I created the myth of the Great Old Ones.

At the same time, the diner's mouth suddenly opened, splitting into four lobes, each covered with fine, sharp teeth, like a blooming flower.

But the flower seemed to want Lu Ban's favor, and without saying a word, it came toward his body. You could see the brain with grooves in the center of the petals. On the tofu-like brain, hairy tentacles were rubbing against it, waiting to feed.

The diner's clothes were stretched open, and his bones seemed to have been devoured and digested over hundreds of years. His entire body collapsed, with only more milky white tentacles extending out. He was like a plant, existing only to bloom the most beautiful flower.

Without hesitation, Lu Ban conjured a silver revolver called "Last Words" in his hand and fired a shot. The monster immediately crashed into the cabin, colliding with several graceful dancers along with it, before finally landing on the cabin wall and turning into a pool of blooming flesh.

Meanwhile, at the cut surfaces of the dancers who were knocked down, white fleshy buds were growing, as if a paused movie was being replayed, but at ten times the speed. Their bodies had undergone a mutation, turning into hideous and terrifying monsters.

"It seems we can't let them come into contact with each other."

Lu Ban thought for a moment, raised his gun, bent down, and quickly shot all the monsters into the air. Then he fired again and again, making them fly even higher.

Immediately, these monsters froze in mid-air, like the skeletal serpent shrouded in thunderclouds, except that unlike their previous human forms, they were now purely monsters.

The deck fell silent once more.

"These humans have been mutated. They have been severely polluted in this windless zone, but due to the stagnant nature of time here, the erosion caused by the pollution has not been immediately apparent. However, once time begins to flow within them, this erosion will accelerate immediately."

Lu Ban has a general understanding of the impact on this sea area.

In other words, the pollution of the windless zone is not the same as the supernatural power that makes time stand still here.

Even though the crew members, with Sia's help, are able to resist the fate of time gradually being stopped, they are still suffering from the pollution.

However, the pollution was not that serious, and the exposure of only a few tens of minutes was not enough to cause mutations.

It's unclear how long this passenger ship has been stuck here.

Judging from their clothing and appearance, they are completely different from the current style of Hejima. It is unknown what the historical process of the mainland is like now. After all, they even have steam engines. There are probably some people with extraordinary abilities in the central area of ​​the mainland. They may be from a completely different world from people like Nagamasa who often drift at sea.

Even on Earth, while many developed regions enjoy coffee and air conditioning, there are some underdeveloped areas where people can only make a living by harpooning fish.

The island is currently underdeveloped in terms of its access to the sea, and the closer an area is to the sea, the more underdeveloped it may be.

Therefore, these people may have only recently fallen into the Calm Belt, and Lu Ban could not draw any conclusions about the speed of their mutation.

"Why is this happening? Pollution should tend to spread directly. This contradictory situation suggests that someone is interfering."

Lu Ban thought to himself.

Pollution usually spreads spontaneously, from highly polluted areas to low-pollution areas, eventually making the entire alien world polluted. Under normal circumstances, it will not remain stationary for decades or even centuries like a calm zone.

Rather, the fact that time stood still here actually prevented the spread of pollution.

Thinking of this, Lu Ban suddenly felt that the surroundings had become dark.

The starlight seemed shrouded in a thin veil, ambiguous and unclear.

Lu Ban saw that the leopards not far away had become ethereal, and his whole body seemed to be enveloped in a black mist.

The next moment, Lu Ban felt a huge force grab him. He tried to resist, but he found it difficult to move his hands and feet. It wasn't a feeling of being restrained, but rather his body telling him that now was not the time to move. It was an instinctive inability to move.

He soon saw a huge monster shrouded in black mist holding him in its hand. The monster's outline was indistinct, but he could intuitively sense that its body was at least several hundred meters tall, as majestic as a mountain. In the distance, its eerie blue eyes emanated an ominous aura from the black mist. Just being stared at by it felt like a poisonous infection spreading across Lu Ban's scalp and body.

In that instant, Lu Ban saw that there were many more arms extending from the black mist, and the monster seemed to have come from a distant island. One of the arms was radiating silver light.

The silvery light, like a blade, sliced ​​through the black mist in a few strokes, bringing a glimmer of light to this gloomy world.

The next moment, Lu Ban returned to reality.

He saw the leopard beside him sitting on the rotten sofa covered with tentacles and fur, as if nothing had happened. One hand gently stroked the head of the smooth creature that had grown out of the armrest, and the fingers were teasing the slightly open mouth full of sharp teeth on the top of the eyeless creature's head. It looked quite relaxed, as if it had returned home.

On the other side, Lu Ban saw Sia wearing armor.

"It's a bit tricky."

Sia glanced at her arm, which was covered in gauntlets, and said.

"This monster exists in this windless zone, but in a special form."

She murmured to herself.

Lu Ban had just seen some of the monster's characteristics through [True Vision]. He casually picked up a piece of wood from the cabin that had been knocked down when he smashed the diner's body, and wrote words in his silver pen [Last Words] on the surface that was about to sprout.

[You can check the time]

In the blink of an eye, the wooden piece was transformed into a clock that could display the time.

Lu Ban looked at the wood. The scratches had changed position and formed a shape similar to clock markings. The buds growing on the wood also moved slowly, becoming the hands.

Xia didn't ask Lu Ban what he was doing, but she already knew some of it.

Lu Ban saw that time was gradually passing, and when the stopwatch started spinning again and was about to reach 42 seconds, he felt that the surroundings were falling into darkness again.

This time, however, Lu Ban was prepared. Following Xi Ya's example, he quickly escaped from the black mist monster and returned to reality.

He immediately looked at the piece of wood in his hand.

The time displayed on the wooden piece is 43 seconds.

Chapter 817 Caught in the Middle

"42 seconds."

Lu Ban looked at the time displayed on the wooden piece in his hand and it started to flow again according to normal physical sensation. He said.

"That monster exists in the 42nd second of every minute."

Since time can be slowed down and frozen in this windless zone, there must be similar creatures existing here in some special way.

The giant skeletal serpent in the clouds had been severely polluted and mutated, and the monster that Lu Ban had just seen was also clearly severely polluted, or rather, it might be the source of the pollution.

It was sealed away under some special mechanism, but obviously, it was not something that could be completely sealed away like those Great Old Ones, or the person who placed the seal was not as powerful as the inhabitants of the Brilliant Realm and could not completely block the pollution.

Therefore, the monster is bound to 42 seconds every minute. When the time reaches 42 seconds, the monster will appear in reality. It tries to escape, but one second is not enough for it to escape. In fact, the monster may not even know what is happening to it and continues to act according to its original pace. However, under such circumstances, it can never break free from the bondage of this one second. No matter how much it struggles, it can only affect reality for one second.

In fact, seeing this, Lu Ban roughly understood the characteristics of this windless zone.

Everything here is affected by the extraordinary power that resides here, and its own time flow is affected. For ordinary humans, their existence may only last for one ten-thousandth of a second. Even in the blink of an eye, thousands of years will pass in the outside world. The stronger the being, the closer their own time flow is to real time.

As for the monster shrouded in black mist, since its own time flow could not be slowed down, it was only bound by the supernatural power for one second. In that one second, it could affect the entire windless zone, but once it left that one second, it could no longer affect anything in reality.

It's like adding a monster to one frame of a film reel; once the movie reaches that frame, the monster's appearance will be revealed, but it will only be visible for a fleeting moment.

As for Sia, after being captured, it took her some time to escape before she could return to reality.

As for the missing sailors, they were noticed by the monster in that instant and were immediately enveloped in the black mist. Their chances of survival are slim. Even if they survived, they were pulled into the same timeline as the monster. Unless they possess extraordinary powers like Lu Ban or Xi Ya, they would be devoured by the monster.

As time passed, Lu Ban saw that it was almost time to reach the 42nd second.

He and Sia immediately left the ship and returned to Nagamasa's ship.

This time, the 42-second mark passed quickly, and nothing happened.

"It seems it will notice the things on the ship that are anchored here."

Xia glanced at the sailors on the ship, then at the magnificent lights and candlelight on the ship.

After the three of them left, the ship returned to its original silent state, just as before.

Perhaps for the people on the ship, nothing had changed yet. Their consciousness remained frozen at the moment of the banquet. For many of them, the journey was full of anticipation, with the possibility of wonderful encounters, a return to their loved ones on the other side of the sea, or the last trip of their fulfilling lives.

But everything was frozen in time, remaining in the final moment.

To the monster trapped in the cracks of time, this ship must have been anchored here for quite some time. The appearance of Lu Ban and his companions was like a few small black dots suddenly appearing on a screen that they were used to seeing. The monster would definitely find it strange and want to see what those were.

After all, Nagamasa's ship couldn't possibly notice a monster that only existed for a second.

Just like before, when the giant skeletal serpent appeared, the monsters existing in the time rift did not attack Lu Ban and the others. As long as it is not an action that can push the flow of time here, it will not cause the monsters to attack.

"We need to be careful. It's best not to get close to the ships that are docked here. There are no living people on them anymore, only mutated monsters."

"Sia said to Nagamasa."

Changzheng broke out in a cold sweat. He hesitated, then nodded and glanced at the large ship again.

"Ah Xiang, did you write down the names of those who just went missing?"

He asked a question to the scholar next to him.

"I've memorized them all."

Ah Xiang didn't board the ship, but he could hear screams and knew that something dangerous had probably happened on board.

"Remember to give their share of the money to their families when the time comes."

Changzheng said that this is the rule at sea. If a sailor dies at sea, his share of the money will be kept for his family as long as the ship returns safely. If this rule is not followed and it is discovered, then those sailors will not be willing to risk their lives for the captain.

This rule was also established to prevent sailors from harboring ill intentions and turning on each other after finding treasure at sea, thinking that fewer people would mean more money and thus causing a riot.

Ah Xiang looked up at the starry sky and found that the arrangement of the stars had changed, unlike what he knew before. Fortunately, the treasure map had a clue. At the current speed, it would only take another day to reach the island where the treasure was located.

However, given the current situation, once they reach the island, they will be noticed by the monster, thus putting them in danger every minute.

No wonder no one has been able to get this treasure even though its location was marked.

As dawn approached, the sea ahead turned a golden hue, reflecting the sky and creating a dazzling spectacle on the perfectly calm ocean.

Ah Xiang lay on his bed, unable to sleep all night. The eerie environment made it difficult for him to fall asleep, so he got up and went to the deck.

The sailors on night watch were playing cards and chatting, but their expressions were not as relaxed as usual; instead, they were more serious, probably trying to distract themselves from the silence of the sea.

He saw Sia sitting at the bow of the ship, so he went over to say hello.

Xia was flipping through a book, seemingly studying in the morning light. A Xiang called out to her, but Xia didn't respond.

Ah Xiang thought she was too focused, so he cleared his throat and went to Xia Ya's side.

He called out again and patted Xia's shoulder, but the girl, focused on her reading, ignored him.

At this moment, Ah Xiang suddenly noticed that something seemed to be wriggling between the gaps in the armor on Xi Ya's arm, like maggots twisting between rotting flesh.

Ah Xiang's heart skipped a beat when he saw the shocking scene.

"what happened?"

At this moment, Xia suddenly spoke and looked at A Xiang.

People who sit for long periods should stand up and move their backs more often!

Chapter 818 The Price

Ah Xiang swallowed hard. He knew that if he rashly asked about what he had just witnessed, he might be silenced by Xia Ya.