The
"Arrrgh..." Ogart suddenly dropped to one knee, howling in agony.
"Darling, what's wrong?" Lady Tyrion hurried to his side, reaching out to support him.
"Our tribe's shrine... it's gone! The connection has been severed completely..." The words were ground out through Ogart's clenched teeth, and their meaning made Tyrion's face drain of colour.
"We didn't make it in time after all?"
Though Ogart had set out the moment he received the news, Honunu Island — the remote settlement where the barbarians had been hiding — was still a considerable distance from Pirate's Haven.
It had been chosen for the sake of safety and seclusion, but now, with something like this happening, any hope of a rescue had become a cruel impossibility.
"This debt — we will have our revenge!" Lady Tyrion bit down on her own lip until blood came.
With the shrine destroyed, it went without saying what had become of the tribe.
Tyrion's heart sank. The shrine represented far more than just one or two barbarians — it was every elder, woman, and child of the entire clan, even the heroic spirits of the mighty warriors accumulated over centuries of tribal history. And now, every sacrifice, every devotion, all of it had been utterly annihilated.
Even though she was not a barbarian herself, she could easily imagine the incandescent fury that such a catastrophe would unleash upon the barbarian pirate fleet.
"Arrrgh... I, Ogart — chieftain and king of the barbarians — swear before all the gods: I will twist the head off that accursed wizard!"
Ogart roared, then drew a dagger and slashed it across his own cheek.
Hot, crimson blood streamed down his face, making his already rugged features look all the more savage and terrifying.
"Oooh-ahh~ Kill him! Kill him!!!"
The barbarians below had all gone red-eyed with fury — after all, every one of their families and children had been on Honunu Island, and there was virtually no chance any of them had survived.
"Ogart! Now is not the right time to fight them — they've certainly laid traps!"
Tyrion the fox-woman bit her lip, but still stepped forward to speak.
But the next moment, words failed her. She saw the look in Ogart's eyes — the unrelenting, deathless hatred of a man who would never stop until his enemy was destroyed. Under the grip of such fury, let alone traps — Ogart would hurl himself into the Abyss or the depths of Hell without a moment's hesitation!
At this moment, even if she stepped in to intervene, it would have no effect whatsoever.
"Was this part of his plan as well? Using the power of hatred to lure these barbarians straight into the trap..." By now, Lady Tiren felt a deep chill toward that noble mage.
……
Fire Slave Island was already in sight.
Dense black smoke billowed across the horizon, and the entire island seemed to have sunk into hell itself.
When the barbarians saw their entire tribe engulfed in flames, every last one of them aboard the ships erupted into frenzied roars.
"Find them! Tear them apart!" Ogart gripped Lady Tiren's shoulder so tightly that blood welged up on her skin.
"I swear I will!"
Lady Tiren pledged. But moments later, she realized she wouldn't need to cast any tracking spell after all.
A few Crimson Tiger pirate ships — ones that appeared to have lingered too long to escape — had already appeared at the edge of her vision. Dozens of small barbarian corpses dangled from the masts, and they were the most perfect bait imaginable.
"OHHHH!!!"
The moment the barbarians laid eyes on the corpses, they collectively lost their minds. Ogart brandished the enormous horse-chopping saber in his hands, and the other sailors rowed with desperate fury. A single thought burned through every barbarian's mind — catch up to those damned pirates and exact their revenge!
Out on these open seas, it had always been the barbarian pirates who brought death and tears to other races. Now, the very same fate had fallen upon their own heads.
A sudden wave of sorrow welled up in Lady Tiren's heart, and a single tear slid silently down her cheek. She could already foresee the shadow of her own death, yet she could not escape it.
"Woooo..."
A deep horn sounded, followed by the encirclement she had anticipated.
The Crimson Tiger's elite forces had deployed in full, forming a vast pocket that swallowed the barbarian pirate fleet whole.
Driven by blind rage, these simple-minded barbarians paid no heed to the danger they were in and plunged straight after the bait.
"Kill! The boss has ordered — sever the head of every barbarian and claim a reward of five gold coins!"
Ronald barked the command at the top of his lungs, and the bounty was rapidly relayed in every direction through flag signals.
Boom! Boom! The goblin cannons thundered ceaselessly, and as the gap closed, the dwarven muskets unleashed a coordinated volley. Under Raylin's guidance, the Crimson Tiger had seemingly worked out its own system of battle.
"Roar! Roar!"
Amidst the flickering flashes of fire, row after row of barbarians fell. Even their tough, resilient skin could not withstand the combined might of gunpowder and spells.
And under this kind of provocation, Ogde grew even more frenzied.
After the ranged engagement came the traditional boarding and close-quarters fighting. Ogde simply ignored a pirate lunging at him with a thrust, seized the man by the head, and hoisted him bodily into the air.
Crack! Crack!
The human pirate's face twisted in agony. Lines of blood streamed down his forehead like little brooks.
Then, amid a crazed roar, the unfortunate pirate's skull burst apart in Ogde's grip like a watermelon.
Ssssh! A searing white flash swept through, and several nearby pirates were cleaved cleanly in two by the battle-qi radiance of the horse-chopping blade.
As the strongest warrior of the barbarian tribe, Ogde already possessed the strength of a high-tier fighter. Combined with the augmentation of his barbarian bloodline and the aid of magical items, there were few who could rival him below the Legendary rank.
Unfortunately, all of this was as insignificant as grains of sand before the Crimson Tiger.
A crimson figure shot up from the opposing ship, letting out a piercing, terrifying cry in midair.
"Roar~!!!"
A formidable dragon-aurora domain unfurled — that kind of pressure, stemming from the upper echelons of bloodlines, immediately forced Lady Tirene back several steps.
Then she saw a winged half-dragon dive down from the sky. A longsword wreathed in raging flames blocked Ogde's horse-chopping blade head-on, leaving a massive gash in its edge.
"A half-dragon? No! A dragon bloodline carrier!!! This kind of power..."
Lady Tirene stared blankly at Isabelle, whose body was covered in crimson scales, her face momentarily dazed. "Could it be a Legendary-level dragon bloodline? But how is that possible? Isn't she a demon-tainted one?"
What kind of power a carrier of a Legendary Red Dragon's bloodline possessed, Lady Tirene had not known before — but now she understood clearly.
"The Crimson Witch?!"
Ogde stared at the gash on his demonic horse-chopping blade, his face showing unmistakable anguish. After all, this was his most trusted weapon, one that had helped him lop off the heads of countless troublesome enemies.
But now, a single exchange had left a notch in the alchemical blade.
"Legendary item!" Ogde's face turned ugly as he looked at the crimson flame sword in Isabelle's hand. From that blade, he sensed an unprecedented level of danger!
"Don't let your weapons make contact with hers! And watch out for her dragon breath! I'll help you!"
Lady Tirene's expression tightened, and several buff spells were already gathering in her hands.
"Your opponent is me! We meet again, beautiful lady!"
BOOM! The blazing flames of the incineration orb swept across, blocking Lady Tirene's path. All around was a chaotic melee of barbarians and pirate sailors — barbarians were falling to the ground one after another, their heads cleaved clean off.
Blood soaked the ground, and amid this hellish scene, Ralin stood spotless from head to toe, courteously greeting Lady Tirene as if he were the most impeccably mannered nobleman.
"Ralin... Fao Land." Lady Tirene ground out the name of the opposing mage through clenched teeth, a faint trace of fear flickering in her eyes.
His grasp of human nature was simply more terrifying than any devil's.
Even the real devil Nawey, whom she had encountered not long ago, had not given Tirene such a sense of evil and unfathomable depth as Ralin did.
"It's been four or five years since we last parted, hasn't it, madam? You remain as beautiful as ever..."
The noble baron across from her wore a modest smile. Tirene almost felt that if she were to extend her hand, the other party would step forward without hesitation to perform a hand-kissing gesture.
Yet in this moment, the opposing mage's eyes were utterly cold, his gaze upon her devoid of any emotion whatsoever.
"Forgive me... beautiful lady! I'm rather pressed for time at the moment — might I ask you to die quickly, please?"
The instant before, the air had been gentle and warm; the next, it turned into a raging tempest. Amid Ralin's faint smile, terrifying magical energy gathered in force, and a sweeping deluge of attacks descended with ruthless finality — a cold indifference that disregarded all of Lady Tirene's beauty and aimed solely to end her life.
That suffocating feeling made Lady Tirene's chest tight with anguish.
The anguish lasted only a heartbeat, and then she had no more time to dwell on such thoughts.
Rampant energy particles surged together and coalesced into a resplendent sword of light. The blade tip, as if imbued with a will of its own, shot directly toward Tirene, and the force of its passage sliced through the skin on her cheek.
"Sword of the Magus!! A seventh-tier spell! You've already become an Archmage!"
Drops of blood fell to the ground, yet Lady Tirene's face was still painted with disbelief. She finally understood where her side had lost.
The addition of a High Mage was absolutely crushing for the barbarian side.
"But he's only in his early twenties, right? To already possess this kind of power — it's talent that would make even the gods jealous…"
Lady Tirene could no longer think.
The sharp Mage's Sword instantly pierced through the multiple layers of defense she had deployed, driving straight through the fox-woman's chest.
Even as a bloodline bearer and the chief spellcaster of the barbarian pirate crew, Tirene's own magical attainments were probably no more than on par with