The system is four years ahead of schedule, but Weird is still a cub.

The carcass of a giant sea turtle floated silently in the center of this misty sea, its shell resembling a small mountain.

The surface of the tortoise shell is mottled and covered with deep grooves left by time and some kind of great force. There are even some twisted moss plants growing on it, emitting a faint light.

The eerie, bluish-green light emanated from the countless orifices and crevices of the massive corpse's shell.

What made them even more uneasy was that the remains were unusually well-preserved.

It was not rotting; its skin was a grayish-white, like dried leather. Its limbs and head remained intact, and its enormous, hill-like head drooped as if it had simply fallen asleep. Were it not for the gnawed holes on its body, it would be easy to mistake it for still alive.

Compared to it, "Ark No. 1" was as small as a withered leaf.

“What…what is this…” Kyle murmured to himself. He had never seen such a huge creature before. Even the oldest sea god in the tribe’s legends could not compare to it.

The scene in Shen Ge's vision caused his gaze to darken.

Within the giant tortoise's corpse, an immense and suffocatingly powerful energy, like a slowly rotating nebula, continuously emanated.

That bluish-green light was the halo produced when the highly concentrated evil energy reacted with the air.

This thick fog, which covers an area of ​​tens or even hundreds of kilometers of sea, is not a natural phenomenon at all.

It is a huge "ghostly domain" formed by the eerie energy emanating from this corpse!
This is its territory, its grave.

The “songs” they heard and the illusions they saw were all the result of their ship entering this eerie realm and being corrupted by the immense spiritual energy permeating the air.

The source of "Whispers in the Mist" lies in the very thing before us—the Ghost King, who has been dead for who knows how many years!
Having confirmed this, Shen Ge immediately ordered, "Retreat, Roca, we need to leave here immediately."

This corpse is like an unprotected bio-energy reactor, continuously radiating deadly bio-energy. The longer they remain, the more likely their minds will be completely corrupted, ultimately reducing them to beings like phantoms in the mist.

However, despite Roca's desperate attempts to turn the rudder, Ark No. 1 remained completely still.

"Brother! No! The boat... the boat is being sucked in by something!" Roca cried out in terror.

Shen Ge walked to the side of the ship and looked down. He saw that countless translucent energy threads, like jellyfish tentacles, had appeared beneath the sea surface. They extended from the direction of the giant turtle corpse and tightly wrapped around the bottom of the "Ark No. 1".

They were trapped.

Like an insect that accidentally flies into a spider web, it becomes unable to move when it senses danger.

The atmosphere on the ship fell into dead silence again. Having just escaped the illusion of being corrupted by supernatural energy, they had fallen into a more concrete physical trap.

Shen Ge looked at the mountain-like tortoise shell, then at the drooping tortoise head in front of him. He knew that although the corpse was dead, the rules of the "ghostly domain" it had established were still in operation, instinctively repelling and eroding all external spiritual entities.

But now that Ark is trapped, he has only one choice: climb up the turtle's back along the drooping head and try to absorb the powerful ghost energy to restore his strength, thereby helping Ark break free from his restraints.

There is no other way!
The moment this thought arose, Shen Ge decided to go up and take a look. Although it was bound to be dangerous up there, they needed supplies and intelligence.

"Let's go up and take a look," Shen Ge called to the group.

Although everyone was afraid, following Shen Ge made them feel at ease.

Using a rope made of strange tendons, Shen Ge easily tossed it onto a lower edge of the tortoise shell, secured it, and then became the first to climb up.

Then, using their superior strength, they pulled the people aboard one by one. It was safer to have them by their side than to leave them on the ship.

When they finally stepped onto that vast, mottled turtle shell, which resembled the surface of an alien planet, everyone was once again stunned by the sight before them.

The turtle shell was not entirely silent.

Scattered among those enormous ravines and crevices, there were actually some... man-made structures!

They were simple yet bizarre "tents" and "huts" built from broken ship planks, weathered animal bones, and dried, eerie skin. A few wisps of smoke were rising from the tops of some of the huts.

There really are humans here!

No, perhaps... not entirely.

Because just a short distance ahead of them, in front of a "small hut," a "person" dressed in tattered clothes was facing away from them, using a stone tool to deal with an unknown, phosphorescent fish.

Hearing the noise behind him, the "person" slowly turned around.

The moment they saw his face clearly, Ellie and Roca couldn't help but let out a suppressed gasp and instinctively took a step back.

That face, half of it resembling a normal human, was marked by the ravages of time.

The other half, however, was covered with slippery, octopus-like tentacles and a disproportionately large, murky fish eye!

Although... the Alai family also developed "fish" characteristics due to the increased ocean coverage, compared to these people, it was like the difference between angels and demons.

When the "half-human, half-monster" creature saw Shen Ge and his group, a look of extreme fear and confusion flashed in its eyes, as if it had seen something that should not exist in the world.

His enormous fish eyes darted wildly, while his other half-human face was filled with vigilance. He then dropped the strange fish, held the stone tool across his chest, and emitted a cryptic, hissing sound like a leaky bellows.

Shen Ge did not step forward immediately. He calmly raised one hand, signaling to Alai and the others behind him not to make any rash moves.

His eerie eyes clearly saw that the human aura and the eerie aura within the creature before him had reached a strange balance.

He wasn't purely eerie; he was more like a human being deeply "assimilated" by the environment. He didn't actively radiate malice; his demeanor was more like the self-defense of a frightened wild beast.

His existence is very much like that of a "weirdo," but a weirdo implants strange cells into his body; strictly speaking, he is still human in some ways and strange in others.

But this "weirdo" has already fused with bizarre cells, which are part of his body. This "form" is the form that the weirdos in "reality" dream of!
“We… mean no harm,” Shen Ge tried, speaking in an extremely slow and clear tone. He didn’t know if the other party could understand him, after all, the Alai family hadn’t spoken Chinese before, but it was a necessary gesture.

Upon hearing the familiar human language, the strange man reacted even more violently. He looked at Shen Ge with an incredulous gaze, a trace of struggle and pain showing in his turbid fish eyes.

He seemed to want to say something, but could only utter a few broken, meaningless syllables. His face, half human, was twitching with muscle tension from excessive agitation.

Prolonged solitude and environmental erosion seemed to have robbed him of most of his language abilities. Just as the atmosphere reached a stalemate, another figure emerged from a more "complete" shed built with huge ribs next to it.

This is an old man with a hunched back.

He looked much more "normal" than the strange man before him; apart from his skin being covered in grayish-white spots resembling fish scales, his facial features and limbs still retained a human form. He leaned on a cane made from the spine of some kind of creature and slowly walked over, step by step.

His eyes, deep-set in their sockets, were unusually bright, or rather... clear-headed.

"Fresh...faces".

The old man's voice was hoarse and dry, as if he hadn't spoken a proper word in decades, but his words were clear: "It's been... a long time... since any 'guest' has been able to climb the 'turtle's back' and remain sane."

He glanced at the still wary strange man, tapped the ground lightly with his cane, and spoke to him in a peculiar language, mixed with trilled 'r' sounds and hissing.

The half-human, half-monster "fishman" gradually calmed down. Although he remained vigilant, he put away his weapon and stepped aside.

The old man's gaze finally settled on Shen Ge, who was at the head of the group. His cloudy eyes scanned Shen Ge up and down, his gaze filled with inquiry and scrutiny.

The old man slowly said, "Ordinary ships, once they get close to the 'Tomb of Sleep,' will be entangled in its 'dream,' either becoming ghost ships that wander forever, or the crew will jump into the sea and become part of the 'dream.' How... how did you get on?"

Shen Ge's eyes flickered slightly.

The Tomb of Sleep?

Is that what you call the giant tortoise carcass?

Dreams? Do you mean those hallucinations and whispers?

This old man clearly knows a lot.

"We were just lucky," Shen Ge replied succinctly, without revealing the secret of absorbing the strange energy.

"We need supplies. Fresh water, food. We can trade."

As he spoke, he took out a small piece of dried wild boar tusk meat, which had been smoked on the island and still smelled delicious, from his backpack.

In this environment, any food not derived from the ocean is extremely precious.

Sure enough, upon seeing the piece of jerky, the old man's Adam's apple bobbed noticeably, and a glint of longing flashed in his eyes, but he quickly suppressed the desire.

"Food and water are plentiful in the 'cemetery'."

He pointed with his cane to the twisted moss on the tortoise shell and the faintly glowing liquid seeping from the cracks: "You can eat this moss, and you can drink the liquid after filtering it. But they all come at a price... If you eat too much and drink too much, you will slowly become... like him."

The old man pointed to the survivor who was half-human and half-monster.

"You will begin to 'understand' the dreams of the god of sleep, and you will 'see' the crazy scenes in its memory. Until one day, your mind can no longer distinguish between reality and dreams. At that time, you will become a part of the 'dream,' a gravedigger who can never leave this 'cemetery.'"

The old man's words sent a chill down Alai's spine.

They finally realized that this was not a safe haven, but a prison of despair, a slow poison.

The survivors here are simply walking towards another form of death in a slow and gradual way.

Shen Ge opened his eerie eyes and scanned the "moss" the old man had mentioned. Sure enough, there was still a strong "eerie energy" inside. Long-term consumption could indeed have the effect of being eroded by the eerie energy.

But in "reality," long-term consumption of such highly concentrated, cult-like corrosive substances would lead to organ failure and death in humans. So why is it... assimilation? Fusion here?

"If that's the case, why are you still here?" Kyle couldn't help but ask. In his opinion, rather than living like this, neither human nor ghost, it would be better to sail out and die at sea.

The old man glanced at him with his cloudy eyes, as if he were looking at an innocent child.

“Go out?” He laughed hoarsely, his laughter filled with sorrow and self-mockery. “Young man, do you think we haven’t tried? The sea outside… is ten thousand times more terrifying than ‘Sleeping Dream’. Although it will erode your sanity, at least it can… keep out those… ‘hunters’.”

"The hunter?" Shen Ge keenly grasped this key word.

A deep-seated fear flashed across the old man's face. He didn't answer directly, but instead pointed with his cane to the center of the tortoise shell—

That tallest, ridge-like carapace.

“We are merely ‘outsiders,’ living on the edge of the ‘graveyard.’ The real secrets, and everything we can trade, lie ‘deep within.’”

The old man lowered his voice even further, with a hint of awe: "There lies our 'leader,' the 'Prophet.' She is the one who survived from the previous era and is closest to the 'God of Sleep.' Only she knows how to survive in this mad sea."

Shen Ge looked in the direction he pointed and saw that on the towering tortoise shell, there seemed to be some building outlines that were more regular than the surrounding shacks.

Just then, a melodious yet eerie song drifted from that direction.

The song was completely different from the one they heard in the fog, which was full of temptation and sorrow, intended to lead people astray.

This song, though also inhuman, carried a sacred, solemn, hymn-like rhythm. It seemed to soothe the restless energy within the giant corpse, calming the surrounding eerie energy.

Even the half-human, half-monster survivor, after hearing the song, showed much less madness and chaos on his face, and even a hint of piety appeared in his huge fish eyes.

Shen Ge's brows furrowed even deeper.

His strange eyes could "see" that, as the song began, a spiritual energy fluctuation of extremely high purity but completely different nature was emanating from deep within the tortoise shell.

It was like an invisible net, covering the entire tortoise shell and enveloping and connecting the spirits of all the survivors.

This is less a form of "comfort" and more a more sophisticated form of... "control".

Evil energy corruption! (End of Chapter)