Chapter 26: The Abyss-Backed Reef

"Haaah—!!" Chen Wu’s muscles bulged, veins standing out across his skin.

With every ounce of his strength, channeled alongside the heavy, spectral silhouette of the Black-Armored Tortoise, he slammed into the port side of the ship.

Beside him, Mo Yu’s black robes whipped in the wind, his movements just as fierce and precise. The Black Raven hovered before him like a sophisticated navigational instrument, guiding the exact angle and direction of their exerted force.

Using only their flesh and blood, and working in tandem with the rudder that Luke was straining to keep turned, the pair forced the massive Symbiotic Boat to change course amidst the raging storm. Like an arrow loosed from a bow, it lunged toward the dark green island that flickered in and out of view through the hazy curtain of rain, just as Mo Yu had indicated.

The shrill horn of the ghost ship pursued them from behind, a death knell in the night, while the dark red blood-sea encroached upon the stern like a writhing, giant maw.

The hull groaned under the unbearable pressure.

The light emanating from Zhizhi was fading rapidly; it was clearly overexerted.

The supports around the breach shrieked with a heart-wrenching creak as they were battered by the violent waves.

The blue light of the kerosene lamp at the stern flickered violently, and the level in the oil canister was visibly dropping...

Every second felt as long as a century, yet passed in the blink of an eye.

Four hundred meters... three hundred and fifty meters... three hundred meters!

"I see it! It's right ahead!" Luke shouted hoarsely, his voice filled with the hope of survival and the tension of impending collapse.

The island magnified rapidly in their field of vision.

It was not a typical beach of sand or reef, but a gentle slope covered in massive, peculiar ferns. The terrain extended upward, blanketed in thick, deep green moss that resembled a giant, damp velvet carpet.

At the end of the slope lay a steep, craggy cliff face riddled with holes.

However, even more astonishingly, as they drew closer, Luke’s analyzer suddenly emitted a sharp, urgent warning:

"Warning! Anomalous energy fluctuations detected at the edge of the island ahead. Structure is complex... and possesses... vitality?!"

Vitality?!

The thought had barely surfaced in their minds when a deafening, earth-shattering "BOOM—!!!" echoed out.

Accompanied by the teeth-grinding sound of violent friction and splintering wood, the Symbiotic Boat was hurled onto the shore as if by an invisible giant hand—onto that gentle slope covered in thick moss!

The immense inertia of their high-speed beaching buried the bow deep into the soft, viscous moss and mud. The hull lurched upward at a dangerous angle due to the sheer force of the impact, before slamming back down with a thunderous creak!

The entire deck was shattered as if struck by a giant hammer, with wooden debris flying everywhere.

The already precarious breach was instantly torn wider, and a massive surge of mud and seawater poured in!

"Ugh!"

"Hold on!"

"The ship is falling apart!"

Cries of alarm and the sounds of collision merged into chaos.

Su Liu was thrown clear by the massive inertia, and only by instinctively clinging to the remaining mast stump at the stern did she avoid being tossed overboard.

The kerosene lamp base groaned under the violent impact, spilling a significant amount of oil, and the once-stable blue light suddenly shrank by a third!

Fortunately, the peculiar moss had high water-absorbency, which greatly cushioned the impact. Miraculously, the hull did not disintegrate instantly; instead, it remained skewed, wedged into this thick "buffer zone," and finally came to a halt.

The breach at the stern was temporarily blocked by a large amount of silt and moss, and the gushing water flow miraculously slowed to a trickle.

Dead silence.

Only the sound of the gale whipping through the giant fern leaves remained, along with... a low, slow, muffled thud that seemed to emanate from the depths of the earth.

[Congratulations to the player for successfully landing on "Abyss-Back Reef."]

The cold system prompt sounded abruptly.

[Mission objective updated: Repair the core structure of the Symbiotic Boat within the time limit (6 hours).]

[Countdown: 5:59:58]

[Warning: The safety level of the current repair zone is "Temporary Shelter." Leaving the repair zone by more than 50 meters or entering the core area of the island will lift the protection, potentially exposing you to unknown dangers. The protection effect will weaken over time.]

Six hours?! A timed mission!

Everyone’s heart sank. The brief relief of having escaped the ghost ship vanished instantly.

Su Liu rushed to the stern to check the kerosene lamp.

Fortunately, although nearly a fifth of the lamp oil had been lost, the base had miraculously not been completely destroyed in the impact. The wick was still burning; though the light was dim, it remained stable, barely maintaining a purification field with a radius of less than ten meters, holding back the dense rain and any potential mists or spore-clouds.

She quickly pulled out the wood she had gathered along the way, chopping it into kindling and carefully placing it by the lamp shade to dry, in preparation for emergencies.

Aya crawled on her hands and knees to the largest breach.

Her face was as pale as paper, and the repair-hamster, Zhizhi, lay limp in her palm, its tiny body trembling uncontrollably.

"It’s no good... the support structure has failed completely, and most of the keel connections have snapped. Temporary materials aren't enough to plug it! Not to mention keeping the water out. Unless we have a strong adhesive or large structural materials to fix it directly!"

After a quick inspection, her voice carried a hint of despair. "Also, the position of this breach is terrible. Most of it is buried in the mud, making emergency repairs extremely difficult!"

Chen Wu rubbed his bruised shoulder and walked over, leaning down to inspect it.

"Buried deep? Then we dig it out! Lu, Lorin! Collect every hard material you can find! Planks, metal, stones! The more, the better!"

He turned his gaze toward the bow. "Mo Yu, you and your 'Raven' had better keep watch over this island. The system already gave a warning about 'Temporary Shelter' and 'potential danger'."

Mo Yu was already standing at the highest point of the bow, appearing like a leaf blending into the shadows.

His black raven hovered in mid-air, its eyes flickering with a dark, eerie light, vigilantly scanning the vast, damp, and strange moss-covered slope—where an unsettling silence lurked beneath the life—and the steep, craggy cliffs above.

He spoke slowly, his voice deep: "This land... is heavy. That sound... it isn't the sound of waves. It is moving."

He paused, then added, "There is indeed a dangerous aura on the island, right behind the cliff face. It hasn't approached us yet."

A living island? An abyss-like reef back? Su Liu felt a chill in her heart.

She looked at the small tube of heavy-duty glue she had left, along with the scattered nails and planks she had collected along the way; these items were a mere drop in the bucket compared to what was needed to repair the massive keel breach!

Mo Yu stood on the broken railing of the bow, his black robes motionless in the damp wind, disturbed only by the airflow from his raven circling overhead.

His gaze swept past the chaotic repair scene below, toward the depths of the island, where the ferns grew large and the moss lay thick, stretching upward to the hole-riddled cliff.

That low, slow, muffled thud was like the heartbeat of the earth, carrying an ancient and unsettling rhythm.

"This land is 'breathing'."

Mo Yu withdrew his gaze, his voice still flat, yet it made everyone who heard it tense up.

"The 'things' behind those cliffs... there are many of them, but they have no intention of approaching us... for now."

Chen Wu wiped the mud and rain from his face, looked around at the group, and made a quick decision:

"Time is tight! Luke, Mo Yu, Su-su, the three of you form a team and head into the island! Your goal is to find any 'rigid, corrosion-resistant materials' that can be used to reinforce the keel and fill the massive breach!"

"Metal, stone, anything that can serve as a strong adhesive! And, if possible, find extra lamp oil or fuel!"