novelraw Chapter 26 : Chapter 26
Chapter 26 : Chapter 26
Chapter 26: Disembarking
Back at the medical shack, everything was normal.
I let out a quiet sigh of relief.
Cai Yutong, Gao Huan, Old Liu, and others, knowing I’d gone to the tomb forest to confront the bone demon, waited outside. Seeing me return, they assumed I’d succeeded and eagerly asked for details.
“That bone demon is formidable. She can leave her grave. Even with all my strength and tactics, I could only match her,” I said.
My face was heavy with worry. Failing to eliminate her meant she could act freely to some extent. If she attacked the team, we’d be defenseless.
Worse, there was the camel-riding ghost, possibly still lurking.
“You’re hurt?” Cai Yutong noticed the blood on me.
“It’s fine.”
I instructed, “Spread the word: no one enters the tomb forest. If you hear camel bells, plug your ears immediately. And stay wary of Dr. Qi.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Cai Yutong asked, concerned for Qi Shanshan.
I hesitated, uncertain: “She might’ve been possessed by the bone demon!”
Cai Yutong’s expression darkened. Though she’d suspected Qi Shanshan was in trouble, this outcome was harder to accept.
“Maybe not possessed— her state is strange,” I reassured.
“Brother Weiyi, the first mate’s awake!” Qin Ke shouted joyfully from the shack.
My spirits lifted, worries fading, and I hurried inside.
Senior Brother and I shared laughter and stories.
Zhao Meng sat up, troubled: “I’ve turned into a giant? I’m nearly three meters tall, legs thick as barrels!”
I said, “If I had another way, I wouldn’t have given you dragon blood.”
Feeling my guilt, Zhao Meng laughed: “I think it’s great— full of strength, maybe enough to wrestle a tiger. Want to spar, kid? Dare you?”
He hadn’t shed his mortal shell or gained an immortal aura.
Everyone reacted differently to Golden Crow and Black Dragon blood.
My appearance hadn’t changed at all.
I asked, “No sparring, but I’ve got something serious. Do you remember Senior Sister Jia’nan?”
Zhao Meng’s mind flashed to an unforgettable figure: “Why bring her up suddenly?”
“I recall she stayed at the sect for three years, but I was too young to remember much. Where was she from? Why never returned? Did something happen?”
“Not three years— two and a half.”
Zhao Meng reminisced: “She was closest to you, but you were too young to remember. If you were older, she’d be the woman you’d never forget. Too extraordinary, not of this world.”
“Stop reminiscing about your youth— I’m asking something serious.”
He said, “What’s your deal?”
“It’s hard to explain briefly.”
I asked about Senior Sister because the language the red-robed Qi Shanshan and the camel ghost used matched her hometown dialect.
I was young but not without memory.
I’d learned that language from her, so I roughly understood their conversation.
Zhao Meng said, “Master said she was from a minority tribe overseas. She left to return home. I searched many countries by sea but couldn’t find that mysterious tribe.”
“Didn’t you ask Master?”
“I did— how could I not? But he told me to stop prying, to let it go, and scolded me, saying I was a mountain monkey unworthy of her. I just wanted to see her again— don’t you?”
“Of course I do! But I think we might see her in this world,” I said meaningfully, thoughts swirling.
…
Two days later.
I stood at the bow, gazing at the scarlet sea, my mood growing heavier.
I’d searched the tomb forest for the red-robed Qi Shanshan and the ghost Yutuonan but found nothing. I guessed they hid in a grave, healing.
Too many graves to dig through.
What if I unearthed a third horror?
As the bronze ship sailed, coffins multiplied, clustering into a dense “coffin sea,” nearly blocking the path.
The ship’s speed slowed to a near halt.
Coffins varied in size and design.
Some were hundreds of meters long, black, carved with demonic patterns, bound by thick chains, hiding unknown corpses.
In places, thousands of coffins formed “floating islands,” sprouting purple-red vines, their roots unknown.
The coffin sea was eerily silent.
Was it always this quiet, or only since the ship arrived?
I said to Gao Huan, “Explain— what’s this place in mythology? Where do these coffins come from?”
“We’ve seen millions, if not tens of millions, of coffins— just what’s visible.”
“They seem driven by some force, converging here.”
Gao Huan, lips moving, said calmly, “Maybe they fell from the macroscopic world, like us… The universe has many planets, not just Earth with life. Their dead, buried, might fall here for some reason.”
After Zhao Meng woke, Gao Huan was the first to drink Golden Crow blood.
He shed his mortal shell, gaining an immortal-like aura, skin white as jade. Like Cai Yutong, his strength grew, rivaling peak athletes.
But…
His height shrank.
Already 1.65 meters, he was now under 1.5.
Nothing “high” about him except his surname.
“Hey! Lord Li, there’s a red figure on the sea!” Gao Huan exclaimed.
My vision, sharper, saw “Qi Shanshan” leaping across coffins hundreds of meters away.
She’d left the ship?
Her back sprouted fiery wings, holding someone, landing on a massive coffin island.
She glanced at me at the bow, pointing to Cai Yutong in her arms.
Then, without looking back, she rushed into the island’s misty depths, vanishing.
“That’s the red-robed bone demon?”
“She took Dr. Cai?”
“What’s she doing? She’s just bones— leaving the ship’s fine for her, but how will Dr. Cai survive?”
…
Gao Huan followed me toward the medical shack and wrecked research vessel.
“She did it on purpose, luring me off the ship.”
I found the rope used for fetching water— she’d descended here.
How dared she?
Did she know this place?
“Weiyi, bad news— Dr. Cai was attacked by Dr. Qi…”
Zhao Meng, Old Liu, and others rushed over, alarmed.
I said, “I know, they’re off the ship.”
“She said something odd when she left: ‘If Li Weiyi wants to know who he is, I have answers. Let him find me,’” Zhao Meng recounted exactly.
“Who am I?”
I frowned. I’d never pondered this. But with the bone demon and “guardian wife,” everything grew murky.
Everyone has an origin.
Gripping the rope, I hesitated.
Not out of fear of leaving, but worry for Senior Brother and the others facing the camel ghost if I left.
All leaving was risky— the coffin sea was sinister, full of unknown dangers. If the ship sailed away, hope would be lost.
“It’s stopped… the ship’s completely stopped…” Gao Huan, leaning over the hull, peered at the sea.
“Ding ding!”
Camel bells and wind roared from the tomb forest, rushing toward the hull.
“Careful!”
I dashed forward, channeling hot and cold airflows, forming the Heaven-Overturning Palm Seal, striking the misty cloud from the tombstone.
“Thud!”
The cloud’s terrifying force threw me over the hull.
The ghost on the camel, amid deafening bells, leaped over the hull, swinging its flag at my waist, aiming to knock me into the sea to my death.
In this dire moment, unable to care about falling, I drew the Yellow Dragon Sword, parrying.
“Thud!”
Forces clashed.
My blood surged, falling faster.
Worse, the bells and flag struck again. The ghost, unafraid of falling, was bent on killing me.
In this near-certain death, my feet’s fountains erupted, airflows filling my twenty-six veins. I used Yellow Dragon Ascending.
First step, stepping on air, halting my fall.
Second step, dodging the flag, matching the ghost’s height.
Third step, I rose above its head.
In its shocked gaze, roles reversed.
“Die.”
Raising my sword with both hands, its yellow glow blazing, I slashed down.