Chapter 482: The Ruins of Hood Island
Zhou Ning thought for a moment and decided to wait until Cotton Benson woke up to interrogate him. Maybe he could learn more from this boatswain serving under the Thunder General. He had a strong feeling this matter wasn't simple.
He searched Cotton Benson thoroughly and found a stack of bills, several weather rods, and a small irregularly shaped stone with a string tied around the other end. This should be the unknown miracle item Cotton Benson used to block attacks.
Mutated Wolf Heart
Grade: Unknown Miracle Item
Item Type: Accessory
It can harden a part of your body according to your will. The durability depends on your stamina. Cooldown: 30 seconds.
Negative Effect: Wearing it will gradually push your personality toward another extreme and very easily cause the holder to break down and lose control.
Not bad. Zhou Ning decisively confiscated it.
As for the other two… based on the crimes he'd heard about, even dying a hundred times wouldn't be enough. Why keep them around?
A delicate hand crossbow appeared in his hand. He aimed it at the "One-Eyed" Martin lying on the ground and pulled the trigger.
[You killed Advanced Meteorologist Martin (lv74). You gained 179600 experience.]
[Hunt thirty-six heinous souls: 3/36.]
Zhou Ning reached out and grabbed the wailing soul floating above the crossbow, stuffed it into a test tube, then aimed Boudica the Arrow Goddess's Crossbow at the walrus-man Taching.
[You killed Advanced Shaman Taching (lv71). You gained 153000 experience.]
[Hunt thirty-six heinous souls: 4/36.]
The alley fell silent again.
The Kingdom of Sepharic had scarce gas resources, so the streetlamps were very dim. There was no moon in the sky, making everything even darker.
No one knew how much time passed before Cotton Benson finally woke. Feeling the intense pain all over his body, he let out a groan.
"You—" He saw the corpses of his two companions nearby, then saw Zhou Ning. He froze for a moment, then opened his mouth wide, ready to shout for help.
But suddenly, his heart started pounding wildly. A primal terror surged through him, paralyzing him before he could react. He immediately recalled the overwhelming dread he once felt at the pirate summit when he saw Pirate Emperor Valentine.
This suffocating feeling was identical.
"You're… Wayne Sturwell?"
"Yeah. Now I ask, you answer." Zhou Ning smiled politely and asked casually, "I heard you sneaked into Nathaniell to recruit manpower for a treasure?"
"No, that's a rumor…" Cotton Benson denied instinctively.
He was immediately hit by an overwhelming aura, feeling fear from the depths of his soul.
Zhou Ning withdrew his Conqueror's Haki and smiled. "I can tell when someone's lying. No one lies in front of me. You have two choices."
"One: answer honestly. Two: I kill you and cash you in for your bounty."
Detecting lies? Cotton Benson didn't dare gamble. His throat twitched, and he rasped:
"Yes. We did find a treasure. But it didn't start because of a treasure—it started because of an oil lamp. A few months ago, while salvaging a sunken ship, we found an oil lamp aboard. Inside dwelled a giant werewolf. When you rub the lamp, it appears and grants you three wishes."
This was… an "Apocalypse" version of Aladdin's lamp? Zhou Ning's eyes widened slightly in surprise. In his previous life, he had never even heard of something like this. But his instincts told him Cotton Benson wasn't lying.
"The first wish naturally went to the captain. He was cautious at first and only wished for great wealth. We didn't take it seriously. But only a few hours later, the Ascetic Order came to us and formed a deal involving human trafficking and eliminating opposing factions. The buyers were the royal families of Bryston and Ruins. This arrangement is still ongoing. We got the wealth we wished for!"
"But we paid a price. After the wish was fulfilled, we learned the lamp had a terrifying drawback: for each wish it grants you, you must also fulfill one wish for it. Otherwise, you suffer punishment. Its first wish was that within forty-eight hours, we bring it fine silk from Ruins, golden wolffish from Temple Port, and seventy-six grams of mithril."
"For ordinary people that might be difficult, but for us, the Thunder General's pirate crew, it was easy. We fulfilled its request, completed the trade, and gradually began to trust it. Then we made our second wish—to become stronger. But it refused. The wish was too broad, it said. It could only help a few people grow stronger. So the captain, the first mate Mason, the second mate Lawrence, and I each received a powerful unknown miracle item and grew stronger."
"But its second wish was for us to gather 230 grams of xīn wood, 320 grams of mermaid tears, and one kilogram of kryptosilver within forty-eight hours! That damned stuff! We tried everything but still failed. The price was brutal. The four of us were cursed with lycanthropy. At night, we would transform into werewolves, sometimes losing our minds for long periods. This past month has been especially bad. Every midnight, I lose consciousness, and when I wake, it's always after four in the morning."
"After the second wish, no one dared touch the lamp again for a while. But surprisingly, the spirit constantly tempted the holder through illusions, trying to get someone to rub the lamp again. And one night, while in werewolf form, the captain rubbed the lamp a third time. He wished… to become the strongest man on the seas and rule the ocean."
"That's when we learned the lamp had a second negative effect: once a wish is made, it cannot be undone, or unknown calamities would fall upon the entire crew. The spirit tossed us a treasure map, then vanished, leading us to an isolated island in the Motley Archipelago. The island was called Hood Island. It happened to lie right along our route."
"And then?" Zhou Ning asked calmly, shocked inwardly. This oil lamp truly lived up to its status as an unknown miracle item—one of the most treacherous ones, trapping a pirate general after merely a small initial cost.
"The map led us into a meteorological tide. Inside was indeed an enormous elven ruin, filled with traps and puzzles everywhere, and saturated with a raging divine aura. Without historians or treasure hunters, we couldn't advance. We only carried a few pages out from one room. And after we left once, the meteorological tide vanished—we couldn't enter a second time." Cotton Benson looked frustrated.
"Wait—if it was filled with divine aura, how were you not affected?" Zhou Ning interrupted, curious. He remembered that when facing Niastora, ordinary people couldn't withstand his presence at all.
"That divine aura seemed weaker. And the spirit of the lamp warned us beforehand, so we brought extraordinary items that could protect us from it." He looked up at Zhou Ning and continued, "After identification, the pages we brought out were fragments of the Book of Gleipnir, a legendary unknown miracle item created by the world-ending demon wolf Gleipnir. Each page has the power to create natural disasters."
"After that came what you already know. To find a way to reopen the ruin, the entire pirate crew temporarily disbanded to look for people to join the exploration."
"So the bounty posted in the Nathaniell Adventurer's Guild wasn't from you?"
"No. What bounty?" Cotton Benson asked blankly. "I recruited people through the Northern Pirate Alliance, but only found two partners—Viper Oddu, who claimed to serve the King of Lavides, and Eddie Nell from the Sea God."
"The Sea God? The Northern Pirate Emperor? So Valentine showing up near the Motley Archipelago earlier wasn't a coincidence?"
Zhou Ning was about to ask more when a breeze blew away the clouds, revealing a bright full moon.
He froze for a moment, watching as Cotton Benson's eyes glazed over, his mouth protruded, and strands of long black fur sprouted across his body, merging perfectly into the darkness.
In just that brief time, he had transformed into a giant wolf covered in black fur!
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