Chapter 44: Tilting Ship

Words : 1031 Updated : Sep 10th, 2025

Chapter 44: Tilting Ship As soon as Leonard finished his remarks, the person from the other side turned quiet. "You don’t have to bluff me." The person snickered. "I’ve gone to the captain’s room and checked all the radars. Nobody is nearby and I made sure to derail the ship’s journey before the system undergoes malfunction." Without a doubt, the enemy believed Leonard was bluffing and wanted to cause them to become paranoid. Unfortunately, they had made sure to verify and confirm everything before finalizing the assassination. They only bothered to reply because they believed victory was just right before their eyes. They also wanted to know how a crown prince would react when he realized he was going to die like any regular person would. So what if you were born as royalty or with a noble bloodline? In the end, they still meet in the same death trajectory as everyone else. "It appears that you were very meticulous in checking everything. But what a pity. It’s still not enough." Leonard mused and dropped the magical device. Afterward, he stomped on it, cracking the magical device into pieces. By effectively destroying the magical device first, Leonard implanted a seed of doubt in the enemy’s mindset while giving them some time to act. While he was contemplating the time constraint, Mirelle’s eyes turned somewhat complicated. It was just a few hours ago that she encountered quite a lot of crewmates working hard on the ship. Yet in the blink of an eye, she received the news that they were all killed. She didn’t doubt the enemy’s words, granted that they would have already come across some crewmates if they were to be still alive. "What should we do now, Crown Prince?" Number 13 asked in a submissive tone. As the sole survivor crew member of the ship, Number 13 knew he was destined to be punished later on if they happened to survive. Moreover, these series of events only spoke volumes of their incompetence which allowed a single enemy to sabotage everything. This wasn’t just some slight oversight, but a complete meltdown in their defensive capability. "What else is there to do?" Leonard rolled his eyes. "We might as well make our way to where the lifeboats and liferafts are being stored. Who knows, maybe the enemy feels like mocking us by staying nearby?" "That’s—" Number 13 was about to say it would be too dangerous, but then realized the ship was bound to ship with all the internal and external systems failures. In the end, Number 13 never finished his words and only nodded his head. Sometime later, Number 13 took the lead to advance toward the storage compartment for the lifeboats. Along the way, they witnessed more corpses. Some were definitely killed by the enemy whereas the majority of them were killed by the sea monsters. Although Leonard never saw the sea monsters, he could tell that these monsters must have been on a berserk stage. After all, the injuries done to the crewmates were very messy and desecrated after they had died. Moreover, as they continued to advance forward, the trio could sense the ship began to tilt slightly toward the left. The balance was still manageable, but it was only a matter of time before the ship completely flipped and overturned. The seawater was now crashing violently, amplified by the ship’s worsening tilt. The current at nighttime was the most fearsome. And given the temperature in the seawater, it would be difficult to survive in the sea even with the presence of magic. Magic sounded powerful and omnipotent, but that was only dependent on the Mages and their mana reserve. As the trio proceeded to advance their journey, the ship started to turn shaky. Leonard was unable to control his balance promptly. He stumbled and nearly tripped over to the edge of the ship. "Careful!" Alerted, Mirelle was quick to react and cast a magic barrier to deflect him from tripping over. After the bounce off, Leonard’s arm was caught by Mirelle. "The ship is tilting over at a rapid rate. We’ll need to be cautious when advancing." She commented. "With the loss of magical runes and formations to safeguard the ship, it’s only a matter of time before we sink." Number 13 chimed in and held a dreadful expression. He wasn’t worried about his safety, but Leonard’s safety. If Leonard were to fall here, then anyone involved in the ship would be granted the grace to see their families again. After all, they would all be reunited in the underworld. "There’s no need to worry about me." Leonard pulled his arm away and instructed the two to hasten their pace instead. "Just rush over to the compartment in advance." He continued. While he faltered and nearly fell over, the fault lay in his unfamiliarity with the old Leonard’s body. Normal movement was still fine and wouldn’t be detected, but as soon as he tried to perform other movements, the flaws started to appear. ’I should really exercise more and become familiar with this new body.’ He made a mental note and urged the two to proceed ahead. Sometime later, he was left behind by them as he took his time. The ship was already tilted at around 25 degrees. Any further and they would start sliding downward from one direction. While Mirelle and Number 13 had long rushed ahead, Leonard glanced at the corpses. He wanted to check whether they had any resistance prior to their death. He was checking them now because once the shipwreck occurred, all evidence would be lost. The seawater would wipe out any crucial detail, so Leonard had no choice but to risk this action. As he checked every nearby corpse, Leonard’s eyes squinted. ’Not a single person reacted in time.’ Besides this aspect, there was also another discovery that he had made. The majority of these corpses had a look of disbelief. It was the eyes of someone who never anticipated being backstabbed or betrayed by another that they trusted. "Could the enemy disguise infinitely as someone else?" He murmured, finding the enemy to be quite troublesome.

Chapter 44: Tilting Ship

Comments (0)