozen, setting the whole ship in place on the sea, slowly drifting forward.

So cold.

Unconsciously letting out a sigh, I saw white fog forming in front of my mouth.

“Yǔ lǐ! Let’s deal with the sea people.” Waving at his companion, Yuli flipped and jumped down the ship, stepping on the icy surface of the sea. Following behind him was that enormous fox.

As soon as the sea people below, who were separated by the ice, saw them disembark, they rushed to pounce on them, but were hindered by the ice. For a short time, they were slightly disadvantaged.

“Ha! This flaming person is this uncle’s!” The five-colored rooster head jumped onto the deck, and was unusually cheerful as he swung his beast claws as if it was just what he’d hoped for: “Come, come come! If I hit you, you’ll cry for daddy and call for mommy!”

“Such a big attitude!” The flaming person slowly descended, and the high temperature caused the nearby railing to start melting. However, the frost on the deck continued to grow instead, creating a strange landscape with the flames suspended in the air.

So what should I do now?

“Senior!” Running to Senior’s side, I saw that his entire face had turned white, his hands still stuck to the ship: “You…”

“If I let go now, the ice will melt. You go help Ziray. He won’t be able to handle Jeres.” Senior frowned and told me: “Chu, it’s not that you can’t do it.”

I looked at Senior’s red eyes and remembered the promise with Yado.

…I can do it, I told myself.

Senior stretched out his other hand, and floating above it was an icecube-like tiny transparent bead: “If you have the chance, use this bullet to blow that guy’s head up.”

Nodding my head hard, I immediately took that bullet and clutched it in my hand. The iciness cleared my head in an instant. The current situation must not make me afraid.

I can’t be the person who didn’t do anything before again.

Yuli and Yǔ lǐ were dealing with the sea people alone. Thomas attended to all the people on the ship and still had to try breaking the barrier to connect us to outside. The five-colored rooster head was facing up against the flaming person and Senior was currently protecting this ship.

And what I am able to do is actually negligible.

Before I realized it, Minas had already issued a gunshot.

Jeres, who was just about to burn through the five-colored rooster head’s chest, shook a little, his entire left arm flying backwards.

I shot and broke off his arm.

“All of you, stop moving!”