From the Ship of Fools to Earl of Wugang

As dusk falls, the blue-purple twilight tinges the returning seagulls, and those streaks of white light glide across the calm, rippling sea with the wind.

In this melancholy and desolate blues moment, a group of people dressed in black hooded robes came to the cliff.

They bowed their heads in reverence, their faces hidden in the shadow of humility.

The loudest sound in the line of a dozen or so people came from the trailing hems of their robes on the ground.

There's also a burlap sack being dragged around in the middle.

"Jacob! You've got it all wrong! Damn it, I'm innocent! I didn't steal that money!"

No one answered the sack's cries of pain, pleas for mercy, and curses. The group reached the top of the cliff.

The leader glanced down the cliff.

Not perfect. He had hoped for stronger winds and higher waves so that it could be said that the Father God himself had taken the offering, but now the sea was calm.

However, the jagged rocks after the tide recedes should still be deadly enough, and the mixture of salt, mud, ashes, and herbs smeared on the inside of the burlap sacks should be enough to attract diners to the feast.

Each one is a satisfying ending, perfect for a traitor.

So he returned to the hooded quarters and whispered beside the sacks:

"Traitor, may the Father God of Abyss devour your filthy soul."

The person inside the bag suddenly let out the loudest roar yet:

"Jacob, where are you going to find someone to manage the money after I die! Rely on your brain-dead followers?!"

"Don't worry, after you die, only I can withdraw the money in the bank."

Jacob spoke these words in a voice that could only be heard by two people, then stood up and gestured to those around him.

A moment later, a burlap sack flew out from the top of the cliff. It drew a short arc in the air and for a moment it seemed to pause briefly in the sky before it began to fall.

The screams of the person in the bag were broken into disjointed syllables by the wind, but the sound of the waves below the cliff urgently swallowed them up.

With a splash, a huge, churning spray of water, like the mouthparts of some enormous sea beast, satisfiedly enjoyed this offering.

The hooded figures on the cliff watched all this in silence, and Jacob was the first to turn around.

"Go, the Father will take care of his soul."

The path the black figure had taken gradually receded into the twilight, eventually merging into the desolate meadow behind the cliff.

The sea breeze howled across the empty cliff top, erasing the gravel tracks left by the dragging of the sacks, as if the crime had never happened.

-----------------

Damn it, damn it, damn it—

Even though Edmund was trying to suppress his fear and kept his mouth tightly shut, bitter, salty seawater still choked him in the sack.

The cultists are the principal offenders, the ropes binding their hands and feet are the accomplices, and the viscous seawater is the executioner.

Edmund finally understood why drowning was widely considered one of the most painful ways to die in his previous life.

In the midst of extreme panic, his mind could no longer focus on self-rescue, and instead began to race through his mind.

He inexplicably transmigrated into the body of a cult member. He originally planned to abscond with the money before the cult's grand sacrifice, but he was discovered, and his prepared excuse was exposed by TM's magic.

If he had to do it all over again, he definitely wouldn't "plan his escape," but rather "escape with passion."

Or you should learn magic, or just blow up the cult...

The icy seawater finally rushed into Edmund's lungs, which felt like they were being scorched by fire. In the excruciating pain in his throat, he felt his heart give its last few twitches in his chest before falling silent.

Death came neither peacefully nor for long. But then he heard singing and found himself no longer sinking.

The seawater, sacks, ropes, reefs, pain, suffocation, fear—all of it left him, replaced by an unbearable coldness.

At the same time, he saw a burlap sack bubbling as it plunged into the dark, bottomless abyss. That was, of course, his body, or his corpse.

Edmund looked down at himself and saw that he had become a semi-transparent mass, roughly retaining the outline of a human, floating in the deep sea.

There was also a piece of glowing text nearby.

Edmund Lockman (Switch of Life)

[The otherworldly soul, spared death by the "Song of Pearl," resisted a covenant made before the stars were arranged in their current form. Regarding a daughter whose voice was stolen, the lingering souls of the drowned will become pilgrims to the deep-sea court.]

The "Song of Pearl" will resound from the underwater city on the day the stars shift. Listeners will receive many divine blessings, but this will come at a price—such as physical transformation, forced faith in the underwater city's lord, and being drawn to the underwater city by corrupted spirits.

[Exempted from traction, exempted from forced faith]

The transformation into a new form is extremely fragile; a suitable vessel must be found as soon as possible.

With the emergence of glowing text, those guttural singing sounds seemed to have a clear meaning.

"...Your flesh and blood...return to salt...your song...like bubbles bursting...in the city of the snail...I await your presence in my dreams..."

Lockman felt a chill run down his spine.

This underwater city is clearly not Atlantis, but rather a giant pineapple with an octopus head.

The song continued, and Edmund heard more parts.

Hundreds and thousands of sounds rise from every corner of the seabed, some as sharp as the mournful cry of a dolphin, others as deep as the gurgling of a distant volcano, all weaving together a vast and invisible net.

The dark seawater around him was icy cold, so Edmund immediately floated upwards. Fortunately, he was in a rather comfortable and light position.

He passed through the undercurrents that surged with the song, and through the schools of fish in the sea that were killing each other and staining a patch of water red. In the distance, he saw the wreckage of a sunken three-masted sailing ship.

The skeleton standing on the deck maintained the posture of unfurled sails, its jaw opening and closing as if joining in the chorus.

With the sea surface almost within reach, Edmund accelerated and "rushed" out of the water.

As dusk drew to a close, the first star twinkled against the indigo sky, as if it had plunged from the icy wilderness into warm water.

Free?

But the sea breeze was still biting, and the lightness of the "life-changing creature" was actually a disadvantage. Swaying on the vast sea, he desperately needed a place to land.

Fortunately, there seemed to be a boat nearby.

It looks like a cruise ship of moderate size, but the original white hull has been painted a light gold.

The Silent Audrey (The Ship of Fools)

The offshore passenger ship owned by United Shipping Company is actually chartered long-term by the Silent Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy Sacrament to transport patients diagnosed with "Divine Ecstasy Syndrome." There are currently thirty-seven "passengers" and sixteen nuns on board.

The ship's hull is coated with holy anointing and special paint, which has a certain repellent effect on wandering spirits, low-level vengeful spirits, and fragments of nightmares.

[Can be exempted from spirit exorcism]

Edmund squinted—then realized it was all in vain.

But that didn't stop him from feeling that the words "exempt" were the most beautiful words he had ever heard in this damned world.

He slowly approached the Fool's Ship, which was not far away, and carefully observed it from a distance of about ten meters on the port side.

Every few steps on the deck, there was a light that illuminated the damp ground and the ship's hull, which was painted a dull gold.

He could vaguely hear a cacophony of sounds coming from the narrow porthole, the noise drowning out the gentle lapping of the waves.

Edmund drifted toward the ship.

The holy anointing on the pale gold ship's walls seemed to pose no obstacle to him; he passed through the walls smoothly and entered the lower cabin.