This was an unequal hunt.

The air on the deck was thick with the smell of rust, which wasn't just the decay emanating from the Black Seagull's aging hull, but more so the metallic taste of blood rising in Lin Jie's throat.

He was kneeling on one knee.

Just half a second ago, he had tried to use the Phase Slip property to execute a tactical evasion to the left, attempting to close the distance with that man in the white suit.

But the moment his intent formed an instruction in his cerebral cortex, that damned shutter sound rang out.

"Click."

Lin Jie remained frozen in that posture of lunging fiercely to the left, his entire body awkwardly suspended half a foot above the deck.

His mind was still racing.

He could see that lunatic Galliard leisurely pulling an exposed negative from the side of the brass camera, casually tossing it to the ground, then fishing a new glass plate coated with photosensitive emulsion from the leather bag at his waist, elegantly sliding it into the slot.

During these frozen three seconds, although Lin Jie's body couldn't move, the bioelectric currents within him, the tension generated by muscle contraction, and the kinetic energy he had released did not simply vanish.

They were forcibly compressed inside his frame.

Lin Jie could feel his blood vessels swelling.

His bones creaked.

The force sought an outlet but found no fissure to vent through.

"Three."

Galliard's voice came again.

"Two."

The man in the white suit even had the leisure to adjust the position of his bow tie, using the tip of his shoe to kick aside a coil of rope blocking his path.

"One."

The valve of time was reopened.

"Boom!"

Lin Jie was "exploded" outward.

The kinetic energy of his charge, accumulated over three seconds, hurled him sideways like a cannonball.

His back slammed heavily against the iron railing of the ship's gunwale.

Excruciating pain flooded his nerve endings like a tide.

Lin Jie tumbled to the deck, spitting another mouthful of blood onto the planks.

This was simply unwinnable.

Conventional combat logic was completely invalid here.

Whether it was bullets or evasive maneuvers, they all required one most basic premise—"motion."

As long as there was motion, it would be captured. Once captured, it would be frozen.

And the result of being frozen was being backlashed by one's own force.

"A perfect parabola."

Galliard stood at the center of the deck. He raised the conductor's baton in his hand, pointing it vaguely at Lin Jie lying on the ground, a disgusting smile hanging on his face.

"Your physical constitution is quite good, Mr. Lin."

"If it were an ordinary person, the inertia accumulated just now would have been enough to turn their internal organs to mush, but you only broke a few bones."

"That's good."

"It means my sculpture can maintain its freshness for a longer duration."

"Boom! Boom!"

Two gunshots interrupted Galliard's commentary.

It was William.

The veteran had used a roll to dissipate most of the force from the earlier impact and was now half-crouched behind a massive ventilation pipe.

The rifle in his hands spat tongues of flame.

It was the rapid-fire rhythm unique to a repeater rifle, two bullets forming a line to block Galliard's evasion space.

William knew very well this wouldn't hurt the other.

He was probing.

"Click."

The shutter sound rang out again.

The two bullets halted three meters away from Galliard.

They hovered in mid-air. Galliard turned sideways, then took out an exquisite small bottle from his pocket, pouring some powder into the groove on top of the camera.

It was magnesium powder, the oldest type of flash powder.

"Rude noise."

Galliard shook his head. He closed the camera's back cover again, his finger once again resting on the shutter release cable.

"Countdown over."

The two bullets resumed motion, but merely struck the empty deck, splashing up two meaningless showers of wood splinters.

Lin Jie pushed himself up from the ground.

His ribs screamed in agony; every breath felt like swallowing shards of glass.

But there was no trace of pain in his eyes. He was observing.

He was using this attack created by William to dissect the underlying logic of the opponent's ability.

Each freeze lasted approximately three seconds.

Whether the frozen target was a person or two bullets, the duration was constant.

More importantly, that camera.

It wasn't infinitely usable.

Every time Galliard pressed the shutter, he needed to perform an extremely brief tactical action: changing the negative or adding magnesium powder.

Although his hand speed was extremely fast, his movements fluid like a magic performance, that physical process objectively existed.

An interval of about one point five seconds.

This wasn't just the camera's cooldown time; it was also the Window of Vulnerability of the rules.

And then, the perspective.

Although that camera named [Death Shutter] had a bizarre design, its lens resembling an insect's compound eye, it still followed the basic principles of optics.

It had to "see" the target.

Its effective range was a fan-shaped area starting from the lens.

If one could escape this fan-shaped area the instant the shutter was pressed, or... create a blind spot it couldn't comprehend?

"William!"

Lin Jie suddenly shouted, then his entire body sprang up from the ground without any warning.

He charged at Galliard again.

It was a suicidal charge.

In Galliard's eyes, this was like a beast with broken legs making a final, desperate struggle.

"Lacking novelty."

Galliard sighed. He raised the camera, the lens once again aimed at Lin Jie.

"The same composition doesn't need to be captured twice."

His finger pressed down on the shutter.

"Click."

The flash lit up.

Lin Jie's figure was frozen once more.

He maintained an extremely forward-leaning sprinting posture, the [Silencer] in his right hand held in a reverse grip, its tip pointing at the deck, his left hand reaching forward as if trying to grab something.

Five meters away from Galliard.

This was an absolute safe distance. At this range, any melee weapon couldn't touch this "artist" in the slightest.

But at the exact same instant the shutter sounded, another gunshot followed.

William fired.

That bullet flew past the top of Lin Jie's head, striking straight into a massive metal valve not far behind Galliard.

It was the steam pressure relief valve for the foredeck capstan.

Back during the fight against the [parasitic anchor cluster], to maintain the boiler's overloaded operation, this valve had already been in an extremely unstable high-pressure state.

"Clang!"

The brass valve was shattered by the bullet.

A torrent of scalding high-pressure steam should have gushed out at that very moment, forming a deadly white column.

But, nothing.

Nothing happened.

Because Galliard's shutter's coverage area was too large.

That fan-shaped freezing zone not only encompassed the charging Lin Jie but also a large area behind and to the side of him.

That shattered valve, along with the high-pressure steam about to erupt, was also frozen.

The white steam maintained the shape it had just as it burst from the breach.

Like an extremely grotesque white mushroom cloud, stationary beside Galliard.

It contained terrifying pressure of thousands of pascals and thermal energy reaching several hundred degrees.

They too were "accumulated."

Galliard was momentarily stunned.

Through the camera's viewfinder, he saw that white monster frozen behind him.

As a master who toyed with kinetic energy, he understood what this meant better than anyone.

This wasn't part of the composition.

This was... the collapse of the background.

"Damn it."

A crack appeared for the first time on Galliard's face, which had always maintained its elegance.

He wanted to flee this dangerous area before the three-second countdown ended.

But he overlooked one thing.

Although Lin Jie was frozen, Lin Jie's mind was not.

Before the charge was initiated, Lin Jie had already activated the [Mental Staircase].

That module crafted by Arthur Conan was operating frantically in Lin Jie's mind, the phantom sound of gears meshing stretching his thought speed to the extreme.

He had calculated everything beforehand. He was betting on Galliard's arrogance.

That lunatic would definitely capture Lin Jie along with the background.

And under the overclocked state of the [Mental Staircase], in the millisecond before being frozen, Lin Jie performed an extremely minute action.

His left hand wasn't trying to grab something; he was throwing a small object.

It was a vial of extremely unstable powder he had gotten from Julian, containing a white substance.

That potion vial was also frozen.

It hovered in front of Lin Jie's palm, less than four meters from Galliard's lens.

"Three."

Lin Jie counted silently in his heart.

He was enduring the inertial pressure inside him that threatened to tear him apart.

It was an impact more violent than before, because this time he was at full sprint speed.

But he didn't care.

"Two."

Galliard began to retreat.

He abandoned his plan to continue "sculpting" Lin Jie; he had to get away from that frozen steam cloud.

But one point five seconds wasn't enough for him to run out of the explosion range.

"One."

The corner of Lin Jie's mouth lifted into a bloodstained curve.

Time, flow.

"Boom!"

The high-pressure steam suppressed for three seconds erupted instantly.

It became a white, scalding solid wall, spreading outward with overwhelming, destructive force.

Simultaneously, that vial of Alchemy Potion exploded.

Intense magnesium light erupted at extremely close range, directly impacting the camera's photosensitive element—that purple crystal lens.

For the [Death Shutter], which operated based on optical rules, this was the most direct blinding.

"Ah!"

Galliard let out a scream.

He was struck head-on by that terrifying wave of steam.

Although at the last moment he tried to press the shutter again to freeze this impact, the blinded lens simply couldn't lock focus.

That elegant figure was blown away like a leaf caught in a gale, slamming heavily against the bulletproof glass of the bridge.

The white suit became filthy, wrinkled and scorched by the high-temperature steam.

His gold-rimmed glasses were also shattered, the fragments cutting his meticulously maintained face.

And Lin Jie wasn't faring well either.

The moment the inertia exploded, he felt as if he were being pulled apart by five horses simultaneously.

He was hurled through the air again. This time, he couldn't control his posture, tumbling into the pile of frozen-then-thawed steam like a ragdoll.

High temperatures scorched his skin.

But he wasn't dead yet.

He struggled to lift his head, peering through the diffuse white mist at the figure collapsed below the bridge.

That brass camera still hung from his neck. Although its surface was somewhat charred, it didn't seem completely destroyed.

This lunatic's life force was absurdly tenacious.

"Lunatic..."

Galliard spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva. His gaze turned venomous and frenzied.

"You ruined my negative. You ruined my composition."

He trembled as he raised the camera, attempting to reload the magnesium powder.

But just then, the sky suddenly darkened.

A mass of clouds, black as ink, enveloped this stretch of sea.

"Splash!"

Bean-sized raindrops began to fall.

The torrential rain characteristic of tropical seas arrived, swift and violent.

In mere seconds, the downpour covered the entire Black Seagull.

Rainwater washed over the bloodstains and coal dust on the deck, making a crackling sound.

Galliard's movements suddenly froze.

He watched as the raindrops fell on his camera, into that open magnesium powder slot.

Once dry magnesium powder got damp, it couldn't combust instantly to produce intense light.

Moreover, the dense curtain of rain severely interfered with light transmission. Refraction and scattering made it impossible for the lens to accurately capture the target's outline.

For the [Death Shutter], this kind of **torrential rain weather** was an absolute no-go zone.

"Damn it."

Galliard cursed.

He glanced at Lin Jie lying on the ground, then at William still holding his gun in the distance.

The venomous look in his eyes gradually receded, turning back into rational scrutiny.

He was a hunter, but more so an artist.

When there was no suitable light or environment, forcing a creation would only produce inferior work.

And his camera needed maintenance.

"Consider yourselves lucky."

Galliard closed the camera's back cover, tightly wrapping the precious Armament in his overcoat.

"This rain saved you."

"But it won't last forever."

He took one last look at Lin Jie.

"We'll meet in Europe, Mr. Lin."

"By then, I'll prepare a grander stage for you."

With that, Galliard turned and jumped onto the ship's gunwale.

He froze his own legs mid-air, using that levitation ability to glide like a large white bird toward the black speedboat anchored on the distant sea surface.

As the steam engine's roar sounded, that white figure swiftly disappeared into the vast curtain of rain.

Lin Jie lay limp on the deck, letting the icy-cold rainwater wash over his burning hot body.

This was a Pyrrhic victory.

One could even say that if not for this timely downpour, he and William might truly have died here.

If not constrained by environment and tools, with just their current means, they couldn't pose a lethal threat to him at all.

Lin Jie moved his fingers with difficulty.

"Mobility."

Lin Jie muttered to himself in the rain.

His voice was soft, masked by the rain, only audible to himself.

William put away his gun and limped over, starting to examine Lin Jie's injuries.

Author's Note