Chapter 240: Section 28: Captain of the Little Bird
Aboard the Little Bird, chaos reigned.
“Captain, our distance is rapidly closing in!” the First Officer reported.
“Damn it, they’re still on our tail,” the captain of the Little Bird stood at the stern, clenching his teeth in frustration.
He held a monocular up to his eye, observing the situation aboard the Justice through the lens. He did not have the impressive eyesight of the Dragon-man youth.
The lens focused on the flag of the Justice.
At a glance, the captain of the Little Bird recognized it as a pirate flag.
But he had never seen this pirate flag before: “A one-eyed giant skull… with the word ‘justice’ in the eye socket… What is that? Since when do pirates brand themselves as just?”
The captain of the Little Bird shifted his gaze from the pirate flag down to the Justice. The more he observed, the paler his complexion became, the more his mouth dried up, and the more his tongue parched.
The First Officer also held a monocular, and as the Justice drew closer, his view became clearer.
Worry filled the First Officer’s voice: “They’re in the windward position. Their ship is much larger than ours, and they must have many men on board. If we were to engage in boarding combat, we would stand no chance at all.”
“Look at that ship!”
“The bow is sharp, the lines of the hull are sleek. The bottom is narrow, the top is wide, it draws more water, and it’s faster, this is the Empire’s new ship design of recent years.”
Compared to the Justice, the Little Bird was like a chubby child in front of an adult.
After speaking, the First Officer’s complexion turned pale: “Captain, perhaps we should consider surrendering?”
The captain of the Little Bird darkened in expression and glared harshly at the First Officer: “Surrender? This is my ship!”
Others could surrender and possibly be taken in by the adversary, since they were pirates too.
But not him.
The ship was his private property, and if he surrendered, he stood to lose the most.
At the same time, if he surrendered without a fight, how would he ever mix in the high seas again? All pirates would mock him, thinking of him as a coward.
For the captain of the Little Bird, he was no Knight—honor was effectively worthless to him! Yet, he had to admit that the title of coward was extremely negative. Once known as a coward, it would invite a lot of trouble; many pirates would despise him and mistreat him easily on account of it.
Life afterward would be very hard for him!
“The adversary indeed holds a significant advantage, but don’t forget, we also purchased those cannons. Get the stern cannon ready, I’ll fire it myself!” the captain of the Little Bird commanded in a low voice.
“Yes!” The First Officer responded, immediately running off to make arrangements.
Soon, a Bronze Level stern cannon was pushed next to the captain of the Little Bird.
A wooden box was opened, revealing the Black Iron Level Bombs inside.
These were Eagle Soaring Bombs, alchemical creations, designed to fly farther than normal cannonballs.
The captain of the Little Bird knelt on the ground, facing southeast, clutching a pendant necklace in his hand as he whispered a prayer: “Goddess of Luck, I praise you, you are our deity, in whom everything is possible when it seems not. To the hopeless, you grant opportunity; to the weary, you give strength; all who wait upon you shall renew their strength. I beseech your power to pour into my body, allow me to be exceptionally fortunate, and let my cannonball strike the enemy at their most lethal spot.”
After the prayer, he exhaled a murky breath, nervously released his grip, and looked at the pendant of his necklace with hopeful eyes.
The next moment, evident joy appeared on his face.
His pendant was not ordinary; it was a Luck Holy Rune sought from the Luck Temple! Now, as his prayers went forth, the Divine Talisman emitted a faint seven-colored brilliance.
“It worked!” Before he could even cheer, the pirates around him, having seen the pendant, had already started to shout.
The morale soared in an instant.
“Hurry, Captain, fire a shot!”
“Shoot quick, Captain.”
“It’s all on your cannon shot now.”
The captain of the Little Bird snorted: “Shut up.”
Then, he personally lifted the Eagle Soaring Bomb with both hands and stuffed it into the cannon barrel. As he did so, the seven-colored glow from the pendant spread to the cannonball, giving it a thin halo of seven colors.
He then used a ramrod to tamp down on the contents of the cannon, packing the bomb and the gunpowder as tightly as possible.
Subsequently, he moved behind the cannon, caressing its smooth, rounded aft end lovingly with both hands.
“My precious darling, come, roar for me, shriek for me, let us blast them with one good shot!” The captain of the Little Bird uttered decisively as he continued to stroke, and a seven-colored brilliance also painted the surface of the cannon.
Then, he took a deep breath, stood up tall and proud, and channeled his Black Iron Level Fighting Energy into the cannon.
“Fire!!”
With a roar, he pulled hard on the firing lanyard. The enormous firing pin struck, causing sparks to fly, instantly igniting the gunpowder.
Boom! The Eagle Soaring Bomb shot forth, and the Bronze Cannon recoiled violently backward from the force, slamming into the captain of the Little Bird’s stomach.
At the moment the cannon fired, the captain’s internal Fighting Energy drained substantially, a powerful feeling of emptiness spreading through his entire being.
The recoil of the cannon butt crashed into him, knocking him to the ground.
“Captain!” The surrounding pirates rushed to his aid, helping him up.
He was gasping for air, dizzy, but hope kept him from collapsing.
“Quick, don’t block me, let me see the result of my shot.”
At his words, the pirates dispersed, opening up a large space.
The Eagle Soaring Bomb, carrying the hopes of the captain and the entire crew of the pirate ship, shot through the air. It pierced the atmosphere, emitting a sharp sound like the cry of an eagle, accompanied by a trail of seven-colored light forming a faint, ethereal, colorful tail.
“Hm?” The Dragon-man youth at the forefront of the Justice was slightly taken aback by the approaching bomb.
The range of the Eagle Soaring Bomb was somewhat beyond his expectations.
“Get down!!” The crew members around him shouted, promptly throwing themselves to the deck.
However, the Dragon-man youth pulled out a specially made Alchemy Crossbow from his chest and gently triggered it, releasing an arrow.
The trajectory of the Eagle Soaring Bomb was straight, and with his exceptional archery, the Dragon-man youth was certain he could intercept the projectile the moment the arrow left the crossbow.
And indeed it seemed likely.
But just as the arrow was about to strike the Eagle Soaring Bomb, it suddenly exploded.
The Dragon-man youth was taken aback.
The Alchemy Arrow had turned out to be a defective product, yet not an obviously defective one. After flying a distance, it disintegrated. The Eagle Soaring Bomb, affected by the explosion, quickly veered off course.
It was supposed to pierce through the sail and land in the sea behind the Justice, but now its trajectory had shifted downward, aiming directly for the Justice’s Main Mast!
“Damn,” Zong Ge felt a sinking feeling as he witnessed this.
The Justice was a Black Iron Level demon energy ship, and the Eagle Soaring Bomb was of the same level. If it hit the Main Mast, it was very likely to break it. Even if it didn’t, the mast would still be heavily damaged. At that point, they wouldn’t be able to keep the sails up. The sails, when filled with wind, exerted force that propelled the ship forward, and continuing to hoist the sails would break the Main Mast.
Whether they hoisted the sails or not, the Justice’s speed would be severely impacted. The Little Bird’s chances of escaping would significantly increase!
At this critical moment, the Dragon-man youth snorted coldly, turning his head and shifting his stance.
At the same time, he extended his left hand with Dragon Claw open, palm facing forward.
In the next instant, the Dragon-man youth fiercely activated his Fighting energy.
Fighting energy burst forth from the palm of his left Dragon Claw.
He had two types of Fighting energy within him. The Bai He Fighting energy was rather ordinary, but the Blast Fighting Spirit was explosive in nature.
The Dragon-man youth was now using the Blast Fighting Spirit!
With a bang, the Fighting energy exploded in front of his left Dragon Claw.
The explosion gave him a powerful push, and combined with his forceful stamping of the feet, it allowed him to move from a standstill with such swift acceleration that he left an afterimage in his original spot.
The Dragon-man youth dashed to the Main Mast like lightning, with the Eagle Soaring Bomb nearly reaching him in the next second.
The youth made a fist with his right claw, aimed at the Bomb, and struck it with might.
The Eagle Soaring Bomb, following the explosion of the Alchemy Arrow, had already lost its colorful halo and was directly knocked away by the youth.
“Silver Fighter!” the pirates aboard the Little Bird exclaimed in unison upon seeing the gleaming Fighting energy on the Dragon-man youth.
The Captain of the Little Bird went limp and collapsed to the ground, utterly drained of strength.
His hope for the Eagle Soaring Bomb had come to naught, and facing the Dragon-man youth’s Silver Level Fighting energy and the success in intercepting the Bomb had plunged him into despair.
“Captain, blast ’em one more time!” a pirate urged frantically.
The Little Bird’s Captain gave a wry smile, the colorful light from the necklace on his chest fading away completely.
“That last shot, I put all my strength and energy into it, I can’t go on,” the Little Bird’s Captain said with a wry smile.
“What do you mean, Captain, you’re done after just one shot?”
“Hurry, fire again!”
“If you’re a man, keep shooting, Captain!”
The pirates were beginning to panic.
A Captain personally firing the cannon was their most powerful weapon.
But this weapon had failed to produce any results.
The Justice was closing in.
“Bear off to the side, full port!” the Dragon-man youth bellowed.
The Justice gave up chasing the rear of the Little Bird, choosing not to ram straight into it but instead turned the ship’s side, positioning the starboard side toward the Little Bird.
“Starboard cannon, ready to fire!” the Dragon-man youth shouted again.
His voice was so loud, it directly reached below deck. Normally, such an order from the Captain would require a relay officer.
The pirates on the cannon deck were already at their battle stations, and upon hearing the Captain’s command, they all ran to the starboard side.
They operated the cannons in groups of four.
Bai Ya was among them.
His heart pounding wildly, he pushed the chain with all his might. The chain, moving rapidly through the pulley, opened the gun port.
Other pirates exerted force to push the Bronze Cannons out.
Most of each cannon’s body was still on the deck, but the muzzle tips were already protruding from the ship’s body.
The Justice had 24 cannon positions, without any at the bow or stern, with 12 on each of the port and starboard sides.
The 12 cannons poked their heads out, the gleam of Bronze, and the dark muzzles were clear for the Little Bird’s pirates to see.
So, in the next moment, hisses of sharp intakes of breath could be heard on the deck of the Little Bird.
A chilling dread spread through everyone’s hearts.
“My God!”
“They’re all Bronze Level Alchemy Cannons!!”
The Little Bird also had Bronze Level Alchemy Cannons, but only two, one each on the fore and aft decks.
“Captain, what do we do?” the First Officer asked his Captain urgently.
The Captain of the Little Bird stared blankly ahead, frozen.
“Fire—at will!” the Dragon-man youth roared.
Bang, bang, bang…
The pirates of the Justice pulled the ropes, the sparks from the firing pins ignited the gunpowder, and Bombs were continuously fired.
Clouds of smoke quickly rose from the starboard side of the Justice.
“Get down—!” the Little Bird’s First Officer shouted.
The pirates instantly hit the deck.
The Dragon-man youth, with a slight smile on his face, looked off into the distance at the Little Bird. The sound of the 12 cannons firing stirred him deeply.
“This is the spirit of a sea-faring man!”
However, the next second, the smile on the Dragon-man youth’s face froze.
The 12 Bombs flew over the Little Bird into the sea behind, creating 12 columns of water.
They all missed.
Embarrassing!
On the Little Bird, the First Officer scrambled up to the Captain’s side: “Captain, the first round was clearly a warning shot. Make a decision, quick!”
The Captain of the Little Bird was jolted awake, and with a start, he yelled, “Raise the white flag, fast, raise the white flag, we surrender!”