Chapter 348. Music
"Wuwa, wuwa, wuwa~!" the Mudling repeatedly jabbed with his finger in all cardinal directions, but the colorful forest remained somber and quiet, which made the scene even more eerie.
The tense crew instinctively moved closer to each other and formed a tight formation with their guns pointed at the woods around them. They could feel that something had gone awry.
What is he doing? Could all these trees be Ropelings? Charles started pondering over where the wuwas were, and it didn't take long for him to receive an answer as his keen ears picked up rustling noises from the nearby woods.
A brown jute rope descended from a tree branch and swayed side to side with the inertia. Its appearance signaled the beginning of something more sinister. More and more brown jute ropes jutted out of the roots and behind the leaves of the surrounding trees until the woods were full of brown jute ropes.
The brown jute ropes would get closer to the crew every time the crew's line of sight left them, even in the briefest moments.
Eventually, the brown jute ropes converged to form Ropelings, and they encircled Charles and his crew. It turned out that what the Mudling had been referring to as wuwas were the Ropelings!
The Ropelings had lured them into an ambush!
Charles and his crew had truly never thought that the Ropelings would use a human being as bait. The realization had distorted Charles' face. He glared with a savage look at the Mudling. He then drew out his revolver to execute the traitor who had led them into this trap.
Bang!
A deafening gunshot echoed, but the Ropelings were faster. A Ropeling landed between the Mudling and Charles, and it blocked the white bone bullet that Charles had fired at the Mudling.
"Lily, have your mice stare at these Ropelings! We have to get out of here, and we have to do it fast!" Charles exclaimed. He had decided to use the same solution he had used in their first encounter with the Ropelings.
Just then, shrill squeaks echoed behind him. Charles turned around and found that several hundred ropes had emerged to lock the heads of the nearby mice in a single direction; the Ropelings exhibited high intelligence, and they had preemptively put a stop to Charles' plan!
Charles moved to rescue the mice, but eight ropes burst out of the ground to wrap around his torso. The Ropelings had him bound.
"Fuck!" Charles roared. He had no plans of going out just like this, and white lightning arcs burst out of him to scorch the ropes, burning them away.
"I can hear them!" Tobba's voice pierced the words. His eyes were closed, but he found Charles with precision and yelled, "They want us to stop moving!"
"Stop moving and allow them to strangle us? Is that what they want us to do?!" Charles spurred his invisible tentacles into action, pushing the encroaching ropes away.
White lightning arcs lashed out at the Ropelings like a whip, but the lightning arcs merely singed them. The bizarre Ropelings seemed like insulators, and they remained unfazed as they marched closer to Charles and his crew with their bizarre movement.
Charles' invisible tentacles moved nonstop, batting away every single oncoming rope.
"Pass me the explosives! I'll hold them off! All of you rescue the mice first! We need their eyes to carve open a path for us!"
The crew responded quickly to Charles' orders and started hacking at the ropes that had bound the mice. However, the ropes were tough and couldn't be easily slashed through.
Feuerbach handed over a few tin grenades to Dipp. Dipp struck a match off his green scales and ignited the fuses of the tin grenades before swiftly handing them over to Charles.
The fuses hissed as they grew shorter and shorter. Charles held up the tin grenades with his invisible tentacles, but he hadn't thrown them yet. He was planning on throwing the tin grenades at the very last second.
The air was so tense that it was palpable, and Charles could no longer hear anything aside from his heart pounding madly against his chest.
At the critical juncture, the Ropelings moved for the first time despite being in the line of sight. They lunged forward like an intertwined net of ropes, much to the group's surprise. Only Charles and a few crew members were agile enough to escape capture, while the majority of the Narwhale's crew were instantly bound.
Charles hurriedly extinguished the fuses of the grenades. They would be doomed if the grenades were allowed to explode.
Charles got ready to move as soon as the Ropelings started strangling any of his crew, but he realized that the Ropelings had stopped moving; they seemed satisfied with what they had done and had ceased all movement.
"Captain, look," Linda said, gesturing with her chin.
Charles followed her gaze and found that the Mudling stood frozen, akin to a lifeless mannequin. He had no idea what was going on, but Charles knew one thing: the top priority was to get everyone out of here.
Having made up his mind, he gripped his Dark Blade and got ready to carve open a path, but the moment he bent his knees to make a move, an earsplitting strain of music echoed from the left.
Everyone, regardless if they were bound by the ropes or not, turned their eyes reflexively to where the music had come from, but there wasn't anyone else amidst the colorful trees. Moments later, however, Charles felt hundreds of gazes boring down on them.
Are they invisible? The thought crossed Charles' mind. The ear-splitting music got more and more frenzied as well as bassier and frantic as it approached Charles and his group with extreme velocity.
The Chief Engineer unconsciously stepped backward beneath the mounting pressure, and his step instantly changed the tune of the music from a frantic tune to a nail-scraping shrill cacophony.
Slash!
Beneath everyone's shocked gazes, a human being was shredded into a dozen meat chunks by an invisible assailant. The unfortunate sailor's blood stained the ground crimson.
The music echoed in all directions, and the crew finally felt the gazes boring down on them. However, they failed to find even a single living creature in the colorful woods around them. Everyone stood frozen in shock and horror. They dared not move, exactly like the Ropelings.
Charles' eyes cautiously darted around to find where the music was coming from but found nothing.
At Charles' will, one of his invisible tentacles stretched out from his left arm and lashed out at where the sound echoed the loudest, but the tentacle struck nothing but air. There was nothing there; Charles didn't feel anything at all.
Shwik!
Charles belatedly realized that his outstretched tentacle had been diced by the invisible assailant. A wave of excruciating pain struck him, and beaded cold sweat started rolling down his scarred cheek. However, Charles remained perfectly still.
He dared not move nor breathe too strongly as he endured the torment. Several minutes passed just like that, and the jarring music eventually softened. The invisible assailant seemed to calm down, and the music eventually disappeared.
The piercing gazes had vanished as well, but Charles remained unmoving. He signaled to the others with his eyes and told them to remain still. No one could say for sure whether it would return later or immediately once they started moving.
As Charles stared silently at his horrified crew, he suddenly realized why the island had no animated creatures aside from the Ropelings. The invisible assailant had to have killed every single one of them until none were left on the island.
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