Bloodsail Pirates

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

Yet Zephyr at the bow seemed trapped within a storm.

Even after Rock left, he remained 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.

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

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

Those calm yet weighty words pierced the very core of his convictions 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... ultimately ended in silence.

He could not refute him.

But neither could he accept it.

Meanwhile, Rock was walking across the deck toward the captain's cabin.

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

And Zephyr's ideal of "justice without killing" 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 loudly, "Rear Admiral Rock!!"

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

Rock raised a hand to signal them to relax, then walked over to the intelligence table. "How is it? Have you located the target?"

The intelligence officer immediately unfolded a sea chart and pointed to a marked area. "Based on the latest route analysis, the target pirate crew is heading toward an island in the North Blue!"

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

Rock nodded. "Very good."

He turned and left, casually straightening his cape.

At the corner, he ran directly into Zephyr, who was approaching from the other side.

The two stopped.

Zephyr fell silent for a moment, as though sorting through the surging emotions in his heart.

In the end, he spoke. "Rock."

"What you said earlier... may have made some sense."

His voice was low and hoarse, carrying the struggle of convictions shaken after so many years.

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

"But I still believe—

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

Rock's steps paused slightly.

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

Then he raised a hand and lightly patted Zephyr on the shoulder. A relaxed smile curled across his lips. "It's your first mission, Big Brother Zephyr."

"I'm counting on you~"

Zephyr froze.

Rock turned and left, his cape billowing in the wind.

Sunlight stretched his figure long, while faint lightning flickered beneath his feet.

Zephyr stood where he was, watching the boy gradually walk away.

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

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

Far beyond the warship's sight—

A gloomy stretch of sea, where even sunlight seemed unwilling to shine, was cut open by a pirate ship laden with evil.

The sea wind carried the stench of blood, enough to make one's scalp tingle at a single whiff.

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

The entire ship had been painted deep crimson and pitch-black, as though smeared with blood that had yet to dry.

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

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

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

Every crisp clink seemed to tell of the victims' cries 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 slaughter.

There was no doubt about it. This was the brutal pirate crew that had recently struck terror throughout the North Blue—

The Bloodsail Pirates.

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

Barrels were smashed apart, crimson liquor splashing across the planks like rivers of blood.

A tall, powerfully built man clutched an entire barrel of hard liquor and guzzled it down. Three parallel scars on his left cheek looked as vicious as brands.

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

He was—

The captain of the Bloodsail Pirates, "Flayer" Barto Lomiu.

His nickname was not meant merely to frighten people. He genuinely delighted in flaying and torturing his victims.

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

"No wonder he's a great pirate who escaped from a Marine prison!!!"

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

"Hahahaha! The chicks from that village last time were absolutely incredible! The captain always knows exactly where to strike!!!"

Hearing that twisted worship, Barto Lomiu threw back his head and laughed. His sharp teeth gleamed under the sunlight.

"Marine prison... Hahahaha! Those idiots actually thought they could lock me up?!"

The three scars on his face twisted, making his entire face resemble an even more hideous demon.

—He had indeed been captured before.

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

At the time, Barto Lomiu had been utterly arrogant, leading a crew with blood on their hands to provoke the Marines.

As a result, Zephyr suppressed them outright with thunderous force, not even giving them a chance to fight back.

The entire crew was captured and thrown into prison.

After a year in prison, in order to survive, he was willing to offer up all his wealth, cooperate by exposing the crimes of all his former subordinates, and bribe corrupt guards within the prison. In the end, he successfully escaped.

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

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 villains once more and rebuilt the Bloodsail Pirates.

Wherever they went, corpses would surely litter the ground.

Just as Barto Lomiu was holding his barrel and laughing—

"Captain!!!"

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

The pirates aboard the entire ship fell silent in an instant, before erupting into even wilder cheers.

Barto Lomiu licked his teeth, his tongue sliding over those three scars as he revealed a bloody smile like that of a beast.

"Good—"

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

"Get your things together."

"Prepare to go ashore."

The barrel in his hand shattered with a crack, liquor dripping through his fingers.

"I was captured because of this island before, so I'd like 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 preparing to tear apart their prey.

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

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

But what these brutal pirates did not know was that on the waters behind the island, the waves silently parted.

A white warship was racing toward them, and one step ahead of it—

A faint spark of lightning had already slipped onto the island without a sound.

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

It waited.

It watched.

It would welcome the arrival of those savage demons.

The ones crying today...

Would not be the women on the island.