Crossing Year 8, June 14th, Clear

“Recently, the vague whispers in my ear have returned, those sounds that don't sound like sounds, chaotic and dark. This damned place is no place for humans.

My first mate, Old John, told me to try the fragrant girls at the Red Lips Inn with his method.

I admit I was tempted, but in the end, I resisted. I can't waste the hard-earned echo coins there. I cannot slack for a moment if I want to return home.

Humans are a species meant to live on the surface. The fact that humans can appear in the underground sea proves there is a way back to the surface. I must find it!

I dreamt of my family again yesterday. I miss them, but I'm starting to forget what they look like…”

The sudden shaking of the Rat interrupted Charles Reed's writing.

An old oil lamp beside the diary illuminates its owner's face, black pupils with black hair, a very normal Asian face, but his face was almost translucently pale, like a vampire in the movies.

By modern standards, Charles is quite handsome, but his expression is heavy and tired, looking exceptionally haggard.

After listening to the waves outside for a while and finding nothing unusual, Charles picked up the pen and continued writing.

“Without those special service workers, writing in a diary can also improve my hallucinations. Lately, I've been able to sleep for 5 hours every night. I haven't slept so peacefully in a long time.

Of course, learning from the predecessors who wrote diaries, I write in a language only I can understand, Chinese.”

“Screech~~” A harsh metallic scraping noise from outside interrupts, sounding like something is constantly scratching the bottom of the ship with sharp nails.

“Snap.” The diary is closed, and Charles, with a furrowed brow, walks towards the round porthole.

He sticks his head out and sees the same lightless sky and dark green sea surface in the distance forming a dark curtain as he did eight years ago.

Darkness rules everything outside, and the dark seems to brew monsters everywhere, full of eeriness.

But in the undersea, there are no stars, no moon; endless darkness is the main theme here, and darkness precisely proves everything is normal.

Looking at the normal scene outside, Charles's brow furrows even more. His years of sailing experience tell him something is off, and he decides to investigate.

Charles opens the bedside drawer, where hundreds of gleaming bullets roll back and forth with the waves.

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Pulling out his revolver from his waist, he expertly loads it and heads to the cockpit.

“Captain, why are you up so early? It’s not your shift yet.”

The man steering in the cockpit is a scruffy bearded fat old man, with a seventeen or eighteen-year-old boy sleeping slantwise on the chair to his left. The boy's sailor uniform indicates his role, and like Charles, their faces are devoid of any color, resembling Eastern Europeans.

“First mate, why is the Rat a bit shaky? Is the course normal?” Charles asks John, the man at the helm.

After speaking, he kicks the chair leg, waking the boy up.

When the boy sees it's his captain, he hurriedly wipes the drool from his mouth and scrambles up from the chair.

“Haha, probably something underwater smelled our flesh. You know, in the undersea, those disgusting things are more numerous than fish. Don’t worry, the Rat is made of iron; they can’t break it,” the fat old man steps back, handing the helm to his captain.

Hearing the first mate's report, Charles remains vigilant. In this eerie place, humans are no longer at the top of the food chain; caution is the only thing they can rely on.

Charles presses a button on the old equipment, and the spotlight in front shines brightly. He scans the sea surface back and forth through the transparent glass.

The deck, filled with cargo, separates the sea surface from the cockpit. The ship, thirty-something meters long, doesn’t seem big.

“The route to the Coral Islands has been traversed by various cargo ships many times; those things wouldn’t come to bother us without reason. Something is abnormal,” Charles grips the polished wheel tightly, his brow locked in a frown.

Old John is startled, “Could we have deviated from our course? Impossible, look, the navigation beacon is still in the distance.”

He points to a faint light spot in the distance.

In the undersea without stars, besides the compass, the only guides are the light beacons placed along the route. As long as the beacons are visible, it means the route is a safe path explored by exploration ships.

At that moment, Charles, who was looking at the sea surface, suddenly shrinks his pupils to the smallest size and swallows hard. “That... that beacon, how long have you been watching it?”

“Probably a few minutes. I've been keeping a close eye on it,” Old John's voice gradually lowers, and a hint of horror appears on his fat face.

Having sailed so long without passing the beacon, it's clear the beacon is moving at the same speed as the steamship. There's something wrong with that thing!

Suddenly, Charles turns the wheel frantically, pulling hard to the left.

Accompanied by the screeching of metal, their steamship begins to turn. Luckily, the small ship is quick to turn, and the Rat starts to distance itself from the weird beacon.

Before Charles can breathe a sigh of relief, the boy points to the rear glass window, his eyes wide as if he's seen a ghost.

“Captain... Captain! That thing is getting closer! So fast! It’s going to catch up!”

“Damn it!” Charles yells into a pipe: “Engine room! Crank the boiler to the max! Something’s chasing us!!”

“Aye, Captain!” A hearty voice comes back through the pipe.

Thick black smoke billows from the ship's chimney, and the steamship's speed starts to climb.

“It's still getting closer! It’s so fast! It’s going to catch up! God! What kind of monster is that!”

The boy's voice is several pitches higher due to extreme fear, his body shaking like a sieve, as if he's about to go into shock.

“Dip! Close your eyes!!” Charles, highly tense, kicks his shin, knocking him to the ground.

Old John presses his head firmly against the floor, his face red as he yells, “Don’t look, don’t listen, don’t think! The captain will get us back.”

As soon as he finishes speaking, a loud “bang” shakes the cabin violently, rolling the two on the floor into a heap, while Charles clings to the wheel to avoid being thrown.

“Captain, it hit us!”

Charles's face turns ashen, his cheeks bulging slightly from clenching his teeth.

He yells into the pipe, “Engine room! Overload the boiler for thirty seconds!”

“Captain! No way! This thing’s too old! It’ll explode!”