Petru

Biodata

Power Progression

Petru’s development is described through mental training and practical breakthroughs rather than named cultivation ranks.

Background / History

Mercenary life and Pastor’s training

Petru experienced lucid dreams from childhood, sometimes finding them almost indistinguishable from waking life. While serving in a mercenary unit, he met a soldier nicknamed Pastor, who became his spiritual mentor and taught him to control his dreams. Pastor could enter other people’s dreams and took Petru along to experience them, but died before teaching him how to perform the technique independently 358 363.

A sniper’s killing of Pastor profoundly affected Petru. Concluding that mental strength could not stop a Barrett round, and lacking any further instruction, he stopped pursuing mental cultivation. He continued relying on the heightened perception and danger sense his training had already developed 358.

Lawiye and the rise of Redbeard

Petru met Lawiye after she had been sold to an exclusive Italian club. During bidding for her first night, he injured a wealthy Saudi and his bodyguard, provoking powerful enemies. He surrendered his savings as compensation and left with her. Their quiet time together in Rome became the happiest period of his life, but repeated attacks forced them to move between European cities 355.

Unable to escape pursuit while keeping Lawiye beside him, Petru eventually entrusted her to a Coptic Christian family in Egypt. He retaliated against officials and police involved in her capture, killing them and burning a police station. He believed that his survival—and a sufficiently terrifying reputation—would deter anyone from harming her 355.

After fleeing Egypt, he became a pirate in Somalia. His forces, wealth, and reputation grew under the name Redbeard. He hoped to secure Lawiye’s release but recognized that even a powerful pirate fleet could not openly challenge the world’s major navies 355.

Petru therefore cultivated political connections and prohibited kidnapping hostages to extort governments. He received covert American assistance and helped resolve hostage crises, hoping foreign pressure would free Lawiye. Egypt nevertheless refused, although his intermediaries ensured she lived comfortably in prison 356.

Naval victories and political ambitions

Pressure from the Indian Navy cost Petru territory and followers, while rival pirate leaders accused him of serving governments. To reassert his authority, he hijacked a Saudi crown prince’s merchant convoy, poisoned the crew of its Indian destroyer escort, and seized the warship. He then used the destroyer and two submarines in a costly battle against an Indian rescue fleet near the Carlsberg Ridge 356.

During Operation Strike Red, Petru exploited rivalry between major powers, concealed his own fleet, and maneuvered hostile pirate gangs into the multinational coalition’s path. The operation strengthened his organization by eliminating rivals without inflicting major losses on Redbeard’s forces. His ambitions expanded toward becoming a political leader in Somalia 356 357 361.

The freighter and the manhunt

Petru’s fortunes changed after he attacked a freighter apparently operated by a single man. The man hypnotized the boarding pirates, drawing Petru into a dream involving Lawiye. Petru retained a small measure of lucidity and concealed it while looking for an escape 358 359.

By blending his memory of the ship into the dream, he redirected his movement toward the ship’s side and jumped overboard. After escaping underwater, he ordered a submarine to torpedo the freighter and fired a rocket at its wheelhouse, sacrificing the hypnotized pirates still aboard 360.

Petru retained ancient nautical charts associated with a mummy carried aboard the vessel. Powerful mental adepts subsequently pursued him for the mummy and charts. He killed one pursuer with an instinctive shot before the man could suppress him, resumed mental training, and eventually fled the Gulf of Aden as his followers died protecting him 361.

Refuge in the South Pacific

While hiding near the Cook and Tubuai Islands, Petru recognized locations from the charts and witnessed an island appear suddenly. He realized that some marked locations were Ghost Islands, rather than simple charting errors 361.

He first sheltered near a Tapu on an uninhabited island, then settled on Tubuai Island for its more convenient living conditions. His gorge hideout lay behind a Tapu hillside, with access to a bay for his boat. He surrounded it with traps and weapon caches, while maintaining additional supplies on two uninhabited islands 362.

The Tapu’s mental barrier helped conceal him from pursuers and provided a place to train. Weapons left there acquired faint mental energy, leading to his discovery of mentally assisted targeting 362.

Alliance with Qingmu and Su Huilan

Petru initially attacked Qingmu and Su Huilan, believing them connected to his pursuers. Qingmu subdued him both mentally and physically. Their confrontation exposed the limits of Petru’s mental targeting: his previously reliable shots repeatedly missed, prompting him to return to ordinary ammunition and a scope 352 353 363 375.

Su Huilan’s promise to help rescue Lawiye gave him a reason to cooperate. Still wary of revealing his memories or entering her dream, Petru proposed using Hanran’s dream as neutral ground. He subsequently learned that Su Huilan had also sought him out as bait for the people hunting him 363 364 374.

He transported the group aboard his modified fishing boat and helped search for Ghost Island and survivors of the Discovery. At sea, Qingmu began guiding his mental training; on land, the group entrusted him with tactical command 380 395 398 401.

Captivity and Mrs. Larry’s rescue

While helping Qingmu capture island tribespeople, Petru drew their attention with sniper fire. A shaman wielding a hooked staff overwhelmed him with the island’s mental power. Crow and Hanran briefly delayed the attack, but Petru was surrounded and captured 419 432.

The shaman confiscated his equipment and hypnotized him into demonstrating its use. During captivity, Petru met Mrs. Larry, an archaeologist from the Discovery. The tribespeople forced both captives into a sexual ritual under threat of death. Her insistence on surviving—and her determination to continue studying the island despite sustained abuse—deeply affected him 437.

Petru escaped with her and carried her to the altar’s forbidden ground. During the escape, he killed a woman and child to prevent them from raising an alarm. At the altar, he recognized the shaman’s attacking snakes as hallucinations; Mrs. Larry’s trust and actions helped break the illusion 439 440 441.

He later retrieved weapons and returned for her. Following her instructions, he used a grenade to knock aside a floating stone pillar blocking moonlight from an altar symbol, then carried her through the collapsing stones 446 449.

Ramla and the Soul of Fire

Petru repeatedly sought revenge against Mrs. Larry’s abusers. She stopped him from executing the defeated shaman Kubota, arguing that they needed the tribes’ cooperation to survive. He later reluctantly helped her treat wounded tribespeople, including a man he recognized as one of her abusers 495 508.

Aboard the Swordfish, Su Huilan returned half of the Soul of Fire to him. Unlike her, Petru experienced no heat when holding it. Its apparent compatibility with him suggested that sacred staffs required more than mental strength or technique from their wielders 547 548.

During the attack on the Itza People, Anderson and Boris operated an autocannon while Petru watched through binoculars. Hundreds were killed; Petru, Anderson, and Boris recoiled at the resulting massacre 614.

Marriage and later travels

Mrs. Larry initially kept her distance despite being moved by Petru’s devotion. Believing they might grow old and die in Ramla, she reconsidered. When he returned from a belowdecks walk with Ivan after the others had lost hope of finding them, she directly asked whether he loved her and wanted to marry her. Their wedding had taken place by the group’s preparations to escape the Spacetime Stasis Zone 647 649.

Petru continued traveling with her and the expedition. The pair confirmed that the altar of fire had been activated before the group proceeded toward the frozen world 697.

At a later reunion, Qingmu handed him a half-length Soul of Fire and recounted his ancestor’s history. Petru knelt facing Horemheb’s resting place and wept, proud of his ancestor but distressed that he had missed the chance to fight beside him. Mrs. Larry eventually helped him rise 728.

Appearance

Petru is a powerfully built, middle-aged man with a gaunt face and a conspicuous, thick red beard. On Tubuai Island, he wears desert camouflage and a brown headscarf that blend into the surrounding rocks 353 374.

• Uniformly red hair and beard: He says there is not a single differently colored strand in either 546.
• Paternal family trait: His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather shared the coloring, though not every relative does 546.
• Military clothing and equipment: Heavy military boots, firearms, and a concealed kukri accompany his camouflage clothing 353.

Personality

Petru combines ruthlessness with calculated caution. He is willing to retreat when something feels wrong, reassesses tactics quickly after failure, and maintains multiple escape routes and supply caches. His prohibition on government-ransom kidnappings reflects political calculation rather than an unwillingness to use violence 356 358 362 375.

His combat morality is brutally survival-oriented. He sacrifices hypnotized followers to destroy the freighter and kills noncombatants when he believes they threaten an escape. During the latter incident, he regards age and sex as irrelevant to the battlefield choice between killing and dying 360 439.

His attachments expose a very different side. Protecting Lawiye shapes his rise as Redbeard, while Mrs. Larry’s resilience inspires admiration, love, and an intense desire for revenge. He admits being somewhat afraid of Mrs. Larry as well as admiring her, and repeatedly yields to her judgment despite his anger 355 461 495 508.

Although skeptical and suspicious, he can acknowledge superior ability and accept instruction. His exchanges with Crow also reveal a profane, easily exasperated sense of humor 363 395 461.

Abilities & Skills

Marksmanship and Firearms

Petru’s principal combat specialty is shooting, developed through mercenary service and piracy 352 353.

• Uses sniper rifles, automatic weapons, and pistols; Qingmu explicitly praises his shooting with ordinary ammunition at long range 375.
• Can wound a target deliberately and shoot those attempting to assist the wounded, drawing enemies into exposed positions 419.
• Knows how to dismantle, reassemble, dry, and maintain firearms after immersion 454 455.
• Recognizes that mental targeting can be less effective than conventional shooting against powerful mental adepts 375.

Mental Power and Lucid Dreaming

Petru is naturally Awakened and has received rudimentary but specialized mental training. Qingmu judges that relatively little guidance could bring him to another level 374.

• Controls his own dreams and can retain lucidity while under hypnosis 358 359.
• Conceals mental activity to avoid alerting a stronger hypnotist 358 359.
• Alters dream scenery using remembered surroundings, enabling his escape from the freighter 360.
• Gains heightened perception and an unusually accurate instinct for danger 358.
• Cannot reliably resist true mental masters; Qingmu and the island shaman both suppress him 352 432 437.
• Has experienced entering others’ dreams with Pastor, but is not shown mastering independent dream entry 358 363.

Tapu-Assisted Targeting

Weapons stored within a Tapu acquire faint mental energy that Petru can use to extend his targeting intent 362.

• Allows distant naked-eye aiming without a scope 362.
• Feels as though the bullet calculates its own trajectory, although Petru suspects it instead acts as a mental bridge for his own targeting 362.
• Depends on specially exposed ammunition and can fail against stronger mental interference 352 363 375.

Close Combat and Jungle Warfare

Petru has powerful reflexes, considerable strength, and extensive experience fighting in jungle terrain 353 374.

• Combines kicks, concealed knife strikes, rapid rolls, and improvised attacks 353.
• Uses camouflage and natural cover effectively 352 374.
• Detects concealed pit traps and understands the threat posed by poisoned arrows and blow darts 400 401.
• Notices snakes through subtle movement, sound, and scent 441.
• Overpowers Boris in a close-quarters struggle, though Boris’s grenade creates a stalemate 464.

Seamanship and Command

Petru commands pirate forces and skillfully operates his modified vessel 355 380 384.

• Combines sail and engine power to conserve fuel and increase speed 384.
• Assesses ocean currents, wreckage drift, and the practical limits of survivors reaching an island 398.
• Leads the expedition’s ground movements and evaluates terrain and ambush risks 400 401.
• Exploits naval rivalries and redirects military operations against competing pirate groups 357.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Modified ocean-going fishing boat — Conceals guns beneath fishing nets; includes a comfortable remodeled cabin, stores, an armory, and added masts and sails 380.
• Rotating sniper platform — Mounted in the wheelhouse, rotates through 360 degrees and carries a Barrett 380.
• Firearms — Uses sniper rifles, an AK, a submachine gun, and pistols; abandons the emptied AK and cumbersome sniper rifle during his escape from captivity 353 446 454.
• Kukri and military dagger — Used for close combat and survival 353 437 441.
• Grenades — Used against surrounding tribespeople and to move the floating pillar at the altar 432 449.
• Heavy weapons — His boat’s arsenal includes mortars and torpedoes 384.
• Military binoculars — Used for reconnaissance and observing distant fighting 400 614.
• Ancient nautical charts — Connect the freighter incident to the Ghost Islands; later recognized as Ludwig Yeg’s charts 361 547.
• Half of the Soul of Fire — A red coral-like sacred staff fragment that does not burn his hand 547 548 591.
• Distributed supply caches — Stores food and weapons across several islands rather than relying on one hideout 362 455.

Relationships

• Pastor — Spiritual mentor and mental-training teacher. His death causes Petru to abandon further cultivation until the later manhunt 358 361.
• Lawiye — Lover whose imprisonment drives much of his piracy and political maneuvering. Su Huilan’s promise to help free her draws him into the expedition 355 356 363.
• Mrs. Larry — Fellow captive, later wife. Her resilience transforms his outlook; he rescues her, pursues her affection, and accepts her restraints on his revenge 437 449 495 508 647 649.
• Qingmu — Initially an opponent, then an ally and mental-training guide. Petru acknowledges his superior power and follows his battlefield coordination 352 363 395 419.
• Su Huilan — Uneasy ally who promises to help Lawiye but deliberately uses Petru as bait. She later returns the Soul of Fire and recognizes his compatibility with it 374 380 547 548.
• Crow / Boss Coal — Frequent partner in insults and banter; also relays orders and helps shield him from the shaman’s attack 395 419 432 461.
• Hanran — Serves as his lookout during the island fighting and helps delay the attack that leads to his capture 432 437.
• Boris — Initially attacks him over a stolen ship. Their relationship develops into abrasive cooperation, with Boris later volunteering to join his anticipated fight 464 591.
• Situ / Mr. Stone — Fellow expedition member who explains tribal mental coordination and warns him that firearms could provoke a united war against the outsiders 478 481.
• Kubota — Shaman associated with his captivity and Mrs. Larry’s abuse. Petru nearly executes him but relents at her insistence 495 508.