This Spiritual Energy is Lethal!
Chapter 318: Another Wave Rises

Chapter 318: Chapter 318: Another Wave Rises

Endurance’s engine roared, but the ship seemed not to be moving forward at all.

At the same time, everyone felt as if the whole ship was slowly tilting, its bow slightly lifting while the stern slowly sank beneath the sea level.

"Something is pulling us down," Chen Ke said.

Upon hearing this, Laura and Nathan showed anxious expressions, but this anxiety was different from facing an unknown danger, as if they already knew quite a lot about what was happening.

"Tell me, Nathan, did you just imagine something?" Laura asked.

"Why don’t you ask yourself? Wait... you too? I had a higher opinion of you!" Nathan frowned.

"Now is not the time for compliments! Come with me outside and take a look," Chen Ke said.

The three of them got up, stepped over the bodies on the floor, and rushed out of the cabin onto the deck; by then, the drizzle had turned into a downpour, with lightning falling in the dark world and thunder rumbling loudly.

"Be careful on the deck, it’s wet," Nathan said, his foot splashing a spray of water.

At that moment, rolling thunder came from the sky, a white lightning bolt struck the horizon, and then, it seemed as though something had exploded in the clouds as a violent blast echoed across the sky.

Chen Ke leaned over the ship’s rail to look into the sea, the black waves churning, white foam slapping both sides of the ship’s hull, the bow slightly tilted. He couldn’t see clearly what was under the water, but he was certain that a large object was entangling the ship.

The three ran to the stern, where they could clearly feel a slope; they looked down into the water but saw nothing.

That’s when Chen Ke remembered the cameras Conrad had installed. He rushed to the bridge and found Conrad.

"Did you check the monitor? There should be something entangling the ship below," Chen Ke said, wiping the rain from his face as he spoke.

"Of course, I checked, but there’s nothing on the screen, I can’t see anything suspicious at all," Conrad shook his head.

"Is that so... did you see that thing in the cabin just now?" Chen Ke asked.

"I didn’t see it, but I saw my men die for no reason, and a heat ray sliced through my ship," Conrad said.

"I understand..." Chen Ke suddenly grasped the complexity of the situation.

The sea manifested the nightmares in people’s minds into real entities, but no monitoring equipment could see them.

Monitoring devices are purely objective observational tools, devoid of any cognitive abilities, so from the perspective of a monitor, these entities born from human subjective consciousness don’t exist...

Whether it’s monitoring equipment or the transcendent skill of Spiritual Vision, both are purely objective means of observation, incapable of seeing things that "do not exist."

In other words, the strange events on the ship now only truly exist when you believe they exist...

However, more frustratingly, as long as someone believes these things exist... they can impact reality.

This is unsolvable, as people cannot turn off their subjective consciousness. Perhaps a person can objectively view and comment on an object, but their objectivity is still based on "deliberate objectivity".

"Deliberate objectivity" equals "subjectivity."

Chen Ke wasn’t sure if this still counted as an Illusion Technique. It seemed no different from creation itself. He doubted whether the Holy Relics that dispelled illusions would be of any use against these entities.

"But look at this, Chen Ke," Conrad said, handing Chen Ke a laptop he had brought from the captain’s cabin.

He pointed to one of the small screens displaying the stern propeller’s underwater camera.

In the night vision camera’s view, the originally pitch-black underwater appeared an abnormal green, like an overexposed photo.

Half of the camera’s view had mysteriously vanished, and the distant propeller seemed to be jammed by something, immobile.

"Could that thing be invisible?" Conrad asked.

"No, it’s not invisible, the camera just can’t see it," Chen Ke said.

He turned to leave when Conrad stopped him.

"What are you going to do? Do you have a plan?" Conrad asked.

"I’m going down to shoot it with one shot," Chen Ke replied coldly.

On deck, Nathan and Laura each harbored their own thoughts, but neither wanted to reveal their secrets. At that moment, Chen Ke walked down from the bridge, heading directly toward the stern of the ship.

"Did Conrad say anything?" Laura asked, as the rain streamed down her ponytail, trickling into the hollow of her chest and dripping from her chin into the groove between her collarbones.

"He didn’t say anything, but I know what to do," Chen Ke said and then began climbing the crane at the stern.

Chen Ke’s plan was simple: climb to the top of the crane and fire a giant soul gun at the waters behind the ship.

Given his current lifespan limit, a 20-hour dose of the Crystal Gun should be able to deal effective damage to whatever was beneath the surface. Even if the creature was large enough, it would at least feel the pain.

Chen Ke struggled up the crane and when he reached the top, he had left the range of the deck and was entirely suspended over the sea.

The cranes on these fishing boats were telescopic, but obviously, he didn’t want to take too much of a risk, so there was no need to extend the crane.

"This is it." Chen Ke steadied himself with his left hand on the crane, clamped his legs tight, and began to condense the Crystal Gun in his right hand.

A blue halo emanated from his palm and condensed into a crystal-like spear, emitting a tinkling sound as if countless tiny fragments were colliding.

After using this skill multiple times, Chen Ke had never really looked at what this gun looked like in his hands; it was like holding a bundle of white light with blue flames radiating all around.

Was this gun really made of soul?

"Whoosh!"

Chen Ke violently hurled it—the soul gun in Chen Ke’s hand was only of ordinary length and thickness, but after being thrown, it enlarged significantly as it flew.

"Smack!"

The soul gun plunged into the water, splashing up a wave, and suddenly a blue flash flickered beneath the sea.

"Wooooooooo!!!!!!!"

An abnormal roar suddenly came from beneath the sea, and the ship began to shake violently. Then, the stern of the ship abruptly rose, as if something had been unleashed.

Chen Ke failed to hold on and fell down, breaking a rib as he crashed onto the gunwale, but fortunately, he fell onto the deck rather than into the sea.

He grimaced in pain. At that moment, Nathan ran over and picked him up. If it wasn’t for Chen Ke’s healing ability, the fall could have been excruciating.

"That thing down there, Chen Ke, is a gigantic Giant Sour Jumbo Squid," Nathan said.

"I’ve never seen a squid that can shriek!" Chen Ke retorted.

"Giant Sour Jumbo Squid—the largest invertebrate in the world, they usually wander around Antarctica and the largest adults are only about 10 meters... The ’Endurance’ is a big ship, the thing just now was definitely bigger," Laura said.

She pondered for a while then suddenly thought of something and asked, "Nathan? Have you been to Antarctica?"

Chen Ke looked at Nathan and Laura, first quite astonished that Nathan had been to Antarctica, and second, he didn’t understand why the fact that Nathan had been to Antarctica mattered so much to Laura.

"Yeah, I’ve been there," Nathan said with a smile.

"Is there anything noteworthy about that?" Chen Ke asked.

"Chen Ke, the thing just now definitely wasn’t any ordinary Giant Sour Jumbo Squid... it must have been affected by Spiritual Energy... Nathan, go ahead and tell us, what exactly did you do in Antarctica?" Laura demanded.

Nathan was silent for a moment and finally said, "Did I ever tell you guys about the Mad Mountain Range..."