Bloodsail Pirates

The sea lay calm as a mirror, the warship's advance leaving only a faint white trail across its surface.

Yet Zephyr at the bow seemed trapped within a storm.

After Rock left, he remained standing at the very front of the deck, staring straight at the horizon that seemed to stretch on forever.

The wind rose, and the waves stirred.

But his heart alone was gripped tightly by a single sentence—

"If you do not possess the resolve to kill your opponent, then you cannot prevent a tragedy."

Those calm yet weighty words pierced the very core of his beliefs like a thorn.

Zephyr had never imagined that one day, a sixteen-year-old boy would force him to confront his own "justice."

The conversation... had ultimately ended in silence.

He could not refute it.

But neither could he accept it.

Meanwhile, Rock was making his way across the deck toward the captain's cabin.

His steps were light, but his mind was analyzing the situation: Zephyr's attitude was exactly as he had expected.

And Zephyr's philosophy of "No-Kill Justice" had only taken shape a few years ago.

There was still time to change it.

And it had to be changed.

Rock pushed open the captain's cabin door.

Bang!

The instant the door flew open, several Intelligence Division members inside snapped to attention in unison and shouted, "Rear Admiral Rock!!"

Rock was dressed in a proper Marine uniform today, with a rear admiral's cloak draped over his shoulders. His bearing was steady, and he finally looked somewhat like a "high-ranking Marine officer."

Rock raised a hand to tell them to relax and walked over to the intelligence table. "What's the situation? Have you locked onto the target?"

The intelligence officer immediately spread open a nautical chart and pointed at a marked area. "Based on their latest route, the target pirate crew is heading for an island in the North Blue!"

"At our current speed, we'll arrive before them!"

Rock nodded. "Very good."

He turned to leave, casually straightening his cloak.

At the corner, he ran straight into Zephyr, who was approaching from the opposite direction.

The two stopped.

Zephyr fell silent for a moment, as if sorting through the turmoil in his heart.

In the end, he still spoke. "Rock."

"What you said just now... may have made some sense."

His voice was low and hoarse, carrying the struggle of someone whose beliefs of many years had been shaken.

Then he raised his head and met Rock's gaze, his eyes resolute yet conflicted.

"But I still believe—

Justice should not come at the cost of taking lives."

Rock paused slightly.

He softly repeated, "Is that so..."

Then he lifted a hand and gently patted Zephyr's shoulder, a relaxed smile curling across his lips. "Your first mission, Big Brother Zephyr."

"I'm counting on you~"

Zephyr froze.

Rock turned and walked away, his cloak billowing in the wind.

Sunlight stretched his silhouette long behind him, while faint lightning flickered beneath his feet.

Zephyr stood where he was, watching the boy gradually disappear into the distance.

He did not know how many people's fates this boy would change in the future,

And now, the clash between their two forms of "justice" had only just begun.

Beyond the warship's sight—

A gloomy stretch of sea, as though even sunlight refused to touch it, was split apart by a pirate ship loaded with sin.

The sea breeze carried the stench of blood, enough to make one's scalp tingle at the first whiff.

It was a medium-sized three-masted pirate ship, every part of it—from its hull to its masts—radiating bloodlust and madness.

The entire vessel had been painted deep crimson and pitch-black, as though stained with blood that had not yet dried.

At the prow, a statue of a crying woman with a pained expression, bound in iron chains, had been nailed to a wooden mast.

Her tear tracks and chains had been deliberately dyed dark red, making it seem as though real blood were running down her cheeks.

The main mast was even more horrifying. Strings of dried fingers had been made into "trophy wind chimes," swaying in the breeze with eerie jingling sounds.

Every crisp clink seemed to tell of the victims' wails before death.

A black pirate flag snapped in the wind, its skull pierced through the head by a serrated curved blade—

A symbol of torture, flaying, and brutal slaughter.

There could be no doubt: this was the vicious pirate crew that had recently struck terror throughout the North Blue—

The Bloodsail Pirates.

At that moment, an utterly unrestrained celebration was underway on the deck.

Barrels were smashed open, scarlet liquor spilling across the planks like a river of blood.

A tall, burly man hugged an entire barrel of strong liquor and guzzled it down. Three parallel scars across his left cheek looked as savage as brands.

His swallowing was coarse and wild, like the roar of a beast.

He was none other than—

Barto Lomiu, captain of the Bloodsail Pirates, known as the "Flayer."

His nickname was not meant merely to frighten people. He truly enjoyed flaying and torturing his victims.

The pirates around him raised their cups and roared, "The captain is mighty!!!"

"Just as expected of a great pirate who escaped from a Marine prison!!!"

"With the captain leading us, we'll definitely strike it rich!!!"

"Hahahaha! Those girls from that village last time were incredible! The captain always knows where to strike first!!!"

Listening to their twisted worship, Barto Lomiu threw back his head and laughed, his sharp teeth gleaming under the sunlight.

"Marine prison... hahahaha! Did those idiots really think they could lock me up?!"

The three scars on his face twisted, making him look even more like a demon.

—He really had been captured before.

Two years ago, Zephyr had encountered Barto Lomiu after the latter massacred a village while carrying out a mission in the North Blue.

At the time, he had been arrogant beyond measure, leading crewmen with blood-covered hands to provoke the Marines.

As a result, Zephyr crushed him directly with overwhelming force, not even giving him a chance to fight back.

The entire crew was captured and imprisoned.

A year after entering prison, in order to survive, he had been willing to hand over all his wealth, cooperate by exposing the crimes of all his former subordinates, and bribe corrupt prison guards. In the end, he successfully escaped.

That did not make him repent. Instead, it completely unleashed his ferocity—

Since his wealth had been taken from him, he would take lives from the world.

He hid in the North Blue for several months. After confirming that no one was pursuing him, he gathered criminals once more and rebuilt the Bloodsail Pirates.

Wherever they went, corpses were left strewn everywhere.

Just as Barto Lomiu was laughing with the liquor barrel in his arms—

"Captain!!!"

The lookout suddenly poked his head out from atop the mast and shouted urgently, "The island you mentioned... we're almost there!!!"

For an instant, the pirates across the ship fell silent, before erupting into even wilder cheers.

Barto Lomiu licked his teeth, his tongue passing over the three scars on his face as he revealed a bloodthirsty smile like a beast's.

"Good—"

He rose to his feet, his back resembling a demon crawling out of the depths of hell.

"Get your things together."

"Prepare to go ashore."

With a crack, he crushed the liquor barrel in his hand, and strong liquor dripped through his fingers.

"It was because of this island that I got caught before, so I want to hear—"

"How the women on this island cry."

The pirates on deck let out excited, cruel howls, waving curved blades, torches, and firearms like a pack of beasts ready to tear their prey apart.

The gale swept past, and the strings of dried-finger wind chimes on the main mast made eerie sounds, like countless wronged souls wailing.

An ominous foreboding was already trembling faintly in the air...

But what these brutal pirates did not know was that on the sea beyond the island's far side, the waves silently parted.

A white warship was speeding toward them, and arriving even earlier—

A flicker of lightning had already slipped silently onto the island.

It leaped through the shadows of the trees like a silent judgment.

It waited.

It watched.

It would welcome the arrival of those brutal demons.

The ones crying today...

Would not be the women on the island.