184: Chapter 184: Friends Come from Afar in the Night 184: Chapter 184: Friends Come from Afar in the Night Captain Goss stood on the deck, looking down at the insignificant girl in the red dress beneath his feet.
He didn’t consider himself a demon in the traditional sense.
Not the kind that is blamed as the scapegoat for all the wrongs of this world, the demon that others claim to have been tempted by.
Mortals tend to subconsciously seek excuses to shrug off responsibility when they feel regret.
Thus, religion was born.
He was a legitimate businessman, engaging only in legitimate businesses, never involving himself in dragging decent women into disrepute or forcing old prostitutes to turn over a new leaf.
As for defining what constitutes a legitimate business, that indeed is hard to pin down.
If you consider two hundred years ago, even pirates holding letters of marque were engaged in a legitimate enterprise.
So-called modern nations, societies, laws, and moralities are all novelties that have emerged over the last century.
Are the businesses of those so-called good people really all that legitimate?
Arms trading, human trafficking, prohibited drugs, oil, sugar, colonial plantations…
Everyone is doing business, which gold bar looks nobler?
And why discriminate against me just because I conduct this particular business?
Just because I am a knight of the Yellowstone Throne?
Captain Goss couldn’t understand such altruistic actions.
It doesn’t benefit you in any way.
If it was for money, he could understand.
If it was for love, he could understand.
But you want nothing and just wish to be the hero who saves the world, that he couldn’t understand.
Those who were saved might not even realize that they were saved.
And even if they were saved, they wouldn’t appreciate it, they might just pick faults with you.
There’s absolutely no benefit, neither spiritually nor materially, so what exactly are you after?
“I can give you one final opportunity,”
Captain Goss, looking down at the tiny figure beneath him, said, “Surrender now, submit to me, become my servant, and I might consider forgiving you and that little rat behind you.”
Li Mumu looked up, gazing at the giant before her.
She finally understood the origins and background of this fellow.
A descendant of the Titan Giants from Ancient Greek mythology, or at least carrying a trace of Titan blood.
Western mythology is vast, but not complex.
Countless films and animations over the decades have stuck to the same themes, be it events from Greece or from Nordic myths.
Ask a scriptwriter to pen something about the Egyptian gods, and they might not even get it right.
The Olympus…
Titan Giants…
So that’s it.
And with these Elemental Bodies, you must be from the academy!
Li Mumu silently ridiculed a deep-sea themed cliché that perhaps the new generation of youngsters had never heard of.
A direct confrontation was probably really out of the question, even after she had leveled up.
The opponent seemed like the type inherently armed with lightning summoning and immunity to psychic attacks (though not really).
And it made sense, because if she could have defeated him, she would have blown up the boiler on the first attempt.
It was precisely because she couldn’t defeat him, and the opponent was apprehensive as well, that forced Wendy to resort to the Young Lord Decapitation Technique.
“Is everything ready over there?”
“You think it’s as simple as throwing a grenade into a toilet?”
Li Mumu was also putting on a fierce front.
Actually, her plan was to distract Captain Goss while Wendy went to blow up the engine room.
But Captain Goss wasn’t some rookie; he usually stationed himself in the engine room, barely moving an inch.
Although he had left, he had placed his Servant Army there, and Wendy couldn’t find any opportunity to strike.
The situation was at a stalemate.
“My patience is limited!”
Although he didn’t know what this little guy was scheming, Captain Goss was no longer in the mood to keep this up.
He leaned down, stretched out his hand, and grabbed her in his palm.
The Red String surged wildly but couldn’t penetrate the sturdy bone armor.
Jets of black muck spewed from the nose and mouth of Captain Goss, but given his body, now swollen to the height of six or seven stories, he could easily withstand the damage.
People don’t fight dogs one-on-one, not because they can’t beat the dogs, but because they fear being bitten.
Bearing the intense pain in his palm, Captain Goss held Li Mumu high up and sneered, “What are you expecting?”
He could certainly crush Li Mumu on the spot with brute force, but that would mean making an irreconcilable enemy of the Guiding Bodhisattva, and even if he completed this task, he would no longer be able to conduct business on the Pacific Rim route.
So all he could do was…
He was about to strike a discus thrower’s pose when he suddenly heard Li Mumu shout loudly, “Look behind you!”
What a joke, do you think I’m a three-year-old kid?
Captain Goss almost laughed, but out of caution, he still turned his head.
As he turned, his smile froze on his face.
On what should have been a boundless, calm dark sea, he heard the sound of waves churning and engines roaring, saw twinkling lights, and a large ship slowly emerged from the darkness.
It was a modern armored warship!
Its sudden appearance ahead was more like precisely navigating through dimensions, tearing through the dark veil, and plunging straight in front of the Olympus.
At such a close distance, it was already too late to evade.
“Turn the helm left!”
The voice of Captain Goss, filled with panic, reverberated through the entire cruise ship, reaching deep into the engine room.
His huge body deflated like a punctured balloon, rapidly shrinking back to the normal human size.
He recognized every ship on the Pacific Ocean, whether above or below the surface.
But precisely because of this, the moment he saw this ship in front of him, he deeply felt fear.
“Send a telegram immediately!
Say we are a civilian merchant ship…”
“Captain, a telegram from the other side has already arrived.
The content is — ”
The first officer ran onto the deck in a frenzy, screaming in terror, “Ming Country North Fleet battleship Dingyuan, demanding we immediately stop and submit to inspection!”
“Bullshit!
This is international waters!”
Captain Goss grabbed the first officer by the collar and roared, “Dive!
At all costs, dive deep into the Abyssal Layer!”
“But…”
“Don’t ‘but’ me!
Didn’t you hear what I said?
At all costs!”
Tossing the first officer back under the deck, Captain Goss turned and sprinted to the bow, frantically waving his hands towards the opposing warship, and shouting at the top of his lungs in broken Chinese, “Brain Slanting Basin!
No weapons!
We civilians!
Don’t fire!
Floating Lotus Seeds!”
However, the response he got was the flashing cannon fire from the opposing guns.