"That guy had no intention of stopping, if he continued , the shield would definitely be doomed. In his view, the durability of the shield had already turned to ’extremely poor’."
He steadied himself, summoned back his battle spear with his left hand, and touched the scalding hot tower shield.
In an instant, the red high-temperature area in the center of the shield ceased spreading; its flow of time now accounted to Chen Ke’s head.
This shield was now invincible.
Chen Ke immediately withdrew his left hand, which was painfully hot, his palm even blistered, but it quickly healed due to the countdown repair.
He promptly summoned An Helei’s Lament Suit, in an instant, his entire outfit was swapped with the deformed Black Knight’s armor; his left hand grabbing the shield and his right wielding the Fire-igniting Broadsword, he continually moved forward.
In fact, the armor was naturally flame immune, but to avoid being hit by the rays, he still had to use the shield first to catch the opponent’s attention, seeing that the guy had a hard head and seemed not to give up until he melted the shield.
He emerged from behind the shield and saw that the entire rowdy scene had caught fire, his entire body had turned red—an overload effect caused by the immature Spiritual Power Injection Skill of the illegal Spiritual Ability User.
Suddenly, Chen Ke thought of something, he stared at the illegal Spiritual Ability User and immediately activated the "Time Observation" ability.
He pushed time forward 5 seconds, the guy’s arms began to melt, then from the inside out, his body emitted an orange glow, and then exploded on the spot!
A temperature of 3000° was instantly released, tearing a big hole in the entire ship. Chen Ke saw Laura fall into the sea and Nathan was trying to save her.
Time Observation ended.
Chen Ke immediately summoned back the shield; as the shield turned into Holy Diamond, the time-stop effect immediately ceased, and the previously absorbed overload energy backfired on it, breaking it into dust.
Meanwhile, Chen Ke was right next to the guy and grabbed his neck with one hand.
The guy turned into a high-temperature, high-luminance human-shaped lamppost. Chen Ke knew he would explode in 5 seconds, so he quickly rushed toward the deck while embracing him.
"Move aside! Move aside!" Chen Ke shouted as he rushed upward, and the remaining crewmembers quickly got out of the way, their faces mixed with relief and concern after witnessing Chen Ke summon a series of Holy Relics to combat the monster.
Chen Ke ran onto the deck and threw the human bomb into the sea, where the high temperature body of the illegal Spiritual Ability User sizzled upon hitting the water.
Chen Ke called back his Black Knight’s armor, changing his outfit back to everyday clothes. He leaned on the railing looking out at the sea, the Endurance continued moving, leaving the body of the illicit Spiritual Ability User quickly behind.
"Exceeded control distance..."
Two lines of text rolled in Chen Ke’s field of view, then, a small splash erupted on the distant sea.
It seemed like the immediate threat was mitigated, but as long as he remained in this sea area, the illusions would not stop. He looked up at the sky; the airplane had disappeared, and the anti-aircraft barrage had also disappeared from earshot. Had it ended?
Chen Ke really wanted to find Laura and Nathan, but he decided to first go to the bridge to find Conrad, the captain; he needed to maintain the normal operation of the ship.
The ship was now in poor condition, its propulsion system was intact, but the problem was that thermal beams had damaged much of the ship’s structure, leaving several air-gushing holes in the deck and sidewalls, luckily, these holes were far from the waterline, so there was no need to worry about leaking problems yet.
Chen Ke darted to the bridge in two bounds and found Conrad in the cockpit.
"I just saw it, Chen Ke, Hainerd wasn’t wrong, you’re really a tough character! Awesome!" Conrad exclaimed loudly as Chen Ke entered the cockpit.
He picked up an intercom beside him and broadcasted inside the ship: "Listen up, this is Captain Conrad, I need you all to buck up, clean up this mess immediately, I need two people who can steer to help in the cockpit," Conrad said.
After speaking, he turned to Chen Ke and asked, "What will we encounter next, Chen Ke?"
Chen Ke still clenched the Holy Diamond, now powdered in his hand. With a flick of his wrist, he scattered the powder on the ground and then dusted off his hands.
"That depends on who else aboard is mentally disturbed," Chen Ke said calmly.
"I’ll take that as you calling me crazy, Chen Ke, but I’m not mad, really—this sea is cursed," Conrad said, a trace of emotion in his voice.
"Coming here was a bad idea, and blowing up the Administration Bureau’s ship was even worse," Chen Ke shook his head.
"I had no other choice at the time," Conrad replied, also shaking his head.
"If you were carrying passengers, you shouldn’t have brought those Holy Diamonds," Chen Ke spread his hands.
At that moment, two crew members ascended to the bridge, their gazes toward Chen Ke tinged with wariness.
"Could you go down and check on them? Those guys could use your help... Oh, and thanks, Chen Ke," Conrad said.
Chen Ke nodded and left the cockpit. Now that Conrad’s mental state had stabilized and everything around him had calmed down, only the persistent drizzle from the sky continued, casting a foreboding feeling.
In the crew rest cabin, the crew was clearing bodies. At first, Chen Ke thought that working together on such a dangerous job aboard the same ship, there would at least be some brotherly feelings among them. However, when he saw some men joking about the corpses, he believed what Hainerd had said.
Smugglers were heartless, no one cared about the lives of their comrades. Lucina had grown up in this environment, and feelings of comradeship and mutual support were extremely faint to her.
That’s why she valued the Courier organization so much, and had opened up to Chen Ke when he alone had burst into the factory to save her.
"Look at this, it burned right through his balls, damn unlucky," said a crew member, who was mumbling to others as he gestured towards a charred half-corpse on the ground, enticing other crew members to come and look.
Chen Ke chose to ignore this kind of trash, yet the other crew members mistook his indifference for strength, and they looked at him with a mix of admiration and jealousy.
Chen Ke glanced around the cabin, where he found Laura and Nathan, both of them had sustained injuries to varying degrees. Fortunately, when the chaos broke out, they had locked themselves in the cabin and weren’t affected by the heat ray.
"It was like a nightmare just now, wasn’t it?" Laura sat on the bed with a big cut on her left arm, wrapped in a white bandage still oozing blood.
"Are you okay?" Chen Ke pointed at Laura’s arm.
"That’s all Nathan’s doing," Laura said, glancing sideways at Nathan.
Nathan had a bruised right cheek, as if someone had punched him. He gave a helpless smile, his waist adorned with a makeshift holster containing a 9mm semi-automatic pistol, resembling a P229.
"We haven’t left this sea area yet, so strange events will happen again," Chen Ke sighed.
"Where did that guy come from...? Shouldn’t stuff that crawls out of the sea be drenched? That guy was consumed by fire," Nathan asked.
"That’s the crux of the matter, Mr. Nathan. This sea can dig out everything from everyone’s minds and lay it out in front of you—earlier those things... the Fire Man, the little boy, the airplane... all came from Conrad’s mind," Chen Ke shook his head.
"What..." Laura and Nathan’s faces changed instantly.
"Why are you so worried?" Chen Ke noticed the shift in their expressions and became worried himself.
Both remained silent, increasing Chen Ke’s anxiety.
At that moment, the ship suddenly lurched violently, coming to a sudden halt at high speed, causing everyone to stagger and crash into the cabin walls. Unprocessed bodies also flew wildly around the corridor.
"Damn... what’s happening?" Chen Ke cursed.
Then, Conrad’s voice came through the loudspeaker, "Would anyone care to check the deck...?"