Shrouded Seascape

Are you kidding me?! The human body is actually so fragile?! A Dioite's regeneration power was astonishing; they could survive a bullet to the head, so it could be said that Anna had never experienced any maladies until now.

Why did it have to be now of all times? I was planning on exploring the entire island with that short guy today! Anna hated having her plans interrupted. She gnashed her teeth and tried to stand up, only to feel the world spinning. In the end, she was forced to sit back down.

It seemed that it was a severe fever rather than just a regular one. Left with no choice, Anna ordered the ship's doctor to come and treat her.

For a competent doctor, a minor ailment like a fever wouldn't be a problem, but as the saying went, "sickness comes like a landslide, but goes slowly like spinning silk." Clearly, recovery was impossible today.

Anna started coughing as the vertigo subsided. It seemed that her appointment with Sika would have to be postponed.

"High Priestess, you need to rest. I'll prescribe you some medication to help you sleep," the bald ship doctor said thoughtfully.

"I understand. You may leave," Anna replied. After taking the medicine, Anna covered herself with a blanket and closed her eyes while coughing lightly.

Left all alone in the spacious cabin, Anna curled up in the corner of the bed and tried to sleep. Anna's chest would heave violently from time to time, and her coughs would reverberate throughout the room.

Thirty minutes later, Anna felt thirsty, but she was too weak to even get out of bed. She instinctively reached out toward the bedside table, but upon bringing the cup to her lips, she realized that it was empty.

Her longing for the Subterranean Sea grew stronger just then, and a wave of loneliness swept across her heart.

"Cough, cough, cough! Are you happy with this, Charles? Is this what you wanted? Cough, cough, cough!" Anna muttered weakly to herself with her eyes closed. "You've always been so self-righteous. You think that what's heaven for you must be heaven for everyone as well, but you're wrong…

"I'm a monster—a man-eating monster! And you can never change that fact. It will never change even though I now have a human body!" Anna's voice pervaded the cabin, and her cries sounded like a confession and a cry of defiance at the same time. "Just you wait—wait and watch as I turn your idea of a heavenly paradise into a nightmarish hellscape!

"Cough, cough, cough! I really can't wait to see your face by then."

The medication she had consumed earlier began to take effect, and Anna eventually fell asleep.

When Anna opened her eyes again, it was already the evening of the next day. A middle-aged man sporting a mustache had awakened her from her slumber.

The middle-aged man was one of the followers on the ship, and his identity was proven by the silver pendant hanging in front of his chest.

"Esteemed High Priestess, someone has attempted to sneak onto the island. We stopped them and found something peculiar on them…"

The many hours of rest made Anna feel much better. She switched into work mode upon hearing the middle-aged man's words and asked, "There's another traitor? Bring them here; let me see them."

In no time, a group of followers dragged in a tightly bound man.

Anna couldn't hide her surprise upon seeing the man. He was none other than Li Long, and he had been with Anna even before the congregation was formed. Li Long was tied up with ropes, and he was crying while struggling against his restraints.

Upon seeing Anna, Li Long immediately pleaded, "I-I-I didn't do it! It wasn't me! You know me, right? I have nowhere else to go! How can I possibly betray you?!"

Anna ignored him at first and turned to the others. "What did he do?"

"Early this morning, he tried to surreptitiously travel to that distant island by himself. That's not all—we found a pen on him, but the pen is just a ruse. There's a note hidden in the pen's barrel." ȓ𝙖ΝОBΕş

Anna accepted the piece of paper and found a string of numbers written on it.

"This isn't mine! This really isn't mine!" Li Long shouted, and his face turned green. He was aware of the horrible fate that a traitor would face.

It was only now did he realize just how terrifying a cult could be. He had been enjoying a good life so far, so he truly didn't expect that his good life could be subverted so easily, and now, he was afraid that he was going to die.

Anna carefully examined the note. The random numbers made no sense. It was clearly a secret code. After staring at it for a while, Anna looked down at Li Long, asking, "What do these numbers mean?"

"I really don't know anything! If I were really a traitor, would I be in such a lowly position?" Li Long replied. He was so desperate that he looked like he was about to cry.

"If you don't know anything, then how did this thing end up on you? What were you planning to do with it on the island?" Anna asked.

Li Long stammered his way to make some kind of an excuse, but he truly couldn't explain how he had gotten ahold of the pen. The only explanation he offered was that he was in a trance and had no idea what he was doing until he was caught.

The explanation sounded like a bunch of nonsense, so Anna had him taken away.

"High Priestess, we're not executing him?" asked one of the zealous believers. He looked quite disappointed to know that Li Long was going to live.

Anna shook her head while staring at the closed door. "Do you really think that he's a traitor? No, he was just being used. No organization out there would want someone as useless as him."

"Then why did you have him locked up?"

"It's a trick called 'luring a snake out of its hole.' The fact that they chose to act now, not earlier or later, proves that something must have forced them to make a move.

"We're going to pretend that we've fallen for their bait; in their eyes, we believe that Li Long is another traitor. This way, they will lower their guard, and we can look for any traces of them behind the scenes."

"Hahaha, the fact that they can put someone in a trance and make them do something—they definitely have something interesting on them," Anna remarked, looking a bit excited.

Two days later, Anna's fever was no more. She spent the day touring the island with Sika under the pretense that they were inspecting the island's facilities and amenities.

At night, Anna returned to the ship. As for the imprisoned Li Long, he seemed to have been forgotten, and even Anna didn't mention him again.

Everything seemed to have returned to normal with Li Long's imprisonment.

It was like Li Long was truly the traitor that had been hiding among them.

However, the peace didn't last long.

On the third day after Li Long's arrest, someone else made a strange move.

Anna brought Sika on a tour of the Narwhale when a Fhtagn follower raised his gun and fired a shot in their way. The gunshot gave Sika quite a shock, and the relationship between the two sides instantly became cold.

On the same day, Wang Sheng, who had been serving as Anna's right-hand man for the longest time now, suddenly jumped into the sea. Fortunately, there were many people around, and he was rescued before he could drown.

Anna was impervious to the Anomaly's influence, but the others were not.

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