The duel was over.
Yet Ery did not return to the ship right away. The silence of the void clung to him, broken only by the faint hum of cosmic energy retreating into stillness. He hovered there, his twin blades dim in his hands, as he took several long monts to reflect on the fight, hoping to gain so insight. His chest rose and fell in controlled rhythm, but within, both soul and body trembled faintly.
The clash had been brutal. Channeling the combined essence of the two Khaos Guardians was no trivial feat. The backlash seared through his ridians, his spirit shaking under the sheer magnitude of their fused power.
He closed his eyes, exhaling slowly, letting both his light and dark avatars fade back into his core. Only then did his spirit begin to settle.
He knew the truth—his strike had been devastating, yet imperfect. If his comprehension of the law of fire or the law of ice had been deeper, the result would have been more destructive. His mastery over the sword itself was also lacking. Ery clenched his fists. He had decades—centuries, even—of refinent ahead before the Dao of Ice and Fire would truly be his to command.
His gaze dropped to the weapons in his hands. The Savage Blade, for all its history and the bond it shared with him, had reached its limit. Once a tier 5 sword, reforged and refined into a tier 6, it could climb no further. Even with the rarest of materials, at best, it would scrape into mid-grade quality, no longer worthy of his current realm. By contrast, his Embernight Sword—a tier 6 high-grade artifact—still had room to ascend toward top-grade perfection. That blade would remain his anchor of fla.
And now... he had gained sothing new. His eyes shifted toward the icy weapon floating before him:
[Frostveil]
Draven’s forr treasure. Its surface glead with a cold, otherworldly brilliance, runes dancing faintly across its edge. Ery reached out and grasped it, and imdiately a chill seeped into his palm.
He examined it closely. The balance was perfect, its length slightly curved with a single razor edge, reminiscent of the one-edged blades he had trained with back at the academy. That alone made his grip feel natural, almost nostalgic. The quality of the weapon was no less than his Embernight sword, a tier 6 high-grade artifact. But its elent—pure ice—was what truly made it invaluable. Together with Embernight, fire and frost, he could finally wield a dual style that suited his Dao perfectly.
A smile touched his lips. "You’ll serve well."
He sat cross-legged in the void, pressing his divine sense into the weapon to refine it. Imdiately, resistance pushed back. The runes etched along the blade’s spine lit up in defiance, glowing with a frigid brilliance. Ery frowned. With Draeven’s death, the sword should have offered no opposition.
He focused, tracing the runes more carefully. And then—like shards of ice breaking loose—a flood of images slamd into his mind.
The void around him seed to dissolve. He found himself standing on a frozen battlefield, surrounded by towering glaciers. A lone swordsman in ancient armor stood ahead, his blade—the very one Ery now held—glowing with killing frost. The figure swung once, and an avalanche descended, mountains splitting apart as though the world itself obeyed his cut. The vision fractured, shifting into sequences of techniques, flowing like a martial manual co to life.
VIA’s voice resonated within him:
His eyes widened in realization—the sword was filled with a set of ice-elent blade techniques. VIA quickly explained that the sword was an ancient artifact. In old tis, when technology was limited, Magus would often embed their knowledge directly into their artifacts.
Ery’s eyes widened slightly. A complete inheritance?
The runes pulsed again, feeding him fragnts of the style:
[Fang of Eternal Winter]
Each technique flowed with crisp sharpness, echoing with the discipline of a forgotten era.
A treasure indeed.
Ery sheathed the blade carefully. For now, he would not push to refine it. He stored the weapon with a faint smile tugging at his lips.
With his soul and body fully cald, Ery finally turned back toward the raider fleets. It was ti to deal with the aftermath.
The Azure Kraken’s deck felt different when he stepped back aboard. The once-rowdy raiders were silent, their eyes cast downward. Where once they had looked at their captain with reverence, now they looked at Ery with wary awe.
Ery’s gaze lay upon the towering, broad-shouldered Grand Magus nad Brollak. His rough, scarred features betrayed a life of violence, but in that mont, all Ery could see in his eyes was fear. Despite the humiliation of defeat, there was almost no hatred in his expression—only submission. The sa feeling spread across the crew; not defiance, not vengeance, only the weary acceptance of people who knew resistance was useless.
A middle-aged man stepped forward—thin, sharp-eyed, his long hair streaked with silver, his robe more refined than the ragged uniforms of the rest. Ery could sense the dense spirit energy flowing around him—this man was at the Full Moon Magus Realm, second only to the late captain in strength. Yet unlike Brollak, he lowered his head with calm dignity and offered a slight bow.
"The Blue Skulls have lost," the man said, his voice steady but respectful. "We are now at your rcy, honored senior."
Ery’s sharp eyes studied him. Victory in a duel ant Ery could claim his prize, the ship. But here, the situation was different. Ery had not only defeated their leader, but his overwhelming display of power left no room for challenge. This middle-aged man understood that truth well.
Ery studied him, noting the absence of hatred in his tone. Instead, there was calculation. Submission offered not from broken pride, but from intelligence.
"And your na?" Ery asked.
The man straightened slightly and spoke with clarity."Senior... I am Varrek, first mate of the Blue Skulls. Third in command, responsible for the fleet’s operations."
Ery’s eyes narrowed. Through the fragnted mories he had absorbed from Iron Scarr, he recognized the na. Varrek had always been the mind behind the Blue Skulls, a man known for his cunning and strategy rather than raw strength. More than once, his cleverness had guided the raiders out of hopeless situations, turning ambush into escape, disaster into survival.
Iron Scarr’s mories also revealed a harsher truth. Though ruthless, most of the Blue Skulls were not born killers. They were desperate n and won who had been pushed into raiding by the cruelty of endless wars. So acted as rcenaries, blades for hire. Others demanded protection money from struggling miners, forcing civilians into submission to keep themselves alive. Ery understood their desperation... but he could not forgive it.
rcy for the desperate did not erase the blood they had shed. His hatred of raiders was carved into him since childhood, when his father was cut down and his estate burned by marauding brigands.
For a mont, he was silent. Then Ery pulled out a small black vial. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed it. Varrek caught it carefully, his brows furrowing as he studied the glass. Inside, dozens of dark pills shimred faintly with an ominous glow.
Ery’s voice cut through the silence like steel.
"You and your crew will serve for thirty years," Ery said flatly. "That is my demand."
Varrek understood it right away. This was no gift but a binding test—poison or so form of restriction. He hesitated only a heartbeat before plucking one out and swallowing it dry.
Then he turned to a nearby female magus. "Distribute them."
The woman obeyed without complaint, handing the poison to every magus present. Ery watched with mild amusent as they accepted their fates without protest.
"This is the life of raiders," Varrek explained calmly, as if reading Ery’s thoughts. "We have no hos to return to. To follow a stronger leader is better than to drift without one."
"Good," Ery said simply.
His gaze shifted toward the muscular Grand Magus, Brollak. Just one look from Ery’s piercing eyes made the man tremble. Sweat beaded his forehead as he dropped to his knees in submission.
"I—Brollak—would be honored to follow your command"
His fear was not without reason. A Grand Magus’s body was fortified by cosmic power; few poisons in existence could harm such a being. Even if poisoned, a Grand Magus could abandon his body and seize another vessel, though such an act would cripple his cultivation path, especially for one like Brollak.
Ery’s lips curved into a thin smile. He had no need of poison for this one—he had sothing else in mind. With his newly advanced realm, he was eager to test the full strength of his enslavent technique upon a Grand Magus. Brollak would serve as his first experint.
The truth was, Ery did not expect much from these people. Yet he had been gone long enough that the world might have shifted in ways he did not know. Having expendable hands could only serve him well.
With his will imposed, the Blue Skull raiders fell into order faster than expected. Varrek carried out Ery’s commands without hesitation. He moved to the other ships in the fleet, spreading word of their new leader. Most of the raiders bent the knee, while a few resisted and were swiftly eliminated. So were not even given the chance—Varrek marked them as dangerous elents who would only cause trouble under a new leader.
In less than two hours, the once-chaotic band of raiders had been cleansed and restructured.
Ery now commanded a force of thirty Magus realm experts and just over fifty Saint realm crew. The hundred lesser crew, stripped of rank and released to drift free. They were too insignificant to be of use to Ery and not dangerous enough to be worth killing.
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