As a Hunter who had Shadow Cloak, Danitz's hiding and monitoring abilities were always pretty good. Back then, he had even helped Gehrman Sparrow lay an ambush for Steel Maveti. At this moment, he didn't show any traces of himself, but he felt a little bored. He was eager for Anderson to switch with him as soon as possible.
When will such a life end? Vice Admiral Ailment, hurry up and appear. No, no, not now. It's better to wait until Anderson arrives... Danitz did some introspection and rationally ended his "prayer."
He was worried that a pirate admiral at Vice Admiral Ailment Tracy would discover that he was hiding in the dark, and he lacked the courage and confidence to deal with her.
Of course, if he wore the boxing glove, everything wouldn't be a problem.
As long as he made the decision fast enough, fear and apprehension wouldn't be able to catch up to him!
"You seem very troubled?" Suddenly, a voice rang beside Danitz's ear.
Danitz jumped out of the shadows in shock as an orange flame quickly formed in his hand.
At the same time, he cast his gaze to the source of the voice. He saw Anderson hiding in the woods. There were green vines stuck to his head that seemed to meld him with the environment.
"...Dogsh*t!" It was unknown if Danitz was cursing Anderson or himself. After venting his anger, he asked, "When did you come?"
Two minutes ago," Anderson replied with a smile. "You hid well. I didn't manage to find you immediately, so I followed your hiding habits and casually asked you a question."
Danitz was momentarily unsure if he should be proud or angry. He asked with mixed feelings, "If I had remained calm just now, would you have failed to discover me?"
"In theory," Anderson said with a smile, completely unfazed. "But as an experienced Hunter, there can't be only one way."
Just as Danitz was about to ask what other solutions there were, he suddenly saw Bartz extinguish the candle and prepare to sleep.
Minutes later, the figure of intelligence peddler, Bartz, appeared by the window in the darkness. With a nimble leap, he landed into the shadows outside the house.
That was where Danitz had been hiding. Having re-entered the shadows, he was almost stepped on by his target.
Bartz walked towards the sea under the cover of the shadows.
...Dogsh*t! Only then did Danitz appear, giving Bartz the middle finger.
Anderson also left the woods. As he pulled out the branches from his head, he smiled at Danitz.
"I think we'll hit the jackpot tonight."
Danitz glanced at the strongest hunter in the Fog Sea and nodded vigorously.
"I hope it's Vice Admiral Ailment."
He used the shadows that were everywhere at night and immediately took the lead in following the intelligence peddler, along with Anderson. They maintained a perfectly adequate distance.
"Not too stupid..." Anderson observed for a moment before chuckling.
Danitz scoffed inwardly but didn't respond.
He knew very well that this wasn't an occasion where they could afford to mock and provoke each other!
Fifteen minutes later, Bartz arrived at the beach and stood there, staring at the dark blue sea under the crimson moonlight.
He didn't wait too long. In the darkness of the sea, a huge outline appeared, gradually forming a black ship with a white flag fluttering in the air.
On the flag, two ghostly-blue flames "burned" within a pitch-black skull.
The Black Death!
Vice Admiral Ailment Tracy's flagship, Black Death!
Danitz instantly became excited. If not for his shadow form, his pupils definitely would've dilated in a bid to draw in more light to see every detail of the ship.
He subconsciously moved a distance forward, hoping to confirm if Vice Admiral Ailment Tracy was on the ship.
As the gigantic sailboat approached, the two people in the shadows could see sailors busy on the deck.
Is there a dock for docking here? Or will they just give Bartz a dinghy and get him to row himself over? Just as these thoughts flashed through Danitz's mind, he heard Anderson say with a suppressed voice, "Leave."
Ah? Danitz's greatest strength was that he was good at following the instructions of an authoritative figure. Be it in front of Edwina Edwards or Gehrman Sparrow, he would follow the instructions to a tee, apart from grumbling at most. At that moment, although his face was filled with puzzlement, with the intention to retort and persist in his own plans, he still used the shadows to silently leave the beach.
When they could no longer see the Black Death and could only hear the vague crashing of the waves did Danitz leave the shadows and appear in the forest. He hurriedly asked, "Aren't we going to confirm if Vice Admiral Ailment is aboard?"
Anderson sized up Danitz and chuckled.
"Never underestimate a Beyonder who's very famous at sea but has lived to this day. Every pirate admiral is a target you must be careful against. You must never be careless."
Danitz subconsciously replied, "Admiral of Blood Senor, Admiral Hell Ludwell..."
They were all pirates who were easily killed by a particular crazy adventurer.
Anderson was momentarily at a loss for words to rebut Danitz with. After a few seconds, he said, "So, isn't Vice Admiral Ailment Tracy worth paying more attention to considering how she survived Gehrman Sparrow’s attack?^^
After careful thought, Danitz inexplicably felt that Anderson's words made sense. Just as he was about to speak, his throat suddenly felt itchy as he coughed.
After coughing a few times, his throat began to swell in pain, and he could taste metal.
"Look, I told you to be careful." Anderson clenched his fists and held them to his mouth. He coughed lightly, but it wasn't as serious as Danitz's. "Tracy must've spread all kinds of ailments around the ship. Once anyone approaches it, they'll quickly be infected with it and be exposed. Heh, with this wide of a range, it means that she has completely digested the Sequence 5 potion and has a chance of advancing to Sequence 4."
"Why couldn't it be that she has already advanced to Sequence 4?" As he was far from the source of the infection, Danitz quickly recovered and instinctively retorted.
"If that were the case, you are either on the Black Death, or you have a victim of the Black Death disease and are on your deathbed." Anderson half-turned his body and cast his gaze towards the obstructed beach. "Tracy must've used some sort of trick. It's unlikely for her to only be able to maintain the target area of the ailments to be at the front and not the other three directions. Instead, she used the wind to spread the ailments to affect the people on the shore."
With that said, Anderson clapped his hands and smiled again.
"Isn't our encounter proof that Vice Admiral Ailment is on the ship? You can inform Gehrman Sparrow."
Danitz didn't hesitate any further. He immediately set up a ritual and summoned the messenger. Using the excuse of guarding the area to prevent any accidents, Anderson walked out of the forest.
It was three in the morning in Backlund's East Borough. Apart from the moonlight and starlight, it was pitch black.
Wearing cotton pajamas and a sleeping cap with a protective hairnet, Klein sat on the bed and received the letter from Reinette Tinekerr without asking anything.
Opening the letter, he calmly got out of bed, took out a pen from his pocket, and wrote on the back of the letter: "Return to the port city and await further instructions."
After watching Miss Messenger leave, he calmly changed into his shirt, put on his vest, tied his bow tie, and put on his black trench coat.
Then, he took four steps counterclockwise and went above the gray fog. Using the topaz spirit pendulum to divine the danger level of this operation, he received almost no revelations.
Without any hesitation, he returned to the real world and stood in front of the mirror. He picked up his half top hat and wore it above his head.
On the bunk bed in the room outside, Qonas and Enuni opened their eyes.
In an empty room on the Black Death, a figure quickly outlined itself. He had black hair and brown eyes with cold and hard facial features. He was none other than Gehrman Sparrow.
Under the dim crimson moonlight, Klein swept his gaze and casually found a chair to sit down as he admired the sea vista outside.
In the captain's cabin one level away, Vice Admiral Ailment Tracy, who was dressed in a white blouse and beige pants, watched Bartz leave the room in disgust. She pulled at her collar out of reflex, and her expression turned livid.
She had just learned that Blazing Danitz and the Strongest Hunter Anderson had been staying in Theros Island recently with unknown motives.
They're all related to Gehrman Sparrow... Is that fellow looking for me? Tracy narrowed her eyes as she walked towards the window without any hesitation. She was prepared to instruct the sailors on the deck to steer the ship away from these waters.
At this moment, her thoughts suddenly turned sluggish. It was as if she had sunken into a state where she knew she was in a dream but was unable to extricate from it no matter how hard she struggled.
Not good... Black flames abruptly emerged from the surface of Tracy's body, attempting to burn away any external influences.
However, while the flames were initially able to "flow" smoothly, they later began to turn intermittent as they kept falling to the ground like withered petals.
A strong sense of despair surged within Tracy as her thoughts turned increasingly slower.
Desperate, she quickly condensed a layer of crystalline ice around her body, retracting the invisible threads towards her and wrapped herself in layers.
At that moment, the door to the captain's cabin creaked open. Wearing a silk top hat and black trench coat, Gehrman Sparrow walked in.
Then, he politely closed the door.
With a light cracking sound, the entire captain's cabin instantly became extremely quiet. The sound of crashing waves was no longer present, as though they had been separated from the real world.
As for the invisible spider webs that entangled Tracy, they seemed to misunderstand the order that was given as they tightly bound Vice Admiral Ailment up, preventing her from moving or using her Beyonder powers.
Distortion!
As her thoughts returned to normal, her brain no longer felt frozen.
"W-what do you want to do?" She couldn't hide her fear as she watched Gehrman Sparrow slowly approach.
What she couldn't understand was why the other party would give up on the attempt to make a marionette even though she had clearly lost her ability to resist.
The reason why Klein did so was because he was worried that Vice Admiral Ailment and the Demoness of White were related by blood. This way, Tracy's death would cause the demigod who was good at hexes to sense something and take measures ahead of time.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Klein stopped in front of the Demoness.