The Nightmare Star resurfaced on the sea, buoyed by its own floatation, but the crisis wasn’t over. In fact, it was just beginning.

There was no longer any safe sea behind them. The Nightmare Star had to cross the Bountiful Sea Region, and this was just the starting point.

Yang Yi opened the sea chart.

Compared to the previous coordinates, the ship had been pushed back nearly twenty nautical miles by the tsunami.

It had been carried far, and the ship had taken significant durability loss, over 2700 points.

He checked the ship interface, and noticed all damage was concentrated on the deck: the mast, the courtyard crystal sphere, the captain’s cabin, and Suna’s room had all gone dark.

The deck was likely stripped bare, with everything on it destroyed, leaving only the thick, reinforced planks behind.

Clack! Clack! Clack!

Strange, continuous noises echoed from overhead, interrupting Yang Yi, and Suna as they were trying to wipe off the greasy filth from their bodies.

“Something’s on the ship!”

Suna pointed to the deck above and sent a private message.

Yang Yi nodded, gesturing for her to stay quiet so they wouldn’t alert whatever was up there.

He moved silently towards the only remaining crystal-diamond-embedded window and scanned the view.

The surroundings were filled with milky-white seawater glinting in the light, and everything seemed calm.

Whatever it was, it had most likely come up with the ship from the sea, but due to limited visibility, Yang Yi couldn’t gather any valuable intel.

“I’ll go check it out. Watch the door,”  he told Suna, drawing his broken iron blade and flintlock pistol, while instructing the Penitent Armour to break open the cabin door.

That way, if there was danger, the armor would take the first hit.

“My whip works well against these kinds of creatures,” Suna said, pulling out the Whip of Salt, clearly ready to go out with him.

Yang Yi considered for a few seconds, then solemnly nodded. Then he pulled out a huge bag of sea salt and dumped it all over Suna.

Her body was already slick with oil and seawater. Now covered in salt as well, it looked like she’d been breaded in flour, nearly getting it in her eyes.

“You…!”

“This way you’ll be safer out there,”

Yang Yi replied with a grin, ignoring her frustration, and dousing himself with salt as well.

There was a good reason for this.

These creatures’ most troubling trait was their ability to corrode and assimilate any lifeform they made contact with. Coating themselves in sea salt would help prevent assimilation.

Yang Yi sprinkled salt on the broken iron blade and even salted the Penitent Armour before ordering it to bash the door open.

Bang!

Bang!

BANG!!!

Three strikes later, the cabin door finally collapsed.

Through the Penitent Armour’s vision, Yang Yi observed the condition of the deck.

It matched the ship interface exactly: the deck was bare, with only two metres of the mast remaining. Most of the sails, lookout post, everything, had been left behind in the sea.

The crystal sphere in the courtyard was gone, and both the captain’s cabin and Suna’s room had been reduced to little more than splintered boards jutting from the deck.

Not just furniture, even the walls were mostly gone.

The deck was now wide open, with nothing to obstruct the view, and it was clear what had boarded the ship.

It was a massive tumour-like mass lodged to the left side of the bow, wrapping around the helm.

The grotesque object was weighing the ship down, causing it to tilt left, and its influence wasn’t confined to the bow.

From the tumour, a fleshy, rug-like layer of uneven, squirming tissue was spreading across the deck, snaking around the vending machine, and covering roughly one-third of the left side of the deck and hull.

It was still spreading slowly, like it intended to engulf and consume the entire ship.

The reason they hadn’t seen the thing earlier through the window was because it was clinging to the left side of the ship. By looking out from the right-side window, it was only natural that nothing had been visible.

As for the noises on the deck, they were actually caused by tentacles extending from the flesh carpet.

They were engaged in combat with the skeletal arms stationed on the deck, which were trying to tear the flesh mat off the ship.

One arm after another charged in, fearlessly sacrificing themselves, only to be grabbed by the tentacles and dragged into the pulsating meat.

“Looks like we’ve got ourselves a big one,” Yang Yi muttered as he stepped out of the cabin.

The flesh hadn’t spread to the area yet, so it was still relatively safe.

Suna had already spotted the bulging tumour and immediately nocked a Salt Arrow.

The arrow, made of pure white salt, shot out instantly and struck it dead-on, incredibly effective.

A large chunk of the tumour crystallised into salt and began to flake off and wither rapidly.

Stimulated by this attack, the previously dormant meat carpet and tumour ball erupted into a frenzy, extending more bloodied tentacles in an attempt to sweep away everything nearby.

Moreover, the rate of the flesh carpet’s spread increased drastically, gradually overtaking the entire deck.

A single Salt Elemental couldn’t kill the tumour completely, it could only damage it, and over time, the Salt Elemental would be worn down and consumed.

But with a second arrow, things would be completely different. Not only would large areas of flesh saltify, but the tumour’s regeneration rate would also fall behind the withering effect caused by two Salt Elementals.

Eventually, it would fully decay and die, so just two arrows would be enough. But Yang Yi held out a hand to stop Suna from firing again.

He had an idea.

“Let me try something.”

Instead of charging forward, he deactivated his werewolf form, took several packs of sea salt from his ring, and got to work.

Suna quickly realised what he was thinking: he wanted to see whether the skeletal arms could deal with the tumour flesh instead.

Following Yang Yi’s orders, the skeletal arms abandoned their brute-force attacks and instead ran back towards him, each one grabbing a handful of salt and heading towards the tumour.

These skeletal arms were a consumable resource. Yang Yi had never known the exact total, but the more he used them, the fewer remained.

At this point, only about 300 arms were left. But under Yang Yi’s precise control, those 300 skeletal arms engaged in a drawn-out battle with the spreading flesh.

They began by salting pathways to ensure safe transport routes weren’t disrupted. Then, they started sprinkling salt directly onto the flesh mat.

Three hundred arms tossing salt was highly efficient.

All they had to do was avoid the tentacle attacks, and that was simple, as had no real intelligence, only instinct.

Faced with the organised, coordinated arms, they could only retreat steadily.

After around twenty minutes, nearly the entire flesh carpet had withered.

The Salt Elemental had been consumed in the process, but not before draining the tumor of much of its moisture. And Yang Yi had already cut off its nutrient supply from the white sea, sealing its fate.

Yang Yi walked over and tore off a chunk of the fleshy tumour with his gauntleted right hand, which was still tightly pressed to the deck.

【Name: Delicious Meat Chunk (Large)】

【Description: A large, delicious chunk of flesh. It’ll eat you, but you can eat it too, extremely tasty, and rich in various nutrients. In this sea, no creature goes hungry! Once 95% of this entity’s cellular structure is destroyed, it can be offered to a Monster Vending Machine for extraction.】

“So, once it grows this big, it becomes vending-eligible.”

Yang Yi snapped a photo, then got ready to finish it off completely for the vending.

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