Yang Yi was having a nightmare — a terribly painful one.In it, he was burning alive, turning into a man of fire, even able to smell the stench of his own scorched flesh... BOOM!!!A deafening crash jolted him awake. The Nyxstar lurched violently, nearly tipping over.Yang Yi tumbled out of bed — but he was alert even as he hit the floor. In one swift motion, he sat up and aimed the flintlock pistol from his bedside toward the cabin door. The flickering fire in the hearth bathed the room in a warm orange glow.Nothing had broken in. Which meant the Nyxstar had probably struck a large chunk of floating ice — or a reef.Boom! Boom! More collisions followed, slowing the ship until it finally came to a stop.Yang Yi immediately opened the ship interface. Multiple impacts — the Nyxstar’s durability had dropped by over 1500 points.Thankfully, the ship was sturdier now, with a two-layer hull: bone armor outside and wood beneath. So despite the repeated hits, it hadn’t cracked or started leaking.Once he got a sense of the situation, Yang Yi tried contacting Suna. Her cabin was right next door, separated by a thin — and already broken — wooden wall, so they could talk easily without shouting.“Suna, how’s it on your side? Looks like the Nyxstar hit something!” “I’m fine,” she replied quickly — she was probably getting dressed.“Good. I’ll go check outside. Lock your door — something might have climbed aboard!” Yang Yi threw on his clothes, grabbed his weapons, and stepped up to the captain’s window.He’d modified it long ago, reinforcing it with metal bars to prevent intruders from breaking in. Peering through the gaps, he scanned the deck — only the faint, pale-green glow of ghostfire drifted past. No signs of any living creature.He double-checked with his third eye before slowly opening the cabin door and stepping out. “Maybe I’m overreacting.”He frowned, glancing around. Nothing. The deck was empty — just him.Still, he stayed on guard, holding his two companions — the Sea Serpent’s Fang and the flintlock — as he moved toward the bow. He wanted to see what exactly the ship had hit.A chill ran through him suddenly. He checked the log — -11°C. Several degrees colder than before.“Temperature’s dropping this fast?” He crouched low, advancing cautiously while trying to piece together possibilities.If it had hit a reef or an iceberg, he could just steer the Nyxstar away. But if it had hit something alive... that would be a much bigger problem.Reaching the bow deck, he froze. He’d heard a strange sound — disturbingly out of place in this setting.Slurp… slurp… Like something sucking.The sound of a mouth pressed hard against something, drawing air through. He pressed his ear to the deck for a few seconds, frowning deeply.The noise came from outside the hull — below him — and there were many mouths, all sucking, all at once. This was the worst-case scenario.The Nyxstar had collided with living creatures — a lot of them — maybe even surrounded by them. Yang Yi crouched and crept toward the edge of the bow.Through the gloom, he saw several large floes of ice slowly drifting toward the ship — probably what had blocked its path. The sucking sound was much louder now, coming from directly below the bow.Yang Yi leaned out and looked down — and instantly drew a sharp breath. There were five icebergs, clustered together, some large, some small, unevenly spaced — blocking the Nyxstar’s path.And from beneath those icebergs writhed a mass of huge, pale-white worms. Their segmented bodies looked like a stack of inflated rings — some as thin as ten centimeters wide, others nearly a full meter thick, large enough to swallow a person whole.They squirmed and tangled together, pressing their sucker-like mouths to the head of the giant Bobbit worm that pulled the ship, making that horrid slurp-slurp sound as they wriggled —like a mass of soft, fleshy straws squeezed together. 【You have witnessed an unknown creature. Sanity -10.】“What the hell are those things…?”Yang Yi’s scalp prickled. He’d never seen worms like these before. Those floating “icebergs” might actually be their nests — each one with a dozen worms of varying size emerging from beneath it.There were so many that they’d already covered the Bobbit worm’s head entirely. Those that couldn’t reach it had started sucking on the Nyxstar’s hull instead.As Yang Yi thought of a plan, he noticed something changing. The petal-like tendrils around their mouths began to move!They weren’t decorative — each ended in a small, glowing white orb, likely sensory organs, like eyes. Those orbs slowly turned — all focusing on him.“Crap. They’ve seen me!” He reacted instantly, ripping off his left eyepatch and bolting backward.A second later, the sucking stopped — all at once. They were climbing up! Without hesitation, Yang Yi grabbed the wheel and commanded the giant Bobbit worm to close its four sharp mandibles.CRUNCH! The sound of cutting and splattering followed.Several of the climbing worms were sliced apart, their remains thudding onto the deck, still writhing and spilling white mucus everywhere. Yang Yi tried to reverse the Nyxstar, but it wouldn’t budge — something was holding it fast.Of course — the worms were latched onto the hull, anchoring the ship to the icebergs. “Suna! The Nyxstar’s hit a nest of giant worms — huge ones! Be careful by your door!”He shouted and tried again to make the Bobbit worm bite, but its mandibles wouldn’t move — something had tangled them up. More worms began crawling onto the bow, inching toward him.With no other choice, Yang Yi abandoned the wheel and ran. He had two options:Use the Sea Serpent’s Fang to unleash flames and burn them.Use the flintlock’s cannon mode. He wanted to use fire — the range was better — but the memory of that nightmare still lingered, and he couldn’t bring himself to «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» ignite anything.So he raised the flintlock instead, backpedaling as he aimed at the writhing horde. At the front was a worm as thick as a man’s torso. Its mouth opened — a circular, fleshy disk lined with razor teeth, and deeper inside, barbed fangs that would lock anything caught inside.The sight reminded Yang Yi of a lamprey — but monstrously larger. It even generated suction powerful enough to make him feel like he was being pulled backward…BANG! At the critical moment, Yang Yi pulled the trigger — the shot blew the lead worm’s head apart, shattering several others nearby.Using the recoil, he rolled forward several times and dove into the captain’s cabin, slamming and locking the door behind him. The worms reached the cabin soon after.But then, oddly, they stopped — lingered for a few moments — and retreated. “Too short to reach me?” he guessed.Then, to his surprise, he realized Suna was inside his room. “You crawled through the wall?” Yang Yi asked.Suna didn’t answer. Her face was grim. She was fully geared up — bow on her back, a new round shield on her left arm, sword in her right hand — and staring straight at him, eyes fixed downward.“What’s wrong? Why are you staring at me? The slime on me’s just worm blood—” “You don’t feel pain?” Suna suddenly cut him off.“Pain? Why would I? I’m not hurt.” “But… there’s a worm biting your ass.”“What?” Yang Yi looked down — and sure enough, a half-dead worm head was latched onto his backside, sucking hard.Enraged, he yanked it off in one motion. “Damn it! I knew something felt off!”He checked himself over — thankfully, the chainmail had blocked the bite. His rear was safe.

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