The pirate captain Aziza Nurennahar and her crew were trapped below deck. After the sailors of the Li fleet sawed off the ship's ram and pushed it aside, their vessel was now about a hundred yards from the Li fleet.
Their ship's bow faced the Li fleet, leaving them unable to fire their cannons or pose any threat. They couldn't even move, because after the Li sailors boarded their deck, they had deliberately run the ship aground on the reefs.
As for the other ship, those clever devils had tried to row backward and flee the moment they realized what the Li sailors were up to. The boarding party had promptly tossed gunpowder and fuel into the hold, setting the ship ablaze.
It was still burning fiercely, belching thick black smoke as it bobbed half-submerged on the sea some distance away. All around it, many pirates clung to planks and left their fate to the sea, while others fought against the waves, trying to swim toward the distant Commorragh Islands.
There was probably no one left alive in the hold of that red-hot, burning pirate ship.
Boom! Boom!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Outside, the Li fleet continued bombarding the Espinosa Company's ships with all its might, trying to keep those wolf-pack-like vessels from closing in.
Through the portholes and gunports, the pirates could easily see that the Li fleet, surrounded in the middle, had actually managed to withstand the Espinosa Company's surprise attack and hold the enemy ships firmly beyond cannon range.
"Allah!"
"Aziza, what do we do? This is bad!"
"Look, just look!"
A pirate captain with a red headscarf carefully peered outside through a gunport and porthole with a telescope. After taking in the situation, he hurriedly ran over to their leader, Aziza Nurennahar—the daughter of the late great