Captain – Chapter 332 – The Unquenchable Ghostly Fire

“Those two cannonballs directly penetrated the hull, landing at the rear of that dungeon in the hold. Now there’s some strange fire burning that can’t be extinguished with anything.”

Hearing the captain’s reassurance, Lance didn’t dwell on the matter but changed the subject, directly addressing the key predicament now facing the Mermaid.

“Can’t be extinguished?”

Roy raised an eyebrow slightly, finding this interesting.

Though she knew that ghost ship could roam the seas and judge those equally dangerous great pirates, necessarily having its peculiarities—like being able to move freely underwater, or being unsinkable with automatic repairs.

Now it seemed its firepower also had unique properties, specifically regarding these cannonballs.

“I’ll go take a look.”

Roy gently patted the helm, giving a signal to several people who had been standing beside her since breaking through the fog wall.

These people were helmsmen, including Alexis, ready to take over her work at any moment.

Of course, this wasn’t exactly an easy task.

After all, steering the Mermaid through a stormy whirlpool, ready to exchange fire with the Death Silence at any moment, meant holding the fate of the entire ship and everyone on board in one’s hands—an extremely heavy responsibility.

That’s why the helmsman’s position on a pirate ship was always high, second only to the first mate.

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Roy’s readiness to leave wasn’t about shirking this responsibility, much less planning to flee. Rather, if the situation became dire enough for a boarding battle, she intended to participate in the fight and counter the threat. She was probably the only one on the ship who could take on Vivian.

Well, perhaps there was also a lazy dragon.

But now wasn’t such an urgent situation.

As Roy had deduced, the fog wall was the devil’s doing, and beyond it naturally lay deadly traps he had set. That the Death Silence dared to pursue them inside had already surprised her, but by now, it had likely reached its limit and had to submerge and leave.

It wasn’t pursuing; it was indeed leaving.

The whirlpool wasn’t like an iceberg, showing only a corner above sea while most remained underwater. It was just the opposite, wider at the top and narrower at the bottom.

Though that’s how it was described, this so-called “narrower” was still relative. For a whirlpool as vast as a giant city, the part hidden beneath the sea surface was also immensely vast and far more turbulent than usual.

With the Death Silence retreating to temporarily avoid the devil’s power, it certainly couldn’t continue forward along that beam of light, or in the direction pursuing the Mermaid. At most, it could only sail in the direction of the whirlpool’s rotation, and who knew when it might catch up again.

This period was the Mermaid’s opportunity to catch its breath, which was why Roy could so easily leave the bridge to examine the hold.

However… it might also be the final moment of calm before annihilation.

Walking across the particularly wet wooden floor, the captain pushed aside the crew members in front of her and came to the end of that narrow dungeon, where Caine was waiting.

Along with those ghostly fires.

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That thought tinged with “annihilation” naturally arose when Roy saw those eerie flames, though it lingered in her heart only briefly before dissipating like mist.

“They’re right, it truly can’t be extinguished.”

The first mate’s grave voice reached her ears as the girl held her chin, observing with interest the butterfly-like dancing flames. After a moment, she reached the same conclusion.

Because the hold had been breached, with the rise and fall of the warship, seawater occasionally rushed in, gradually forming a shallow pool on the wooden boards.

But neither that pooled water, the white sand floating in it, nor the aimlessly drifting fire-retardant cloths could affect those flames in the slightest.

The fire seemed like the truly existing, mythological infernal fire, born from the River Styx, burning eternally, destined to consume all life.

More peculiarly, the flames were a ghastly green. They weren’t produced by igniting wood or other combustible materials but seemed to exist independently, using the floor, walls, and even the water surface as a base, walking upon them like ghosts.

Moreover, with closer observation, one could discover that the fire wasn’t actually touching these objects at all. There was an extremely thin gap between them, like the boundary between illusion and reality.

The crew had never seen such a bizarre phenomenon before, inevitably turning pale and anxious. Since they had already made every effort without effect, they naturally now turned their gaze to the captain, hoping she could solve the problem.

Otherwise, wouldn’t the Mermaid sink?

Roy didn’t think so.

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Her pupils reflected the firelight, dark gold mixing with ghastly green, appearing somewhat gloomy and profound, with a thoughtful expression hidden within.

Although this fire couldn’t be extinguished, it clearly wouldn’t ignite inanimate objects either. If so, the Mermaid would at most be completely enveloped by them but wouldn’t burn apart into ashes.

But the question was, if the Mermaid wouldn’t be harmed, what about them?

Would this ghostly fire climb onto people’s bodies and then, like the infernal fire in legends, burn them into charred corpses, until their souls were consumed?

The girl thought this was probably the case, but couldn’t prove it.

Because no one dared touch that fire, not even her. And though she was cold-blooded enough and never hesitated to kill, she wasn’t so insane as to experiment with her crew members.

“Bivis.”

After thinking silently for a long time, Roy hadn’t offered any solution or even attempted anything. She just expressionlessly uttered a name.

Caine understood and turned to send a crew member to fetch the man.

Time passed second by second, the fire continuously spreading until it was only a few inches from Roy’s boots.

The captain stepped back and then gestured for everyone to leave. After all, crowding here served no purpose. Of course, Caine still remained.

“At least this fire spreads slowly.”

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Roy glanced at her first mate and said with a smile.

The ghostly fire’s advance was indeed slow. Even after some time, it had only moved forward a few steps, seemingly not much faster than a crawling snail.

“No matter how slow, it will reach its end.”

Caine wasn’t as relaxed as she was, saying with slightly furrowed brows: “If we can’t find a way to extinguish it, then even if it maintains this speed, it will only take a few hours to force us all up to the deck.”

The fire spread slowly, but it wasn’t advancing relentlessly in just one direction. Rather, it was expanding in all directions, even upward. No one knew if it would penetrate the ceiling of the hold and go directly to the upper levels.

Moreover, if it kept going up layer by layer, even without completely consuming the Mermaid, just covering the ship’s armory, the storerooms with food, water, and rum, and several cannon decks would effectively disable the ship.

At that point, whether they abandoned ship and fled, faced the Death Silence’s cannons, or harbored delusions of surrender, they would only be heading toward death.

Those monsters clearly had no habit of accepting prisoners.

After some time, the crew member who had gone to fetch someone returned. He stopped beside Roy and Caine, panting heavily, but with no one following behind him.

He hadn’t brought back Bivis; he had just one message to deliver.

“Captain, First Mate, the scholar says he can’t extinguish this fire.”