Extraordinary

When the Silver Wing heard the thunderous cannon fire rolling across the distant sky and saw the signal flare exploding in midair, it risked crossing the Chaotic Rock Islands and arrived at the battlefield an hour later.

Crackle—

"Help—!"

"..."

Amid the raging flames, the once-powerful Fifth-Rate Warship Warrior had been reduced to burning kindling. Shouts, cries for help, and screams rang into the heavens!

Countless sailors from the warship had been forced to jump overboard to escape without lifeboats.

Before the Silver Wing could move in to rescue the wounded who had fallen into the water, the Warrior's powder magazine, ignited by the inferno, erupted in a catastrophic secondary explosion with a deafening roar!

"BOOM—!!!"

The entire battlefield fell silent for a moment afterward.

Evan stood there with his mouth agape. A warship that had been chatting and laughing yesterday had been destroyed before his eyes. The shock was incomparable to those childish skirmishes with the Blood Anchor, nor could any written battle report ever convey even a fraction of it.

"Target the pirate ship! All hands to battle stations! Open the gunports! Take the windward position! With me, none can stand against us!"

"With me, none can stand against us! With me, none can stand against us!"

The sight before them deeply enraged everyone aboard the Silver Wing. Conflicts were an internal matter, but these audacious pirates had actually dared to openly sink a warship and slaughter naval soldiers. Sharing the same fate, the officers and sailors of the Silver Wing swore vengeance for their comrades, their eyes red with fury!

Gell's order to seize the windward position also revealed his resolve: he would leave himself no path of retreat and fight to the end.

Because trying to flee from the windward position would only deliver them into the pirates' cannon fire. There would be no escape.

"Gagon!! Tell me why there was a second warship! Was this the prey you foretold?!"

One-Eyed Beck grabbed the Native Old Wizard by the collar and threw him to the deck, his face twisted as the excitement of unlocking the Oceanic Secret Treasure was instantly replaced by rage.

As Captain, he could not admit that he had been so immersed in the joy of realizing his dream that he had never considered the meaning behind the Warrior's signal flare.

Gagon could only take the blame.

No one would be pleased when a plan was disrupted by an accident, but he also knew that anger could solve nothing. Besides, with the aid of the Oceanic Secret Treasure, Shipwreck Lament, he had not suffered too many casualties in the battle against the Warrior. He might not necessarily lose.

Holding up the shipwreck sculpture, which had begun to emit visible black mist, One-Eyed Beck rushed into the Captain's Cabin. Before shutting the door, he viciously roared at his Pirate Executives, "Hold them off for half an hour! Whoever dares retreat, I'll sink him to the bottom of the sea to feed the fish!"

The Pirate Executives looked miserable. They had used trickery to lure the Warrior into a trap, but it had still been a Fifth-Rate Warship!

Even without a Boarding Battle, their pirate ship had been severely damaged by the bombardment.

And now, battered and bruised, they had to fight another Fifth-Rate Ship head-on. How was that any different from seeking death?

But One-Eyed Beck's brutality and viciousness outweighed their fear of the navy. Gritting their teeth, they ordered the gunners to return fire, then hurriedly raised anchor to trade space for time. As long as they held out until the Captain emerged, there should be no problem... right?

Whoosh—

Crash—

The sails billowed full, and the bow split the waves.

One pursued while the other fled, the two ships leaving the Chaotic Rock Islands and sailing toward the deep sea. As it passed the Warrior's wreckage, the Silver Wing lowered every lifeboat it had. As for how many survivors remained aboard the Warrior, only the Goddess knew.

"BOOM!..."

The chase lasted only twenty minutes. Although the pirate ship had luckily severed the Silver Wing's foremast with Chain Shot, successfully slowing it down, it was soon struck in the stern rudder by a shell from the Silver Wing and completely lost its chance to escape.

Boom—

Boom—

Boom—

After adding three volleys of cannon fire, using both grapeshot and Chain Shot to ensure the pirate ship had truly lost mobility and to heavily wound the pirates on deck, the Silver Wing approached from the best angle.

Though filled with indignation, the navy had not forgotten that their objective this time was One-Eyed Beck's head.

"Drop anchor! Fight them to the death!"

Driven into a corner, the pirates were not lacking in desperate courage. They dropped anchor to secure the ship, and every pirate surged out of the cabins.

Without waiting for the Silver Wing to attack first, they howled wildly under the lead of the Pirate Executives and used ropes to launch a Boarding Battle.

"Kill them!"

"Fight those damned naval bastards!"

"..."

The sailors aboard the Silver Wing naturally refused to be outdone. Some engaged the enemy on deck, while others leaped directly onto the pirate ship.

Pirates on one side, navy on the other—at this moment, neither side had a coward among them. In the blink of an eye, both ships became battlefields of blood and iron.

As the strongest fighter aboard the Silver Wing, Gell scanned the area and failed to find One-Eyed Beck, who was said to possess knight-level strength. He handed command of the battle aboard the Silver Wing to the first mate.

"BOOM—"

He stomped down and crashed onto the pirate ship like a cannonball, charging straight for the Captain's Cabin. He did not know what One-Eyed Beck was plotting, but preventing him from succeeding was the best choice right now.

Of course, Evan could not simply stand by and watch. After serving in the military for so long, this was his first encounter with pirates. He could not wait to test the results of his hard training over this period.

No need for words. He directly unleashed Sword Form Drifting Skiff!

His figure blurred as he moved with his sword, turned into a streak of dazzling silver light. Sword Light darted across the Silver Wing's deck, and every flash sent sprays of blood flying as one pirate after another fell beneath his blade.

If Gell stood at the peak of Formal Knights, dominating this second-tier class, then Evan was confident that he too had reached the very peak of Apprentice Knights, possessing his own dominance over the first-tier class.

If he still had to struggle against these ordinary pirates, then wouldn't his eight years of Extraordinary swordsmanship have been practiced for nothing?

Using a musket in coordination with his sword, he easily killed a Pirate Executive who clearly bore traces of Extraordinary Power. The situation on the Silver Wing's side gradually stabilized.

The pirates in this wave clearly possessed far more Extraordinary Power than the former Blood Anchor, but after Evan single-handedly killed three Pirate Executives, the comparison in combat power between the navy and pirates had become overwhelmingly one-sided.

The pirates had fewer people than the navy to begin with. One side had just gone through a battle while the other was fresh and waiting. Unless the battle between the high-end forces was reversed, the outcome had already been decided.

Splurt—

"Guh... guh... ah!"

Gradually, even the pirates' screams became sparse. The sailors had realized that these men were merely abandoned pawns. Their true target, One-Eyed Beck, had never appeared from beginning to end.

Evan gave Gary a look, telling him to hold the line here.

Grabbing a rope, he swung over to the pirate ship as well. Even if Uncle Gell did not need his help, witnessing a battle between knights would still be a precious gain.

"Stop him! Don't let him enter the Captain's Cabin!"

"Get him! All of you, get him!"

"Bang!" "Bang!" "Bang!"

The pirates left behind bore the heavy responsibility of guarding their Captain. Suppressing their fear of facing a Formal Knight, they swarmed forward and blocked Gell's path to the Captain's Cabin.

They even brought over large numbers of muskets, using three-rank volleys to keep Gell from approaching.

Although Gell was already an extraordinary human whose physical fitness far exceeded ordinary human limits, that did not mean he could ignore bullets—especially not unceasing close-range musket fire.

As he shifted his footwork and continuously moved to evade, time passed second by second.

At this point, Gell also realized that something had probably gone wrong with One-Eyed Beck. His subordinates were buying time for him. But the longer this dragged on, the more variables there would be. Since they had not chosen to flee, they clearly believed they still had a chance to turn the situation around.

So he did not dare delay any longer.

He flashed backward, then charged two steps to the bow. At the same time, he swung his sword and severed the relatively smallest foremast, grabbing it with both hands as he let out a shout.

"Hah!"

Strength more than four times the human limit was far from something that could be conveyed through mere numbers. Compared to it, body size was like an ant wielding chopsticks. He violently swept the mast outward.

"Rumble!"

What did it feel like to be struck in the head by a battering ram?

These pirates could tell you: it felt like flying!

Even their screams were trapped in their throats. The mast, carrying Wind and Thunder, needed only two swings to completely clear a path paved with blood, mud, and mangled flesh.

A small number of pirates were knocked into the sea, while more were reduced to pulp and permanently fused with the deck.

There were no more obstacles between Gell and the Captain's Cabin.

Like a fearless armored knight from the age of cavalry hundreds of years ago, Gell gripped the long mast as though a knight wielding a lance and charged toward the enemy's vital point—the Captain's Cabin.

He strode forward in great steps. Every footfall on the deck made the oak planks boom as though it was not a man running past, but a war elephant.

"Bam—! Crash!"

Evan had just boarded the pirate ship when he heard that tremendous sound from the stern.

He looked up to see that the Captain's Cabin at the rear had exploded into fragments.

Two figures fell tangled together into the sea amid shattered planks.

Though it was only a fleeting glimpse, Data Vision had already captured both figures. One was tall and dressed in a naval uniform, naturally Gell. The other, a grotesquely misshapen fellow, was undoubtedly One-Eyed Beck.

But Evan was somewhat startled. "Is this guy still human?"

More than half of his bare upper body had turned into crab or lobster shell. The other half remained humanoid, but it was covered in all kinds of marine organisms—barnacles, tube worms, bryozoans, mussels, algae—like a plank from a ship that had sunk to the seafloor for years. He looked bizarre and disgusting.

Most horrifying of all, the eyepatch over his already blind left eye had fallen away. Within the empty socket, a cluster of slender black tentacles wriggled constantly like living things, resembling the ghostly hand of a Water Ghost reaching from the depths of the sea.

Even from afar, Evan felt as though his nostrils had been filled with the rotten, foul stench of seawater.

"Is this the real Extraordinary world?"

The sudden sight of such strangeness violently shook Evan's worldview, leaving him briefly dazed. He did not notice at all that a withered, elderly figure covered in bone ornaments was slowly emerging from the hatch leading to the lower deck behind him.