After awaking, Orm left, and Arthur wanted to follow as well. He, too, wanted to understand what exactly was going on; however, upon reflection, with Shiller also present and even closer to him, why didn't he just ask Shiller directly?
Either way, whether Shiller had planned the whole affair… or had planned it, asking him directly was the right choice.
However, there was an awkward matter; this person named Atlanna was obviously related to Atlantis, and Arthur had only recently revealed his true heritage to his friends, so inquiring about Shiller's plans now would seem awfully like scouting the enemy.
Little did he know, Shiller had already begun explaining to Natasha, and it appeared he had no intention of hiding anything from anyone.
"From the moment I realized that I got seasick in this cosmos, I started gathering relevant intelligence. Naturally, the first batch of information I collected pertained to ships."
"After a few experiments, I found that it had nothing to do with the size, stability, or the voyaging route of the ships, which forced me to suspect that the sea was the culprit behind my seasickness."
"I previously mentioned to you all that my past life's cause of death was also within the scope of my investigation, but it's not an easy thing to leave a psychological shadow, and I haven't found any phobias related to the sea in my memory banks or the High Tower's operational structure."
"Then what you told us before…" Natasha raised her voice, saying.
"I didn't say anything," Shiller spread his hands and replied: "I merely informed you of how I died. I didn't pass any judgement on it, let alone say that it left a psychological shadow that causes me to get seasick."
"Alright, it's always like this." Natasha waved her hand, clearly already accustomed to it.
"I had begun investigating the marine topography of this cosmos. Naturally, I also identified several suspicious individuals based on my own understanding. Just then, a few news items caught my eye."
"That's right, the Dakotazo, the gambling ship that has been wildly popular in recent years and has managed to avoid all maritime law enforcement searches, is clearly not normal."
"Most of the news about this ship was speculative and without concrete proof, but that didn't mean I couldn't learn about what happens aboard because some people do return alive."
"Thanks to the development of the internet, I masqueraded as a paranormal enthusiast particularly interested in the Ghost Ship. I sent emails to Dakotazo survivors who had appeared in the media or leaked their information, hoping they could provide me with their observations aboard."
"When most of them told me that their desires had truly been fulfilled, whether that be obtaining a large sum of money or solving a business issue, I knew that the mastermind had to be not of the human race, or at least they weren't using methods common in human society."
"Then I broadened my search and began to interview those who had any knowledge or encounters with the Dakotazo," Shiller continued, "and from that, I obtained very useful information—the Dakotazo couldn't grant the wish of bringing the dead back to life."
"With that, I could rule out Heaven and Hell because Angels and Demons often engage in such deals, and they are indeed capable of bringing humans back to life, understanding well humanity's great desire for it."
"So, even though the humans revived by them would no longer be considered human, they still eagerly present this as a key aspect of their advertising. Unlike the Dakotazo's owner, who made it clear that resurrection was impossible."
"Since they openly admit their inability to revive the dead, it means that their rank isn't too high, at least less than a Demon Lord and Archangels. With this knowledge, things became much simpler."
"Wait, you can't mean…" Natasha showed an expression of realization, fixing her gaze on Shiller and saying: "When Nick first came to this cosmos, he kept mumbling to himself and would often disappear without a trace, claiming he was off to reunions with old friends—what old friends in this cosmos?"
Shiller chuckled and responded, "Of course he has old friends, I've known him for quite some time now."
Natasha sighed heavily, waved her hand in front of her nose, and said, "What are you guys up to now? Just spit it out."
Shiller revealed a smile and turned to Oliver, saying, "Amanda is dead—the foolish girl chose to hide in a closet, so I sent her to reunite with her family."
At the sight of Shiller's sincere smile, Oliver and Black Canary felt a chill run down their spine.
Amanda woke up.
Having gone through sheer terror, intense pain, and prolonged darkness, she finally recovered consciousness.
Hell…
That was her first blurry thought.
No, there couldn't be a hell more terrifying than what she had already experienced.
Amanda remembered; she had gone upstairs to mobilize the people she brought onto the ship, only to find that very few of her subordinates were still alive, except for those recently sent in by her boss. Amanda wasn't familiar with, nor did she trust Kira, who had been transferred from the West Coast.
Seeing the handful of remaining passengers, Amanda thought it best to prioritize her own survival. She found the most remote room and hid inside a closet.
In her opinion, since Shiller needed to count while facing away before he could begin hunting, all she needed to do was lie down or face the wall; Shiller's gaze couldn't penetrate walls.
But she was wrong.
The sound of Shiller's footsteps approached without pause or any hint of hesitation or wandering from searching, heading straight for Amanda. It was as if he had seen her hiding in the closet despite passing several corridors and even floors.
Amanda dared to hide inside the closet, yet it was the most mistaken choice of her life. Shiller came, opened the door, and pulled her out—crushing her neck with the closet door.
Her body was outside the cabinet, only her head had disappeared inside, her hands clawing countless scrapes around the edges of the cabinet doors, blood seeping in, as if her neck had grown a new sort of cognitive organ, replacing her head – not only more brilliant but also more beautiful.
Pain wasn't so intense, nor particularly unbearable. Before death, Amanda hadn't seen the most memorable moments of her life as many legends would describe; she felt like toilet paper thrown into a flushing toilet, sucked in by some sort of whirlpool and plummeting at high speed.
In the end, when she awoke, she saw a dark red expanse.
A black elliptical shape kept swaying back and forth in front of her, apparently talking, Amanda could see but couldn't hear, the thing's swaying was distressing.
"Stop shaking!" Amanda yelled.
The other party might not have heard her, or they simply didn't care, continuing to sway in front of Amanda, moving from left to right, then from right to left.
Amanda slapped it hard.
The slap stunned them both.
Amanda's senses of sight and hearing had come back all of a sudden after the slap, while the other was totally shocked that Amanda would actually hit them.
"What the hell is going on here?!"
Amanda heard the other person shout and could tell from the accent — this guy was definitely black.
"How can she hit so hard... What do you mean I'm talking nonsense? Damn, she can even jump up and slap me. Come and see this!"
Another figure came over, and Amanda, now regaining her vision, saw that it was a handsome black-haired white man, and the black guy from before was a one-eyed bald man with an eyepatch.
"Oh, her, she's that woman with the special itinerary... Pleasure meeting you, Ms. Amanda Waller."
Amanda blankly shook hands with the black-haired guy, just about to ask questions when another long-faced man dressed in a strange Mage's robe came over, carrying a parchment, and said with a furrowed brow, "What's the matter? Why is the line not moving? They're waiting up front."
The black man dragged Amanda out of the line, shook hands with her, and said, "Nick Fury, S.H.I.E.L.D Director, ma'am, please come with me, you'll want to go this way."
As Amanda walked with him to the other side, she saw a very long line up front, all filled with semi-transparent people.
Looking on, Amanda realized, why do these all look like acquaintances?
Not that close, but at least she had seen them frequently in the past day — weren't they all passengers on the cruise ship?
Just as Amanda thought of this, the two men who had been taking her seemed to have gone to socialize with some others, leaving her with the one-eyed bald black man who told her to wait there, as everyone else disappeared.
Amanda decided to follow the line forward; the queue was long, but she found she was moving much quicker than usual, quickly reaching the very front.
At the front, a Demon was seated.
A typical Demon appearance, with goat horns on its head, goat hooves for feet, black hair, and red slit pupils, its claws clutching a quill, busy scribbling on the parchment floating in front of it.
"Hans Bock! Soul weight... 26 grams? Damnit, this guy has a full 5 grams of sin on him??? What did he do... Oh, six years ago he raped and slaughtered a family of four in a village in southern Mexico, then torched the bodies, afterwards he led three village massacres, tsk tsk, the devil..."
"Raven! Raven... What? Your name is Lee Ollis? Alright, we'll go by the name given at birth, there was this other guy insisting he's not Lillian, calls himself what... 'Black Gun'? Sorry, but we don't do nicknames here! Get up and weigh in!"
Amanda saw a scale beside the Demon, the most common kind used for weighing powder. Each person was to step on it to be weighed, a little demon squatting nearby would call out the weight, and the writing demon would then record it.
A bit away from the writing demon, Amanda saw the one black and two white men she saw earlier talking to a man with wings and a creature that looked like a giant fly.
The expressions on the three men's faces bore neither fear nor flattery, replicating the usual fervor seen in the business world, with cunning and astuteness shining through their eyes.
Even stranger, the pair they were talking to sported the same expressions, including the partially fake smiles and the gleam of greed in their eyes.
Amanda didn't need to get any closer to overhear their conversation.
"... Indeed, the losses were staggering, that damned Barbados made several of my generals bankrupt, you see when morale falls, the troops don't follow well, as a great lord, don't I work from dawn to dusk just to secure quality souls to ease their spirits... you've really helped me a lot..."
"The quality of these sinners' souls is indeed good," said the handsome man with wings. "Each soul weighs 24 grams, not often we see souls so wicked even among the generals of Hell..."
"There must be no shortage of sinful humans in this world, right?" questioned the long-faced Mage skeptically. He added, "Why would sinner's souls be a rare commodity in Hell?"
The giant fly flapped its wings and explained, "You don't get it, the criteria for a sinner's spirit are too harsh — must be naturally evil without just cause, blasphemous, recalcitrant, unrepentant, escalating in depravity, committing evil until the very last moment, even subjected to ritual execution, meaning dying in agony, only then can a soul weigh heavy. Any less, and its weight is greatly discounted."
All three nodded in realization.