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Salt and Blood - Chapter 153
🕑 Added 2025-04-18 13:25:31 +0000 UTC<< Chapter 152 | Table of Contents | Chapter 154 >>
2.59 - Late to the Party
History is written by the victors, but glory is claimed by those who arrive just in time to claim it
-Quoted from Admiral Valynor, famed as the ‘Final Admiral’
The commander of the nightsail’s third division was a crafty fellow. His division didn’t have the most successfully completed missions, but they had the least failures.
The reason for that was his powerful self created technique, coined the death arena by his subordinates. He liked the name and had made it official after the first use.
They called it the death arena because the first effect of the technique was to create a barrier which sealed the third division in with their enemies. Most people would be wary of trapping themselves with an unknown enemy, but the nightsail operated under a different code of conduct to the average person.
Their creed was that the mission came before everything else, even their own lives. Hence, a success was when the mission objective was completed—even if every member sent to accomplish it died in the process.
On the flipside, even if every member of the division sent on a mission returned alive, if they had failed to accomplish the job it was considered a failure. Such occurrences were rare, as the punishment for failure was either death or solitary confinement and starvation.
It was absurdly heinous, but through these destructive rules Minenblum had forged an exceedingly efficient black ops unit that achieved success in over ninety-five percent of their missions. The nighstail was feared in every sea surrounding their nation for that reason.
Its existence wasn’t even officially recognised. Only through the tales of surviving sailors or drunkards—often dismissed as madness—were they spoken about.
Only the king himself, the admirals, and the lord commander of the nightsail had the power to issue a mission. The third division had been sent to bring down this ragtag crew of upstarts through any means on direct orders from King Malthax.
Hence, Division Commander Laurence didn’t care about his own life or the lives of his men. Once death arena was in effect, either the mission was completed or they all died.
Death while attempting to complete the mission was an honourable end. Living with the shame of failure was a fate that none of his subordinates desired.
His core had only advanced a single stage since he had awakened it. Using only his own power he would never have enough energy to create death arena, hence it had a long activation time. The time was required for him to gather energy from his surroundings to properly prepare the technique.
Once activated, its effects were not able to be repealed unless those designated as enemies or allies were all dead. The former was preferable, but either was acceptable as long as the mission objective was accomplished.
The moment his men were infused with energy from the arena, their movements sped up into a blur and they started to carve the enemies apart. He smiled, staring at the girl who’d almost cancelled his channeling.
She was the most powerful person on the ship by a long shot. Her core practically shone like the sun, which was unusual given that she was also the youngest—or at least she looked the youngest.
However, that matched the reports he’d read of the failed attacks on the Emerlan Isle of late. Unlike those pathetic navy officers who let their egos bloat their confidence from achieving a measly level of power and position, Laurence knew that even as the third division commander he was a small fry.
Hence, he never allowed his ego to get in the way of his job. Once death arena had fully activated, turning the battle on its head and giving them the momentum, he took a few breaths to recover his strength.
The girl with fiery orange hair stared directly at him, an ordinary cutlass clenched in her right hand. He met her gaze with his own steely stare, not making the mistake of underestimating her because of her appearance or age—as the last fools to die at her hand had clearly done.
He heard an anguished roar and watched as a man dressed in shining golden armour splashed all over with blood charged at two of his men and cut them both down in a single slash.
Afterwards, he collapsed forwards, spent. Laurence couldn’t afford to strike while the man was down, because the girl had already closed the distance between them.
Even though her weapon was clearly a regular cutlass, she wielded it with extreme skill. Her very first strike, while appearing simple, was anything but. It closed off all his paths of retreat, forcing him to either block or suffer a wound in order to deflect it from its target.
She’d gone directly for his neck, aiming to finish the battle before it could begin. He grimaced, realising her movements weren’t slowed in the slightest by death arena.
Usually it had a minor effect even on those who had advanced to the third stage of core refinement, but the girl seemed utterly unfazed. Laurence drew his twin kama—short scythes designed for killing rather than harvesting crops.
They allowed him to hook her cutlass and shift it to the side. It would’ve still pierced his shoulder if not for the second blade allowing him to strike at her simultaneously.
She would have to retract her own strike to avoid losing an eye. To his surprise, the girl didn’t alter her course in the slightest.
Smirking underneath his mask at her mistake, Laurence’s arm shot out, parrying the cutlass and hacking at her right eye at the same time. His left kama struck her blade, the steel screeching as the two weapon clashed.
Right before the tip of his other kama bit into her eye, he felt a searing wave of heat tearing across his skin. Suddenly there was emptiness instead of resistance in his left arm.
He glanced downwards, seeing that his kama wasn’t where it should be. In fact, his entire left arm was missing.
A brief heat passed through his neck. The world span downwards. No, that wasn’t right. His head was tilting backwards. The last thing Commander Laurence saw was the black sky of night before he died.
***
Rose exhaled as the head of the enemy commander hit the deck with a thud. Unfortunately, the barrier didn’t disappear upon his death.
Usually killing the person who cast a technique was enough to dispel it, but clearly that wasn’t the case this time. Hopefully taking out all of the enemies would be enough.
Trying to break the barrier by force was the last option she wanted to use. There was a big risk of causing an explosion from the backlash when opting for brute force.
She pivoted, thrusting at the closest black-clad figure. Even with their increased speed, Rose was able to follow their movements with ease.
There was a difference between obtaining power through effort and training and being given it through a technique. Rose’s movements were effortless and natural, while the bodies of her enemies were burning themselves up to keep up.
Her cutlass pierced through the man’s back, saving the soldier he had been about to decapitate. The man thanked Rose with a nod before turning on the closest enemy.
Under Everyn’s lead, the soldiers had managed to take down one or two but the rest were fighting like berserkers. Even the death of their commander hadn’t sapped their morale in the slightest.
Rose was filled with energy and the last thing she wanted was to lose more soldiers before they returned home. With a grunt she jumped towards the next enemy, cutting him down with a single slash.
She danced around the deck like an avatar of death, working in tandem with the soldier to slaughter the rest of their foes. After just eight breaths all of their enemies bar one had been killed.
Instead of killing the final opponent, Rose struck him on the back of the head with the handle of her cutlass. “Tie him up, I want to find out who the hell they were,” she ordered the closest soldier.
To her dismay, the barrier remained active. She suspected the death of the final enemy would bring it down, but questioning him was more important. They didn’t need to leave the ship until they reached home, so it wasn’t the end of the world.
Right as she prepared to wake the man up, a deafening sound blasted across the ocean. The foghorn’s bellow knocked a few of the soldiers off their feet and onto their asses.
Rose rushed up to the poop deck, looking out across the ocean. The burning wreckage of their attacker’s ships lit up the surroundings like giant torches, allowing her to see the source of the foghorn.
A caravel with golden sails was cutting through the waves on a direct path towards them. Once the foghorn’s bellow had faded, a loud voice followed, empowered by arcane energy.
“Drop your weapons and surrender, by the order of the Derridas High Command!”
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