Chapter 278. Like a Pirate (3)
Len, one of the mercenaries stationed to defend Loki Village, stood frozen in disbelief as the pirates stormed through their defenses.
This can't be happening, he thought.
The soldiers here weren't just any mercenaries. They had been handpicked by the Mercenary King himself—battle-hardened veterans, each with years of combat experience under their belts. And yet, they were being overwhelmed. No resistance they mounted seemed to matter.
Even the dark mages' magic circles... They're useless? Len thought in disbelief.
Loki Village held a secret.
It was a covert facility, one of the central nodes of the Mercenary King's grand plan. Here, near a dozen dark mages toiled daily, crafting undead in what could only be called a corpse workshop. It wasn't the sort of place that was supposed to fall easily. But the pirates tearing through the defenses didn't seem to care about any of that.
And the one at the front of the charge—that monster—he was unstoppable.
"Wipe it clean!" the giant man bellowed, swinging his sword with a chilling grin that sent shivers down Len's spine.
Each swing of his blade shattered the magically reinforced barricades as if they were brittle wood, tearing through the defending mercenaries like paper. His strikes were ruthless—but curiously, none landed near civilian homes.
I have to report this. Now, Len decided internally.
He'd heard whispers that the Queen and the Mercenary King could form an alliance. But what he saw unfolding before him? This wasn't cooperation. This was betrayal.
If the Queen's subordinates were raiding Loki Village, it meant she had entered this land with ulterior motives.
Len rushed to the communication orb and tried to send an emergency report.
Bzzzzzzzz...
There was no response. Moments ago, the orb had been working perfectly. Now, it was dead—neutralized far too easily.
"You bastards!" Len shouted, drawing his sword and charging toward the front lines. With precision and fury, he slashed at one of the pirates, slicing clean through the man's right arm.
A blow like that should have at least knocked the pirate unconscious, but instead of collapsing, he grinned—an unsettling, mad grin that made Len's spine go cold.
There was no fear of death in that pirate's eyes. Not even pain.
Snarling, the one-armed pirate hurled a chain at Len. It was a wild, unorthodox move, but Len expertly kicked it away with his boot and countered by driving his blade through the pirate's gut.
Squelch.
"You pathetic rabble," Len spat.
He wasn't just any mercenary. He had once been a knight—one of the Mercenary King's favored warriors, and a master who had reached the 7-Star rank through countless near-death battles. There was no way he'd lose to a bunch of low-life pirates.
All I need to do is buy time—for the black mages, Len thought.
The attack had caught them off guard, sure. But it didn't matter. Hidden beneath the village were the countless undead the dark mages had been preparing. Once they awakened, these pirates would be crushed.
Len steeled himself. He would hold the line.
But that determination lasted only moments.
Claaaang!
A brilliant white sword clashed violently against his own, sending shockwaves through his arms.
Crackle!
Where their blades met, white frost blossomed instantly. Foreign mana seeped through the steel, crawling along his sword.
Len's eyes flew open. He stared at the attacker and shouted, "You filthy bastard!"
"You're mine," a bald, thuggish-looking man said with a sigh. "He said if I couldn't handle you on my own, he'd kill me himself. So... I hope you understand."
Whoosh.
As he drew in mana, an almost divine purity surged around him.
Len flinched, wondering in shock, "...How can a pirate have this kind of mana...?"
That sort of pristine energy couldn't be achieved without intense mana discipline—something far beyond what a common pirate could grasp. This wasn't the power of someone who preyed on merchants.
Len recognized it immediately. He had once been a knight, after all. He knew what high-level training looked like.
"Who are you?" he demanded, voice trembling ever so slightly. He had just realized that he couldn't win.
But the man waved lazily, as if tired of the question, before replying, "A pirate."
"What is the Queen scheming?!" Len roared.
"I'll tell you... if you survive," the man said.
Crackle!
Frost exploded outward from the man's body, a cold so dense it clawed at the lungs.
Len gritted his teeth as the icy mana crawled along his blade and seeped into his chest. It felt like something he had heard before about a master who wielded cold energy.
Among those on the Queen's side, if there was a skilled swordsman who used cold energy...
Claaang!
"Leo Leston," Len said.
Leo Leston was a blood relative of the Ducal Family of Leston. It could only be him. While not quite on the level of Caron Leston, he was still one of the key figures that made up the golden generation of the Ducal Family of Leston.
Rumors of him overwhelming countless enemies with freezing energy had already spread throughout the continent.
Claaang!
One could disguise their face, but not their swordsmanship. Every time their swords clashed, it felt as if the tips of his fingers were freezing. The opponent's sword was unbelievably heavy.
It could only be the Oceanwolf Sword Arts of the Ducal Family of Leston, which valued strength above all else.
Then that monster who charged in earlier must have been... Len thought.
All of his questions were answered at once.
Leo Leston was always with Caron Leston. The monster that had broken through earlier undoubtedly had to have been Caron Leston.
But Len couldn't do anything in response.
"Knowing changes nothing," the man said.
At some point, the mana the opponent had scattered around began to choke Len. It was hard to breathe. Each breath he took filled his lungs with bone-chilling cold.
"You're going to die here anyway," the man added casually.
With a firm grip on his sword, Rigor, he swung once again. A haze of frost and fog swept over the battlefield.
"I've got to earn my keep, don't I?" the man continued.New ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄhapters are published on ɴo(v)elFɪre.ɴet
For a mercenary like Len, it was the perfect test of skill—his years of experience in brutal skirmishes now put to the ultimate challenge.
Boom!
A vortex of ice erupted beneath Leo's feet as he said, "Let's end this quickly."
If he failed to deal with a single mercenary, he'd never hear the end of it from Caron.
Without another word, Leo launched forward—swift and merciless.
***
Boom!
"It seems like he's actually holding his own," Guillotine said in Caron's head.
"Of course he is," Caron replied as distant explosions echoed in the air. "You know how much effort I put into raising him."
"Let's be honest," Guillotine said in a bored tone. "You didn't raise him. You just hit him a lot."
"I hit him to keep him sharp," Caron replied. "Whippings are a form of love, you know."
Guillotine groaned and said, "Only you would be proud of beating up your cousin."
"That's called tough love," Caron said with a grin as another boom rocked the village in the distance.
He had entrusted Leo with the task of crushing the mercenaries—and with good reason. These weren't just hired blades. They were the Mercenary King's own elite—veterans forged in countless battles. But Caron had no doubts.
Leo wasn't someone who could be beaten up anymore. He had long since mastered his new sword, Rigor, and had reached 7-Star with the Oceanwolf Sword Arts. In a place like this, even if he wanted to die, he wouldn't be able to.
"I fed him all the best stuff. He'd better not be weak. You have no idea how many times I beat it into him," Caron said proudly.
"Bragging about beating up your older cousin—classy," Guillotine said dryly.
"It's all discipline given with love," Caron said.
With the mercenaries left in Leo's hands, he now sprinted toward the source of the thick, unpleasant dark mana that clung to the air like rotting fog. On his back was Saintess Seria.
"Do you have to carry me like this?" Seria asked in a disgruntled voice.
"You're awfully grumpy today, Seria," Caron replied. "But hey, have you been skipping training lately? You feel heavier than before—"
Smack!
"Shut up and run," Seria snapped.
Caron winced, sticking his tongue out in pain.
Seria's slap had divine weight behind it. As expected of a Grand Saintess, even a single strike packed enough holy power to disintegrate a mid-level undead being on contact. No matter how many times she hit him, Caron could never really get used to it.
Even as he sprinted through the streets, Caron didn't forget to issue warnings to the civilians. "Attention! The pirates are conducting a raid! All residents, stay inside your homes! Your houses are safe! The pirates will not harm innocent civilians!"
"Do you think anyone will believe that, Warrior?" Seria asked doubtfully.
"They don't have to believe it," Caron said. "They just need to be too scared to come outside."
From what he had gathered, most of the villagers here had been forcibly brought in for dark magic experiments. He had no interest in killing innocents.
With Seria still on his back, he ran for several more blocks before they had arrived at the village square.
"Warrior," Seria said suddenly.
"I just felt it too," Caron said.
It looked empty, but in the very center, something foul was leaking into the air. An immense, oppressive aura of dark mana pulsed outward like a heartbeat. This wasn't something that had built up over a few days. The density, the raw weight of it—clearly, it had been accumulating for quite some time.
Caron smiled and said, "There you are, my honey pot."
He had once devoured even the dark mana of a Demon King. Compared to that, the garbage hoarded by a few dark mages wasn't even remotely threatening.
Whoosh.
Guillotine gave a pleasant hum of resonance as if it was excited. "They saved up quite a bit, didn't they?"
"Good thing too," Caron replied. "Filling up our eighth sea has been a pain lately. This'll help."
Caron hated dark mana. It was corrupt, twisted, unnatural. But it was undeniably nutritious. Thanks to Guillotine's evolving power, most of the absorbed dark mana could now be purified into Azure Mana.
To Caron, this wasn't an enemy stronghold. It was a buffet.
"Seria, time to get ready," he said.
"Do we begin with purification?" Seria asked.
"No, that comes last. Let me gorge myself first. You can clean up whatever's left," Caron instructed.
"Understood," Seria said.
Caron set Seria down, then slammed his foot into the ground.
Boom!
The earth trembled.
Then, a deep, sonorous voice echoed across the square. "O dead, rise and meet your enemy."
Creak... Crack... Clatter...
Bones scraped and snapped as the undead began to stir. And not just a few.
They weren't only weaklings such as skeletons, either. There were Dullahans holding their own heads like shields, and looming Death Knights cloaked in dense dark mana.
They were high-class undead, well-crafted and vicious.
Caron let out a low whistle. He muttered, "I need to recommend a bonus for our intelligence agents to my grandfather when we get back."
Seeing them in person confirmed what he had suspected all along. The Mercenary King hadn't gone rogue on a whim. That sly bastard had been preparing this for years.
"Each Death Knight bears a different crest," Seria noted, frowning.
There were twenty of them. It looked as if the dark mages had really outdone themselves. Judging by their aura alone, each one hovered near the 7-Star level.
Caron examined the emblems on their armor and noticed a pattern. All of them belonged to southern kingdoms.
In other words, the Mercenary King had personally delivered the corpses of knights he had slain to the dark mages.
"Was he trying to build a whole knight order of Death Knights?" Seria asked.
The pressure these twenty undead emitted was overwhelming. It dwarfed the encounter Caron had once had near the Southern Great Forest. Clearly, the intel was accurate.
This Neon Kingdom was crawling with dark mages.
There's at least twelve just in this village alone, Caron thought.
Dark mages were hated everywhere on the continent. In the empire, bounties were posted on their heads. Which meant their only refuge was in war-torn places like this.
Shhh...
Caron released Pluto's power and grinned, then said, "I'm already having fun. You know, dark mages are so fun to torture."
Seeing all these loathsome vermin gathered in one place filled him with nothing but joy.
A cruel smile curled on Caron's lips. He wasn't afraid of Death Knights anymore. He hadn't been for a long, long time.
Whoosh.
Caron gently gripped Guillotine's hilt and nodded.
Then, with a voice brimming with wicked delight, he said, "Let's eat."
And with that, raw, untamed madness exploded from him like a tidal wave.