Chapter 15: Dismantling

How could it be a corpse?

Sven frowned.

The corpse had a single-shot crossbow tied to its hand, the mechanism reset, with no wooden bolt in place where the arrow should be.

Could a corpse have fired an arrow at me?

Judging by the clothing, this person resembled someone from his crew.

He sensed something subtly wrong and immediately swung his rune-inscribed straight sword. The glowing-hot blade sliced through the corpse’s waist as effortlessly as cutting tofu.

The upper torso fell to the ground and burst into flames. The cross-section where the rune blade had made contact turned charred black, emitting a pungent burnt smell like burning hair.

There were no signs of the corpse reanimating. He decided this was bait – the real killer who had slain his crew member was still hiding in the shadows.

“Filthy sewer rat,” Sven spat.

He judged his opponent to be weak in direct combat. If they had real strength, they wouldn’t resort to such petty tricks – they’d just charge forward like a battering ram.

This was always Sven’s approach. During every raid, he led the charge. Whether facing fully armored knights or mercenaries with tower shields, he never hesitated – he simply crushed everything in his path.

He despised those who relied on underhanded tactics. His faith lay solely in power.

Only absolute power could bring victory!

So he raised his sword, flames suddenly erupting along the blade as a fiery pillar several meters long illuminated the night.

Crouched on the rooftop, Wade saw this flaming pillar rise against the dark sky. The cold wind tugged at his hood and clothes as he couldn’t help but marvel at the extraordinary power of a professional warrior.

Wade had once dreamed of becoming a professional too, but lacked the innate talent. Until death, he remained ordinary.

Some things, if not born with them, would never be obtained.

No matter how much one envied, strived, or trained, they would never come.

So Wade had learned early to accept reality. He knew that to kill that abnormally large Viking, he must consider scenarios where arrows might prove ineffective.

That’s why he’d made some modifications before shooting.

His foresight proved correct.

The pirate leader was an experienced professional – not some novice who’d just learned a couple combat techniques.

Defeating a seasoned professional was no easy task.

Even among declining knightly families, producing an experienced professional was rare – it required not just resources but innate talent.

A single Iron-rank professional could uphold a knight family’s honor, while a Silver-rank roughly equaled a military commander leading a thousand men – meaning one person could match a thousand.

This might be exaggerated, but it showed how people viewed powerful professionals.

They were like floods, like wild beasts.

At this moment, a thought suddenly occurred to Wade.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have come.

How much is one willing to sacrifice for justice?

Answers vary, but Wade felt his life wasn’t part of that price.

Though, his human life had already ended.

He was a skeleton, a dead thing that should be resting.

Creatures like skeletons and phantoms – moving today, might scatter like morning mist tomorrow, truly becoming lifeless.

When even waking the next day isn’t guaranteed…

Why fear death?

Moreover, Wade believed his chances weren’t that low.

He looked across the fiery pillar where a tiny light floated up like a firefly.

That faint glow, weaker than a dying candle, still showed Wade the way forward.

“There then…”

Wade stood up, having determined his direction.

The pillar’s light finally illuminated his face.

No longer hiding his presence, Wade took out a fire tube from his robe – made of pine resin, mugwort, and cedar bark, looted from a pirate’s corpse.

In the far north, fire sources were essential. Given means, everyone carefully preserved their flames.

This bamboo tube, barely finger-length, matched those Wade had seen in the cabins.

The principle wasn’t complex – he’d used similar devices before.

You soaked flammable mugwort and hammered cedar bark in saltpeter water for three days, dried it in shade, then coated it with melted pine resin before rolling it into thumb-sized cylinders.

Before lighting, sprinkle charcoal powder inside to absorb moisture. After ignition, blow out the flame leaving only smoldering embers, then seal it in a properly-sized bamboo tube with a perforated lid and mud coating, leaving only tiny air holes.

Such tubes could smolder continuously for 10-30 days. With regular maintenance, the fire would never die.

Minutes earlier, Wade had checked this tube. Now he opened it, took out an oil bladder, and splashed fuel on the straw-thatched roof where he’d cleared snow.

Embers fell like fine sand, generating heat before extinguishing – igniting the fire.

He’d done the same earlier when using the pirate corpse to shoot the arrow. The results confirmed his theory.

That Viking couldn’t detect a temperatureless corpse. He likely located targets through heat perception – or perhaps required actual flames to gain acute awareness.

This wasn’t hard to deduce. Coincidence wouldn’t make every pirate carry oil – it must be regulation, meaning their leader demanded they always carry fuel for lighting fires.

And who sets rules for pirates?

None but their captain, their chief.

That Viking professional derived his power from flames.

Hence why they burned houses en masse rather than sneaking in at night to silently murder sleeping villagers.

When Wade lit the fire, the flaming pillar contracted inward – the pirate leader had detected him.

He needed to buy more time, otherwise he might not reach the rendezvous point.

Controlling his left hand, he fired a second arrow.

That left hand wasn’t connected to his left shoulder blade.

Rather, that arm was hundreds of meters away.

The detached limb functioned like plug-and-play equipment – he’d removed a pirate’s left arm and replaced it with his own.

Such was a skeleton’s wonder – apart from the skull housing the soul fire, all bones could be detached and replaced.

Though new bones required tempering by soul fire first, like oiling clockwork – only properly oiled springs and gears turn smoothly.

His removed left arm had been fully prepared, so even separated from Wade, it could perform normally.

The first arrow had been fired using elastic bowstring as a simple trigger mechanism. Now the second arrow emerged from the pirate corpse’s sleeve.

Unlike visual aiming, Wade used living essence for remote targeting.

Locking onto that vibrant “flame,” he triggered the crossbow mechanism.

The arrow flew as he immediately leaped from the roof, sprinting toward the glowing point.