The Informal Tomb Raiding Diary: She is the occupant of the tomb!-Chapter 159: Stealing Hearts to Power Up

The mummy heard what I said, and indeed turned its head back, looking forward without glancing at me again.

Its head moved, and I realized it wasn’t moving by itself; something was controlling its neck and the back of its head.

I pried at its back with a dagger, pulling it slightly away from the seat, only to find that its entire spine was connected to the seat.

Or rather, it was the seat that was connected to the mummy, becoming one with it.

I secretly lamented; this person was indeed pitiful. Fatigue driving was already bad enough, but this was death driving.

The person was dead yet still had to continue sailing!

You might say it was a human, but not entirely so. Though mummies often look similar, this one had some features distinctly different from humans.

Like its ears, very much like fish fins, and gills like those of sharks on either side of its neck, with webbing like duck feet between the fingers of both hands.

Its feet were stepping on the seat’s foot pedals; it wasn’t wearing shoes, so I could see clearly that its feet resembled the claws of a platypus.

Could it be that the residents of White Jade City all looked like this?

Or had they captured such a humanoid creature to operate their ship?

Inside the city, we saw no characters or pictures; there was only a statue of a joyful, plump goddess.

However, the statue might not resemble its worshippers; I suddenly recalled those monsters who seemed like grafted hybrids. Perhaps this navigator was artificially grafted too?

"What are you doing?" Beauty Snake suddenly burst in, glaring at me angrily, trying to push me away from the seat.

I stepped back before she could reach me, causing her hand to miss. She was so desperate to leave that she allowed a mummy to drive.

She didn’t consider if a death driver operating the Ghost Ship could reach any good place?

"Where are we headed?" I asked without concern for her attitude, using a relaxed tone.

"Anywhere as long as we leave that ghostly place," Beauty Snake’s voice was hoarse from the earlier argument. She scratched her hair, like a trapped beast.

She wasn’t like this before; at the Goddess Temple, she was notably more composed.

But some people become calm in hopeless situations; once they see hope, they become restless and irrational—like an emotional rebound.

"But we’re moving towards a deeper part of the ocean. Did you escape from the island only to fall into a trench?" I said, pointing outside the window.

The Shell Ship had reached the edge of an underwater fissure; when Beauty Snake looked out the window, the ship suddenly plunged downward, diving into the abyss of the submarine trench.

She clearly panicked, instinctively reaching for the circular depression on the seat’s armrest but touched the mummy’s hand instead.

The Shell Ship wasn’t falling; it was being driven into the abyss by the mummy. We couldn’t see the depth we were descending, nor feel any pressure inside the cabin.

However, the trench was easily several hundred meters below the sea surface; sinking another few hundred meters meant reaching thousands of meters deep into the seabed. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

This was the limit depth for submarines, yet the Shell Ship continued downward—it was driving, not naturally sinking, as if it knew there was a path below, avoiding disaster.

Beauty Snake finally hesitated—people are terrestrial creatures. However dangerous the island was, at least one could plant their feet firmly.

But in the ocean, one felt suspended in the vast cosmos. Above, they couldn’t reach the surface; below seemed like an endless abyss, with not even a trace of fish around.

I returned to the fishing room and found the entry and exit inlet had sealed itself, trapping some fish inside, likely enough for Qinghan and others to dine on for several meals.

The pressure in the deep sea was immense; if the inlet wasn’t sealed tight, this ship might be finished.

I went back to the control room; this time Beauty Snake hadn’t locked the door. She stared out at the abyss, lost as if her soul had departed.

Only one person in the world had ever descended to a depth of ten thousand meters in a manned deep-sea submersible; an unmanned submersible could reach eleven thousand meters, while we seemed to be taken to an even more terrifying depth.

Qinghan was calculating accurately; based on the descending speed and time, one could estimate the approximate depth.

An error of several meters or tens of meters wasn’t concerning since once the hull couldn’t withstand the pressure; whether dying at ten thousand meters below or at ten thousand one hundred meters, it was a death.

I had pondered that if we encountered a human submarine intercepting us, there might be a chance for rescue.

But the deeper we sank, the more hope dwindled—that mummy’s brain was as hard as a walnut. Did it even know where it was heading?

Qinghan and the team leader called Guan Hai and others to the control room; Bi Shi whistled at the outside abyss, complimenting it ’cool.’

Cong Zhibo was dumbfounded. He couldn’t understand how such technology existed; in his imagination, the control room should resemble the interior of a submarine full of instruments and control panels.

Yet here it was bare, with just a seat occupied by the mummy.

"Why did you throw the body out?" I thought perhaps now was when Beauty Snake’s psychological defense was at its weakest, so I proactively brought up the matter of the body.

Cong Zhibo glared upon hearing my claim that Beauty Snake had stolen the body, ready to erupt.

The team leader stopped him, giving him a warning look.

Guan Hai gently pressed on his shoulder, shaking his head, signaling him not to speak.

Beauty Snake, still staring outside bitterly, said with a wry smile: "Without sacrifice, how could we leave that place."

"Did you extract that person’s heart?" I continued asking.

After I was unconscious, the rest were unharmed; they searched the entire ship, never encountering the heart extractor again.

Thus, I suspected the heart extractor wasn’t an original creature on the ship but likely one among the team.

I had seen everyone else’s skill; only Beauty Snake’s abilities were unfamiliar to me.

Beauty Snake remained silent, glancing at the mummy on the seat; more precisely, she glanced at the mummy’s chest.

The mummy wore a loose robe; I walked over and lifted it, seeing a bowl-sized hole in its chest, inside which a fresh red heart was faintly pulsing.

The heart beat openly like that; it was so weak that I didn’t even hear its pulse.

"It needs a battery," Beauty Snake said softly. "The previous one ran out after a while."

I bent down to examine closely, curious about how a heart extracted from another was integrated into the mummy without a surgeon’s help.

Even the world’s top cardiac surgeons didn’t possess such techniques.

Then I saw that, like cable connectors, they substituted blood vessels connecting to the heart; these components didn’t seem to be living entities.

"I think it knows the way; what I don’t know is if it can return. If it runs out of battery upon return, then..." Beauty Snake smiled strangely.