The transition from the peaceful, flower-strewn garden of the 16th floor to the 17th was violent. There was no gentle fade, only a sudden, lung-bursting plunge into freezing salt water and the deafening roar of a gale.
Kang Min surfaced, gasping as a rogue wave slamd into him with the force of a battering ram. Around him, the world was a chaotic canvas of churning charcoal waves and jagged lightning. The sky didn’t just hold clouds; it held an eternal, swirling vortex that seed to be trying to suck the ocean into the heavens.
"To the ropes! Grab the lines or drown!" a voice bellowed over the thunder.
Kang Min reached out, his fingers catching a thick, barnacle-encrusted hemp rope. He hauled himself upward, his boots finding purchase on the slick, rotting wood of a massive galleon’s hull. As he vaulted over the railing and onto the deck, he saw the other survivors.
The group had changed. So from the previous floor were gone, replaced by new faces who had entered through different gates. Among them was Liora, a woman with a silk blindfold tied over her eyes, standing perfectly still despite the violent swaying of the ship. Beside her stood Kaelen, a man with the rigid posture of a career naval officer, and Zoya, a petite woman covered in soot with a bandolier of volatile-looking vials strapped across her chest.
A massive system window flickered into life, illuminated by a flash of green lightning.
「Floor 17: The Phantom of the Flying Dutchman」
「Main Scenario: Break the Eternal Voyage」
「Objective: Survive 7 nights of deep-sea raids.」
「Clear Condition: Be present on the ship when the seventh sun rises.」
「The Curse: You are now part of the crew. Disobedience is punished by the lash.」
At the helm of the ship, gripped by hands that were more bone than flesh, stood the Captain. He wore a tattered greatcoat that seed to be made of shadows and seaweed. His eyes were two burning coals of spite.
"Welco to the Dread-Sovereign," the Captain rasped, his voice cutting through the storm. "You work until you die, and then you work so more."
The First Night: The Abyssal Siege
The first night was a descent into madness. As the last sliver of the sickly green sun vanished, the ocean around the ship began to boil. But it wasn’t heat; it was life. Thousands of Abyssal Sirens—creatures with the upper bodies of pale won and the lower halves of jagged, chitinous eels—leaped from the waves, their claws screeching against the wood.
"Defensive positions!" Kaelen barked, his voice carrying the weight of authority. "Vanguards to the port side! Mages, focus on the sky! They’re dropping from the rigging!"
The combat was unlike the previous floors. There was no stable ground. Every strike had to be balanced against the ship’s erratic pitching. Liora, the blind navigator, moved like a ghost. She didn’t use her eyes; she felt the vibrations in the wood. When a Siren leaped at her from the shadows, Liora tilted her head slightly, her rapier flashing out in a precise strike that pierced the creature’s throat before it could even shriek.
"Three o’clock, five ters," Liora calmly stated, her voice a stark contrast to the carnage.
Zoya, the demolitionist, was having the ti of her life. She lobbed a vial of liquid fire into a cluster of undead pirates who had climbed the anchor chain. "Hot enough for ya?" she cackled as the green flas consud the marrow of their bones.
Kang Min, however, remained toward the center of the deck, near the main mast. He wasn’t just fighting; he was observing. He watched the way the Captain stood motionless at the helm, unbothered by the Sirens. He watched the way the wood of the ship seed to "heal" itself whenever it was damaged, the splinters weaving back together like flesh.
He rembered the Old World. This floor was a notorious "trap floor." In his previous life, he had heard of guilds that stayed on this ship for months. They would survive the seven nights, celebrate as the sun rose, and then watch in horror as the sky turned green again, the wounds of their fallen comrades vanished, and the tir reset to Day 1.
The Flying Dutchman wasn’t a voyage; it was a loop.
"It’s not a survival mission," Kang Min muttered, parrying the rusted cutlass of an undead boatswain. "It’s a prison."
The Third Night: The Despair of the Loop
By the third night, the exhaustion was setting in. The Sirens were relentless, and a Kraken had begun to haunt the ship, its tentacles—each the size of a redwood tree—slamming into the deck and dragging players into the depths.
One of the newer players, a young man nad Toby, was losing his mind. "We cleared the raid! Why is the tir back at six nights?! We survived! We did what the screen said!"
Kaelen gripped Toby’s shoulder, his face grim. "We keep fighting. That’s the only option."
"No," Kang Min interrupted, stepping into the center of the exhausted group. "The Captain told you: you work until you die, and then you work so more. If you follow his rules, you’ll be on this ship until your skin rots off like his."
Liora turned her blindfolded face toward Kang Min. "The vibrations... the heart of this ship doesn’t beat in the Captain. It beats beneath us. Deep in the hull."
Kang Min nodded. "In the Old World fables, the Captain’s soul was in a chest. In this Tower, the soul is the ship itself. Look at the mast."
Everyone looked up. The main mast was wrapped in heavy, glowing chains that throbbed with a dark, necrotic energy. Every ti a player died, a spark of their mana was sucked into those chains.
"We aren’t the crew," Kang Min said, his eyes narrowing. "We’re the fuel."
The Mutiny Plan
"So what’s the move, Singularity?" Zoya asked, wiping soot from her forehead. "We can’t kill the Captain. I’ve blown his head off twice, and he just grows a new one out of sea foam."
"We don’t kill the Captain," Kang Min said. "We sink the ship."
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