A Comprehensive Network: An Endless Adventure Begins as a Wanderer

The light of the holy emblem shone on Nino's face, and his expression changed from resistance to blankness, as if something had been forcibly broken off in his mind.

"I'm here to stir up a conflict between that old geezer Gasper and that Shara."

Nino’s words seemed to come out without thinking, and every word was spoken clearly.

Gasper turned around abruptly and glared at him.

"It would be best if Gasper died here, then his ship would be mine."

After Nino finished speaking, he shut his mouth.

His face was expressionless, but his eyes were twitching, as if he had just broken free from some kind of effect.

He drew his hand from his waist—a dagger—and stabbed it viciously at Gasper.

Gasper reacted faster. The hunchbacked pirate dodged to the side, the dagger grazing his arm, tearing his sleeve but not breaking the skin.

Gasper grabbed Nino's wrist, and the two wrestled together, sparks flying as the scimitar and dagger clashed.

Alice took a step forward.

She didn't draw her sword; she simply stood there, her silver-white plate armor gleaming coldly in the hazy light, the full moon emblem reflecting the radiance of the holy symbol.

Her vertical pupils stared at the two pirates wrestling, and she didn't say a word.

Gasper released his grip first.

He shoved Nino aside, took two steps back, and gasped for breath. Nino still held the dagger in his hand, but did not stab Gasper again.

"You fucking..." Gasper pointed at Nino, his finger trembling.

Nino didn't speak. He sheathed the dagger, gave Karen a cold look, and turned to leave.

Gasper stood there, looked at Nino's back, then at Cheng Yi and his group, and then turned and left.

The two disappeared around the corner of the dock, one after the other.

Shara bent down and picked up a copper coin from the ground—it had fallen out of Gasper's pocket during the earlier scuffle.

She weighed it in her hand, then threw it into the sea.

"They will come back."

"We'll see when the time comes," Ignatius said with a pluck of a string, then smiled at Karen.

"The perfect realm of honesty."

Cheng Yi put the throwing knife back into its sheath.

He glanced at Karen.

Karen was putting away the holy emblem; the oak grain dimmed, and the light faded.

Cheng Yi didn't speak. He turned and walked towards the Annabelle Lee, stepping onto the deck via the gangplank. The deck made a dull thud under his feet, and the sea breeze blew in from outside the dock, carrying a salty, fishy smell.

Shara was the last to board. She walked behind the wheel, took the cigar out of her pocket, put it in her mouth, and lit it with a match.

The match's flame flickered briefly on her dark face before being extinguished by the sea breeze.

"Let's set sail," she said.

The sailors untied the mooring lines, stowed up the gangplank, and the ship slowly sailed away from the dock.

The figures on the dock grew smaller and smaller, and the tavern sign, the ropes on the mooring bollards, and the wooden barrels piled on the shore all melted into the hazy mist.

Cheng Yi stood at the stern, watching the dock disappear into the sea fog, then turned around to face the lighthouse.

The lighthouse's light flickered on the horizon, like someone holding up a lamp that was about to go out in the distance.

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After about an hour of sailing, fog rolled in on the sea.

It wasn't a thin layer of morning mist, but a thick fog so dense that visibility was less than twenty meters.

Fog rose from the sea surface like steam from a pot of boiling water, rolling along the surface and obscuring the distant lighthouse until only a blurry outline remained.

The lighthouse's light flickered in the fog, as if it might go out at any moment.

Shara stubbed out her cigar, tapped it on the gunwale, gripped the helm with both hands, and frowned.

"This fog isn't right," she said.

Cheng Yi stood at the bow of the boat, staring at the fog.

His Observation Haki was on the whole time, but he didn't catch anything.

But he sensed a deeper, almost instinctive alertness.

It was as if something was watching them, from the depths of the fog, from beneath the water, from places they could not see.

There's something underwater.

Cheng Yi alerted his teammates.

Then the seawater suddenly burst open.

It wasn't just a column of water; the entire sea surface suddenly exploded.

The seawater surged to both sides, as if something was pushing it up from below. The ship rocked violently, and the wooden barrels on the deck rolled around. A sailor lost his footing and sat down on the deck.

Cheng Yi grabbed the gunwale to steady himself and saw a human-shaped water feature rising from the sea.

A mass of water, sculpted into the shape of a human, was over ten feet tall, taller than a mast.

But something inside its body was glowing—blue and white, like compressed lightning, pulsating slowly in its chest like a heart.

"Water element! But its state is wrong, it's extremely violent!"

Karen screamed desperately behind him, and with the appearance of the water elemental, surging waves rose on the sea.

The water elemental lowered its head, its eyeless face staring at the four people on the boat.

Ignaz's lute emitted a sharp chord. A sound wave struck the water elemental's body, splashing water everywhere. A hole was blasted open in the water elemental's chest, but seawater immediately rushed in and closed the hole.

It was not injured, and it did not even retreat.

Alice charged forward. The gleaming longsword struck the water elemental's arm, the blade slicing through the water without resistance. But the water elemental's body twisted in pain.

Still the Holy Slash.

The water elemental's arm deformed into a water whip, wrapped around Alice's shield, and then swung away violently.

Alice was thrown out and slammed against the ship's side, the plate armor hitting the wood with a dull thud.

"Its core!" Karen shouted, "Attack that glowing spot!"

Ignaz's fingers plucked the strings rapidly.

The sound of the piano changed; it was no longer a sharp chord, but a deep, continuous hum, like the north wind in winter.

A chill permeated the air. The surface of the water element began to freeze, first the water's surface, then the underwater currents, and finally the blue-white core of light.

The ice layer froze from the outside in, freezing the light core for a moment. The blue-white light shone through the ice layer, like a lamp covered in snow.

"This move is called 'Ten Towns of Winter'!"

Ignats shouted smugly at Alice, who had just gotten up from the ground.

Cheng Yi had no time to fool around; he seized the opportunity and disappeared from the deck in an instant.

Deceitful in the cloud.

He appeared behind the water elemental, and his short sword suddenly pierced into the frozen blue-white light core.

The ice layer shattered, the light core shattered, and blue-white light overflowed from the cracks, like shattered fluorite.

The water elemental's body suddenly froze, the water flow became out of control, water splashed everywhere, and its shape began to blur, like a painting that had been soaked and ruined by water.

It collapsed.

Ignacio gave a flamboyant flick of the strings.

"A beautiful strike!"