Survival at Sea: My Warship is a Rubber Duck?

Chapter 145 Raising, Cutting Flesh

After the transformation, the physical abilities of these cult members did indeed increase several times over!

They seemed to have broken free from the constraints of their human bodies and gained some of the power of the alien creatures fused into their bloodlines.

A cultist whose arms transformed into crab claws bent his legs slightly and slammed his enhanced arms down on the ground, causing several cracks to appear on the deck beneath him!

His body, like a cannonball, easily traversed the nearly twenty-meter distance between the ships, crashing heavily onto the bow of the Little Yellow Duck! The heavy impact caused the deck to tremble slightly.

Another cultist, his head split open and insect-like mouthparts protruding, used all four limbs to quickly climb vertically along the outside of the ship's side, using the floating debris of the "Multi-Child" as if walking on flat ground. His speed was astonishing; in the blink of an eye, he had already climbed over the railing, emitting excited hissing sounds.

One, two, three — in just a few breaths, seven or eight ferocious figures of various shapes landed on the deck of the Little Yellow Duck, and many more were on their way.

They crawled, stood, or clung twistedly to the gun muskets, their ferocious gazes all fixed on the young captain in the center of the deck, who held a harpoon and whose arms were covered in bone armor.

The Crab Claw Cultist roared in a deep, rumbling voice, the two massive pincers snapping shut with a piercing screeching sound: "We might not be able to win in ship battles, but we can certainly fight in close combat! Without that cannon, you're just an ordinary person! And we have twenty-three enhanced warriors!"

The hooded monster's tentacles had firmly wrapped around the side railings of the Little Yellow Duck, and its suction cups were gripping the hull tightly.

Instead of rushing forward, he used his tentacles to hold himself in place, his entire body hanging off the outside of the ship's side, revealing only his distorted face covered in scales and fleshy tendrils, making it difficult to distinguish between male and female.

He grinned maliciously, his mind racing:

Looking back now, all the server-wide announcements that this "You're about to hit the jackpot" message received were related to upgrading ships. With sturdy ships, powerful cannons, incredible speed, and the ability to fly, it's only natural that it would also top some less important leaderboards.

Having suffered from a lack of intelligence, their side was indeed overwhelmed in a direct confrontation at sea.

But no matter how powerful a ship is, the captain is still just a human.

Once you get on the deck and close the distance, no matter how powerful his ship is, he can still fire cannons at your hull.

Without the advantage of ships, how will he withstand the simultaneous attack of seven or eight mutated warriors who have undergone "breeding enhancement"?!

What's more, other soldiers are on their way!

The hooded monster was plotting how to command the siege and kill in one blow, but his eyes were fixed on Yu Wang's face.

He wanted to see panic.

I want to see fear.

I want to see this high and mighty "number one" person show a look of despair in front of them and other outcasts.

However, there was no panic on Yu Wang's face.

There wasn't even the slightest ripple.

The desire to charge forward was instantly extinguished, as if a bucket of ice water had been poured over it.

Even the ducks in the cabin didn't pick up weapons like knives and guns, but rather brooms, shovels, and other tools to clean up the corpses.

An ordinary duck with black spots on its eyes poked its head out, looked at the ferocious figure waving tentacles and bone pincers outside, and casually quacked.

Once that was the beginning, the group of ducks started chatting.

Wow, there are so many people!

"Gah~ Gah gah! (And they're all quite big, not easy to move!)"

"Quack (Don't worry, the new bone duck is very strong, no need to ask Boss Duck for help.)"

"Gaga~ga? (How can you say so much after just two sounds?)"

"Gah (That's why I'm letting you learn more from Teacher Duck C; this is called the art of language conciseness)"

On the sea, a huge, menacing black shadow silently pierced the night.

The Ghost Pirate Ship has broken free of its stealth and made its appearance!

Propelled at full speed of 50 knots, their target was the remaining five ships!

The cultists on the ship had just completed their transformation and were preparing to board and provide support when they saw a mountain hurtling towards them.

"What is that?!"

boom!!

The seventy-meter-tall behemoth rampaged wildly, destroying everything in its path.

Those small boats, only ten or twenty meters long, were no match for the Ghost Pirate at all.

The skeletal ram pierced the center of the hull like a hot knife through butter, without any resistance. The hull exploded, the masts crashed down, and the entire ship broke in two.

In the blink of an eye, three more ships floated half-dead on the sea, their hulls tilted and slowly sinking. Large pieces of broken wood, shards of canvas, and the corpses of failed breeding animals who hadn't had time to escape floated to the surface.

Some of them have no bones and look like a pile of rotten flesh, while others are covered in messy, disorderly hair, making even moving difficult.

Anyone who is even remotely presentable and has one or two redeeming qualities, even if they are deaf or blind, will be chosen by cult members as their new body.

Even if it only improves things a little, I'll take it.

Those that remain after being selected naturally all have their fatal flaws.

When one of the ships broke apart, a six-winged angel statue about one meter tall was revealed in a hidden compartment at the bottom of the hull.

It was half-submerged in the surging seawater, and its originally pure and gentle surface was now rapidly dissolving.

The angel's compassionate face twisted and deformed, its plaster-like outer shell peeling away to reveal the true form of a demon with blue faces and fangs. The six wings that should have symbolized holiness had also transformed into a jagged mixture of bone wings and bat wings.

At first glance, it appears to be a bizarre creation that is half angel and half demon.

Unfortunately, this sight only lasted for half a minute before the statue sank into the deep sea along with the sinking ship.

The cultists on the deck, in the cabins, and on the mast, along with those congenitally deficient hybrids, were thrown into the icy sea like dumplings being dropped into boiling water.

Some people tried to grab onto the floating planks, some were still struggling to move their deformed limbs to swim away, and some had already sunk below the surface, leaving only a string of bubbles.

In the darkness of night, rustling sounds began to gather from all directions.

Those were countless monsters drawn by the smell of blood, lurking in the shadows of the deep sea where no light could reach.

They huddled together, waiting, and finally received the signal to begin the feast.

The seawater boiled.

Screams erupted from the edge of the fleet, followed by a series of tearing sounds and the ripping of flesh and bone.

Those cultists who were lucky enough not to die instantly in the impact became living sacrifices for the monsters to devour their fresh flesh.

The dark green sea surface gradually turned tinged with black and red.

The hooded monster clinging to the railing suddenly panicked. The hunting fleet he had considered a sure thing had been reduced from seven ships to two in less than five minutes.

One of them was even just a lifeboat!

No, it wasn't hunting, it was being hunted!

Those hypocritical bastards!

He and his fleet were used as cannon fodder for reconnaissance from beginning to end!

"Damn it—damn it!!" A hoarse growl escaped the hooded monster's throat.

He made a decisive move, abruptly halting his charge. Using the chaotic figures and flying wood chips around him as cover, he silently retreated, his tentacles quickly retracting into his body. His deformed limbs returned to a near-human form, and he darted back to the "Nest Bishop," who was now withered and skeletal.

"Your Excellency the Bishop is seriously injured; I'm here to take care of him!"

He grabbed the almost skeletal body and, in a hurried voice, shouted at the few cultists still in a daze, "You lot, hurry up! Engage that duck boat!"

"Yes, yes! Lord Zhou Cheng!"

Those lower-ranking believers didn't have time to think it through.

They possess half, or even more, of the genes of ferocious beasts, fish monsters, and deep-sea aliens. While these foreign bloodlines endowed them with deformed powers, they also devoured most of their intelligence.

An IQ of 60 is insufficient for them to think independently on the battlefield; instinct compels them to obey orders.

They didn't even have time to look back, otherwise they would have found that Lord Zhou had already dragged the bishop's body silently toward the lifeboats in the fleet.

He moved with lightning speed, throwing the bishop's emaciated body into the boat before leaping in himself.

The bishop was lifeless; only his abdomen was still throbbing. His belly had been stretched so thin that only a transparent membrane remained, through which the long, thin outline of the creature coiling and writhing could be clearly seen.

Three.

One big and two small.

The largest one almost took up the entire abdominal cavity.

The moment the mother dies, it begins to frantically devour the nutrients of its siblings and the remaining essence of the mother.

It is now fully developed, and its entire body is covered with scales that resemble human fingers.

By controlling the flexion and extension of those fingers, rapid movement can be achieved.

Those fingers were slender and pale, but their nails were sharp as hooks, each one nimbly scratching the inner wall of the amnion.

It's coming out.

Its two siblings are thin and weak, with underdeveloped scales, and one of them is even only one eye.

An undisguised greed flashed in Zhou Cheng's eyes.

Without hesitation, he used a piece of iron to cut open the bishop's already thin abdomen.

The foul-smelling amniotic fluid gushed out, and three sticky, slender figures rolled out.

The strongest individual immediately began to breathe on its own upon contact with air.

Its fingers twitched, quickly drying and hardening from the moist, sticky substance. It even learned how to control those strange finger appendages to grasp objects!

Its sharp claws can leave a deep scratch on the wooden planks of the lifeboat with a single scrape, and are more than twice as strong as the claws of its two siblings!

"It's done—" Zhou Cheng chuckled in a low, hoarse voice, his voice androgynous, and a smile played on his blood-stained lips.

No hesitation.

He began to silently recite a prayer to the great "Mother Black Goat who gives birth to all things," the syllables rolling in his throat.

The next instant, his body seemed to lose its soul, like an abandoned husk, falling backward unconsciously and slumping in the corner of the lifeboat.

The eyes of the largest serpentine monster, which had been chaotic and empty, suddenly flashed with a light that was not belonging to a newborn creature, but was full of intelligence.

"Thanks be to God, this is indeed a suitable vessel."

He murmured in a low voice, as if he had just learned to speak.

After adapting to their bodies, Zhou Cheng bit off the spines of his two weak siblings without hesitation.

Sweet, pungent blood gushed out, and his warm internal organs were still throbbing. He buried his head and devoured it, his scales opening and closing greedily, absorbing every last drop of the essence of flesh and blood into this newborn body.

Then came the discarded skin, and then the bishop's remaining limbs.

Power flowed in continuously.

The muscles were firmer, the scales were more robust, and those strange human fingers were more flexible and powerful.

After finishing his meal, Zhou Cheng wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with his newborn appendages, his eyes reflecting the flames of the ongoing battle in the distance, without the slightest lingering attachment.

Under the cover of darkness and chaos, the lifeboats drifted in the opposite direction from the battlefield.

Meanwhile, another third-class whaling ship, attempting to take advantage of the chaos to turn around and escape into the darkness, was not so lucky.

They had barely driven a hundred meters when, "Bang—!"

A giant crossbow bolt, trailing a heavy chain at its stern, whistled as it pierced the aft deck of the escape ship!

The chains taut instantly, making a creaking sound as they pulled the entire ship to a stop!

"Running so fast, are you in a hurry to be reincarnated?"

A voice, reeking of alcohol yet full of energy, came from the dark sea.

Survival expert Lao Wang's boat had somehow intercepted the escape route of this ship.

A gaunt old man stood at the bow of the ship, holding a wine jug in his hand, squinting at the several panicked half-human, half-beast figures on the deck, as if he were examining a pile of rotting garbage.

"Tsk, where did this monster come from? It's so ugly it makes me want to vomit!" He took a big gulp of liquor, his Adam's apple bobbing as the liquor dripped down his stubble.

The next instant, his withered, aged body, like dried bacon, suddenly seemed to rejuvenate.

The muscles bulged and jutted out like living creatures, and the veins crawled like earthworms across the swollen arms and neck.

The originally loose work clothes were stretched taut as if about to burst, making him appear more than a size larger, his skin glowing a scorching red, like an iron man who had just stepped out of a forge.

The rising heat forced the surrounding sea fog back three feet.

He casually picked up the fish-scale knife and severed a cultist's crab claw along with half of his right arm at the elbow, the cut surface as smooth as a mirror.

Before the man could even scream, the blade had already flipped over and the back of the blade was slapped.

"Bang!"

Half a person flew backward like a tattered sack, smashing through the wooden planks of the cabin behind him, and then fell silent.

The second, the third, the fourth.

Old Wang's movements were not fancy at all; in fact, they could be described as simple and unpretentious.

The knife rises, the knife falls, it rises again, it falls again.

It's like chopping ribs, one slice at a time, without any hesitation.

It's like chopping off a fish head; you find the right joint and separate the flesh from the bone.

The deck was littered with severed limbs and blood.

In an instant, Yu Wang's pressure decreased dramatically.

The bone and blood armor was still in place, and the dense bone armor was now splattered with various colors of alien blood. The crab claw and harpoon in his hand hummed, and the residual arcs of electricity still danced at the tip of the spear, making a crackling sound.

He rushed into the mess of the whaling ship that Old Wang was clearing out.

No nonsense, no greetings.

A cultist, who had just been given a new body and crawled out from the bottom of the ship's hold, covered in barnacle-like growths, was trying to escape when he was pierced through the shoulder with a harpoon and pinned to the toppling mast.

The man was still muttering indistinct words like "nest breeding" and "black goat," but Yu Wang remained expressionless. His bony claws gripped the harpoon shaft, and with a swift pull, the harpoon tip tore through the collarbone and tendons, ending the man's murmur.

"Trying to steal monsters?" Old Wang glanced at him sideways, but his knife didn't stop. He swiftly sliced ​​off half the head of a cultist who was trying to jump into the sea.

"Calculate the score," Yu Wang replied briefly, pulling out the harpoon and shaking off the bits of meat stuck to the blade.

"Can't we respect the elderly?"

"Let's see if you can love children."

An hour after nightfall.

The battle ended faster than expected.

The wreckage floated haphazardly on the sea, and the ducks, carrying shovels, hammers, crowbars, and grappling hooks, set out to investigate.

Clean up the battlefield.

The entire ship can be recognized by the game and disassembled directly, but the scattered wooden planks need to be manually collected.

Wang Huaisong carefully wiped the fish-scale knife clean, the blade reflecting his face. His temples were gray and he was thin. He had become Old Wang again. The muscular, sweltering giant from a few minutes ago seemed like just an illusion in the sea fog.

"Sigh, I'm getting old."

He unscrewed the wine flask at his waist.

empty.

There's still a tiny bit left at the bottom of the pot, just enough to moisten your throat.

He tilted his head back, poured the mouthful of wine into his mouth, and smacked his lips. His cloudy, old eyes narrowed into slits, as if savoring the brief surge of adrenaline.

Yu Wang looked at him, remained silent for a moment, and asked, "Is this all the ability your ship has to reach level 4?"

"Hmm." Wang Huaisong stuffed the empty wine jug back into his waistband and patted it. "This move is called 'An Old Horse in the Stable, Still Aspiring to Gallop.' I think it could have a better name, but that's what the system wrote. What can I do?"

"It will become even stronger in the future," Yu Wang said.

It wasn't a consolation, it was a statement.

Old Wang sighed, "Everything is getting better. Before, there was this guy who called himself the Storm Pioneer or something, and he wanted me to be his spokesperson. He said that as long as I nodded, I could immediately receive divine grace, power, lifespan, whatever I wanted."

"

"I didn't agree. But I knew in my heart that if the situation got any worse, if I couldn't hold on any longer, I would eventually give in."

"And now?" Yu Wang asked with a smile.

Old Wang grinned: "Now? To hell with the gods. I can still take down these bastards on my own. By the way, what should we call our fleet? Otherwise, it'll be inconvenient to register our fleet when we go out."

"I haven't decided yet."

After recovering the wreckage of the last few ships that had not yet completely sunk, the air around them suddenly began to distort like ripples on water.

A faint, shimmering film of light faded away.

The Ghost Pirate slowly emerged from its complete stealth state.

Zhang Xinlan stood at the bow of the ship, holding a rusty cage in her hand.

"Haha! This guy almost got away! He's pretty fierce!" she said, jumping back onto the Little Yellow Duck.

Yu Wang and Wang Huaisong came over to observe.

snake.

It's not entirely a snake. It has six eyes, a snake's torso, is as thick as an adult's arm, and about a meter long. Its scales are not the smooth, neat, tile-like pattern of ordinary snakes, but rather resemble layers of fingers crowded together.

It perched in the corner of the cage, its eyes round and moist, pupils slightly dilated, carrying the bewilderment and confusion unique to newborn animals.

She glanced timidly at Yu Wang, then quickly lowered her head and buried it in the circle formed by her body.

Those densely packed fingers were also tightly clasped together, as if trying to shrink themselves smaller and more inconspicuous.

Old Wang scoffed, "You're putting on quite a good act."

He knew perfectly well that the moment he saw the snake, he lost 3 points of his sanity.

Seeing that Wang was getting a little too close, Zhang Xinlan revealed a fresh bloodstain on the inside of her forearm. The wound was about three inches long, with the skin turned outwards.

She warned seriously, "This thing is called a 'fetal-entwined python.' Be careful of its fingernails; they're as sharp as knives. I was a little slow closing the cage just now, and I got scratched. I don't think this cage will keep me locked up for long."

"

After her abilities were enhanced, Zhang Xinlan had become a walking monster encyclopedia.

Yu Wang squatted down, looking directly into the "unconscious" eyes in the cage.

His body, womb-bound and swollen, stiffened slightly; he suddenly had a bad feeling.

Sure enough, the next second, he heard the demon whispering.

Yu Wangdao said, "I'll go trade for a sturdy cage, keep it there, and then slaughter it."

This is a supernatural creature cub, eating it is out of the question. Just by looking at it, you can tell it's not edible.

But you can raise them to sell meat, and once you've slowly accumulated 100 units, the "Duck Crown" expansion module will arrive.

Yu Wang was very curious about the function of this special module.

Wearing this on a ship will instantly transform it into the King of Ducks?

割。

meat.

Those two words hit Zhou Cheng like a ton of bricks, making him feel like the sky had fallen.

He stopped pretending, his scales burst open, his tail lashed wildly, and he charged headfirst into the cage door recklessly!

"Bang—!"

"Bang—!"

The iron cage shook violently!

The rusted iron cage was found by Zhang Xinlan on the "Ghost Pirate Ship". Naturally, it was not very sturdy. After his desperate struggle, the iron cage was deformed.

Just three more rams, no, two more, and I can squeeze out a gap big enough for my body to pass through!

As a snake, Zhou Cheng was confident.

As long as the head can get out, the rest of the body is not a problem at all!

"Bang—!!"

With a loud bang, a frantic will to survive erupted in Zhou Cheng's eyes. His head was already sticking out of the cage, and those fingers were grabbing the edge of the gap and tearing it apart with all their might!

then.

He felt a chill on the back of his neck.

Between the gaps in Wang's fingers, the bone blade formed by the "Bone and Blood Armament" had already cut down!

In the blink of an eye, a small snake was cut into four pieces.

"Hiss hiss hiss!!"

The meat piece struggled violently, but the section connected to its head was kicked back into the cage by Old Wang.

Yu Wang withdrew his hand, somewhat surprised: "As expected of a supernatural creature. This is just a cub, less than a day old, its supernatural blood not even fully activated yet. Even so, when I cut down, I felt a noticeable resistance; I needed to apply extra force to ensure a clean cut."

Discarding the head end that was to be raised, the remaining three sections of the snake's body, once stored in the cabin, amounted to 6 units of extraordinary biological flesh and blood.

"The meat production is acceptable, but I don't know how fast the meat will grow."

1

Yu Wang nodded, feeling that the day he would become the King of Ducks was not far off.

Let alone "Duck King", as long as the expansion module works well, even if the system calls it "Quack Emperor", it will still wear it without hesitation.

Zhou Cheng was filled with resentment. He chopped them all down, bones and skin included! How could he not have done more?

Damn it, number one on the leaderboard! Once I'm free, I'll make sure you get to breed with the blobfish!

The double-gun sailboat that had been left behind by the "Little Yellow Duck" while collecting supplies caught up with them. Lu Ping didn't dare to ask any questions, ignoring the strong smell of blood in the air and keeping her presence low.

After handing over the finishing touches to the ducks, Yu Wang was finally able to check the mileage leaderboard.