Before John can process the presence of the numen in front of him, the violent jolt of a crashing wave slammed The Walrus, throwing John off balance.
His foot caught on a broken floorboard, sending him crashing hard against the frame of the open cage.
BANG!
A numbing white pain erupted at the back of his head as his skull cracked against the steel. The world spun uncontrollably, fading to pitch black for a fleeting second.
When John's eyes snapped back open, the phantom throbbing that had been clawing at his mind for weeks suddenly went dead quiet.
An eerie calm washed over his consciousness. The chaos, the lingering fear, and the hesitation that usually restrained him vanished, replaced by a wildness of unknown source.
Like a switch had been flipped.
In this world, cultivators typically encountered this phenomenon upon reaching Stage 4—the Sage realm. At that threshold, a cultivator's mind produced a trial born of their own self: an Ego. It was an alternate self designed to test their resolve as well as make them constantly improve by making them face themselves.
But John's unique circumstances and constant brush with death had forced his Ego to awaken prematurely, though not fully. And since he wasn't a Sage, he couldn't control his Ego, leading to his present change.
He slowly stood up, brushing his wet hair backward. His gaze, now completely devoid of panic and instead filled with something unexplainable, locked onto the glowing Numen girl shivering in the broken cage.
Her azure light was pulsing in sync with the roaring waves outside, channeling numen directly into the sea to lure the monster pack and stir the violent tempest.
"So," John said, almost looking bored with the situation. "You're the reason this ship is being torn apart."
He stepped forward, his hand extending as ether flared around his palm. The murderous intent radiating from him was suffocating. He didn't care that she looked like a kid, nor was he swayed by her ethereal beauty—she was a threat to his survival, and threats were meant to be eliminated.
The Numen girl cowered against the wet floorboards, her glowing blue eyes swelling with shimmering tears as she let out a desperate cry.
John stopped inches from her face. His jaw tightened as he clicked his tongue in sharp annoyance.
He took a fraction of a second to evaluate the situation rationally. Killing her won't stop the ship from sinking if the ship's crew caused this. The true fault lay with Flint and his men, who had captured and enslaved a creature capable of manipulating the ocean and putting her on a ship.
"Stop channeling your energy," John said coldly. "Do it now, and I won't kill you."
The girl swallowed a sob, hurriedly pulling her numen back into herself. The brilliant azure glow slowly faded into a soft shimmer.
Outside, the deafening roar of the Rank-4 Abyssal Kraken abruptly ceased. The monstrous tentacles thrashing against the hull slipped back into the black depths, and the raging storm dissipated as fast as it had arrived.
However, relief did not follow.
The heavy rocking of the ship came to a complete, unnatural halt. The Walrus was cast into a Dead Calm—a phenomenon within the Great Whirlpool where the waters locked up entirely, freezing all motion and currents until the next ocean cycle.
They were stranded.
John stepped out into the lower corridor as the Numen girl quietly walked behind him, freed from her chains.
On the main deck, the surviving sailors were slumping against the railings in exhaustion. Captain Flint lay near the helm, soaked in black monster blood and breathing shallowly, seriously hurt from his battle with the Kraken.
Without paying any mind to the stunned crew, John walked straight toward the broken gap in the ship's outer railing. The Numen girl followed closely at his heel, her bare feet padding softly against the drenched timber.
She paused at the ledge, looking back at John with her wide, luminous blue eyes. Tears still streaked her cheeks, but the terror in her gaze had melted into immense gratitude.
"Thank you..." she whispered, her faint voice carrying an ethereal melody that briefly washed over the silent deck.
Before anyone could stop her, she turned and dove gracefully off the side, disappearing beneath the glassy, frozen surface of the Dead Calm without making a single splash.
"Hey! What the hell are you doing?!" Quartermaster Bob shouted, his jaw dropping in absolute horror as he scrambled forward.
"That was our cargo! Do you have any idea how much a live Numen goes for on the black market?!"
Captain Flint, propped against the helm and clutching his crushed chest, forced his head up. His face was pale, dark blood spilling from his lips as he glared at John with murderous rage.
"You... damned fool... you just threw away millions in silver..." Flint rasped, his voice trembling as he tried to channel his Stage 4 Sage ether, but his body violently backlashed.
"Shut up," John cut in, his voice deadpan and chillingly flat. He didn't even bother to look at Flint, his eyes sweeping over the crew's remnants.
"Both of you. Talk again, and I'll toss you over the side next."
Flint's eyes widened in fury, but his battered body couldn't handle the strain. The sudden surge of anger proved too much for his injuries; he choked on a mouthful of blood, his vision rolling back as he fainted dead away against the wheel.
"Captain!" Bob yelled, abandoning his argument with John to rush over to Flint's side.
He dropped to his knees, frantically checking the unconscious captain's pulse while shooting John a furious look. He could have easily killed him, but then he would have to fight with that princess, and he knew she was stronger than him.
John simply ignored them both, walking past the bewildered sailors as he made his way back toward the lower cabins.
He wasn't really surprised to find that lea was still fast asleep even through all the chaos.
A full month passed in complete isolation.
Stranded in the dead center of the Great Whirlpool, time became their worst enemy. With Captain Flint unconscious and slowly deteriorating from his internal injuries, effective leadership vanished entirely.
Quartermaster Bob tried to manage the remaining crew, but without Flint's power to enforce order, the former pirates quickly turned wild.
As food and fresh water rations dwindled, paranoia, thievery, and infighting took over.
Down in the lower quarters, John spent the entire month immersed in his research.
His premature Ego kept his mind unnervingly sharp and completely detached from the madness above deck.
He sat at his small desk for hours on end, dissecting the precise mechanics of necromancy—specifically how to craft an artificial construct and permanently integrate a living soul into it without triggering Thanatos's wrath.
Princess Raven sat across from him, assisting his research with great reluctance. She shared insights into her royal family's soul techniques while simultaneously cultivating her Stage 3 Manifestation realm, preparing herself for this world's unique trial: Heavenly Lightning.
Through their discussions, John realized how people in this world progressed through the stages.
It was by undergoing baptism of lightning and absorbing the source energy inside it.
In every world, there was a different way people got a trial every three stages, and it seemed his world, Cassiopeia, possessed a unique trial different than any other place.
On the thirty-first day of the Dead Calm, the chaos on the main deck reached its boiling point.
Two sailors stood near the main mast, screaming profanities at each other with drawn daggers over a stolen crate of dried meat. The rest of the hungry crew stood around them in a tight circle, shouting like feral animals and completely ignoring Bob's attempts to intervene.
John stepped onto the main deck, observing the wild crowd through his detached gaze.
These people are acting no different from animals. If someone doesn't stop them soon, they might really go feral.
Without a word of warning, John approached the two fighting crewmates. He picked up an axe and, without warning, struck one of them on the back, and the princess's cat came in a clutch as it bit off the head of the other man, who was about to retaliate against john.
Blood sprayed across the deck as both men collapsed dead. The crowd went dead silent.
"What... what the hell did you just do?" Quartermaster Bob stammered.
"Are you insane?!" Bob stumbled back, horror draining every drop of color from his weathered face.
"They were just fighting over a piece of meat! We could have broken it up—we could have talked to them! Why the fuck would you kill them!"
The rest of the crew backed away, staring at the blood pooling across the wooden deck before fixing their stares on John like he was not human but a monster.
John didn't so much as blink. He turned his gaze onto Bob, his eyes unconcerned.
"Then you're blind, Bob. If this had continued, one of them would have killed the other within minutes, and your little crowd of dogs would have started a riot over who got the meat next. Talking solves nothing with you guys. It's better to make an example of these two now so the rest of you won't be stupid enough to try it again."
Hearing his words, the entire deck went silent. Unable to understand why he thought of them as unreasonable when he killed two people based on assumptions.
A few paces away, Princess Raven stared at John, a frown finding its way onto her beautiful face. A flicker of unease passed through her crimson eyes;
It seems it got worse.
This was just not right, even for her. At her feet, the other murderer, her cat beast, was rubbing affectionately against her feet after reducing in size.
"R-Rally up, boys!" Bob stuttered out, his voice shaking as he gestured toward the trembling crew. "We... we have to avenge our brothers!"
Dozens of sailors hesitantly raised their cutlasses and flintlocks, their hands shaking as their eyes locked onto John.
Before Bob could take a step, a wave of bone-chilling dark energy surged over the ship. Princess Raven stepped up beside John as three massive, skeletal shadow undead materialized out of the deck, their jagged blades hovering inches from Bob's neck.
Bob froze, cold sweat pouring down his pale neck. Looking from Raven's undead to John's unblinking eyes, he realized fighting back meant immediate slaughter.
Slowly, Bob lowered his cutlass.
"All right... Back down! Back to your posts, all of you!" The crew scattered hurriedly.
Two days later, Captain Flint finally succumbed to his internal injuries without ever regaining consciousness.
While Bob and the surviving sailors prepared the deck for a burial at sea, John slipped into the captain's quarters alone. ,
He looked down at the Stage 4 Sage with ambition.
A Stage 4 soul... the perfect foundation for my experiment.
Closing his eyes, John reached into his inner domain, feeling and seizing Flint's lingering soul before it could dissipate.
The density of a Sage's soul thrashed against his mind. Blood gushed from John's nose as his inner domain cracked under the strain, but through sheer stubbornness, he successfully bound Flint's spirit into a blueprint for his future construct.
At the same time, the sky darkened over where the ship was but dissipated just as quickly.
Wiping the blood from his lip, John leaned heavily against the bulkhead as a deep, resonant groan echoed through the ship's hull.
Outside, the frozen ocean began to churn. The Dead Calm was breaking, and the Great Whirlpool was finally opening the path to the next continent.