The canvas hammock swayed gently in the dark master stateroom on Deck Nine.
Moonlight filtered through the half-drawn silk curtains—freshly laundered and starched by Grandpa Fu—casting silver stripes across the polished teak floorboards. Outside on the calm ocean, the rhythmic lapping of waves against the white hull sounded like a quiet lullaby.
Envoy Xue Sha hovered three inches above the floorboards, completely invisible beneath the gray spatial shroud of his [Upper-Realm Void-Stealth Kidnapping Talisman].
Even though the talisman concealed his physical body, his scent, and his aura from Golden Core detection arrays, Xue Sha’s heart was hammering against his cracked ribs at two hundred beats per minute. His single unswollen eye burned with a mixture of feverish greed and deep-seated post-traumatic stress.
Careful... I must be ten thousand times careful! Xue Sha warned himself silently, inching toward the hammock at a snail’s pace.
*For fourteen days on this cursed planet, every single thing that looked harmless has been a vicious trap!
The baby dragon in denim overalls was a monster! The five hundred thousand boars were explosive rubber dolls! The pink jellyfish on the sea floor was a ghost-pepper bomb!
Even the eight-tentacled Kraken King was wearing a yellow lifeguard vest!*
