The towering blaze lasted only a short while, but its terrifying spectacle still left every pirate who witnessed it aghast.
The moment the pirate ships entered firing range, that terrifying professional suspected of being an archmage rose into the air and unleashed powerful Evocation Magic, creating such overwhelming deterrence that many captains who sensed trouble immediately and expertly ordered their ships to scatter and flee.
This was also the pirates' standard procedure whenever they realized they had run into a hard target. In the early years, Amn had pulled plenty of this sort of fishing-enforcement stunt in order to consolidate and protect the shipping lanes to its colonies.
Yet when that dreadful spell, like a blazing meteor shower, came crashing down, some pirate ships still met with disaster.
The vast majority of them were One-Eyed Addison's Viking pirate ships at the very front.
When it came to running away, you did not necessarily need to be the fastest—only faster than everyone else.
Pirate ships that struck terror into ordinary mortals still appeared far too fragile beneath Evocation Magic that resembled a natural catastrophe, like candle after candle being lit.
Every so often, spellcasters aboard pirate ships used magic scrolls to erect Flame Protection Barriers, but they would usually shatter into pieces before long.
The smarter pirates leapt into the sea to save themselves before the flames poured down. Those slower to react either became living torches on the spot or plunged butt-first into the freezing seawater with their asses on fire.
In this world, where medicine was still underdeveloped, more than half of these unlucky wretches—who were unlikely to receive a Cleric's favor—were destined to die from the agonizing infections that followed.
A moment later, that somewhat oversized three-masted merchant ship quietly sailed past the wreckage that was about to