Chapter 132: Chapter 132
When fighting the doppelganger in the Alto ruins, Shan had learned various ways to utilize the Thousand Shapes in combat.
One of those methods was using it transformed into a rope shape to move his body, just like right now.
True Silver was far tougher and sturdier than a rope of equal mass, so even when a blade originally around one meter long thinned out enough to stretch over a dozen meters, it still supported his weight.
“W-What… is that bastard?”
“Can’t you tell by looking! He’s an enemy!”
The pirates wore dazed expressions at the sight of Shan, who had suddenly leapt down onto the deck using a silver whip presumed to be a magic artifact.
What on earth gave him the nerve to jump down alone onto a ship where dozens of men were waiting, and why were his movements so light despite wearing plate armor?
No, such things did not matter.
Judging by his appearance alone, the opponent was clearly a threatening enemy.
If they captured someone who was at least a high-ranking knight, or perhaps even an enemy commander, they could be promoted to an executive right away for that achievement!
“He’s a lump of iron! Don’t bother getting close to slash at him, shove him away with barrels!”
“Cover him with a net!”
Most of the pirates wore only cloth clothes rather than proper armor.
Armor made of metal easily rusted, and armor made of leather also quickly hardened or grew mold in the sea breeze full of salt and humidity.
As such, instead of taking the risk of directly facing a heavily armored knight, they tried to overpower him by throwing large barrels or nets.
Once they restricted his movements like that and threw him into the sea, no matter how extraordinary his martial arts were, there would be nothing he could do.
Unfortunately, however, the enemy standing before them was not a being that could be dealt with through such crude methods.
“Uh…?”
Thump. At the movement of leaping by kicking off a barrel rolling toward him, one pirate unwittingly gasped.
What kind of athletic ability and sense of balance was that?
An ordinary person would have tripped and fallen if they tried to step on a rolling barrel and jump even bare-handed, let alone doing such a thing while clad in full plate armor!
Regardless of whether his opponent was astonished or not, Shan drew the Red Oath with his empty right hand and swung it toward the flying net.
The tough net was sliced apart effortlessly, opening a path toward the pirates.
By the time he approached within a distance of three meters, the pirate at the very front instinctively raised his sword to block Shan.
“Ack…”
As the transformed Thousand Shapes flickered like a flexible sword and lightly grazed his neck, blood spurted from his severed carotid artery.
Just by lightly flicking his wrist, a silver flash raged, spraying blood from all directions and staining the deck.
Originally, even when used in the form of a flexible sword, it was difficult to stretch the length of the Thousand Shapes at will.
Because the longer and thinner it became, the less weight was behind it, weakening its cutting power.
Against enemies clad only in cloth, however, even extending it longer than usual provided sufficient lethality.
The blade, flying out to a distance of over five to six meters, cut down the pirates at a speed beyond perception.
“W-What is that!?”
“What is he swinging at us!”
Upon the deck continuously swaying due to crashing waves.
In a place where even experienced pirates had to watch their steps carefully, Shan dashed dexterously, giving chase to his enemies.
With his left hand, he swung the Thousand Shapes in the shape of a flexible sword to slaughter enemies several meters away, while with his right hand, he held the Red Oath to deal with enemies approaching from other directions.
Enemies who attacked recklessly assuming he was looking in another direction lost their lives in horror as Shan defended without even looking at them before counterattacking.
“Get away!”
“Don’t let him near! Block him!”
“Uaaaaah!”
Terrified by the one-sided slaughter, the pirates threw barrels and boxes they had prepared frantically in an attempt to knock Shan over, or at least to halt his approach.
Some even shot arrows that were bound to be blocked by his armor anyway.
Whenever that happened, Shan instead used the barrels and boxes as footholds to leap, moving as if he were flying through the air.
In the midst of that, a man presumed to be the captain caught his eye.
A bastard wearing a conspicuous tricorn hat and sporting a bushy beard…
Leaping in tune with the rolling movement of the waves, Shan cleared a distance of over ten meters and arrived at his target.
“Ack!”
Still, since the man wore armor crafted from the hide of a marine monster as befitted a captain, Shan did not lightly slash him with the flexible sword; instead, he extended it long like a spear and pierced his chest.
Judging by how he reacted in his own way, he seemed to possess decent martial skills, but even so, in Shan’s eyes, he was nothing more than an ordinary minion.
“Captain!”
“He’s a monster! Run!”
Seeing ‘Bloody Radu,’ a famous pirate of the Southern Sea and their captain, die in a single exchange, the pirates completely lost their will to fight and scattered in all directions.
Of course, on a ship, the only place to run was the sea beyond the deck.
Before long, a spectacle unfolded where pirates leapt into the ocean to flee from a single knight.
The ship, originally carrying about eighty pirates, now held only severed corpses and groaning casualties.
Shan stared at it quietly before shifting his gaze.
There were still plenty of ships nearby to board.
*
Atop the deep blue sea, the Pendia fleet and the pirate fleet tangled together in chaos so severe that it was difficult to distinguish friend from foe.
Having suffered one-sided losses in the ranged exchange, the pirates rapidly closed in to initiate melee combat in an attempt to inflict casualties on the enemy somehow.
“Kill them!”
“Don’t let them cross over!”
At the ends of the ropes flying between the bows were grappling hooks attached.
Whenever those caught firmly somewhere, the pirates pulled them together to pull their ship against the opponent’s.
Some with great strength lifted large wooden planks and laid them across to create makeshift pathways, while those with excellent balance and confidence in swordplay moved across the ropes like acrobats.
However, shortly after entering the melee combat phase, the pirates realized that they could not gain much of an advantage on this front either.
“Damn it! What the hell are these bastards wearing so heavily layer upon layer…”
Unlike the pirates who were mostly dressed in cloth clothes, the Pendian soldiers were all equipped with enchanted leather armor and weapons.
Just as in the earlier exchange of fire, the pirates’ spears and swords failed to pierce the armor, whereas the weapons of the Pendian soldiers easily tore through flesh.
Occasionally, a few lucky or skilled individuals aimed at exposed gaps to land critical blows, but such men were few in number.
“Ugh!”
“Doban! Grab my hand!”
However, the Pendian soldiers could not engage in a purely one-sided slaughter either.
No matter how much they had trained over the past few weeks, people who had lived on dry land their entire lives could not move dexterously on a swaying ship.
Stumbling every time a wave hit was relatively mild; one after another lost their balance and fell, rolling across the deck whenever ships collided.
Taking advantage of those moments, several pirates grabbed and restrained the soldiers, stabbing them in exposed areas or flinging them over the deck.
“Die!”
“Uaaaaahk!”
Splash. The Pendian soldiers who fell into the sea struggled to strip off their armor as trained and float to the surface.
Among them, those who were unskilled at swimming or half out of their minds floundered and swallowed water, but fortunately, several Altoan soldiers capable of gill breathing dived in to rescue them.
“Here! Hold onto this rope!”
“O-Okay…”
As fierce melee combat continued on the ships like this, the knights assigned to each vessel showed exceptional performance.
Even if they could not fully display their learned martial arts due to the environment aboard the ships, they were beings on a completely different dimension from ordinary humans in both equipment and technique.
“Euhaha! Try putting a bit more strength into it, you bastards!”
Ravana revived the rough language from the days when she was called the Slaughter Rabbit, swinging her favored weapon, Rabbit Foot, to sever a pirate’s head.
Just as they had done to other knights, the pirates rolled a large barrel to subdue her.
However, Ravana kicked the barrel hard, sending it flying right back at her opponents.
Shocked by the monstrous strength that was hard to believe came from a woman’s body, the pirates were struck by the barrel and blasted over the deck.
Just then, at a chilling sensation felt suddenly, she quickly retreated backward.
A long, thin sword dug past her armor and lightly grazed her flank.
“What is this?”
“You dodged that? For a land bitch, you’re pretty good!”
A man with a skeletal, scrawny face sneered despicably and licked the bloody blade with his tongue.
If he could pierce metal armor with a thin blade like that, it meant he was someone capable of manipulating Fighting Spirit.
Ravana asked with a somber expression.
“Are you someone who knows how to handle a sword?”
“I am Remo of the Flash, boatswain of the Red Eagle.”
“Your blade seems slow for a ‘flash’, doesn’t it?”
“You’ve got a sharp mouth. For a bitch brave enough to step onto a battlefield… ugh!”
Finding no value in continuing the conversation with her opponent, Ravana immediately swung Rabbit Foot.
However, the opponent dodged her axe with nimble movements, leaving several more nicks here and there on her armor.
Had it been on land, he was an enemy she could have finished easily, but because of the constant swaying that made it hard to keep her balance, fighting was far from easy.
“This piece of…”
“Heh, what an awesome suit of armor! Once I kill you and sell that off, how much will it bring…”
Before he could even finish speaking, an axe flying from behind cleaved Remo’s body in half.
A gust of wind blew sharply from the power infused into the axe.
Lug, who had thrown it, asked Ravana.
“Uh… did I interrupt your fight? I saw an opening.”
“No, it’s fine. Thanks.”
Ravana picked up the axe that had dropped beside her and tossed it back to Lug.
Catching it, Lug took stride after stride, cutting down pirates one by one.
Ravana covered his back as she asked.
“What about your ship?”
“Mr. Roden told me to go help you, Ms. Ravana!”
“Then that must be right.”
As ships repeatedly tangled and locked together, this place had practically become a small island made of dozens of vessels.
As usual, Roden focused on controlling the situation from the flagship’s command room and appropriately distributing forces.
Even just now, seeing that Ravana was unable to settle her duel easily, he had dispatched Lug as reinforcement.
Under his command, Pendia’s knights and soldiers worked in tandem to push back pirates one by one and rescue allies who fell into the sea.
As time passed, the battle situation gradually turned favorable.
The troops’ equipment and level of training played a large part as well, but above all, Shan’s presence stirring up the middle of the enemy formation was immense.
Actively employing the Thousand Shapes in earnest, he had already cut down hundreds of pirates.
When his sword grew dull during the frantic slaughter, he changed its shape to wipe away stuck flesh and grease, and when he grew fatigued, he crossed over to a nearby ship clear of enemies to rest.
Compared to combat on land where one had to fight relentlessly without rest while staying alert in all directions, naval combat where ships locked together was truly Shan’s personal stage.
Staring blankly at Shan as he conquered a ship and crossed over to another, Ravana shouted toward Roden.
“We can’t just let the Lord Protector handle everything. Let’s hurry over as well!”
“Sounds good!”
Boosting their spirits with renewed strength, the two plunged back into the battlefield.
How long did they fight, diligently killing enemies and rescuing allies?
Since the battle had begun in the late afternoon, as the sun set, magic lamp artifacts and torches lit up the darkness from all directions.
The once high-spirited pirates lost their fighting spirit as the battle dragged on and they realized they had suffered damage close to total annihilation.
Just as the Pendian army, realizing victory was near, let out a resounding cheer, a dark red surge swept forth from a pirate ship anchored slightly apart from the battle.
A faint flow of power that ordinary people could not sense, yet those awakened to Fighting Spirit could perceive.
“This is…?”
The puzzled knights soon realized what its true identity was.
Fallen pirates began pushing themselves up from all around.
*
“They’re being pushed back even more one-sidedly than I thought.”
“That guy in the golden armor is a monster. Is he really human? Not some kind of monster?”
When a man in a black robe asked sneeringly, the person beside him shook his head.
“It’s just because the weapon he’s holding is so powerful.”
“No, the weapon isn’t the problem, the guy holding it is. Even if that bastard were a bare-handed pirate, it wouldn’t have been much different.”
The one who denied it was a heavily built pirate half a head taller than others.
Clenching his teeth, he spoke pressingly to the old man in a robe beside him.
“When is that damned magic going to finish?”
“It’s almost done, so don’t badger me, you ignorant fool! Will you take responsibility if the incantation gets interrupted?”
The leader of the Red Eagle was about to flare up at the sullen response, but swallowed his temper.
Because that shabby-looking old man was none other than the black mage Elam, leader of the pirate crew known as Elam’s Curse.
A master of various evil magic forbidden by the mage organizations of Pendia and Ruman that used humans as sacrifices, he was in the middle of drawing a magic circle made of blood and flesh while chanting incantations.
Where they stood was the flagship of the ‘Red Eagle’.
Most of the executives of the pirate alliance gathered for this battle were staying on this ship.
Because those fighting the Pendian fleet over there were merely a kind of disposable pawn meant to exhaust the enemy’s strength.
The trump card they had prepared was right here.
“P-Please save me, please… gagh, krrk.”
A young girl dragged in as a sacrifice pleaded desperately before a bone dagger pierced her neck, causing her to make a gurgling noise.
One of Elam’s disciples sprinkled the collected blood to adorn the magic circle.
The magic circle occupying most of the deck was the result created through over a hundred and several tens of such sacrifices.
How long did they prepare like that?
Finally, an ominous light flickered above the magic circle and spread out toward the distant battlefield.
Over a thousand dead pirates transformed into undead ghouls and stood up.
“It succeeded.”
“Heh, impressive. Can magic really do something like this?”
“It’s impossible for fools who uselessly uphold ethics. At any rate, I’ve done everything required of me. Now it’s your turn.”
The black mage Elam spoke with an exhausted face.
Sweat poured down his wrinkled face like rain.
An incantation that resurrected corpses into unholy monsters.
This evil magic combined with sorcery of the Southern Continent required a large quantity of human sacrifices.
Originally, those belonging to ‘Elam’s Curse’ alone could not possibly fulfill this requirement, so the pirate alliance had gathered victims to serve as sacrifices from nearby islands over the past few weeks.
“C-Corpses are standing up!”
“Do not panic! They’re just ordinary monsters like ghouls!”
As a result, the Pendian army was engaging in a troublesome fight against the resurrected undead.
Everyone showed clear signs of fluster at how a battle they thought was nearly won was instantly reset, or perhaps reduced to an even worse plight.
The pirates, adept at fighting, knew well that having one’s momentum broken like this in war sometimes exerted a greater impact than actual physical damage.
The leader of the pirate crew ‘Demon Flag’ peered out and spoke.
“Dear me, it looks like those bastards are mobilizing priests to use purification miracles. Let’s move on to the next method quickly.”
“I was going to start right away regardless.”
Naturally, they had not expected to win with this single incantation alone.
Their ship still held many sacrifices prepared, and several evil methods utilizing them were ready as well.
Just then, the leader of the Red Eagle narrowed his eyes and spoke.
“Wait, something’s strange. Where did that bastard go?”
“That bastard?”
“The one who used a weapon like a silver whip, probably that Altoan guy…”
Along with the question asking where the guy they needed to beware of most had gone, a silver whip caught onto the deck with a thud.
Drenched in seawater, a single knight with glowing green eyes poked his head over the gunwale and looked at them.