Chapter 295

Chapter 295: Chapter 292: "Don’t Make Excuses, You Are from the Soul Clan!Su Ming’an opened his eyes.

Before him was a dead-end corridor.

In the dim light above, he saw the opening of the ventilation duct.

He chose to rewind time.

In this World Replica, he had to race against time. Not only did he need to find the Perfect Pass route, but he also had to ensure he was the fastest; otherwise, the opportunity would be snatched away by others... In a replica with thousands of players, only one person could achieve a Perfect Pass, and that was the difficulty of this massive instance.

Therefore, he couldn’t miss any opportunities.

Not only did he have to do well, but he also had to be as fast as possible...

He stood still, looking at the ventilation duct above him.

He switched to Bright State, and before the Nailuo behind him noticed, he jumped into the duct and crawled inside. A moist breeze brushed past his face and when he saw the next light ahead, a stench of blood wafted to him.

As expected.

He did not rashly poke his head toward the light, but instead used Piercing to drill a small hole below and peek through.

...He saw a sea of blood.

Below was not a guest room, but a room that looked like a studio. The players lay on the ground, turned into four corpses.

Besides that, there were no other people around, the door was tightly closed, resembling a specialized storage room for corpses.

What Su Ming’an found noteworthy was that these players didn’t have the twin puncture wounds on their necks like the woman who was attacked initially, nor did their complexions have that soul-drained paleness. They merely looked like they had been killed in an ordinary attack, each with a fatal blunt force wound, their deaths clean and neat.

...They didn’t look like they were killed by the Soul Clan’s attack.

Instead... it seemed more like they were beaten to death by someone.

But in the previous loop, when people found these four corpses, they clearly looked as if they had died at the hands of the Soul Clan...

Su Ming’an pondered for a moment.

"...I see."

He had a rough understanding of the whole process now.

Seeing no one below, he summoned his Cloning, asking it to jump down and observe.

"Clack."

And just as Cloning was observing, the door was suddenly pushed open.

A person dressed as a crewmember met Cloning’s gaze, and the moment he saw Cloning, his eyes instantly turned fierce.

The crewmember didn’t say a word or ask any questions; he just pulled out a weapon and swung it at Cloning.

...Cloning still had the appearance of Su Ming’an, and by now, there shouldn’t be any player who didn’t recognize him.

The fact that the crewmember dared to take action upon seeing him meant he was probably an NPC.

Perhaps the crewmember mistook Cloning for a player from the cannon fodder squad that had come in waves before, his attitude seeming very confident as he lunged forward.

"Clang."

The crewmember’s club was sent flying by Cloning’s sword.

The next moment, the sword blade pierced the crewmember’s neck; he didn’t even have a chance to call for help.

The blood sprayed out like a fountain, dyeing the room a thorough red.

Su Ming’an was unsure how strong this crewmember had been, but judging from the experience points, he shouldn’t be a mere cannon fodder character. No wonder the player squad was wiped out here within ten minutes.

Now it was hard for him to judge the strength of NPCs; he could only infer their level from the experience points they dropped.

"Ding-dong!"

The system informed him that he had leveled up.

Ever since advancing to the Third Rank, leveling up became slower and slower. Killing low-level NPCs had started to significantly reduce the experience points, and if he killed NPCs that deviated from the quest route, he wouldn’t even get experience.

The current prompt seemed to suggest that killing these crewmembers... was the correct path?

Su Ming’an thought for a moment, then followed the path the crewmember had used to open the door.

Leaving the blood-filled room behind, he saw a wooden staircase leading downward, with a warm breath coming from below, as if it led to the ship’s engine room.

Cloning leaped down directly, coming upon a group of crewmembers gathered in the engine room, seemingly in discussion.

At least a dozen crewmembers were assembled here, as if they were conspiring. Candles were still lit on the table.

When the crewmembers saw Cloning, they first tensed up, then quickly grabbed their weapons and charged.

"Someone’s here!"

"Whoever it is, take them down! We can’t let this get out—"

The leader shouted, his club swinging without a hint of delay.

What met him was a Crescent Arc-like sweep of the sword.

"Pfft!" "Pfft!" "Pfft!"

The sword blade gleamed with a gloomy light under the candlelight, and one body after another thudded to the ground.

The blood spread all over the floor, seeping through the deck.

Su Ming’an promptly followed after, reaching out towards the few crewmembers who were frantically rushing towards the door—

"Boom—!"

The air shattered like glass, along with the crewmembers’ bodies torn to pieces.

Following the thunderous noise, the entire engine room fell deathly silent. The potent scent of blood filled the space, the floor stained thoroughly red.

Su Ming’an glanced at the dead crewmembers, discovering a wooden box beside them.

Inside the wooden box, there were some green potions and a small surgical knife. The blade was oddly shaped, resembling a slightly thick diamond-shaped needle.

"..." Looking at this uniquely shaped needle, Su Ming’an understood.

"So that’s how it is."

He had grasped the entire process behind the so-called "Yate Vessel Soul Clan attack."

He was about to voice his deduction and complete the Main Quest when he suddenly heard rapidly approaching footsteps from behind.

...It was the same place he had come from.

He remembered Miss Nailuo. Now, it seemed that Nailuo had come here, was overpowered by these crewmembers, and then killed.

He had Cloning hide in the adjacent cupboard. Before long, Nailuo’s red hair peered in.

Her expression was still vigilant, her hand clutching a black bag. But upon seeing a room full of corpses and Su Ming’an looking at her, the vigilance in her eyes turned to astonishment.

"Eh? Rin?" She was startled: "How come you’re here... You, did you kill them?"

"Miss Nailuo, you really are bold," Su Ming’an said.

He spoke the truth, for if he hadn’t arrived earlier, Nailuo would certainly have died at the hands of these people tonight.

"What do you mean?" As Nailuo jumped down, her flame-like long hair fluttered in the wind.

During her descent, the cloth bag she was holding fell off, revealing a blood-red spear.

She landed gracefully, and with a flick of her wrist, she pointed the spear directly at him, her voice becoming somewhat chilly,

"Rin, I didn’t expect to encounter you here."

As she said this, the cold tip of her spear pointed at him:

"You lurk around in the middle of the night, killing crew members, acting all sneaky... If I’m not wrong, you’re the prime culprit behind the chaos on the Yate Vessel—the Soul Clan!"

Su Ming’an: "..."

Su Ming’an: "Is that the conclusion you’ve come to?"

"—What, nothing to say, huh? No more excuses!" Nailuo shouted loudly, seemingly quite proud: "If it weren’t for my flash of genius tonight, deciding to head out to catch the evil murderer, I wouldn’t have discovered your atrocity! Su Rin, although I know you really like me, to the point of obsession, even playing hard to get, waiting for me time after time on my regular routes..."

At this point, she seemed to sigh with difficulty, "But... the difference in our races means that we can’t possibly love each other. Su Rin, come to your senses, human and soul are different paths, and I will slay you tonight, this is the fate of our love—if there is a next life, I might actually give you a chance to marry me..."

Su Ming’an: "..."

Su Ming’an: "Nailuo."

"—Don’t expect to say something to soften my heart, no matter what I won’t let you go! I’ve been practicing spears in the training field for a decade, and even my teacher said I had a gift, taking you down will be a breeze——"

"Read fewer romance stories," Su Ming’an interrupted her, "...and use your brain more."

Nailuo’s eyebrows shot up: "You, what are you—a member of the Soul Clan—saying——"

"I am not Soul Clan," Su Ming’an said.

"Stop denying it, if you weren’t Soul Clan, how could you, someone who can’t even handle a gun, sneak around and kill so many crew members by yourself in the dead of night!" Nailuo’s eyebrows shot up: "Just now, I also saw the bodies of four civilians, did you do that too! Rin, I didn’t think you could hide for so long on the Yate Vessel, yet still be discovered by me..."

"...Did you take a close look at the condition of those four civilians’ bodies?"

"What else could it be, just a fatal blow with striking injuries..." Nailuo paused midsentence, then hesitated: "Huh?"

Su Ming’an stepped aside, allowing her to closely inspect the crew members’ bodies on the ground: "Have you ever seen a Soul Clan kill someone in the middle of the night and not consume the soul?"

"That that that!" Nailuo struggled to respond: "That must be because you were afraid of being discovered, planning to change locations..."

Su Ming’an ignored her.

He squatted down, dragging a crew member’s body in front of him, and took out an injector, found earlier in a wooden box, filled with green liquid, and injected it into the crew member’s body.

Then, before his eyes, the crew member’s body withered at a visible rate, dying off like old tree bark.

...Gradually turning into the deathly pale appearance of someone whose soul had been consumed.

Under Nailuo’s astonished gaze, he took out a scalpel with a rhombic blade and made two cuts on the neck of the body.

After all this, he stood up, looking at Nailuo.

"Come up with any other conclusions now?" he asked.

"..." Nailuo fell silent.

She squatted down to closely examine the body, and eventually arrived at an utterly absurd idea.

"This body..." she said softly, "truly bears an identical resemblance to someone killed by a Soul Clan attack."

"Any body processed with these two instruments will look as though they have been attacked and killed by the Soul Clan." Su Ming’an twirled the scalpel in his hand: "If I hadn’t come here tonight, those four bodies upstairs, including you who rashly came charging over, could all become ’cases’ of Soul Clan attacks."

"..." There was disbelief in Nailuo’s eyes.

"What exactly are you trying to say?" Her mind couldn’t quite grasp it at the moment.

Su Ming’an looked at the wooden box beside him.

Inside the wooden box, dozens of sets of tools were neatly arranged. Judging by the quantity, these crew members still planned to kill at least dozens of passengers.

"These crew members... they launch attacks, kill victims who were exploring at night, disguise their deaths as if they were attacked by the Soul Clan, and then, spread rumors that the Yate Vessel is haunted by the terrifying Soul Clan," Su Ming’an slowly said. "But in reality, the Yate Vessel, which has been entrusted with the Empire’s high hopes and seen as the pearl of the sea... has no so-called Soul Clan on board.

This is nothing more than man-made panic, a panic... crafted for the sake of panic."

"Ding-Dong!"

As he reached this conclusion, the system prompt also sounded at the same time.

"Why would the crew do such a thing?" Nailuo couldn’t fathom it at all.

She found it hard to imagine that such outrageous things could happen on the Yate Vessel, regarded as the hope of the Empire.

...The crew leading the way in killing passengers, then causing panic with ’Soul Clan aboard the Yate Vessel’?

"You’re not suspecting me anymore?" said Su Ming’an.

Nailuo glanced at him.

"Hmph... Although Miss here is eager to find the attacker, I am still willing to barely trust you," she snorted lightly. "Considering the power of your family, how could you possibly get your hands on such strange drugs? I am more inclined to believe there’s a bigger conspiracy at play."

Su Ming’an smiled.

And luckily, Miss Nailuo no longer doubted him.

Otherwise, had she kept distrusting him, insisting on bringing him to meet the Soul Hunters, he would have had to kill her.

He had no sympathy for NPCs incapable of being reasoned with.

"Having been with Miss here for several days, you’ve actually gotten quite a bit smarter," Nailuo said. "Although I’m not sure when you practiced your skills, subduing these crew members isn’t difficult, so I will barely believe you for now."

...Not difficult?

Su Ming’an didn’t say a word.

He remembered that in the last loop, this Miss Nailuo died at the hands of this group of crew members she considered ’not difficult to deal with’.

"So, why would the crew do this?" Nailuo questioned.

"What benefits can the crew members get by creating panic?" said Su Ming’an. "Thinking from this angle..."

Nailuo pondered for a moment, "Once there’s word of the Soul Clan on the Yate Vessel, the first to be dispatched would undoubtedly be the Soul Hunters."

"But those who killed these innocents are not the so-called Soul Clan at all. There is no Soul Clan on the Yate Vessel," continued Su Ming’an. "Thus, when people learn ’the Soul Hunters can’t catch any Soul Clan,’ they will become more panicked, more desperate— with the number of victims increasing by the minute, and the deliberately slowed-down journey still two whole days away... And even, these crew members, in order to amplify the panic, might actively set traps, attack Soul Hunters, thus stripping away the noble’s last line of defense."

At that, he turned to Nailuo:

"In such circumstances... with the number of survivors dwindling day by day and the Soul Hunters dying off... what would those life-cherishing nobles do?"

"...There are dozens of lifesaver boats on the Yate Vessel, enough to rescue and evacuate all passengers of middle and upper classes in case of a shipwreck," Nailuo spoke slowly. "After such an incident, the nobles will definitely choose to launch the lifesaver boats, leave with the Hunters, and abandon the Yate Vessel that has become a burden..."

"Then, the Yate Vessel, without its upper-tier rulers, will become the possession of these crew members." Su Ming’an tossed the syringe in his hand aside:

"...This is the full process of their conspiracy."