Still Playing Dumb

The members of the Silent Night Pirates were not the sharpest tools in the shed. They were quite pure undead—the sort that would howl and pounce the moment they caught scent of fresh flesh and blood. Though they seemed a bit simple-minded, they were extraordinarily ferocious in a brawl. Anbaixiu also discovered that the Silent Night Pirates boasted more than just two legends in Aige and Phil. There was also a legendary-rank ghost whose mouth parted to unleash a horrifying, demonic dirge, jolting blood from the sensory orifices of the sahuagin and ixitxachitl alike. Phil swung his harpoon in the vanguard, tearing through foes like an army of one, but his slaughtering efficiency paled before this lady ghost. A pirate crew capable of ruling the open seas truly was extraordinary; Anbaixiu had underestimated them before. Whether in numbers or individual prowess, the Silent Night Pirates thoroughly overwhelmed their opposition, bringing the battle swiftly to its close. Every last sahuagin and ixitxachitl was slain, and the essence of their flesh and blood was slowly siphoned into the various ghost ships. Yet the other ghost ships dared only consume the carcasses of the sahuagin; all the ixitxachitl were absorbed by Aige. It wasn't that the pirate captain was tyrannical, but rather that ixitxachitl blood was venomous, and only Aige could endure it. As she absorbed the toxic blood, however, the complexion of her illusory human form shifted. A faint flush surfaced on her pale cheeks, making her look remarkably more like a living person. "Drunk?" Anbaixiu asked with concern. Aige shook her head. "I'm all right. I just need to rest for a bit." Anbaixiu nodded and said, "Rest easy, then. I'll keep watch for you." Had anyone else spoken with such familiarity—treating themselves as one of her own—Aige would have thrown them to feed the ghosts. Since when did the Silent Night Pirates need an outsider keeping watch over them? Yet because it was Anbaixiu who said it, Aige took it completely as a matter of course. The combined intellect of every undead in the entire pirate crew couldn't fill a single cranny of this lich's mind. With Anbaixiu keeping watch, Aige felt all the more reassured. Aige's human form melted back into the ghost ship, entering a brief state of dormancy. Anbaixiu summoned the crew's undead to search for their target. Things had grown somewhat chaotic during the melee, and Aeolus had vanished in the confusion. Who knew where the lad had run off to? After scouring the depths for what felt like ages, the swarm of undead finally located Aeolus inside the snapped hull of a sunken wreck. No one knew when he had slipped inside, but when Phil the fishman found him, the fellow appeared sound asleep, snoring away. Just as Phil reached out to haul him before Anbaixiu, an unseen surge of current lashed out from the side, cleanly slicing off half of Phil's fingers. The shock startled Phil, and he kicked backward with all his might, retreating a dozen meters in an instant. "What is that thing?!" Phil hastily ordered his subordinates to stay well back, then hurried to Anbaixiu's side to report the situation. Anbaixiu blinked. "Asleep? Wasn't he just fighting a moment ago?" Phil shook his head. "Beats me." Anbaixiu pondered for a moment, arriving at a rough guess. Could this brat have never seen an ixitxachitl before and accidentally swallowed a couple mouthfuls of toxic blood? Anbaixiu was half right. Aeolus hadn't accidentally gulped down venomous blood; on a whim in the heat of battle, he had eaten two whole ixitxachitl. A dizzying whirl had seized him right afterward, lulling him into unconscious slumber. He didn't even know whether he had sunk down here on his own, or if he had been torn to shreds by enemies only for a stray scrap or two of flesh to regenerate in this exact spot. By the time Anbaixiu arrived, a massive vortex had formed around Aeolus, dragging everything nearby toward its core. Even more absurdly, the moment anything entered the whirlpool—be it rock or coral, no matter how hard—the raging currents crushed it to dust. "Has this lad gotten this strong?" Anbaixiu could understand fighting with such ferocity, but possessing an innate protective ward even in deep slumber? Was this truly the blessing of the sea deities? "Master, what do we do now?" Phil asked. It wasn't that they couldn't kill the boy, but if they had to fish him out safely, Phil was at a complete loss. Anbaixiu considered the problem and said, "I'll sober him up." Frost bloomed from his palm as Anbaixiu fired one Ray of Frost after another toward Aeolus. Icicle after icicle materialized only to be pulverized by the vortex, yet ever more appeared. Under Anbaixiu's relentless bombardment, the violently spinning whirlpool ultimately froze into a giant lump of ice, unable to turn any longer. A block of ice of that size naturally would have floated upward, but Anbaixiu conjured over a dozen Mage Hands to force it straight down onto Aeolus's head. Perhaps startled awake by the biting cold, or perhaps jolted by the blow of the ice, Aeolus finally stopped snoring and cracked his eyes open. Yet his gaze was bleary and drunk. The instant he awoke, he let out a loud belch, puffing out a plume of black vapor. He really did drink ixitxachitl blood! Just how much did he swallow?! Just as Anbaixiu went to greet him, the young man bellowed furiously, "Which rotten scumbags dare disturb my sleep?! Hiccup!" Squinting blearily, Aeolus didn't bother looking at who had arrived. With a clench of his hands, dozens of currents coalesced and shredded the massive block of ice. Before Anbaixiu could speak, the torrents surged straight toward him and his companion. Fortunately, a lich relied on magical perception rather than physical sight; invisible water currents were impossible to see in the open sea, discernible only through magical sensing. Seeing Phil raise his harpoon, Anbaixiu sighed. With Aige resting, there was no chance of saving money today. The Golden Throne materialized behind Anbaixiu. He tapped his finger forward, sending a ripple spreading through the sea. Wherever the ripple passed, time seemed to freeze. Currents powerful enough to grind stone to dust locked in place. When the ripple washed over Aeolus, his entire body stiffened as well, leaving only his head able to move. Ninth-tier spell—Time Stop. With Anbaixiu's own capabilities, he couldn't cast this spell unaided. Specialization had its limits, after all; as a lich, Finger of Death was the pinnacle of his spellcasting, and other ninth-tier spells lay beyond his reach. Only by relying on the Golden Throne could he cast ninth-tier spells at will, turning himself into the ultimate all-around mage. Yet that single Time Stop had cost him hundreds of thousands of gold coins—hardly any different from buying a Time Stop scroll. Muttering, "Loss, what an absolute loss," Anbaixiu swam over to Aeolus, whose head was the only part still mobile, and asked, "Old friend, do you still recognize me?" Aeolus had been straining with all his might, but once he got a clear look at Anbaixiu, he said in surprise, "It's you! How... hiccup... how are you with this pack of fishmen? I was just passing by, and those fishmen jumped me on sight!" Anbaixiu was speechless. Sahuagin were the most aggressive race of fishmen; passing through their territory naturally meant being treated as an intruder or prey. "It was all a misunderstanding. I've already wiped out all the sahuagin that attacked you." Anbaixiu snapped his fingers, ending the Time Stop early. Having regained his freedom, Aeolus seemed to have recovered his senses. Somewhat sheepishly, he said, "Troubling you again, my friend." Anbaixiu asked, "Weren't you looking for your wife? How did you end up in sahuagin territory?" Aeolus said helplessly, "I don't know where Ariel is! All I could do was ask for directions, but everyone I ran into attacked without a word." That... was probably because Aeolus was so extraordinarily hideous. That face crisscrossed with lightning-shaped scars was indeed terrifying, scarcely looking better than the undead Phil. Anbaixiu told him, "Forget it, never mind that. You don't know the way anyway, so you might as well travel with me. Maybe we'll run into Ariel along the way." Aeolus replied, "Makes sense! Thank you." Anbaixiu chuckled. "Don't mention it. Friends ought to help each other." Keeping the lad close at hand would prevent him from rushing into the Raging Tide Kingdom and ruining Anbaixiu's plans, while also offering a chance to extract information about the deities from him. A win-win. Anbaixiu took Aeolus along, originally intending to board Aige's ship. To his surprise, Phil steered both of them onto his own vessel, cautioning, "Master Ultraman, our captain's ship isn't for just anyone to board. Until she wakes, it's best you sit tight on my ship." Not a single soul in the entire Silent Night Pirates had the privilege of setting foot on Aige's deck; only members of the Elegy Poetry Society held that right. Aeolus didn't mind in the least. Still drunk, he sprawled out and fell asleep the instant he boarded. A few minutes later, Aige awoke and the Silent Night Pirates set sail once more, while Aeolus remained fast asleep on Phil's ship. Anbaixiu couldn't leave either; terrified the kid might tear Phil's ghost ship apart in his sleep, he could only stand guard beside him. As it turned out, he had to wait eight or nine hours. The Silent Night Pirates were practically leaving the sahuagin territory by the time Aeolus rubbed between his brows and finally awoke. The splitting headache, akin to a vicious hangover, twisted Aeolus's already unsightly face into something even more gruesome. Fortunately, the ship was crewed entirely by undead, none of whom had any right to mock the lad's looks. Aeolus groaned, "My head hurts so much... Those fish were poisonous." "You only just realized? You live in the sea, yet you act like a newborn infant! You didn't even know ixitxachitl are venomous?" Aeolus shook his head. "No. Nobody ever told me." He had only been imparted basic knowledge: language, foundational logic, and sweeping concepts like "things in the sea are called fish, and things on land are called beasts." Talos had never cared to spoon-feed him the specific traits of each and every fish. Anbaixiu patted Aeolus on the shoulder. "It's fine. Take your time; I can teach you. But before that, I'd like to ask: which deity actually sent you, and what mission do you carry?" Aeolus hurriedly said, "I was... No, wait, I wasn't sent by any deity. I merely revere Talos, the Lord of Storms! My only mission is to marry Ariel. That isn't a task from a deity—it's what I want to do myself." Anbaixiu: "..." This kid is still playing dumb even now.