Fighting for His Life

"Why has everyone gone quiet?"

"Is it because you don't like talking?"

Annie Bole parted her cherry-red lips as she looked at the silent crowd, sweeping her smiling gaze over them.

Finally, her eyes settled on the grim-faced Dunn.

"You really are an interesting one."

"A mere tier-one noncombat professional, yet you have such ambition and nerve."

"I'm very interested in you now. Submit to me, and I can make you my boatswain."

Dunn's current body stood around 1.85 meters tall, while Annie Bole was only a little over 1.7 meters.

Yet at that moment, Annie Bole's gaze made Dunn feel as though she were looking down on him from above.

That condescending gaze irritated Dunn immensely.

In his previous life, Dunn had been a thoroughly mediocre, ordinary man.

At work, he had been a nobody whom people ordered around at will.

So people had often looked down on him like this.

Dunn hated that feeling, but he had endured it to make a living.

Eventually, after working overtime through consecutive nights, he had transmigrated here.

Now that he had already transmigrated, too.

He was still being looked at that way, and Dunn could not accept it.

Transmigrators were a strange bunch. Before transmigrating, they could put up with anything, yet afterward, their pride swelled enormously.

Of course, Dunn could pretend to accept Annie Bole's terms and submit to her.

Then he could find an opportunity to eat the Flame-Flame Fruit.

After that, he could wait for them to separate and kill them instead, while making Annie Bole submit beneath him along the way, first doing OO to her, then xx...

But right then, Dunn simply could not stand it.

Nor did he want to endure it anymore.

Given another life as a transmigrator, Dunn's pride had abruptly swollen to tremendous heights.

Licking his dry lips, Dunn gave Annie Bole a savage grin. "Only tier two. I just killed one. Who the hell do you think you are, bitch? You think you deserve my submission?"

"In that case, kill him, Green."

At Dunn's words, Annie Bole's expression turned regretful.

But that was all. He was merely a First-Tier Professional with a little nerve.

He was not worth any more thought.

After casually giving the man beside her that order, she turned her gaze toward Karl.

In Annie Bole's eyes, those two were the only people aboard the entire ship with any value for recruitment and cultivation.

Seeing Annie look his way, Karl immediately understood what she had in mind.

"That brat Dunn really has a death wish. What a blessing it would be to serve under such a powerful, beautiful captain."

"Don't you fellows agree?"

Before Annie could speak, Karl immediately declared his loyalty.

He also prompted the crew around him while he was at it.

By then, the surrounding crew had caught on too.

The appearance of two Second-Tier Professionals meant the outcome was settled. If they did not hurry to declare their loyalty and win their new captain's favor now, what were they waiting for?

At once, they stepped forward one after another.

"Exactly, exactly! How could a pretty boy like Dunn deserve to be captain?"

"What a joke. Dunn's just a First-Tier Professional, and he wants to be captain? In his dreams."

"Lord Green, show that pretty boy what you can do."

Amid the crew's clamorous shouts, Green, the man beside Annie, casually snatched a long blade from a nearby sailor, then lunged at Dunn.

Before he even reached Dunn, a fierce, savage presence came rushing toward him.

One look was enough.

This was someone he could not beat.

In just an instant, Dunn determined that this middle-aged man named Green was a battle-hardened Second-Tier Professional.

Even among that squad of Second-Tier Professionals previously aboard the ship, probably none could have matched him one-on-one.

Strength like this ranked among the best of tier two.

In a head-on fight, Annie, whose profession was unknown, would not even need to act. Green alone could take him down in a few moves.

In that case, he could only stake his life on it.

During that brief moment of thought, Green had already charged up to Dunn, viciously swinging his long blade straight at Dunn's neck.

Facing Green's decapitating strike, a vicious glint flashed through Dunn's eyes. He stood his ground without dodging, slashing his own long blade fiercely at Green's chest.

Dunn's response was actually an attempt to trade his life for Green's.

Watching Dunn's blade slash toward him, a trace of contempt flashed through Green's eyes.

With a swing that slow, Green was entirely confident he could cut off Dunn's head before Dunn's blade reached him.

Who do you think you are? You think you're worthy of trading lives with me?

Things went exactly as Green expected. His long blade struck Dunn's neck first, its keen edge slicing through Dunn's skin and tearing into his muscles.

Then the blade got stuck.

Yes, Green's long blade was caught in the muscles of Dunn's neck.

The contempt in Green's eyes instantly turned to disbelief, as though he had seen some kind of monster.

In the instant Green lost focus, Dunn's long blade viciously split open his chest.

With a pained grunt, Green collapsed to the ground, blood from the wound in his chest pooling across the deck within moments.

An injury like that temporarily left Green unable to fight.

"Transcendent Constitution!!" Clutching the wound in his chest, Green stared in disbelief at the lowly sailor he had paid no mind to.

He had never expected him to possess a Transcendent Constitution!

The supernatural talent awakened by the Transcendent Constitution: [Transcendent Feat: Supernatural Toughness].

The card's description said it greatly increased defensive capabilities.

Expressed in numerical terms, the extent of that increase meant:

Strength below 15 could not break through his defenses.

As a tier-two [Warrior], Green had exactly 15 strength.

But because Green had thought nothing of Dunn, he had not used his full strength, allowing Dunn's muscles to trap his blade at the last moment.

One could say Dunn had won because of Green's carelessness.

However,

Green could hardly be blamed for that. After all, who could have imagined that some lowly sailor he happened across would possess a Transcendent Constitution?

But none of that affected Dunn.

Under the effects of [Supernatural Recovery], the wound on his neck had already stopped bleeding.

And thanks to [Pain Reduction], the pain of the injury remained within what Dunn could endure.

Looking at Green, who lay on the ground unable to fight, Dunn, well aware of the importance of finishing an enemy off, raised his long blade to deliver another strike.

"Stop! We can talk this over," Annie's urgent voice rang out just then.

Only an idiot would stop. Even if we talk, I need to kill Green first. Otherwise, once he recovers enough to fight, I'll be at their mercy with my trump card exposed.

After all, this life-trading tactic could only work once.

The next time, Green would be prepared, and it would be completely useless.

Dunn ignored that voice entirely, his descending blade showing no sign of slowing.

"Aah!" A scream suddenly rang out.

Dunn was baffled. My blade hasn't even landed yet. Where did that scream come from?

He instinctively turned to look, his finishing strike slowing at the same time.

Looking toward the scream, he saw that Annie had driven a dagger straight through Karl's throat.

The gaze she directed at Dunn no longer held any of its earlier condescension.

Annie killed Karl?

What kind of development was this?

Dunn was not the only one baffled.

The surrounding crew could not understand why their new captain had killed Karl, the first person to declare his loyalty to her, at a time like this.

Shouldn't she be uniting everyone against Dunn right now?

The ordinary sailors were still bewildered.

But some of the cleverer sailors were already gradually moving away from Annie.

The situation was no longer something lowly sailors like them could get involved in.

Dunn had successfully turned the tables on his attacker, and now it seemed he might actually have a chance of winning.

This Captain Annie did not seem quite normal either.

She had actually killed one of her own.

For now, they had better stay away from the battlefield and wait until a winner emerged.