Chương 80: CB

We could only stare in silence as the enemy ship sailed slowly towards us. Not even a single peep could be uttered from our mouths; they were zipped shut by an invisible, intangible force cast upon us by The Leak. The Leak. An organisation plunged into the dungeons of evil, an organisation that could commit the most evil deeds on the pretext of devoting themselves to researching all the hidden loopholes and secrets the skill user system had to offer.

An organisation so despicable and nefarious that it was a topic considered taboo by Cayman, Ellie, Devon, and, according to Night Hoppers, many more people living on Planet Zero. And according to Cayman, the people on board that ship, yes, they were real humans with real flesh, were members of that feared organisation.

"Are you sure those people are really members of The Leak?" Daniel asked gingerly, hoping for a flicker of luck and praying that Cayman had misinterpreted the situation.

"They could just be regular Hoppers wanting to fight us." However, Cayman's response was anything but pleasant.

"That's very unlikely," he replied, his voice laced with irrevocable enmity and disdain.

"This ocean is very vast. In fact, many Hoppers believe that most of this planet is just an expansive body of water. Therefore, the chances of stumbling upon another group of Hoppers is quite low. The fact that the ship is sailing towards us doesn't really suggest that they're friendly."

"But aren't there other Hoppers on Planet Zero that have a grudge on you, not just Devon?" Daniel challenged, trying to find any possible way to refute Cayman's dark words.

"There are, but on the level of a single Hopper, Devon is the one who hates me the most." Daniel's shoulders drooped and he stood hunched over, watching as the ship made its way towards us, feeling utterly defeated. I didn't know how to feel about this situation. I didn't know if I should be feeling excited because I'm seeing members of The Leak in the flesh, or scared because I don't know how strong their members are relative to my strength levels.

Maybe, because I was the only one with insider information about The Leak from Night Hoppers, only I was harbouring these ambiguous thoughts about them. As the enemy ship neared our own ship, I could feel my heart rate increasing to the point where I thought it might burst. Blood was being pumped furiously around my system as sweat trickled down my body from my back like a long, cascading waterfall. I thought my breathing rate was going to increase.

The facial features of the people on the boat were discernible when the enemy ship was around a kilometre away from us. On the surface, they looked exactly like ordinary Hoppers that you would see on any other planet, but if Cayman's assumption about them being from The Leak was true, then we might be in for some huge trouble.

"Get ready," Cayman said sternly.

"Take your swords out. You might need to fight those guys."

"We're fighting people? Are you sure? Then we'll be murderers!" Cayman sighed at Maya's remark. Yes, if we killed the people on that ship, we would be no different from murderers on Planet Earth, but simultaneously, since those people were from The Leak, was that really any different from us saying we were doing it for a righteous cause and wiping evil from this universe?

"Just take out your swords," Cayman continued, keeping his stance firm.

"Is there any need to go against my instructions?" When Maya shook her head and took out her swords, Cayman averted his gaze and stayed silent. With swords in our hands, the sense of unease that had swept over us like a cloud of dust subsided slightly. If our duty was to defeat the people on that ship because they were from The Leak, then so be it. I would happily defeat those people and contribute to wiping out this evil research organisation that I had harboured resentment towards when reading Night Hoppers.

However, just before we could teleport to the ship and start fighting the members of The Leak, something happened that flipped the entire situation on its head. A person emerged, seemingly from out of nowhere, and the other people on the ship's deck hastily made way for this person to pass. Taking slow, meaningful strides, this person walked to the edge of the deck, locking eyes with Cayman, whose flawless complexion was beginning to show cracks.

To say that this person was an ordinary person would be completely wrong. Far from wrong. This man, yes, he was a man, had a snow-white face laden with heavy make-up. There was a long red line running down his face where one of his eyes was, made from what appeared to me blood-red lipstick, forming what seemed to be an artificial scar. His lips retained their normal colour, making me wonder if he even knew where lipstick was supposed to go.

His hair was slicked back and heavily oiled, and his eyes were slits which would suit a snake more than him. If he were to ever walk out in public, the only word that would describe him perfectly was 'clown'. This person was basically a lost wandering clown who didn't know his place.

"Oh gosh," Cayman whispered to himself. Then, raising his voice to a yell, he shouted, "C! What the hell are you doing here! Why would they send you, of all people, here to torment me and my friends?" The man put a finger on his chin as if to ponder over what Cayman had just said. Then, after licking his lips, he opened his mouth to speak.

"C? Do you really think I'm C? Think again." His voice was high-pitched and akin to that of an elderly woman's. It could be used to accentuate his age, but that wasn't important at that time.

"You're not C?" Cayman asked again. The man wearing make-up shook his head, prompting the other people on the ship to snigger loudly and without any restrictions. Cayman, abashed, turned away for a brief moment before facing the man again.

"C? What do you mean by C?" Ben asked, his face instantly hardening in confusion. Did that letter have some sort of connotation he didn't know about? Why would someone's name be just one single letter, C?

"Who is C?" Maya inquired, a quizzical look etched perfectly onto her face.

"Is he someone you hate? Someone you absolutely despise?" It was Cayman's turn to contort his face. The fact that he loathed someone like C was brazen. There was no need to hide something like that when it was already clearly expressed. It wasn't something that we had to surmise, it was something that we could instantly deduce.

"It has something to do with The Leak," Cayman groaned, sounding dejected.

"Listen, I'll explain it later. The priority for now is to defeat that bastard and all of his lackeys." Ben nodded, letting Cayman turn to face the man whose face was riddled with make-up again. However, the response the man gave was enough to make all of our insides shiver.

"No, no, take your time. I'm not in a rush at all. I can make all these guys wait. Say whatever you need to say to them."

"Are you sure?" Cayman's voice showed signs of apprehension; his tone was disconcerting. The man with make-up, on the other hand, simply smiled and nodded his head. It was a genuine smile, not a sinister smile laced with deceit that people would often display after fabricating brazen lies. Cayman, feeling truly defeated, didn't rebut and instead averted his gaze from the guy wearing obnoxious make-up and turned to face us. Then he opened his mouth and started speaking.

Instantly, I knew exactly what he was going to say, since it was something that had been mentioned in Night Hoppers before. The Leak, the organisation that served as the primary antagonist of the story, the organisation that Cayman had vehemently cursed and refused to talk about, the organisation that had torn apart the seemingly immutable laws of the former skill user world like they were simply sheets of paper.

This organisation had perhaps the strangest way of naming their members, one so far-fetched that nobody would ever consider it. In The Leak, the top twenty-six members were part of this elusive group called the '26 Superiors' since they were superior to everyone else in the organisation. They would then be given a letter from A to Z based on how strong they are. This would serve as their name in the organisation, with A being given to the strongest superior and Z being given to the weakest superior.

In the novel, the one named A served as the leader of The Leak, with the ones named B, C and D taking up positions just behind. This is because according to their system, 'B' is given to the second strongest superior, 'C' is given to the third strongest superior and 'D' is given to the fourth strongest superior. The superiors with names E to Z were hardly ever mentioned at all, perhaps because the author decided that those people weren't strong enough. Cayman's explanation was clear and succinct.

Despite providing almost all the information that had been mentioned in the novel (and the novel did provide a very detailed explanation), his explanation only took several minutes. It went through almost all of the details regarding the 26 Superiors and how they used letters to name themselves for clarity. At the end of the explanation, there was even time for questions. And during the whole explanation, surprisingly, the man wearing make-up, the antagonist, didn't intervene at all.

"You mentioned C, didn't you?" Theo asked, trying his best to process the deluge of information that had been hurled his way.

"Does that mean he's the third strongest superior out of the twenty-six?"

"Spot on," Cayman replied.

"That allows you to gauge his power level. He's quite strong." He pointed at the man on the ship whose face was smeared with fresh make-up; he was patiently waiting and staring at Cayman with his arms crossed.

"How are we supposed to defeat him then?" Maya asked, her voice containing nothing but apprehension.

"I don't think the five of us together can defeat him even if we tried our hardest." Cayman shook his head.

"If he really is C, then it'll be impossible for you all to defeat him with even your combined strength level. Heck, I don't even think I can defeat C, even with Ellie and Devon's help. However, this guy is claiming to not be C, so you guys might still have a chance." Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Instantly, Maya's face lit up.

"If he's not C, then who is he? Another one of the 26 Superiors? Could he possibly be D? Or E? Or maybe even Z?"

"I'm none of those," the man on the enemy ship replied, seemingly eavesdropping on our conversation.

"I'm just a mere subordinate. If you guys want to know my name, call me CB."

"CB?" Bewilderment crossed Maya's face in an instant. CB? What kind of name was that? Could they be his initials?

"CB?" Ben repeated.

"Isn't that a position in football? Doesn't that mean you're a centre-back?"

"Shut up!" Theo bellowed, pointing at 'CB', who was smiling and revelling in the moment.

"Does he look like a football player to you? Use your damn brain for once! Why do you always feel compelled to speak? Think before you speak!!!"

"Then are they initials for a name? Maybe his name is Connor Bennett and we just don't know it-""Just shut up!" Cayman let out a long sigh before opening his mouth to speak again. Subordinates. Any member of the 26 Superiors can hire up to 26 subordinates. These subordinates' names consist of two letters, with the first one representing the name of the superior they serve and the second one representing their rank among other subordinates of that superior.

And no, to clarify, those two letters don't have to correspond with the person's own initials. For example, the person with the name 'CB' has a higher status and is most likely stronger than the people bearing the names 'CC' and 'CD', and the only person who has a higher status among the C subordinates is the one named 'CA'. That meant the person we were dealing with, the person called 'CB', was someone quite high up on the ranks of C's subordinates.

However, that also depends on whether some names have been left vacant, perhaps because the person has died in battle or because they have left The Leak, and therefore sometimes, if someone doesn't bear the second letter 'A' among a group of subordinates, the person with the second letter 'B' has the highest authority and rank. This means that if 'CA' doesn't exist, then 'CB', the man on the enemy ship, would be the strongest among the C subordinates.

It's also rare that a superior would hire 26 subordinates to fill up their entire quota. Subordinates are hard to manage, and even in a regular workplace, managing twenty-six subordinates can turn out to be a pain in the butt. In the novel, the four strongest superiors, A, B, C and D, never managed to fill up their quota, only hiring between two and five subordinates to ease the burden placed on them from looking after subordinates.

After all, apart from being evil and ruling over Planet Zero, The Leak is still a research facility that publishes research on skill users and the system. Unfortunately, this means that all hopes of this person being weak and easy to defeat can fly out of the window, since this person, with the name 'CB', was one of the strongest subordinates mentioned in Night Hoppers, one that was known for causing unthinkable, unspeakable mayhem on Planet Zero and even internally around The Leak.

And this was the person we had to deal with.

"Are you done yet?" CB shouted impatiently, finally feeling fed-up with Cayman's prolonged explanation.

"You've had your fair share of talking. I'm getting bored."

"Yeah, I'm done," Cayman yelled back.

"These newbies don't understand a thing. I'm trying to teach them a lesson about how The Leak works."

"How The Leak works, you say." Again, CB put a finger on his chin, contemplating the situation.

"Very complicated indeed." Silence ensued as CB dug deep into his brain, seemingly mocking us for having no knowledge of our main enemy. However, that silence didn't prevail for long, since CB opened his mouth just minutes later.

"Anyway, we've digressed. That's not what I'm here for. Cayman William Grace, it's a pleasure to meet you here." Instantly, CB's voice turned eerie, emitting a chilling aura that engulfed everything around him with a profound sense of unease. I felt goosebumps racing up my arms.

"What are you doing here?" Cayman asked through gritted teeth.

"Why are you messing with me here?" CB's finger remained on his chin as he looked up at the blue sky devoid of any clouds.

"I'm just following orders," he replied nonchalantly.

"Someone has tasked me to take you down because they seem to know every little detail about you." Cayman's face twisted in anger. His right hand was clenched into a fist.

"I knew it," he whispered; it was a low whisper that CB couldn't hear.

"There really was a traitor among us. Someone who's been relaying information about me to The Leak."

"It's a very lofty goal you have there, Mr Grace," CB continued, his voice containing more than just a tinge of mockery.

"Very ambitious indeed. But do you even know the effects of using that skill? Do you know the consequences that using the skill might entail? No? That's why we're here to stop you." Skill? Did he mean the regression skill Cayman was trying to create? Was it really as dangerous as CB suggested? Night Hoppers barely mentioned the severity of this skill, probably because it didn't seem like something important to write about.

"We need to research this skill that you're trying to create to make sure it's safe for use. That's why we're here to stop you today." In the distance, I could hear Theo, Ben and Maya whispering to themselves.

"Does anyone in The Leak look normal? If they're all just a bunch of buffoons wearing make-up and flaunting their obnoxious looks, then what's there to be scared about?"

"Ben, there's more to that than just their appearances. You can't judge a book by its cover."

"I really don't want to fight those guys. If they're like this, let's force them to join a circus instead. They can piss off and show off their sword moves there." Maya giggled and let her head drop to hide her chuckling face. As her crown fell, she held it tightly in her right hand until she lifted her head again. I then shifted my attention back to Cayman and CB's conversation. Two belligerent people in a state of disharmony. One wishing to create a skill, the other wishing to stop him in his tracks.

One maintaining his natural looks, the other stained with layers of bizarre make-up.

"Try and stop me," Cayman said, harbouring deep-seated resentment towards CB.

"Try and stop me if you can. You're just a mere subordinate, nothing but vermin. You're just a small fry who carries out the dirty orders of your superior."

"Oh really?" CB challenged, his face twisting to show a mocking look.

"Then try me. I'm a lot stronger than you think." CB sneered, sending invisible daggers flying and landing in Cayman's chest with his words. However, Cayman remained steadfast as he stood squarely on the deck of his ship.

"You don't seem that smart. You're trying to create 'that' skill without even knowing the consequences. Cayman, Cayman, Cayman, everything in this world has consequences. This is something you have to know. Every little action has its consequences, just like you creating that skill." Cayman didn't reply even as CB continued to sneer at him and smirk, looking like nothing but a hilarious clown in a circus.

"Mr Grace, you can't just charge into something blind like what you're doing now. You need to be aware of your own actions. If not, if you ignore everything that has been said about something, and if you ignore the consequences, you'll just be a headless chicken wandering around a field of foxes. I hope you'll understand eventually."

"Shut up," Cayman interjected firmly.

"I know everything. I know the consequences of my own actions, and I know the consequences of creating this skill. Tell me. Is there a traitor among us?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny."

"Shit." Cayman cursed, letting CB laugh wildly on his ship. Of course, he was never going to give out information for free that easily; it was a hallmark of his disgusting personality in Night Hoppers. When I turned around, I could see Ellie and Devon on the ship containing all our bags gazing intently at the spectacle where a clown was laughing at and humiliating the great Cayman William Grace.

"Cayman, Cayman, Cayman," CB continued in his boastful tone laden with mockery.

"When will you ever learn?"

"Shut up, shut up, shut up…"

"Did you like the little scheme I set up? Did you like everything you saw on this planet? Did you like the beasts you defeated, the little black holes on each of the ships and the fact that the number of beasts you had to defeat kept increasing?" CB sniggered as he waited patiently for a response. Nobody could deny that this planet was fraught with difficulties. That was a universally accepted fact among all Hoppers.

However, Cayman looked like he was about to have a heart attack after hearing what was about to be confirmed.

"It was me," CB said simply.

"It was all me."

"You…" Cayman couldn't say anything else. The skeleton pirates, the increase in mana beasts, the gateway on the ship, all of that. All of that was the work of the malevolent CB.

"Check your system window as well, Cayman. I think you've been spreading some misinformation to your 'students'." As soon as I heard that, my heart raced and I could feel cold sweat dripping down my back. I realised I hadn't checked my system in ages, and I realised that I should have checked it earlier. [One unread message.] I opened the unread message. [You have completed Mission 2/3: defeat the beasts.] No, I thought, taking my eyes off CB. We haven't even defeated the mystery beast yet.

We haven't even seen the mystery beast yet. My attention switched to the mission log. [Mission 2/3: defeat the beasts] Beasts to defeat: 1) Skeleton pirate (advanced, 149/149) 2) Skeleton pirate (advanced/legendary, 70/70) 3) Skeleton pirate (legendary, 1/1)"You've been telling brazen lies," CB continued, his voice low and unsettling.

"You've told them all a myth that had been falsified eons ago. Something that new Hoppers should not learn at all." A myth. It should be something to do with the mystery beast. It had to be. As I listened to CB's remarks, the mystery beast had revealed itself on the system window as a legendary-level boss beast. However- The quota had already been met. I, as well as Cayman and the rest of my friends, had gotten the mission completion message. Someone had already defeated the boss beast.

After pondering over it for a while, I had an epiphany moment, a moment where I realised what CB was talking about, a moment where all of my Night Hoppers knowledge was going to flip on its head. I soon realised what the myth was. Whoever lands the final blow to the boss of the planet gets to claim and name the planet. One of the most famous lines in Night Hoppers. A line that I thought held true while I was reading it. I had read the novel ten times and still thought it was true.

And here I was, listening to CB ramble on about how it was simply a baseless myth. If that myth was true, CB would have already claimed the planet and sent us to our graves. But since there wasn't a system message telling us that someone had already claimed the planet, just like there had been in the novel, that meant CB hadn't claimed the planet yet. A whole slew of contrasting, paradoxical thoughts were ensnared and tangled in a large web in my brain. What was this really, a myth? Or was it simply a paradox?

I couldn't tell anymore. Was the world we had been sucked into not actually the Night Hoppers world from the novel? Was it just a cheap spin-off version? I couldn't tell anymore. That lie was something that some random Hopper had made up. It had affected the lives of everyone thinking it was true. It was nothing but deceit.

"In truth," CB continued triumphantly, "there is no such thing as a 'boss beast'. They're just regular beasts. The term 'boss beast' was just a term coined by somebody who had encountered a mystery beast coincidentally and conveniently named 'The Boss'. There were never boss beasts to start with, and the myth that there were was just made up by someone attention-seeking brat who had unfortunately died on one of his missions." There was silence.

Theo, Ben and Maya stopped whispering amongst themselves, looking up and staring at CB proudly declaring the facts like he had just commanded an army to win a war.

"You all have to learn it the hard way. This just goes to show how far down the pecking order the skill user world has fallen these days. Do you all have slime for brains? These are all just superficial lies! Have you all been in a drunken stupor these last few years?" As CB declared his victory, Cayman lowered his head and began to contemplate.

What CB had just said was that the majority of the 'facts' that I had thought were true in Night Hoppers were nothing but fabricated, frivolous and farcical lies imparted on us by Hoppers who thought they knew the world well but didn't.

"Show your mettle, Cayman Grace. Prove to me that you still have what it takes to dominate the world and create this skill. Prove to me that you haven't gone weak and complacent now that you have students. Show me everything."

"I'll show you," Cayman said to CB in a tone so ominous and condescending that just hearing the words sent shivers running through my entire body.

"I'll show you who hasn't lost their courage. I'll show you who hasn't lost their resolve. I'll show you who you've been messing with, and who you've been tormenting for an eternity. I'll show you everything! I'll show you that I'm not weak, complacent and satisfied with my current level! COME AT ME, CB, I'LL KILL YOU RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Once Cayman's booming voice was lost to the tranquil, serene air around him, and once he finished his short tirade, a gentle breeze shook the ship.

Waves began to pick up and clouds began to shroud the sky from out of nowhere, covering the sun which had already reached its zenith. The clouds were grey, ominous and threatening, ready to bring down a storm. The wind and the waves weren't gentle anymore; they were waves normally found during a strong storm. Yes, a storm was brewing around Cayman as he threatened to kill CB right there on Pirate Planet.