Silver-white light surged like a tidal wave, swallowing everyone in its path.
Edward erased the last three days of these pirates' mories with a single, crude, and brutal sweep.
As the light faded, the pirates gradually regained consciousness amid their fragnted recollections—only to find themselves tightly bound. One by one, they began to shout in fury:
"Who?! Who the hell tied up? Don't you know I'm with Gehrman Sparrow?!"
"My boss is Fire Fist Ace, let go!"
"What the hell happened? Who ambushed us?!"
"Damn it—sobody, help!"
A few unfortunate souls seed to have been turned half-wit by the Obliviate spell, dazedly mumbling "Ah…buh…ah…" with vacant eyes.
Edward made a gesture to the redhead who was staring at him with a deathly pale face. "You've got three minutes. Get them quiet. I'm resuming the lecture."
"…I—I understand."
Of course the redhead had realised his subordinates had lost all their mories. And just the thought of himself losing the knowledge of potion formulas, acting thods, and occult theory…it made death seem preferable.
Just then, Edward's brow twitched. He spotted two or three dark shapes approaching from the distant sea.
"Phew, finally—more XP delivery boys," he murmured.
——
At that very mont, three pirate ships, responding to the redhead's earlier signal, converged in the area.
Strangely, each ship had a red-haired man walking out from its deck.
"You got word from Eruzer too?"
"Yeah."
"What did he say?"
"He said he found a treasure-filled underwater ruin around here."
"Sa for ."
"Heh, that's weird. The ssage I got said he was attacked."
"Eh? Maybe he found the ruin first and then got ambushed?"
"Are you two idiots? If he really found an underwater ruin, wouldn't he have stopped the ship to explore? But his vessel hasn't stopped moving at all."
"So you're saying…sothing's off?"
"What do we do then? Still head over?"
"Split up—approach from three directions. The mont anything seems off, we open fire."
"Got it."
The three redheads quickly reached a consensus.
But just then, the surrounding sea began to boil—shuddering violently.
A mass of illusory light appeared ahead of them.
After a dozen seconds, the light spun rapidly inward, collapsing in on itself from a single point—constructing a pair of massive bronze double doors, blurred at the edges.
The door's surface was etched with strange and arcane markings, radiating an indescribable aura of depth…and deathly stillness.
Creak—
The bronze doors shook, then cracked open just a sliver—
BOOM!
With a thunderous crash, a massive, green-tinged black warship burst through the gate, ramming directly into the centre pirate ship.
The wooden vessel shattered instantly.
The pirates aboard didn't even have ti to scream—so plunged into the sea with the debris, while others were directly crushed into blood mist by the massive ship's prow.
Even the red-haired captain aboard that vessel was instantly killed.
"Th-that's… the Black Tulip—Admiral Hell's ship!!"
So sharp-eyed pirates recognised the sigil emblazoned on the ghost-white mainsail: a single, blooming black tulip.
Panic followed.
At the front of the Black Tulip's captain's cabin, a blurry figure appeared—rapidly elongating, taking the form of a tall man in a silver-white mask and an exaggerated tricorne hat.
This was Ludwell, the most powerful of the Seven Pirate Admirals—popularly known as Admiral Hell.
He tilted his head slightly, and another figure stepped out from behind him.
Also red-haired—but his skin was deathly pale, and his entire body radiated the stillness of death. Clearly, he had long since beco a living corpse.
"This the place? The ruins of Death?"
Ludwell quickly shook his head.
"No…it's fake."
Behind the silver mask, twin ghost-fire pupils flickered into life—signs of repressed fury.
Yesterday, following the guidance of his black-ringed finger, Ludwell had travelled through the Underworld into the Fog Sea.
But the mont he exited the realm of the dead, a trendous sense of danger had struck him—so much so that he imdiately turned and fled.
Later, in order to suppress the ring's negative effects, he had hunted down a random pirate ship, slaughtered its crew, and raised so of them as undead.
From those reanimated pirates, he learned of a ssage—an alleged discovery of a sunken ruin tied to Death 'Himself'.
As a Sequence 5 on the Death Pathway, how could he resist?
But now…it was clearly a lie.
Suddenly, Ludwell spread his arms wide.
At that instant, the Black Tulip erupted with motion. The undead on board—shadows, wraiths, skeletons, and ghouls—all leapt into action.
So jumped onto the neighbouring ships. Others plunged into the sea to slaughter the pirates struggling there.
The slaughter began in earnest.
Cries of agony rose and fell like waves.
Ludwell simply watched, expressionless.
To him, this was not about hate or bloodlust.
This was sacrifice.
Feeding living souls to hell, offering them to the gods.
Before the massacre even ended, he gave a lazy wave of his hand.
His undead minions—skeletons and zombies—instantly returned to their posts and began steering the massive warship straight toward Edward's ship in the distance.
Just then, a burst of crimson fla fell from the sky—aid straight at the Black Tulip.
Ludwell once again opened his arms.
The bronze gate to the Underworld reappeared and swallowed the firestorm whole, letting it pour into the realm of death.
Then, from within the gateway, countless undead beasts charged forth—twisting, howling, and wailing. The remaining wraiths and shadows joined them, reversing course and forming a black tide that surged toward Edward's ship.
In the sky, Edward blinked rapidly from spot to spot, flashing across the air—exploiting air resistance to simulate temporary "flight."
Then, his right hand began grasping repeatedly at the air—
Magnify—Steal.
In an instant, Edward had acquired four or five abilities from the Death pathway: Spirit Communication, Resurrection (both undead and skeletons), Language of the Dead, and others.
Imdiately, he began muttering a string of awkward, guttural, grating syllables—completely unintelligible words that sounded more like shrieking chaos than language. The undead creatures that had been swarming toward him suddenly stopped in their tracks, caught in confusion, their minds disrupted.
Clack.
Edward landed on the deck, facing Ludwell. His expression was grim.
"I waited all this ti for my batch of XP fodder, and you just waltz in and wipe them all out? Go to hell!"
A blast of green Avada Kedavra surged from his wand, rocketing straight toward Ludwell.
Ludwell hastily stepped back and yanked an angry wraith in front of himself.
Splat!
The wraith disintegrated instantly.
But seven or eight more Killing Curses followed in rapid succession. Ludwell tried to repeat the move—but his intent was twisted. Instead of dodging, he stumbled into the oncoming curses.
At that crucial mont, the dull black square ring on his left index finger flickered faintly, and Ludwell snapped back into control. He imdiately rolled several tis along the deck to avoid the fatal curses, then sprang up and yanked the rapier from his waist, slashing through the air.
The next mont, the intricately carved bronze door shifted positions—sliding in between Edward and Ludwell. From within the gate, dozens of indescribable eyes opened, flayed, bloody arms reached out, greenish-black vines adorned with baby faces slithered forth, and palms with gaping, toothy mouths clawed through the opening.
Edward tried to steal again, but the Gate of the Underworld wouldn't budge—he suddenly rembered: that damn ring on Ludwell's hand wasn't ordinary. It was deeply tied to the God of Death himself—an extrely high-level artifact—and it was granting amplification to the Gate's power.
Fine then.
Edward slashed his wand and unleashed a massive fiery dragon of wrath, which roared as it slamd into the gate's opening, trying to hold the horrors at bay. Then he flashed behind Ludwell in a blink.
Magnify Steal—he snatched Ludwell's current conscious thought, then used Transfiguration to turn him into a wooden stick.
Sectumsempra.
The stick split in half midair.
Then ca a Killing Curse. And Distortion.
"Aargh!!"
Ludwell, returning to human form seconds later, let out a guttural scream. His body had been split in two—but not a single drop of blood flowed. He was already more dead than alive, a creature of the Underworld.
Still, he had been mortally wounded. If not for the Death ring, he'd be dead already.
Raising his left hand, the ring on Ludwell's finger emitted a sinister, eerie glow—then brightened dramatically.
Woooo...
The towering bronze gate expanded, growing larger and wider in a blink, to the point where even the dragon of fire couldn't hold it back anymore. From its yawning depths, a swarm of undead spilled out, surrounding Ludwell, shielding him as they began retreating toward the gate.
The wrathful dragon incinerated dozens, but there were too many. Driven by the ring's command, these undead were fearless, suicidal, stalling for ti so Ludwell could escape.
Edward bombarded them—Thunderstrike, Fiendfyre, Light of Holiness, more than ten wide-range spells in succession—but for every one he killed, more surged out.
"So this guy wants to play dirty, huh?"
Edward frowned tightly, then an idea sparked in his mind.
The air beside him ripped open. Phoenix burst out of the spirit world, wings flaring.
"I need that bastard dead—the one in the middle of the undead swarm. Any way you can do it?"
Phoenix's eyes glinted. Without a word, it shot forward, fading to near-invisibility as it slipped through the horde of undead—and vanished.
Seconds later, the undead guarding Ludwell suddenly snapped back to awareness, abandoning their shield formation and flying back toward the Gate of Underworld.
At the sa ti, the massive bronze door began shrinking rapidly, then slamd shut.
Phoenix soared back toward Edward, clutching a black ring in its beak—Ludwell's ring.
It hovered in the air and dropped the ring into Edward's palm.
"All his power ca from that ring. Now that it's yours, he's finished."
Easy for you to say. I just tried stealing it how many tis? And failed every ti.
Yeah, this bird's not simple.
Now that the undead had dispersed—so retreating to the Underworld, others fleeing—the unprotected Ludwell plumted from the sky, landing on the Black Tulip. He didn't move again.
"Is he dead?"
"Unless you completely kill an undead being," Phoenix said, "no matter how badly wounded they are, they'll regenerate eventually. It's just a matter of ti."
Edward narrowed his eyes.
"Then…for god-like undead creatures like the Phoenix Ancestor—Gregrace—does that an even if they 'die,' they can still co back?"
Phoenix shook its head. "Don't know."
They stared at each other for a few monts. Then Edward looked down at the ring in his hand.
"You sure you're not interested in this?"
"Hm?" Phoenix tilted its head.
"I an, don't you want to eat it?" Edward raised the Resurrection Stone ring on his other hand. "The way you keep eyeing this one."
"No. Eating that thing wouldn't do anything for ."
Now that was strange.
This Death Ring had once been the fallback plan for the Underworld Emperor Salinger's resurrection. It was definitely high-tier, yet this bird showed no interest?
Edward couldn't help but wonder what exactly Phoenix wanted from the Phoenix Feather it had consud…or why it was so obsessed with the Resurrection Stone ring. What was it trying to gain?
The two of them landed aboard the Black Tulip. Edward raised his wand, ready to end Ludwell once and for all—but Phoenix said, "You actually don't need to kill him."
"Oh?"
"As long as I hold onto this ring," the bird said, "I can have absolute control over him. Whatever I command, he will do."
———
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