"Didn''t expect that there would be a time where Viking sailors became buddhists." A sneer was stered on my face. "Thankfully, I still have ess to the inte, and there isn''t much time dtion with the outside.


    "This is an isted realm made specially for the victim of the Drowned Revenant."


    Their words sent a chill deep into my bones, not because of their malice, but because of the despair that clung to every syble.


    These weren''t warriors; they were prisoners, trapped in an endless cycle of torment, bound to this ship for eternity. And now, they sought to drag me into their cursed existence.


    As if they want me to suffer the same fate.


    The air grew thick with their stench, and their crazy murmurs filled my ears.


    I swung my Stormhooks in wide arcs, trying to keep them at bay, but there were too many. Their pale, lifeless hands grasped at me, pulling me closer, desperate to make me one of them.


    I could feel my energy waning, my body slowing. The relentless onught was much more devilish than I expected.


    I slowly saw my Sanity dwindling, but thanks to myst experience, I could calm down my mind and not overexert myself.


    My mind specialized in controlled tunnel vision. Instead of epting the existence of their dreadful chants and appearance, I filled most of my mind with the escting pain that was resulting from the eleration of my Valtherion''s Blood adaptation.


    The pain was a blessing in disguise. Then again, I started to get a little bit horrified that pain was not one of the things that could decrease my Sanity.


    "Hahaha… I can do this all day…"


    And then, the deck beneath me shook.


    From the shadows of the ship''s bow emerged a figure unlike the others. His presence was suffocating, his auramanding attention. He wore a long, weathered coat that fluttered in the unnatural wind, adorned with barnacles and seaweed.


    His face, however, was anything but human—numerous spirals of voids that were crowned by tentacles writhed where hisplexion should be, and his multiple red-void eyes gleamed with a malice that burned colder than any abyss.


    His gaze locked onto me with an intensity that made the shambling crew seem like mere distractions.


    "All paths lead here, to my ship, to my wrath. Every breath you take is a debt owed to me," His voice was a guttural snarl, deep andden with fury. "Every soul has its price, but yours... yours will be kept in the deepest vault, where no light dares to wander."


    His tentacles twitched as he stepped forward, his hand resting on the hilt of a sword that glowed with an otherworldly light. His voids, cold and calcting, flicked over me, sizing me up with stares, but there was something else—a hunger, an obsession that made my skin crawl.


    "You''re mine now," he rasped, "Just a pitiful barnacle for me to harvest"


    With a flick of his wrist, the ship itself seemed toe alive, groaning and creaking as if it, too, was under his control. The crew halted for a moment, eyes flicking to their captain before returning to me, their assault renewing with even more ferocity.


    I gritted my teeth, readying myself for whatever hell awaited me next.


    "Kalpante kalpanāmayah..."


    One of the many rusted axes swung toward me in a much more desperate arc than the other, its edge glinting with the moonlight filtered through a sickly haze.


    I twisted my body just enough to feel the wind from the de as it passed an inch from my neck, and then retaliated with a swift strike. My Stormhook severed the sailor''s arm with a wet snap. The limb fell, and with it, the ax ttered to the rotting deck.


    Yet, the sailor didn''t even flinch. He continued to advance, his hollow eyes glowing with an insatiable hunger for violence, muttering in an ancient, forgotten tongue—each word like a jagged shard in my mind.


    I felt the familiar rush of fury igniting within me. They might be undead, bound to some eternal curse, but I was no stranger to endurance. This... this was a battlefield I knew all too well.


    Enduring curses for years, feeling terribly isted just because you were born different inside.


    And having a devilish urge that needed to be sated in order to be alive…


    Right, I was cursed once for many years and suffered something that no one would be able to rte to.


    I was cursed to be anxious, conflicted, depressed, and forced to do something that I find heinous.


    "But this time is different…"


    That curse was finally dispelled! One wouldn''t be able to fathom the amount of hope and light that I grasped because of that one aspect befallen to me.


    And I''m not nning to waste this blessing this early.


    With each step, the deck beneath me groaned as if it were alive, a ghostly echo of its own past. I could feel the weight of their deaths pressing down on me—their agony, their rage—all swirling together in this moment of ceaseless horror.


    But I advanced with firm determination, thundering my hands and utilizing my senses to orchestrate this body of mine, turning it into a war machine.


    A hopeful and unyielding war machine, one that wouldn''t falter in the storm, no matter how thick the hail that came with it.


    "Hahaha… HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!"


    My movements became faster, more precise, as I sliced through the spectral crew with calcted strikes. Still, more rose to take their ce.


    "Persistent bastards!" I yfully spat through my clenched teeth, my muscles tensing as I spun around, and around, and around, sending numerous sailors crashing to the floor in a heap of bones and flesh.


    The cursed ship seemed to breathe with them, as though the souls of the damned were tethered to every nk, every nail. The whole structure groaned under the weight of centuries of despair.


    But I wasn''t going to stop.


    I wouldn''t stop.


    Their despair was not mine to begin with. They could eat shit!


    Each time one of the undead surged at me, I met them with an equally unyielding force.


    Tendrils started to spawn, and swirling portals that shoot out deadly torrents started to riddle the ship without damaging the deck—all by themand of the captain of the ship, who felt nothing but anger and desperate hatred.


    But I danced—I listened to their tunes, and adapted to their instruments. A manic, uncaring expression possessed my face, and I couldn''t help butugh at how easy it was to endure the madness of this world.


    All I needed was to clear my head of all the horror at bay.


    Because I have found the solution to my struggle to maintain my Sanity.