I can see experience bars after being transported to another world.

Chapter 83 Escort and Return

Moments later, not a single living mutated fish could be seen on the surface of the sea.

All that remained were the tentacles.

They hovered in mid-air, their suction cups with eyes scanning the surroundings, as if to confirm that their prey had left.

Then they began to sink, slowly and silently, until they were submerged in the sea, beneath the Abyss Hunter.

Alice walked to the glass window of the captain's cabin and looked down at the bottom of the ship, where a huge circular black shadow enveloped the entire Abyss Hunter in the center.

The tentacles swayed slowly all around, like some kind of eerie petals, and the Abyss Hunter was the stamen of that flower.

It did not leave.

It followed below.

No one spoke in the captain's cabin.

Alice stood before the glass window, her warhammer resting on the ground, her hands trembling, but she did not look away.

She is the captain of the first squad of the Grim Harbor Night Watch, a second-tier flesh and blood transcendent, who once faced a third-tier monster alone and fought her way through a horde of mutated creatures.

But at this moment, in the face of such a being, her proud power was insignificant, as laughable as an ant waving its antennae at the feet of a giant.

Philip stood in the corner, his lips trembling, trying to utter a prayer, but it felt as if something was choking him, and he couldn't utter a single word.

The newborn remained standing in front of the helm, maintaining the course.

The creaking of the mechanical joints gave everything away; it was the trembling of metal under extreme tension.

"Continue...forward..." The newborn's voice was hoarse and intermittent.

No one responded, but the ship kept moving.

Inside the cabin, Lu Yuan also saw those tentacles piercing the sky through the porthole.

It is them.

Things that appear in strange dreams.

Those tentacles, adorned with eyes, extending from the bottom of the deep sea, now hang on the surface of the water, exactly like the scene in my dream.

At the edge of vision, gray-white text flickers:

[Sanity: -1, 20/70]

Only a little bit fell off... This thing isn't weird after all...

Lu Yuan's heart pounded violently as a terrifying thought surfaced—everything in the strange dream was real.

The wreckage of the Iron Whale, really.

Altars and runes, really.

Tentacles in the deep sea, really.

Those gray-robed men...were real too.

They are not illusions, but real beings that exist somewhere in this world.

The warning from the man who resembled Gawain echoed once again:

"The island... is just one part of the plan..."

"Grimport...is the one..."

A chill ran through me.

If the strange dream was some kind of premonition, then the gray-robed man's target was never this island in the first place.

It is Grim Port.

It has always been Grim Port.

At the same time, the gazes of countless eyes pierced through the ship's hull and landed directly on Lu Yuan.

Heavy, cold, irresistible.

But Lu Yuan realized that the eyes of the tentacles outside were not looking at him.

She was looking at the thing in his arms.

【██'s Blood】

Time passed in silence, perhaps an hour had passed, perhaps longer.

The dark figure remained at the bottom of the ship, neither attacking nor leaving.

Tentacles swayed all around, like some kind of guardian, enveloping the Abyss Hunter in the center.

Whenever marine life approaches, the tentacles wave to drive them away, just like clearing a road.

"Is it protecting us?" Philip finally realized something was wrong, and looked surprised.

She didn't know what that thing wanted, but one thing was certain: it wasn't after the Abyss Hunter, the ship, because those eyes never fell on her.

"It's protecting something on the ship," Alice whispered. "Or someone."

What happened after Marcus and Lu Yuan entered the cave containing the heart?

She doesn't know.

But the timing of this thing's appearance is too coincidental.

Her gaze unconsciously drifted towards the cabin.

Marcus is still unconscious, and Lu Yuan is still recovering from serious injuries.

What exactly did those two bring out from that heart?

Inside the cabin, Lu Yuan gripped the glass bottle in his arms, already having found his answer.

It was escorting the vial of blood back to Grimport.

But why? What will this vial of blood bring? But no matter what, this vial of blood cannot be given up, because even if I give it up, Marcus of the Ascension Society will not.

After an unknown amount of time, the storm began to subside.

The waves were no longer so raging, the dark clouds began to disperse, revealing a sliver of gray-white light.

Just then, the dark shadow at the bottom of the ship began to sink.

Those tentacles swayed one last time, as if bidding farewell, before sinking into the deep sea, drifting further and further away, and finally disappearing into the endless darkness.

It left.

There was no cheering in the captain's cabin, only a deathly silence.

"It's gone," Philip's voice came. "It's left."

Alice took a deep breath, ignored them, and simply shouted to the newborn, "Full speed ahead!"

Her voice was steady, but the hand holding the warhammer was still trembling slightly.

Because she had a feeling that she hadn't "escaped a disaster," but rather had been "let go," and that someone hiding in the shadows was controlling everything, keeping everyone in the dark.

The ship had something that the underwater creature cared about; otherwise, the Abyss Hunter would have long since turned into a pile of fragments and disappeared into the vast ocean.

Inside the cabin, Lu Yuan slowly closed his eyes.

Reason began to return, and the oppressive feeling of being stared at disappeared.

Gray, who was standing to the side, also breathed a sigh of relief. After all, the thing in the sea was really too shocking, and its size was much larger than the things he had seen on the island.

Just when everyone thought everything had calmed down, the communication crystal in Alice's arms suddenly lit up.

That was the night watchman's emergency communication device.

The crystal flashed a red light—the highest level of alarm.

I pressed the receive button immediately, and a broken sound came through; it was Morgan Sr.'s voice:

"...Abyss Hunter...Please reply immediately upon receipt..."

"Grimport... has been attacked..."

"...The Deep Sea Church...launches a full-scale attack..."

"...If you're still alive...return to base immediately..."

"...Repeat...Return to base immediately..."

The signal was interrupted, leaving only a piercing noise.

The cabin fell into dead silence.

Alice's face turned ashen: "Accelerate! Return at full speed!"

The Abyss Hunter's steam engine emitted a dull roar, the hull trembled violently, and its speed began to increase.