Chapter 1733 - 240 - The Battle at the Black Pole (8)

"You have no right to demand something like that," one of them said as he looked at me with an expression that made it painfully obvious he thought I was nothing more than a joke.

"I thought she was strong enough to defeat the previous Pirate King," I told them. "If she's really that strong, then shouldn't she have appeared here herself? I don't think all of you are enough to defeat me."

The moment I said that, the pirates immediately burst into laughter again, apparently finding my confidence far more amusing than threatening.

"You really think you're going to defeat all of us?" one of them asked with a mocking laugh. "Oi, we've got a thousand men aboard our ships, so this isn't going to be nearly as easy as you seem to think it is."

Their laughter continued for a little longer before they finally started moving.

Several of them fired rope guns toward our ship, with the hooks catching onto the deck before the pirates began pulling themselves across the distance between our vessels.

One after another, they crossed over using the ropes, landing on our deck before immediately drawing their swords and closing in around us.

The number of them was certainly impressive.

If I were an ordinary swordsman, I probably would have been worried.

Unfortunately for them, I wasn't an ordinary swordsman.

"I warned you," I said while watching them approach, keeping my grip relaxed around Samui.

"Heh. Kill him."

The order was barely finished before the pirates rushed toward me from several different directions, apparently believing that overwhelming me with numbers would be enough to make up for the difference in strength.

I calmly pulled Samui and swung the blade once.

That single movement was enough.

In one sweeping motion, I chopped off the heads of everyone who had come charging toward me.

For a brief moment, their heads remained suspended in the air as though their bodies had yet to understand what had happened to them.

Then gravity finally took over.

The severed heads dropped one after another with heavy thuds against the deck, leaving trails of blood behind them while their bodies remained standing for another brief moment.

A second later, the headless bodies finally collapsed to the floor.

"H-Huh?"

Several of the pirates stared at the fallen heads with completely bewildered expressions, their minds apparently struggling to process what they had just witnessed.

A few of them looked from the bodies to me and then back again, as though staring long enough might somehow make the situation less ridiculous.

It didn't.

I casually swung Samui a few times, shaking the blood from its blade before settling it comfortably in my hand again.

"I didn't stutter, did I?" I asked while looking directly at the man who had been speaking earlier. "Unless the strongest person among you comes to face me, you won't be able to defeat me."

The person standing who had been talking earlier appeared to be her second-in-command, and I noticed his expression immediately change when he heard those words.

He clenched his teeth tightly while staring at me.

The confidence he had shown earlier was still there, but it had clearly taken a serious beating.

Cold sweat began forming around his forehead, and he quickly wiped some of it away without taking his eyes off me.

He was stubborn, that much was obvious.

Even so, he wasn't stupid.

He had seen what I could do, and unlike some of the others, he understood that charging toward me without thinking would accomplish nothing except adding more bodies to the deck.

At least I had made sure my strength was impossible for him to ignore.

He took a deep breath before raising one hand and pointing directly at me.

"Kill him!"

The moment he gave the order, the remaining pirates began boarding our ship in greater numbers.

Rope guns fired from several directions as more hooks caught onto the deck, and pirates quickly crossed over while drawing their swords.

The sight reminded me of a swarm of insects throwing themselves into a fire.

They had the numbers, certainly, but numbers didn't mean much when the difference in strength was this ridiculous.

I raised Samui and concentrated my mana into the blade.

The energy gathered around the sword, growing denser with every passing moment before I finally released it with a powerful slash.

The concentrated force shot forward and traveled directly toward one of their ships.

The result was immediate.

The ship was cleanly cut in half.

"Guh...!? W-What the hell?! Did he just cut our ship apart with his sword?!"

Their panic spread almost instantly.

Some of the pirates stopped in place while others looked toward the destroyed vessel with wide eyes.

The confidence they had shown earlier was disappearing rather quickly.

I continued moving through them, cutting down one pirate after another as they tried to overwhelm us with their numbers.

They kept coming, and I kept cutting them down.

At this point, it was almost becoming repetitive.

They would charge toward me, I would swing Samui, and another group would fall.

Honestly, if they had understood the situation sooner, they could have saved themselves a lot of trouble.

I didn't have much mercy for them.

All I did was kill them one after another without giving them enough time to regroup, coordinate their attacks, or figure out a way to turn the situation around.

Their numbers were becoming less impressive with every passing second.

"W-Who are you?!" the man finally screamed while staring at me. "What the hell are you?!"

His voice echoed across the deck as he continued looking at me with an expression filled with disbelief.

He looked like he had just witnessed something that should have been completely impossible.

Honestly, I couldn't blame him for reacting that way.

From his perspective, someone had just cut an entire ship apart with a sword before proceeding to tear through nearly a hundred of his men without even appearing particularly tired.

That wasn't exactly the sort of thing people witnessed every day.

After killing nearly a hundred of the pirates, I finally stopped and looked toward him.

The remaining pirates also stopped attacking almost immediately.

They were trembling now.

A moment earlier, they had been confident because of their overwhelming numbers.

Now, those same numbers didn't seem nearly as reassuring.

Some of them held their weapons tightly, but their hands were shaking badly enough that they probably couldn't have landed a clean strike even if I had stood still and waited for them.

"You seem to be enjoying yourself quite a lot," Shredica said from nearby.

Her tone carried a hint of amusement as she looked over the battlefield.

"If you had let me handle some of the work, I could have killed far more of them in a much shorter amount of time."

"I know you want to do that, but killing all of them isn't exactly my goal," I replied while keeping my eyes on the pirates. "As much as possible, I want to gain some form of cooperation from them. They might become useful if we need to make sure the Great Ocean doesn't fall too easily."

That was the real reason I hadn't simply slaughtered everyone.

The Great Ocean was far too important for us to leave completely undefended, and having these pirates on our side could make a considerable difference if things eventually became worse.

If I could secure their cooperation, along with the support of the Mermaid Kingdom, then we'd have a much stronger position than we would have had otherwise.

It would make the Great Ocean considerably harder to conquer, especially if the pirates were willing to cooperate with us.

Their numbers alone could become useful.

Combined with the Mermaid Kingdom's forces, their knowledge of the waters, and whatever influence they had among the other pirates, the entire region could become much more difficult for an enemy to take.

That alone could put us at a huge advantage.

Of course, getting them to cooperate was another matter entirely.

Considering what had happened during the last few minutes, I wasn't exactly expecting them to shake my hand and suddenly become loyal allies.

Still, fear could sometimes be a surprisingly effective starting point for negotiations.

At the very least, they now understood that fighting me head-on wasn't going to end well.

For the moment, though, the remaining pirates were too frightened to do anything.

They simply stood there while looking between one another, apparently waiting for someone else to make the first move.

I was about to say something when I suddenly heard footsteps approaching from somewhere nearby.

The sound was slow and deliberate, echoing across the ship as someone made their way toward us.

The remaining pirates immediately turned their heads toward the source of the noise.

I did the same.

The footsteps continued approaching without any apparent hurry, and whoever was coming didn't seem particularly concerned about the blood covering the deck or the bodies scattered across it.

That alone made me curious.

Someone who could walk into this situation without hesitation probably wasn't an ordinary pirate.

I raised my head slightly and looked in the direction of the approaching footsteps.

Then I waited quietly for the owner of those footsteps to finally appear.