"Is that the item you obtained through your deal with a devil?"
Once everything was done,
From the very beginning, she had felt something off about this cousin of hers—he was clearly hiding some secret.
And during several pirate raids, Leilin hadn't gone out of his way to conceal things from her, so Isabel knew that his rapid advancement was undoubtedly tied to some murky arrangement with a devil.
But even knowing this, she had no intention of letting it slip.
Childhood bonds were one thing; shared hardships were another.
Though demons and devils were diametrically opposed forces, the same couldn't always be said when it came to their mortal worshippers below.
If anything, Isabel was worried—dealing with a devil often meant paying with one's very soul.
And those devils were always scheming, slowly gnawing away at a contractee's soul until they fell into complete corruption.
In the eyes of anyone knowledgeable, devils were often more terrifying than demons.
Of course, because devils adhered more strictly to the letter of their contracts, across the entire multiverse there were actually slightly more devil worshippers than demon worshippers.
Seeing the look in Isabel's eyes, Leilin knew exactly what she was thinking.
"Don't worry—I didn't trade my soul!"
A searing fireball shot from Leilin's hand, instantly incinerating the dried corpses on the ground.
He had no reason to hide things from this cousin of his, but some secrets still needed to be kept from his subordinates. Destroying the evidence was an excellent method.
"You should be careful. A devil's cunning is legendary even across the multiverse!" Isabel warned.
Then she fell silent, though something like quiet resolve flickered in her eyes.
When they returned to camp, Ronald and the long-unseen
"My lord! The entire camp has been cleared!" Robin Hood reported respectfully. He had seemed to have fallen in status recently and wasn't receiving much attention—in truth, he had been hidden in the shadows, managing Leilin's true loyalists and elite forces.
"Good. Let's head to the fleet—it should be quite lively by now…"
A smile played on Leilin's face.
…
A short time earlier, at the coast, aboard the Black Skull.
A传送门 flickered into existence, and then the hasty figures of the high-level wizard Bolugier and William stumbled through.
Without the protection of high-level wizard's armor, William had taken the brunt of the blast despite fleeing quickly. His once-handsome hair was now singed into something resembling a bird's nest, and multiple burns covered his body.
"What happened? What was that?"
The horrific explosion was clearly visible even from the coast. William stared blankly, gripping the railing, and let out a frenzied roar.
The sensation of brushing so close to death still left him trembling.
"It must be goblin explosive—but the power has been significantly amplified! Our forces are going to be completely wiped out!"
Bolugier was unscathed, but his brow was furrowed, his expression one of deep puzzlement. "Also, why didn't my earlier detection pick up anything unusual? Could it be some new type of concealment spell? Or the effect of a large-scale magical array?"
"Hm? Something's wrong—"
Suddenly, Bolugier's expression shifted rapidly. A ring on his finger detonated instantly, unleashing a powerful magical barrier.
*Mage's Sword!* A blade of magical light materialized and clashed with a massive metallic throwing axe. The air exploded with a deafening boom, and the shockwave blasted several gaping holes straight through the deck.
"There's an enemy—who is it?! Where's Jotamm?! Get out here!"
William had finally noticed something was wrong. They'd both been so fixated on the massive explosion that they hadn't noticed the change in their surroundings.
The deck was far too quiet. Every pirate left behind had vanished without a trace.
"Looking for this?" A massive shark head was hurled to the ground—the severed head of a sharkkin, and one William had been all too familiar with.
Jotamm had clearly died in agony. Below his neck, blood was still dripping steadily, as though someone had twisted his head clean off.
*Thud. Thud. Thud.* A colossal barbarian appeared in William's field of vision. He carried an enormous horse-chopping saber over his shoulder, and several bloody wounds on his body were already healing at an astonishing rate, revealing terrifying vitality.
"It's Orgott—the leader of the barbarian pirate crew! He ambushed our garrison!"
William's mind raced, and he immediately grasped the situation.
"So… Hagrid Island was just a decoy. You set out早就—this was all a trap!!!"
It would indeed take two days to march from the battlefield to here, but if a handpicked elite force had departed ahead of time, they could easily have gone undetected.
Bitterness filled William's mouth. Most of his family's strength had just been annihilated. His own life might well be in danger, and the blow to his standing would be devastating.
"A scheme like this couldn't have been carried out without an inside man on our side. Who was it?!"
William screamed internally.
"Stay close! I may not be able to protect you!" Bolugier's telepathic message rang in his ear, deepening the bitterness on William's face.
"Heh heh… The young master of the Bodi Archipelago—we finally meet!"
A stunningly beautiful fox-woman noble strode out from behind Orgott, surrounded by more than a dozen barbarian warriors of the fifth rank or above.
"What about the Tiger Sharks? How did you let them get aboard so easily?"
William still couldn't quite believe the complete destruction of the Tiger Shark pirate crew. After all, they had been a major outfit on par with the Black Skull, and their vast school of tiger sharks had made them undisputed dominators of the seas.
"You mean those little fish? They've probably all sunk to the ocean floor by now. The 'Tear of the Tiger Shark' someone provided worked rather splendidly!"
Lady Tilun pulled an exquisite crystal vial from her breast and gave it a little shake, her expression innocent and coquettish—like a little girl who had just received a beloved toy.
William stared blankly at her face, his gaze going vacant.
"Watch out! That's a bloodline bewitchment!"
*Serenity!* A thunderous voice boomed in William's ear, snapping him back to his senses. He didn't dare look at the fox-woman again.
"Bolugier! The high-level wizard Bolugier! I'm going to chop off your head and turn it into my drinking cup!"
The leader of the barbarian pirate crew was snorting heavily, his eyes blazing red as though he were staring down a mortal enemy.
In truth, as Marquis Louis's chief wizard, Bolugier had played a major role during the Marquis's expansion into the outer seas. Countless barbarian pirates had died at his hands—the two sides were indeed bitter, irreconcilable foes.
Orgott roared, and his horse-chopping saber erupted with several feet of brilliant light. With unstoppable momentum, he slashed it toward Bolugier.
The blinding flash left the magic-armored deck looking as though it had been plowed through by some colossal beast, exposing deep gouges in the wood.
Facing the barbarian's terrifying offensive, Bolugier's expression turned grave. He activated his memorized spell slots.
*Bigby's Forceful Hand!* A colossal magical hand extended outward and collided with the blade of light, triggering a devastating explosion.
When the shockwave subsided, the razor-sharp blade had shattered the giant hand into pieces. Its own glow had dimmed considerably, but it still hurtled toward Bolugier.
Bolugier's brow creased. He pointed at the ground and incanted: "*Wall of Iron!*"
A thick wall of metal materialized, firmly blocking the blade—but it too bore several deep, jagged cracks.
"This can't go on!"
Bolugier watched the elite barbarian warriors closing in from all sides, especially the magic-wielding Lady Tilun and several barbarian shamans behind them. Retreat was already forming in his mind.
He flicked his sleeve, and an ornate spell scroll covered in intricate patterns appeared in his hand. Looking at it, Bolugier's face showed a rare flicker of heartache—but he tore it open without hesitation.
*WHOOSH!* A billowing cloud of dark green fog spread across the deck. Several barbarian warriors caught in it immediately collapsed, their bodies twitching involuntarily.
"Careful—it's Cloudkill!" Lady Tilun's voice rang out.
Then, several roars erupted from within the cloud, carrying an unsettling, menacing quality.
*ROAR!* Several massive dark-green creatures lunged out of the fog. They resembled enormous lizards, each sporting fleshy wings on their backs and covered in a coat of scales, spewing great gobs of acidic spit.
*Advanced Monster Summoning!* While these wyverns were keeping Orgott and his forces occupied, another wyvern—far larger than the rest—spread its wings and carried two figures away into the sky.
"Aaaargh!"
Watching the wyvern nimbly dodge arrows and other ranged attacks, Orgott bellowed in fury and seized the nearest wyvern by the neck, snapping it bare-handed.
"Master, why didn't we just teleport away directly?"
On the broad back of the wyvern, William clung desperately to a scale and voiced his question.
"I only memorized one Portal spell—I'd have to use scrolls for any more…"
A bitter smile crossed Bolugier's face. "Since I can't be certain whether the enemy has more pursuers in reserve, I need to conserve my strength!"
"Damn it! Damn them all!"
William's face twisted into a mask of rage as he thought of this catastrophic failure.
"That Leilin… and that barbarian pirate crew… Someday, someday… I'll pay back every ounce of humiliation I've suffered…"
"I'm afraid you won't get the chance."(