abnormal mutation

Chapter 144 Spider Web and Prey

It was all text, a string of the word "rescue," nothing else.

Mysterious man: "What's wrong?"

Singer: "Help me!"

Roland frowned, a vague guess forming in his mind.

His eyes were vacant as he focused intently on Colin's condition, sensing that he was in a strange state.

My body is fine, but my soul and spirituality are severely depleted, and my consciousness is chaotic. I'm probably... being controlled.

He asked a few more questions, but got nothing out of her. At first, she could still reply with a word of help, but later she stopped responding altogether.

'They've been discovered? Could it be he's encountered pirates too?!'

Roland was filled with questions. Colin was not a reckless person, and the security around North Bay was quite good. It must be unusual for him to suddenly encounter a danger that even a Sequence 8 Extraordinary could not handle.

He clapped his hands loudly to attract Nami and the others' attention: "Something's happened, get ready for battle."

Without waiting for anyone else's response, he put on his hood and leaped into the endless sky in stealth mode.

…………

The strait is dark and quiet at night, with the seawater rippling and waves spreading. If you didn't know better, you would think it was an inland lake.

Two cruise ships, one large and one small, sailed simultaneously on the calm sea, one in front of the other, the larger one towing the smaller one. The roar of the steam engines and the thick smoke made the night a mess.

The large cruise ship in front has "Bastad" written on its hull, while the smaller cruise ship behind has "Windsor" written on its hull; both are white and have a similar style.

"My dear sister, do you think you're safe once you leave Almosid? Naive! You don't understand the logic of how this world works..." The voice was shrill and mad, piercing the hull and disappearing into the night.

The two guards on duty at the stern of the small cruise ship exchanged a glance and tacitly moved a little further away to avoid overhearing anything they shouldn't.

A middle-aged man sat on the top terrace of the cruise ship, drinking tea with a contented expression. Hearing the noise below, a hint of disdain flashed in his eyes.

At this moment, the cabin was in a mess. A girl in a court dress was hanging to one side, her bare toes barely touching the carpet. A pair of black eyes were visible through her messy hair, her stubbornness tinged with anger.

"Not going to speak?" A pair of oversized leather shoes stepped over the shards of glass, approaching the girl, raising a glass of deep red wine above her head, tilting it slightly, letting the wine flow down her hair and face.

"You've gone mad! Do you know what you're doing?" The girl glared at him, her eyes flashing with complex emotions.

"What did our old-fashioned father teach you?" The man grinned, revealing a set of gleaming white teeth. "Killing is simple and effective. You don't actually think everything the Richard family has is earned, do you?"

“Even if it was earned,” the man narrowed his eyes, and a few more wrinkles appeared at the corners of his eyes, as if he had two more eyes, “it was something I, Bastad, earned time and time again with my life.”

And you, Windsor! Dressed to the nines, attending all sorts of extravagant parties, enjoying the flattery and glory as the sole heir of the Richard family.

Do you deserve it?!

“We have a legitimate business.” The girl closed her eyes; the person in front of her seemed so unfamiliar. “Father has made all the arrangements. You fake your death, escape, and return to the family as an illegitimate child. Everything will be alright…”

"I can't get through!" The man was furious, his voice so loud that the glass next to him trembled. "I risked my life for my family, and... in the end, I became a despised illegitimate child. Why?"
He's getting senile, don't you understand? Is this kind of business something you can start and stop whenever you want?

Don't blame me; everything I did was for the continuation of the family line.

Windsor's pupils contracted, and she abruptly raised her head: "You've sided with them? You killed Father?"

The man remained noncommittal: "Without me, the Richard surname would have been extinct."

"How could you do this—" the girl screamed with all her might, her voice filled with shock and accusation.

The man kept his head down, letting the girl kick him repeatedly until she got tired. Then she looked up, tears streaming down her dark face: "I had no choice, I had no choice..."

He bent down and embraced his sister's waist, inhaling her scent, gently pressing a dagger against her ribs, tears streaming down his face, soaking her clothes and hair.
"Don't hate me..."

But just as he was about to stab the girl with the dagger, he suddenly found that his body was out of control; his hands, feet, torso, and even his eyes were beyond his control.

Time seemed to stand still; everything around us was as if it had fallen into amber, and even our clothes and hair remained perfectly still.

Windsor was also an extraordinary being, and of course she knew this was not an illusion, but her still-beating heart and faint breathing told her that she was still alive and things couldn't get any worse.

Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of a tall, golden figure. She tried to see it more clearly, but she couldn't.

At the stern, Roland was forced to appear, his expression grave.

Countless threads intertwine around it, forming a huge three-dimensional spider web that completely envelops the entire cruise ship, resembling a giant cocoon.

Invisible threads pierce through the deck, carpet, and human body, imprisoning their bodies, spirits, traits, and even thoughts.

Only the middle-aged man on the top of the cruise ship was still moving, as if he were performing a mechanical dance, his face contorted in a grimace, each movement appearing extremely difficult.

Roland had just arrived and fell into the sea while invisible, but fortunately he was prepared and used spider silk to pull himself back to the ship.

After listening to a "secret tale of a wealthy family," he found Colin unconscious in the cabin, along with several seriously injured or even dead crew members, and enough fuel to burn the ship to dust.

The dozen or so armed men were not difficult to deal with, but the most troublesome one was the mid-sequence extraordinary individual on the top of the cruise ship. His life strength was only half that of him, but he brought him an extremely strong sense of oppression.

Roland did not confront them head-on. Instead, he used his invisibility to weave a net little by little, but unexpectedly, each thread also carried a "secret" and remained undetected.

So he wasn't in a hurry. Using himself and the cruise ship as a base, he quietly wove a giant cocoon from the outside in, and then unleashed it at the crucial moment.

Countless threads cling to or penetrate the human body, restricting their movements and isolating their bodies into increasingly smaller areas, gradually eroding and controlling them until even their spirit and mind are rendered unable to function.

"Bang bang bang—"

The threads snapped silently, yet Roland perceived them with remarkable clarity.

He dared not relax, but his face showed a hint of confidence. If the other party was not vigilant enough and fell into the trap, they would not be able to escape unless they were several times stronger than him.

The middle-aged man's eyes widened in anger, his violent spirit erupted, his veins bulged, his muscles bulged little by little, and his body slowly expanded like an inflating balloon, with the dense threads bursting open one after another.

But the man's gaze grew increasingly solemn, his eyes filled with the crisscrossing transparent threads, densely packed with nodes, extremely complex, and with a strange rhythm that carried a murderous intent.

He only broke the end of the silk thread, without shaking the foundation of the spider web. Every second, hundreds and thousands of silk threads shot in from all directions, clinging to his hair and skin, and quietly seeping into his flesh and soul.

Every spider silk can silently steal a life.

"Who are you--"

The roar, carrying a violent aura, shattered a spider silk, but before the sound could even be heard, it was cut and pulverized by the surging tide of silk threads, not even half a meter away, let alone the cruise ship hundreds of meters away.

Spider silk, skilled in military strategy, seized the moment when the opponent's spirit was in turmoil and launched a full-scale attack, instantly wrapping the middle-aged man up layer by layer and binding him tightly.

His face resembled a rag doll torn and stitched together, fragmented without seams, some parts smiling, some angry, the controlled tissues and limbs gradually diminishing.

His body, which had swelled to three meters, was forcibly "pressed" back down. He appeared to be standing, but his toes had been hoisted off the hull.

This time, he couldn't even do the robot dance anymore; he could only perform mime. His fractured expression profoundly conveyed what it meant to be three parts shock, three parts fear, three parts despair, and one part regret!
"Heh, why are you everywhere!" The voice was laced with sarcasm.

The middle-aged man caught a glimpse of a flowing golden light out of the corner of his eye, but before he could even think about it, his mind went completely blank.

(End of this chapter)