Vitalia Island, Pix City, Flatwave Fortress.
In the middle of the night, Jabus was awakened by his butler. After two beautiful maids helped him put on his shirt, he looked at the butler and asked, "What is it?"
"Master, Miss Jennie dreamed that Lord Jordas died in battle," the butler reported with his head lowered.
Jabus fell silent for a moment, then asked, "Died in battle? The Son of Pirates?"
"Yes." The butler nodded.
Jabus looked at the butler in confusion. "Jordas had the Ghost Bride and was skilled with the blade. I find it hard to imagine... how could a mere pirate kill Jordas?"
"Miss Jennie suspects that the Son of Pirates possessed a Cursed Relic. He used one arm as the price to fire a beam of white light and kill Lord Jordas," the butler answered.
Cursed Relics were things ordinary people simply could not use. Even if they did, they had to pay an enormous price.
Jabus narrowed his eyes slightly and said coldly, "Go summon Joyce and Julian. Tell them I have instructions for them."
"Yes." The butler immediately withdrew.
Ten minutes later, two blond men arrived under the butler's guidance.
"Jordas was killed by the Son of Pirates. A blood feud cannot go unavenged. Moreover, the Son of Pirates is suspected of possessing a Cursed Relic. Given time, he will become a grave threat. The two of you will make the trip. One week from now, I want to see the Son of Pirates' head hanging in Jon Harbor!" Jabus said as he looked at them.
Joyce smiled. "Uncle, I guarantee that the Son of Pirates' head will be hanging at the harbor within a week."
"Very good. I'll be watching. Go!" Jabus said with a nod.
The next moment, Joyce's body turned into countless paper figures and flew away, while Julian gave a slight bow before his body transformed into countless bats that scattered in every direction.
At dawn, the storm subsided.
The sun slowly rose, and the sea was calm as a mirror, as though last night's raging waves had all been an illusion.
With one hand, Jon ate a bran cake. With the other, he steered the Glory alongside the Black Knife. A gangplank was quickly set up between the two ships, and the controlled marines began transferring the Glory's supplies onto the Black Knife.
Hawkins personally boarded the Glory to study Jordas' corpse, but he found nothing unusual.
In the end, Hawkins simply gave Jordas a sea burial, keeping only a bottle of blood to study at his leisure later.
"Captain, your sword!"
Hawkins returned to the Black Knife carrying the bottle of blood, and Jon hurried over, offering him a black sword as though presenting a treasure.
The Black Knife actually had two meanings. First, the Black Knife's keel resembled a black blade and possessed tremendous offensive power in a collision. Second, it referred to this black sword in the truest sense.
It had no name—or rather, its name was Black Knife. Hawkins' grandfather had acquired it by chance while out at sea fishing.
Hawkins set down the bottle, accepted the Black Knife from Jon, drew it directly from its sheath, and planted it into the deck. His right hand gently stroked the blade, yet he could not make heads or tails of what material the Black Knife was made from.
He had seen countless wondrous materials in the past, but he could be certain that Black Knife was not any known substance from his previous universe.
The Black Knife was not particularly sharp. Its only advantage was that it was fairly sturdy. Three generations of the family had used it as a weapon, yet through countless bangs and knocks, it had never once been damaged.
"As expected, this world has plenty of strange and bizarre things."
Hawkins sighed inwardly, sheathed Black Knife, and hung it by his waist without continuing his research.
Though everyone possessed curiosity, Hawkins was not some research fanatic. If he could not understand something, he would set it aside for now. Time would naturally provide the answer.
Once all the supplies had been moved onto the Black Knife, Hawkins had the marines disconnect the iron chains linking the two vessels and sailed the Black Knife away.
Jon had already changed into dry clothes. He came over and asked Hawkins, "Captain, where are we going next?"
"Little Will Island."
He turned and returned to the captain's cabin. Now that food was plentiful, it was time to properly modify this body.
This body was far too frail, and humans themselves had many limitations. While he had no intention of turning his body into some inhuman monster, it still needed certain basic capabilities.
First, his body had to become stronger.
Though Hawkins had always despised this body for being too weak, "Hawkins'" body was actually considered rather strong in this world. Otherwise, he would not have been able to subdue the pirates under his command.
But for Hawkins, this was still far from enough. He needed to become even stronger.
The food transferred from the Glory was not dried rations like jerky, but something similar to bran cakes—coarse, hard, and difficult to swallow.
Hawkins ate more than ten of them with water, and soon felt his abdomen swell with fullness. Once he controlled his stomach to digest them rapidly, he quickly felt the urge to relieve himself.
"As expected, the nobles never treated marines as human beings."
Squatting over the toilet bucket, he expelled impurities while sighing inwardly.
After eating more than ten bran cakes, he had received less nutrition than he had from three pieces of jerky earlier. No wonder none of those marines could beat a pirate in a one-on-one fight.
The gap in nutrition alone was simply too great.
After leaving the toilet, Hawkins gave up on eating more bran cakes. Though these things kept hunger at bay, what he needed now was protein and calories.
In the end, he used rope acquired from the Glory to weave a fishing net himself.
The original Hawkins might have had a fisherman for a grandfather, but he himself had not known how to fish. The current Hawkins, on the other hand, was no stranger to fishing.
Half an hour later, he and five marines hauled up the fishing net together. The catch weighed more than seven hundred pounds. He immediately held a grilled-fish feast on the ship, though the only truly living people were himself and Jon.
At first, Jon was quite happy. After all, he had been starving terribly during this period.
Previously, the Glory had pursued them relentlessly. Large and small battles had never stopped, and food had been scarce. Before they had even been defeated by the Glory, several pirate brothers had been unable to bear the despairing atmosphere and jumped into the sea to kill themselves.
Now that he could eat a mouthful of meat, Jon was overwhelmed with emotion. Sure enough, as long as one struggled on, good things would eventually come along.
But as time passed, he gradually sensed that something was wrong. The captain had already eaten his fifth fish. Fish from the Pras Sea were large and heavy, with each weighing over thirty pounds. Though pirates were generally big eaters, no one could eat five whole fish.
More importantly, Hawkins' abdomen showed no rise or fall at all. Instead, his entire body seemed to be changing.
Jon's heart pounded wildly. He had actually noticed earlier that Hawkins seemed somewhat different from the captain he used to know.
Now, as countless details connected in his mind, a sudden guess emerged. "Captain, could it be that you've been possessed by an evil spirit?"
Perhaps because they had done too many shameful things, pirates often believed in all sorts of strange rumors.
Jon had heard of Cursed Relics before, but he had never actually seen one. Under normal circumstances, nobles had no need to take action personally; their guards were enough to solve most problems.
If he had not personally seen Jordas use a Cursed Relic, he would have treated it all as nothing more than a story.
But since Cursed Relics were real, did that mean evil spirits and sea monsters were real as well?
And now, he discovered in horror that Captain Hawkins might truly have been possessed by an evil spirit!
Hawkins' eyes changed from azure to gold, while his pupils gradually took on the shape of six-pointed stars. As he ate, he suddenly spat out several rotten teeth, and the scars on his face gradually disappeared.
These changes were not especially obvious, and they had unfolded gradually over several hours, but in Jon's eyes, they were still terrifying. The fear in his heart continued to deepen.
While Hawkins was in the toilet, Jon decisively lowered a lifeboat and decided to flee to the Glory, putting as much distance as possible between himself and his captain.
Though quite some time had passed, no one was steering the Glory, so it was actually not far away. He had eaten plenty of food and was brimming with strength, so rowing over would not be difficult.
"Was it really still too obvious?"
When Hawkins came out of the toilet, he found Jon nowhere to be seen. Then he spotted Jon in the distant lifeboat and guessed what Jon was thinking.
But Jon knew the original Hawkins inside and out, so keeping him around truly was not ideal.
Hawkins did not care that Jon had run away. With Jon on the ship, many things would have become easier, but if Jon wanted to leave, he would not stop him. After all, he was not a cruel person.
After consuming a great deal of food, his left hand had begun slowly growing back. It would probably take several more days before it fully regenerated.
Next came the deeper modifications. On top of greater strength, he needed the electric-generating ability of an electric eel, the ability to breathe underwater, and the ability to heal wounds rapidly.
All of this required alterations at the genetic level, and there could be no mistakes.
Humanity's first step toward civilization was mastering fire. Its second step was mastering electricity.
Whether it was direct electric shocks, electromagnetic weapons, Gauss weapons, plasma weapons, or even the creation of electromagnetic radiation, all possessed immense destructive power.
There were many things in this world that Hawkins did not understand, so he would carefully prepare some necessary means of self-defense. He could not expect every enemy to be controlled by his Mind Virus.
Besides, the Mind Virus might not even be able to control people who possessed Cursed Relics. That marine was the best example.
For the next two days, Hawkins spent all his time eating.
His weight rose from ninety kilograms to one hundred and eighty kilograms. The muscles across his body became highly developed, and many organs humans did not possess formed within him.
His left hand had fully regrown, but it had not yet completely matched his body. It was like a smaller arm had been grafted onto him and still needed time to adjust.
Paper figures?
Suddenly, through Jon's consciousness, he saw a huge number of paper figures flying in from the sky.
He had not controlled Jon. Back then, he had merely placed a Mind Virus in Jon's consciousness as a precaution against a rainy day. At that moment, Jon was on the Glory and saw countless paper figures flying toward him.
Jon wanted to flee, but in the blink of an eye, countless paper figures surrounded him, as though he had fallen into the eye of a white tornado.
"Where is the Son of Pirates?"
One of the paper figures floated up before Jon, and Joyce's voice suddenly came from the paper.
Jon said in terror, "My lord, the captain... no... the Son of Pirates is on the Black Knife."
"Where is the Black Knife?" Joyce continued asking.
Jon replied tremblingly, "I don't know. He's been possessed by an evil spirit. I was afraid he would kill me, so I ran away. I really don't know where he went."
"Then you're useless!" Joyce said coldly.
Jon wanted to beg for mercy, but a paper figure directly sliced open his throat with its "body." He clutched his throat and made several hoarse sounds before collapsing weakly, the light rapidly fading from his eyes.