Some sharp-eyed pirates stared at the black tulip in full bloom painted on the pale mainsail and cried out in terror.
Just then, a blurry figure appeared in front of the Black Tulip's captain's cabin, rapidly stretching into a man wearing a silver-white mask and an exaggerated tricorn hat.
This was Ludwell, the Admiral of Hell, the most powerful of the Seven Pirate Admirals.
He tilted his head slightly, and another red-haired man stepped out from behind him. But this man's face was deathly pale, his entire body devoid of life. He was clearly a zombie who had been dead for some time.
"This is the place? The ruins of the ancient Grim Reaper?"
But soon, Ludwell declared calmly, "So it was a fake."
Behind his silver-white mask, his pupils flickered like ghostly flames, revealing a suppressed anger.
Yesterday, following the sensation from the dark ring on his finger, Ludwell had traveled through the Underworld to the Fog Sea. But the instant he left the Underworld, he sensed an immense danger and immediately turned to flee without hesitation.
After getting far away, he had found a pirate ship and slaughtered its crew to deal with the ring's negative effects, turning some of its pirates into his zombies. He then learned that the ship had received word from distant companions claiming to have discovered the ancient Grim Reaper's ruins beneath the sea. As a Sequence 5 of the Death Pathway, he undoubtedly found this an enormous temptation.
Yet now, it appeared that all of it was fake!
Ludwell abruptly spread his arms. The zombies, shadows, wraiths, and skeletons aboard the Black Tulip suddenly leaped off the ship, some jumping onto the two pirate ships on either side, others lunging at the pirates soaking in the seawater.
Soon, screams rose one after