Three Pirates

Because most commercial dealings between the Eastern and Western Continents had to pass through the Caribbean Sea, and the cargo aboard many merchant ships was worth an enormous amount, over time, a wildly booming trade had naturally been bred upon these waters: maritime bandit gangs.

The chance to start from nothing and grow rich overnight made these sea bandits love this very "promising" profession dearly, and they never tired of robbery.

And as one bandit gang after another grew wealthy, it drew even more vagrants and low-status warriors into the trade. By now, quite a few mercenary groups had simply abandoned their original nature and directly transformed into sea bandits.

As for these sea bandits, the upper ranks of every nation hated them to the bone and constantly sent troops to encircle and suppress them. But the Caribbean Sea was simply too vast, while the target of any single bandit gang was small. On top of that, when things truly became untenable, these bandits could flee the Caribbean Sea and hide in their lair on Fack Island in the open sea, leaving the nations helpless.

The open sea was different from this inland sea. It was the territory of the powerful and savage Sea Race. With the help of the Sea Race, who had reached agreements with them, as long as the pirates entered the open sea, they could basically sleep on high pillows without worry, fearing no nation's army at all.

As a result, the pirates' arrogance grew even more rampant, and more and more people joined them. At present, according to incomplete statistics, there were no fewer than two hundred bandit gangs of all sizes on the Caribbean Sea, ranging from the smallest with only a few men to the largest with several hundred. Their total numbers were around ten thousand, and their strength could be considered formidable.

However, these pirates did not dare go too far. The targets they robbed were generally ordinary merchants, and merchants whose backing was not especially powerful at that. They basically did not rob nobles or official ships, and in recent years they rarely harmed lives. Generally speaking, as long as one did not resist, there was no danger to life—of course, this was not absolute.

The main reason they adopted this approach was that they feared truly enraging the nations on the continent. If the navies of every nation all came pouring out in full force, determined to fight the pirates to the death, they would likewise come to no good end.

Sure enough, this method had achieved a certain effect. Although in recent years nations still occasionally sent armies to encircle and suppress them, the scale and frequency had greatly decreased. The upper echelons of some nations had basically adopted a tacit attitude toward the pirates: as long as they did not go too far, they would turn a blind eye. Moreover, because of massive bribes, many nobles from various countries had already colluded with the pirates, frantically plundering wealth.

Although these pirates belonged to different forces, their flags were completely identical: all were these enormous black skull flags. So when Liu Feng saw the shape of that flag, he immediately knew that he had run into this terrifying pack of sea bandits.

However, after his initial panic, Liu Feng relaxed slightly again, because he only had this one little boat, and there wasn't a damned bit of cargo aboard. These pirates should not have any designs on him.

What Liu Feng had not expected was that this group of pirates either had not noticed there was a small boat ahead at all, or else they simply intended to do exactly this. The enormous pirate ship did not slow in the slightest and rammed straight toward Liu Feng's little boat.

In the flickering firelight, Liu Feng could even clearly see the savage smiles on the faces of the pirates aboard.

"I..." Without even having time to curse, Liu Feng fumbled in panic to grab the little oar on the boat and paddled desperately into the water, trying to dodge.

Unfortunately, his boat-handling skills were pitifully poor, and besides, how could the speed of this little boat compare to that great ship? The hull had only just twisted around when the enormous pirate ship slammed fiercely into it.

With a thunderous boom, wooden planks flew in all directions along with splashing seawater. Under that terrifying impact, Liu Feng's little boat instantly turned into fragments.

Liu Feng only felt his body jolt violently. He could no longer stand steady, and his body was hurled into the air, falling into the seawater more than ten meters away.

"Damn it, Cross-Eyes! I told you ages ago to look carefully and see if there was anything ahead. Look at this—great, now we really hit something. Sooner or later I'll have the captain dig out those useless eyes of yours!"

On the pirate ship, a short, fat fellow who looked like a large wooden stump cursed furiously.

He was at most no more than one and a half meters tall, but his waist also seemed to be around one and a half meters, making him look like an oversized ball. The features on his fat face seemed as though the Creator had randomly piled them together from a heap of rotten meat. Paired with that head of messy hair, the dwarf looked both ugly and ridiculous.

"Damn it, how was I supposed to know there was something ahead? When I looked just now, there clearly wasn't!"

Hearing the dwarf curse at him, a fellow as thin and weak as a bamboo pole, with a long, narrow face and an obvious pair of crossed eyes, muttered in dissatisfaction.

"A-all right, a-all right, s-stop arguing. I-it looks like we h-hit someone!"

Beside the dwarf and Cross-Eyes, a young man who looked fairly handsome and was not very old stammered. A sentence that an ordinary person could say in an instant cost this stutterer all his strength and nearly a full minute to get out.

"So what if we hit someone! What day don't we hit a few? Just count it as his bad luck!" the dwarf still said angrily. It seemed that although this fellow was short, his temper was extremely fiery.

"Person? Where's there a person?" Cross-Eyes muttered in some confusion, yet he exhausted his pitiful eyesight and tried hard to look ahead. Finally, in the indistinct distance, Cross-Eyes seemed to see two human figures—sometimes overlapping, sometimes separating—struggling on the surface of the sea not far away.

"Damn it! Looks like there really has been something wrong with my eyesight lately!" Cross-Eyes sighed again and again, still completely unmoved by Liu Feng, who was desperately flailing about in the sea.

"S-should we s-save him?" The stuttering youth was clearly kinder-hearted and asked with effort.

"Save my ass! Who are we? We're robbers. Have you ever seen robbers saving people?" the dwarf said irritably, his anger still not gone.

"B-but, d-didn't the c-captain s-s-say that we've been s-short on hands l-lately?" the stuttering youth continued with difficulty, his face already flushed red. It could be seen that speaking was truly far too arduous a task for him.

"That's right! I almost forgot what the captain said. Damn dwarf, hurry up and get a rope!" Cross-Eyes froze, then shouted.

"Damn it! What the hell are you, daring to order me around?" the dwarf cursed in renewed fury, but he still picked up the rope beside him and threw it toward Liu Feng, who was just about to sink...