When the Black Seagull's steam engine roared back to life, when the ship's vibrations traveled through the deck to Lin Jie's feet, the anchor cluster fragnt would swell slightly as if breathing.
It was feeding.
It greedily absorbed the excess vibrations generated by the steel behemoth during its voyage, converting them into its own density and hardness.
Lin Jie used a small engraving knife to tentatively cut a corner off the fragnt.
The physical properties of this substance were extrely contradictory.
In a static state, it was as soft as a piece of high-density rubber; the engraving knife could easily slice through its surface.
But as soon as a montary impact force was applied, even just a quick flick of a finger, it would harden within milliseconds, becoming harder than steel.
This was the ultimate form of a "non-Newtonian fluid."
A type of biological alchemical material based on kinetic energy conversion.
"What do we need this for?"
William walked over, cradling his rifle, his gaze falling on the gray gelatinous mass.
Lin Jie put away the engraving knife, held the cut sample up to the light, a glimr of calculation flashing in his eyes.
"William, have you ever thought about it? If we could utilize this 'kinetic energy to mass' property?"
William was montarily stunned, then furrowed his brow as he looked at the gray gelatinous mass trembling slightly in the sea breeze, trying to construct the picture Lin Jie described in his mind.
"You an..."
"Normally, it's lightweight and soft like rubber. But when we launch an attack, like a high-speed kick, or the instant we swing a weapon."
Lin Jie's voice carried a hint of anticipation.
"It will greedily absorb the potential energy generated by the motion, and at the mont of contact with the target, its density and weight will increase exponentially."
"That strike won't be a collision of flesh and blood, but several tons of iron anchor smashing into the enemy's bones."
A glint of light flashed in William's eyes.
He was a veteran of countless battles and imdiately understood its tactical value.
"If it were a lee weapon..." William subconsciously made a gripping motion with his right hand, "Light as a feather when swung, heavy as a mountain when striking. It could easily crush any heavy armor."
"Exactly, but this thing is also dangerous."
Lin Jie pointed to the several larger anchor cluster fragnts piled at their feet.
"If made into full-body armor, an enemy's punch hits, the armor absorbs the kinetic energy and instantly becos heavier, potentially crushing the wearer into paste."
"But these larger pieces can be left for Julian and Evelyn, made into protective heart mirrors for key areas. With proper design, they could block a critical blow at the right mont without crushing them to death."
Lin Jie tucked the specially cut core fragnt intended for himself back into his pocket.
"Too bad this ship only has coal shovels and wrenches."
He patted his pocket, a note of regret in his tone.
"To harness this willful material, we need extrely precise alchemical processes and high-temperature furnaces."
"We have to wait until we're ashore, go to Suez or any place with those kinds of people, find a skilled Armant Blacksmith, to turn them into real killing tools."
"For now, they're just a few heavy stones."
William nodded, tightening his grip on the rifle in his arms.
It was indeed a beautiful concept, but before it beca reality, they still had to rely on their old tools to stay alive.
Just as the two were talking, the sailor on lookout duty ahead suddenly let out a choked gasp that had changed pitch.
It was an instinctive gasp produced when the brain couldn't process visual information upon seeing sothing that defied common sense.
"Look... look at the sky!"
The sailor's finger trembled as he pointed to the sky to the left of the bow.
Lin Jie and William looked up simultaneously.
The fog there was slightly thinner, a few pale strands of sunlight struggling to pierce the clouds, spilling onto the sea.
A huge albatross was hovering in mid-air.
This should have been a very common sight.
Seabirds often use updrafts to glide, conserving energy.
But this albatross was different.
Its wings weren't in a spread gliding posture, but maintained a violent flapping motion.
Its feathers were ruffled from exertion, its beak wide open as if letting out a shrill cry.
Even the silver flying fish it held in its claws maintained the curved arc of the mont it leaped from the water.
Spray was frozen behind the fish's tail, like a string of crystal-clear glass beads.
This wasn't gliding at all.
This was a three-dinsional photograph frozen in ti.
That bird, that fish, along with the air and mist in that small patch of area, had been forcibly ripped from the river of ti by so invisible force, nailed dead in mid-air.
"What... what is that?"
William instinctively raised his rifle, his pupils contracting violently.
As a seasoned hunter, he had seen countless monsters.
But the scene before him still filled him with a physical sense of unease.
"Captain!"
Lin Jie sharply turned his head toward the bridge.
"Hard to port! Hard left!"
"Get away from this area!"
But it was already too late.
Just as Lin Jie shouted the command, a strange shutter sound rang out over the sea.
"Click."
The sound wasn't loud.
But this sound was like so supre command.
The Black Seagull's bow had just cut through a wave.
That wave, at the peak of its splash, suddenly stopped.
The white foam beca a stationary wall.
Next were the sailors on the deck.
The first mate who was pulling a rope, his movents froze in mid-air, the terrified expression on his face solidified into a comical wax statue.
The rope in his hand was pulled taut, proof that force was still being transmitted, but the dium had already stopped functioning.
An invisible, transparent force field was spreading from the bow to the stern at an astonishing speed.
Wherever it passed, all things stood still.
"He's on the ship."
Lin Jie's reaction was lightning fast.
He grabbed William by the collar, pulling him back violently, crashing into the shadow of the sterncastle.
"Who?"
William gasped for breath, his finger tightly on the trigger.
"The Sculptor."
Lin Jie's voice was cold as ice.
"That lunatic who treats killing as photography."
"Where is he?"
William scanned the deck, which was empty except for the crew frozen like statues.
"Above."
Lin Jie pointed upward.
William quickly looked up. Atop the Black Seagull's tallest smokestack stood a man.
It was a man dressed in an immaculate white suit.
On this smuggling ship covered in coal dust and oil gri, he was clean as a gentleman just walked out of the Paris Opera House.
He wore a white wide-brimd hat and gold-rimd glasses.
Around his neck hung an extrely bizarre-looking cara.
It was a huge, square box made of brass and mahogany.
The lens was a polyhedron polished from so deep purple crystal, like an insect's compound eye.
On either side of the cara were two tal slots inlaid with gray rune stones.
Galliard was looking down at them from his high vantage point.
In his hand was an elegant conductor's baton, as if admiring an unfinished painting.
"The composition isn't bad."
Galliard's voice carried down on the sea breeze, elegant, soft, yet carrying a bone-chilling neuroticism.
"But the lighting is terrible."
"Gloomy, dull, lacking tension."
He shook his head, seeming very dissatisfied with the scene before him.
"Bang!"
William pulled the trigger the instant he saw the target, a textbook-perfect rapid shot.
From raising the gun, aiming, to firing, the entire process took less than three-tenths of a second.
The rifle spat a flash of fla, the large-caliber lead bullet flying straight toward Galliard's brow with spinning kinetic energy.
At this distance, even a hunter with Grotesque Armant couldn't dodge a bullet by physical reaction alone.
But Galliard didn't even blink. He pressed the shutter of the cara on his chest.
"Click."
A gray flash, difficult for the naked eye to catch, gushed from the lens.
An unbelievable scene unfolded.
That high-speed spinning bullet, still ten centiters from Galliard's brow, suddenly stopped.
It still maintained its flight posture; the heat distortion around the bullet from air friction was completely preserved.
It was as if an invisible hand had gently pinched it in mid-air.
The kinetic energy remained.
The killing intent remained.
But the physical process of "displacent" had been forcibly severed.
Galliard elegantly tilted his head.
He extended a white-gloved finger and gently flicked the bullet suspended in the air.
"Rude."
He sighed.
"This is why I dislike old-school hunters."
"You always try to use such aesthetically unpleasing violence to ruin the balance of the picture."
"Three."
Galliard suddenly began counting down.
"Two."
"One."
As the word "one" fell, the frozen bullet suddenly resud motion.
But now its target—Galliard's head—had moved away.
The bullet grazed past the brim of his hat, hitting the smokestack behind with a sharp "clang," sparking a few points of fla.
This was the ability of [Death Shutter].
"Frozen Displacent."
It didn't eliminate kinetic energy; it rely stored it temporarily.
For those few seconds, Galliard was this world's editor.
"Traitors of I.A.R.C."
Galliard stood atop the smokestack, straightening his already-neat bow tie, his gaze finally settling on Lin Jie.
"I've heard of you in London, Mr. Lin. You're the rookie who killed the Oberamrgau puppeteer."
"A very creative work."
"Mr. Ackerman gave a shoot-on-sight order."
Galliard smiled, took off his hat, and gave Lin Jie an impeccable tip of the hat.
"But I am an artist who appreciates talent."
"I believe turning a unique soul like yours into a corpse is a desecration of art."
"So, I have a proposal."
He spread his arms as if embracing the entire sea.
"Co back to Geneva with ."
"I will make you into a statue."
"Not the dead stone kind."
"But 'freeze' the most brilliant, most fearful, most desperate mont of your life forever in amber."
"You will beco the most perfect collectible in the Association's hall."
"You will attain eternity."
"What do you say?"
Lin Jie looked at that madman.
He had seen many psychopaths.
But Galliard was the first to package such extre cruelty as art and genuinely feel moved by it.
"What if I refuse?"
Lin Jie's fingers brushed against [Silencer] at his waist.
"Refuse?"
Galliard showed a regretful expression.
"That would be such a pity."
"In that case, I'll have to dismantle you."
"After all, shattered beauty is also a form of beauty."
Before the words faded, Galliard raised his cara again.
This ti, the lens was aid at the entire aft deck.
"Get down!"
Lin Jie's pupils contracted sharply. He shoved William beside him aside and dove toward cover on the other side.
The cabin door burst open.
Julian and Evelyn, having just rushed out upon hearing the gunshot, saw this very scene.
"Don't co out!"
Lin Jie roared, but it was too late.
"Click."
The shutter sound rang out again.
This ti, the flash was more intense and covered a wider area than before.
Lin Jie felt his body suddenly stiffen.
His thoughts were still clear, his eyes could still see, his ears could still hear.
Even his muscles were still straining, his heart still pounding wildly.
But he couldn't move.
He still maintained that diving posture to the side, his entire body suspended in mid-air, half a ter off the ground.
Like a film that had been paused.
Beside him, William was frozen in his backward-leaning posture from being pushed.
And at the cabin door, Julian and Evelyn, who had just rushed out, were also frozen in the instant they crossed the threshold.
It was an utterly terrifying experience.
You knew you were moving.
Your brain told you, you were sprinting at full speed.
But your retina told you, you were still in place.
This perceptual disconnect made one nauseous.
Even more terrifying, the kinetic energy that should have been released hadn't disappeared.
It was being "saved up."
Like water in a reservoir, the water level rising higher and higher, the pressure growing greater and greater.
Lin Jie could feel his muscles screaming, his bones creaking.
That was the sign of inertia accumulating within his body.
"Look."
Galliard jumped down from the smokestack.
He was also frozen mid-air for a mont, using that freeze to eliminate the impact of his fall, then landed lightly on the deck.
He walked up to Julian.
The scholar still held the notebook he used for calculating star charts, his face filled with astonishnt.
"Too slack."
Galliard shook his head.
"This expression isn't suitable for a collectible."
He raised his conductor's baton and gently tapped Julian on the back of the head.
"Thump."
It wasn't a heavy tap.
But in the frozen state, the force of this tap was also "stored."
"Three."
Galliard began the countdown.
He turned and walked toward William.
"Two."
He glanced at Lin Jie suspended in the air.
"One."
"Snap!"
Ti began to flow.
The force that erupted in that instant was catastrophic.
Lin Jie felt as if he'd been hit by a high-speed train.
He had originally just been diving to the side, but due to the accumulated inertia, the motion was amplified several tis over.
His entire body shot out like a cannonball, slamming heavily into the capstan.
"Bang!"
The steel capstan was dented inward.
Lin Jie felt at least two of his ribs break, a mouthful of blood rushing up his throat.
William's situation was slightly better. Being a veteran, he adjusted his center of gravity at the last mont, rolling with the inertia a few tis to dissipate so of the force.
But Julian wasn't so lucky.
That gentle tap, at the mont of inertia's explosion, beca a heavy hamr blow.
Julian didn't even make a sound before collapsing to the deck, blood flowing from the back of his head, knocked unconscious on the spot.
Evelyn scread, rushing to help Julian, but she herself was thrown into disarray by the inertia.
Just one shutter.
The entire team was nearly incapacitated. This was a hunter ranked in the top hundred.
"See?"
Galliard stood in the center of the deck, leisurely replacing the magnesium powder film in his cara.
His movents were elegant and composed, completely disregarding the wounded group before him.
"This is rhythm, this is composition, this is... art."
Lin Jie clutched his chest, struggling to get up from the ground.
He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth.
He was observing.
He was calculating.
That last freeze lasted exactly three seconds.
During those three seconds, all objects caught in the flash lost the ability to move, but thought and physiological functions were unaffected.
And the kinetic energy would erupt three seconds later.
This ant, if one could predict the timing of the shutter...
If one could actively create a counteracting kinetic force within those three seconds...
Lin Jie's hand reached into his pocket.
His fingers touched that [Parasitic Anchor Cluster Core Fragnt].
The gray gelatinous mass began to warm slightly upon sensing Lin Jie's frantic heartbeat and trembling fingers.
It craved kinetic energy.
It craved the coming, even more violent impact.
"Art?"
Lin Jie spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva, looking at the madman adjusting his focus.
"Forgive for not appreciating it."
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