A Woman Betrayed by a Woman

A week later.

The Black Knife continued sailing toward the Vesipus Strait.

The Black Knife should have reached the Vesipus Strait three days earlier, but Hawkins had just become a Curse Caster, delaying them by two days.

Hawkins used those days mainly to study the various abilities of a Curse Caster. He conducted thorough tests, especially on Curseguard.

Curseguard was extraordinarily marvelous.

He had specifically asked Mark to attack him from every angle, yet no matter which direction the attacks came from, Curse Power reacted perfectly and defended against them.

It could be said that aside from certain special attacks, most physical attacks could be easily defended against as long as there was sufficient Curse Power.

Mark's hundred points of Curse Power were enough to defend against most attacks, while Hawkins possessed three hundred and thirty thousand points. Even attacks on the level of a meteor hammer were child's play to him.

Julian was worth mentioning. After personally witnessing Mark wildly hacking at Hawkins with a huge cleaver, only for Hawkins to emerge completely unscathed, he fell utterly silent.

Now he hung from the mast, listless and dejected, no longer possessing the overbearing arrogance of some time ago.

In truth, Julian had gone completely quiet after Joyce was killed by Mark. At the time, though, he still harbored fantasies, believing Jabus would send even stronger experts after them, so his gaze had remained wild and unruly. Now, however, his eyes were murky, without the slightest glimmer of hope.

The Black Knife rode the wind and broke the waves. On deck, Hawkins was eating meat.

The so-called doubled drain on vitality was, plainly speaking, an accelerated metabolism or faster cellular aging. Thus, most of the time, he had to keep eating, storing more physical energy to cope with his sharply accelerated metabolism.

"Captain, two ships are chasing each other ahead. I can smell blood!" Mark said as he jumped down from the crow's nest, seized a rope, and rapidly descended onto the deck. Looking out at the distant sea, he spoke to Hawkins.

Hawkins spat out a fish bone, and Curse Power immediately surged from between his brows. In the blink of an eye, it extended to the two ships Mark had mentioned.

The two ships were sailing very close together, colliding from time to time.

Several men and women were fighting fiercely aboard them. Through his Curse Power scan, Hawkins could clearly sense that two of the women wore Cursed Relics, while one of the men possessed one as well.

"One Fine-grade Relic, two Dangerous-grade Cursed Relics!"

Hawkins swiftly withdrew his Curse Power, then looked at Mark. "I'll go take a look first!"

In an instant, a faint white glow flowed beneath the superconductors on his skin. A magnetic field spread around his body, and then he leaped from the ship, running swiftly across the sea toward the two vessels.

Jennie hid behind Qiao Si's back, nervously watching the man standing motionless opposite them.

That was her cousin, Qiao Lak.

No one knew better than Jennie how ruthless and vicious Qiao Lak was. Half the nightmares she had suffered from childhood to adulthood had something to do with him.

"My dear cousin, although my father has gone mad, I... Qiao Lak will inherit Vitalia Island. You should know that I have the ability to set chaos right, so let's go back," Qiao Lak said gently, trying to persuade Jennie.

Though his tone was gentle, his gaze continually swept over Jennie's chest, greed and possessiveness nearly overflowing from his eye sockets.

Jennie cowered behind Qiao Si like a startled fawn, too frightened to speak. Instead, Qiao Si sneered, glaring at Qiao Lak through gritted teeth. "Qiao Lak, Lord Jabus isn't dead yet, and you already dare lay hands on Miss Jennie. Aren't you afraid Lord Jabus will recover?"

Jabus might have gone mad, but who could guarantee he would not recover?

Having had his thoughts exposed, Qiao Lak's expression changed at once. "Qiao Si, I greatly admire your loyalty. But don't forget, the one you were loyal to in the past was my father. Now... you should be loyal to me."

"Sorry, Lord Jabus ordered me to obey Miss Jennie," Qiao Si said, shaking his head.

Qiao Lak glared at Qiao Si, his face gradually turning savage. He roared, "You bitch, you're courting death! No one needs to hold back. Kill him!"

Women?

Vitalia Island had no shortage of women, and Qiao Lak himself did not lack women either.

What he valued was Jennie's resilience—her ability to endure unending nightmares without suffering a mental breakdown.

Jennie was extremely important to him, but even more important was the Cursed Relic she possessed. That was the true priority among priorities. Without that Cursed Relic, much of their intelligence would lose its timeliness.

Moreover, sending Rook and the others to carry out their plans also required Jennie's abilities.

And when Hawkins had been preparing to become a Curse Caster, Jabus had already been lurking in the Dream Realm, waiting for Hawkins to walk into the trap.

All these schemes had been built almost entirely upon Jennie's abilities.

Once Jennie's abilities were lost, Jabus's control over the Pras Sea would be greatly weakened.

That was why Qiao Lak had sought Jennie out immediately after escaping Vitalia Island. Her intelligence was too important, especially now that Jabus's condition was unknown. He needed Jennie's presence even more.

Several deathsworn men attacked at once, immediately engaging Qiao Si in fierce combat.

The situation was extremely unfavorable for Qiao Si and Jennie. Most of Qiao Si's combat techniques were only suited for fighting on land, and he found it difficult to use them aboard a ship.

The main issue was that their destructive force was too great; he could easily blast through the deck.

The deathsworn men under Qiao Lak, on the other hand, wielded short, curved blades, with poison smeared on their tips. So long as Qiao Si exposed even the slightest opening, the battle could very well end in a single strike.

It could be said that Qiao Si was under immense pressure and could not afford a single mistake.

As the saying went, prolonged defense always led to a lapse. After several exchanges, one of the deathsworn men inadvertently slashed Qiao Si's arm, and the wound immediately turned black.

"Qiao Si, you've already been poisoned by the Hundred-Ring Snake. In a few minutes, I'll toss your corpse into the sea. I'm sure the fish will soon have a hearty feast on you," Qiao Lak said with a malicious smile.

The Hundred-Ring Snake was the most venomous snake on Vitalia Island. This kind of snake was also called a ring snake.

When a Hundred-Ring Snake was first born, it possessed only a single black ring on its forehead. As it shed its skin and grew, more black rings gradually appeared across its body. Only a ring snake that grew a full hundred black rings could be called a Hundred-Ring Snake, and its venom would then reach its peak.

Qiao Si's face was pale, but he stubbornly glared at Qiao Lak. Qiao Lak, meanwhile, wore a smug smile. Looking past Qiao Si at Jennie, he said frivolously, "My dear cousin, it seems your only support is about to die."

"Miss, hold on tight. Next, I..." Qiao Si stared at Qiao Lak, preparing to sacrifice himself and activate his greatsword's ability for one final desperate attempt.

But before he could finish speaking, he felt an intense pain in his waist. He turned back toward Jennie in disbelief.

Jennie held a small dagger in her hand. Seeing him turn around, she hurriedly darted around him in fright and ran to Qiao Lak's side. Stammering, she said, "C-Cousin, actually... everything was Q-Qiao Si acting on his own. It has nothing to do with me."

"Hahaha, my dear cousin, you made the right choice." Qiao Lak laughed triumphantly, gently placing one hand on Jennie's shoulder.

Qiao Si felt dizzy and disoriented. Half-kneeling on the deck, he seemed at a complete loss.

Clap! Clap! Clap!

Suddenly, applause rang out.

Qiao Lak was startled and immediately turned around. A man was somehow standing at the bow of the ship.

"Ahhh!!!"

The next second, Jennie's piercing scream rang out beside Qiao Lak's ear.

His expression changed at once. He slapped Jennie across the face and shouted, "Shut up!"

"B-But he... he... he's the Son of Pirates!!!!" Jennie cried, covering her face as she backed away in terror.

In an instant, the entire ship fell deathly silent.

"Son of Pirates!"

Qiao Lak pressed his lips together and lightly bit down.

He suspected Hawkins had come to wipe them out root and branch. After all, he was Jabus's eldest son and the heir to Vitalia Island.

He had previously suspected that Jabus's madness was connected to Hawkins. In fact, before going mad, Jabus had gone to the Dream Realm, intending to use its peculiar nature to kill Hawkins.

The exact outcome was unknown.

But now Hawkins was standing here perfectly fine, while Jabus had fallen into madness and disappeared without a trace.

Hawkins ignored Qiao Lak and Jennie, who were facing a great enemy. From the bow, he slowly walked along the edge of the ship to Qiao Si's side. He crouched on the gunwale and looked down at Qiao Si.

Qiao Si's breathing had become extremely rapid, and the blood vessels in his neck were faintly blackening.

"How does it feel to be betrayed by the person you needed to protect?" Hawkins asked.

The sight before him stirred memories long buried beneath the dust.

The knife Jennie had driven in was not meant to kill Qiao Si. It was merely meant to draw a clear line between them.

He had once suffered a similar betrayal. A woman he had rescued stabbed him in the waist, after which he was thrown into a deep pool teeming with mutated crocodiles. It had truly been a brush with death.

That year, he had been nine hundred and fifty-two years old, in the prime of his life.

Qiao Si's eyes did not waver in the slightest. Panting weakly, he said, "Son of Pirates... did you come to laugh at me? I admit I'm too weak, all right? If you want to kill me, then hurry up and do it!"

"That's right. Precisely because you weren't strong enough, you couldn't protect the person you wanted to protect. You forced her to betray you, even to draw a line between you in order to preserve herself," Hawkins said with a complicated expression. Back then, he had not been strong enough either. He could not give those people a sense of security, and so betrayal had come.

At this moment, Qiao Si felt no resentment and no anger, only dissatisfaction with his own weakness.

That was something Hawkins himself had been unable to do back then. After being betrayed, his heart had been filled with rage. Once he escaped alive, he had waited for an opportunity, eventually uprooting that hideout entirely.

He still remembered the woman who had betrayed him kneeling on the ground and begging for mercy. At the time, he had coldly raised his gun and pulled the trigger without the slightest hesitation.

Later, much later, after Earth had been devoured by the sun and he had lost his body.

During his days drifting through the cosmos, he often reflected on everything he had done. This was one of the things he regretted more deeply. Though doing it had seemed satisfying at the time, he had actually betrayed his own original intention as well.

He had fought because he wanted to save those people. No matter what the process had been, the result was that he had personally killed them.

Didn't that mean their betrayal had been the right choice?