「Half a day earlier,」

Onboard the Pharaoh, in Ptolemy’s parlor.

A girl who looked to be thirteen was leaning over a table, softly humming a song. She was using a paintbrush to sketch the figure of a man on a sheet of paper. That man was none other than Shi Ming, standing on a ship with exploding cannon fire and the damaged Pharaoh behind him.

Stroke by stroke, the girl painted with intense focus.

The paintbrush in her hand perfectly captured Shi Ming’s high-spirited and fearless posture, bringing it to life on the paper.

This was Pandoria from Moon Shadow. Codename: 2D Girl.

She possessed the S-rank skill, Man in the Painting.

Strictly speaking, when the skill had belonged to a sea beast, it was called Beast in the Painting. But the girl thought the name sounded unpleasant and had taken the liberty of renaming it "Man in the Painting."

The girl outlined the image stroke by stroke, and soon, the colored painting was complete.

Her eyes became vacant and distant as she gazed at the painting.

The ink twisted, and lines of information began to appear in the painting’s bottom-right corner. This was one application of the "Man in the Painting" skill—it could create a portrait to serve as an identification guide and analyze an enemy.

[Creature Identification Guide - 01228]

[Name: Shi Ming]

[Age: ???... ?M8<^N/-@999#$_Q*97Y"_D, Exceeds limits, data error.]

[Hobby: Combat]

[Location: 22.5°E, 1°N]

[Skills: ...a.SJWL, H)aM8<^N/-@#, Cannot be analyzed.]

As the string of garbled code appeared, the information on the portrait seemed to glitch.

Then, it abruptly exploded.

Shreds of paper fluttered through the parlor, like snowflakes over the Radogalia Sea in the dead of winter.

Despite the sudden turn of events, the girl’s expression remained indifferent, without a hint of emotion, as if she herself were an aloof creature that had stepped out of a painting.

The blond-haired Tatasta, however, chuckled and instinctually began to mock her,

"So this is all the 39th-ranked Man in the Painting can do? All you found was a location and a hobby. Come on, we’re not stalking a celebrity here. And this still ranks above my Spatial Secret Pattern? That’s ridiculous..."

Before he could finish, the girl turned her head toward him.

Tatasta felt an immense crushing pressure.

His handsome face felt like it was about to be flattened.

He mobilized his Spatial Power and instantly changed his position. In the spot where he had been, a sheet of paper materialized in mid-air and slowly fluttered down.

"Hey, little sis, we’re all teammates here. I was just joking, no need to get so serious," Tatasta said with a devil-may-care attitude.

Even though he was about to become a father, he was as immature as ever, completely lacking any seriousness.

The 2D Girl, Pandoria, ignored him.

A man wreathed in dark shadows spoke up to smooth things over. "Alright, since we have the coordinates, let’s set out. Based on the previous intel, we’ve already deduced the target’s likely skills. There’s no need to dwell on minor failures."

"Alrighty."

Tatasta nodded.

He snapped his fingers, and along with the girl and the shadowy man, he instantly vanished from the parlor, reappearing on a small drifter ship not far from the Pharaoh.

In the vast parlor, only Ptolemy remained.

He looked at the spot where the three had vanished and couldn’t help but feel a pang of jealousy. All three of them were extraordinary individuals. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

Tatasta from the Black Society,

Shadow from the Lighthouse,

And Pandoria from Moon Shadow.

With the three of them working together, they had an eighty percent chance of hunting down even an S-rank sea beast. But when hunting an S-rank sea beast, the spoils would be difficult to divide, and it would involve too many competing interests, costs, and risks, making cooperation unlikely.

But hunting Shi Ming, on the other hand, offered great benefits, as it could satisfy the demands of four different powers at once.

The Lighthouse, the organizers of this hunt, had laid claim to Shi Ming’s corpse and his drifter ship.

The Black Society wanted the Map of the Endless Sea and the Taunt Stone.

Moon Shadow wanted the Calm Sea Pearl, as well as any other spoils that might appear.

As for the Pharaoh?

He just wanted his dignity back.

Beyond that, he couldn’t ask for much more.

...

...

...

Half a day after the trio set out, Shi Ming, who was in the captain’s quarters, received a warning from the Eye of the World!

Enemies were approaching!

He showed no change in expression, but he stirred his Spiritual Power to scan the entire Da Yun. Finding no living creatures, he cautiously walked out of the captain’s quarters and onto the ship’s empty deck. At the same time, his consciousness began to probe the Da Yun’s Sea Patrol Radar.

It was strange. Within a ten-nautical-mile radius, there were no creatures of D-rank or higher.

A whale-bird flew across the sky.

Its shadow, cast upon the deck, was unnaturally dark.

SWOOSH!

The shadow suddenly transformed into a dark, sharp arrow, stabbing toward Shi Ming’s back like the Grim Reaper’s scythe, intent on reaping his life.

Shi Ming, already on alert, activated the Black Tortoise Shield at just the right moment!

BANG!

The powerful attack struck something as solid as metal and stone and was met with a massive rebound. The Shadow’s opening strike had failed. Fifty percent of the damage was reflected, and even though damage taken was greatly reduced in his shadow state, he was still forcefully knocked out of hiding, stumbling into view on the deck.

His right hand was bleeding profusely.

Hmph!

Shi Ming seized the initiative, launching a counter-attack. A Blade of Frost, enveloped in the ultimate sharpness of Ice Annihilation Power, slashed toward the shadowy man’s throat!

Seeing that his first strike had failed, the shadowy man retreated explosively, his body turning to shadow once more to evade the counter-attack.

"Skulking coward!"

"Ice Annihilation!"

Immense cold energy condensed, and the temperature on deck instantly dropped by more than thirty degrees. Seeing the enemy’s sudden, powerful-looking attack, the crew of the Da Yun didn’t rush forward to help. Instead, they monitored the ship’s detection radar and thermal weapons, providing Shi Ming with warnings and support from a third-person perspective.

It was a strategy they had practiced many times.

With the sudden plunge in temperature on deck, anyone with low Defense Power would be unable to hide for long in such an environment and would inevitably reveal their position.

"Found you!"

In a flash, Shi Ming kicked at a shadow by the railing!

Mid-movement, he directly activated Descent of the Titan.

Facing an S-rank Awakened—and likely more than one—he had to go all out from the very beginning.

Within three seconds, as if the hands of a clock had jumped, the power of the Titan descended.

The pointer stopped at the ninth mark.

BOOM!

A clap of thunder echoed across the sky. Shi Ming’s hair turned from pure black to the color of lightning, each strand standing on end and crackling with energy. Electrical patterns flickered across his body, and within his deep eyes, great silver bolts of lightning seemed to flash, as if he had transformed into a god of the sky and lightning.

Ten Thousand Tribulations Thunder Body!

An offensive skill!

Lightning slithered across the deck like thick snakes, leaving no place for an enemy to hide. In the once-clear sky, dark thunderclouds gathered rapidly, brewing a full ten thousand bolts of lightning.

His lightning-wreathed right leg struck the phantom in the shadows dead-on!

The lurking rat was swiftly knocked back, falling and merging into the ocean.

’Is that all you’ve got?’

’And you dare attempt an assassination?’

Shi Ming hovered in mid-air, his aura one of savage and ultimate tyranny.

He was even a little worried about his own drifter ship.

Ten Thousand Tribulations Thunder Body was an indiscriminate attack and could even damage a General-class drifter ship. The Da Yun was now General-class, so its Defense Power was decent, and activating the lightning protection equipment could mitigate some of the damage. But within the Ten Thousand Tribulations Thunder Prison, it was impossible to escape completely unscathed. Repairs would definitely be a pain afterward.

’There’s no helping it,’ he thought.

Crackling lightning gathered in Shi Ming’s right hand.

His voice became extremely magnetic.

According to the Eye of the World’s warning, there were at least two enemies.

One possessed an ability called "Light-Dark Duality"—that was likely the assassin from just now. The other was called "2D Girl," which was probably a codename within some organization, but he didn’t know what skills she possessed.

A dark shadow flickered across the ocean’s surface, and a humanoid figure emerged:

"Tatasta, what are you still doing? Move the battlefield, now!"

"Mr. Ying, you’re pathetic! An assassin who can’t even get close to his target and gets pushed back this badly?"

The voice rang out, but no enemy was in sight.

Shi Ming felt the space around him tighten. In an instant, the area he occupied was forcefully carved out, unavoidably taking the assassin named Shadow with him. They reappeared together three nautical miles away, far from the Da Yun.

’A direct teleport?’

’So domineering? What kind of skill is this?’

...

...

Forcefully expending long-accumulated Spatial Power to move Shi Ming was part of the trio’s pre-arranged battle plan.

Step one: Mr. Ying attempts the assassination.

Step two: If the assassination fails, Tatasta would use his Spatial Secret Pattern to forcibly move the enemy to their chosen battlefield. There, the three of them would attack together, avoiding a fight on the enemy’s home ground and denying the target any chance of resupply or third-party intervention.

Step three: Use their hidden trump card, a unique artifact from the Lighthouse, to quickly press their advantage and prevent the target from escaping.

Step four: Kill the target and retrieve the drifter ship.

Shi Ming hovered in mid-air, the thunderclouds in the sky having moved with him.

He looked around.

It was a desolate stretch of sea. A seven- or eight-meter-long drifter ship emerged from a spatial rift.

A young man with golden hair stood at the bow, looking at Shi Ming with a faint smile. Inside the cabin, a girl hummed a soft song as she drew on a piece of paper with a thick, short paintbrush. The assassin from before stood on the surface of the sea, light and shadow flowing over his body.

"Let’s get him together!"

Tatasta teleported instantly.

Shadow, still standing on the water, took out the unique artifact from the Lighthouse: an ancient-looking codex.

The girl remained in the cabin, her head bowed as she painted.

The three of them formed a triangle, surrounding Shi Ming.

The glare of lightning was magnificent, thundering powerfully.

In a battle between experts, every second counts. Shi Ming analyzed the situation in a split second and saw the assassin, who was floating above the ocean, flip the ancient codex in his hand to a blank page.

He casually recited:

"Gorinchis Scripture, Article three hundred and twenty!"

"Deserters are forbidden on the battlefield!"

Strange text began to write itself on the blank page, and a binding rule seemed to descend upon the surrounding sea, turning it into a battlefield one could only enter, but not leave. Every living thing in this patch of the sea, including the fish swimming below, was now unable to escape.

"Interesting."

"Escape?"

"Don’t you know that combat is my favorite thing?"

Shi Ming’s voice was deep and magnetic. Even as the assassin Shadow was loudly proclaiming the rule, Shi Ming’s fist was already closing in. In his opinion, this assassin’s Attack Power was high, but his Defense Power was only average. If he could take him down quickly, the pressure for the rest of the fight would be lessened.

Tatasta snapped his fingers, and Shadow’s position instantly changed.

However, in that brief moment, one of the lightning bolts that had been raining down from the sky struck Tatasta squarely on the head, making his entire body go numb and singeing his soft golden hair.

"F***!"

Tatasta cursed under his breath.

And the girl, who had been absorbed in her painting, finally looked up.

She picked up her newly finished painting and casually tossed it out.

The piece of paper fluttered through the air.

A bizarrely shaped great serpent tore through the two-dimensional confines of the paper and emerged from the painting.