Jack drew his shotgun and pulled the trigger. BOOM!

  Hot burst of scattered pellets struck the pirate captain's armored body. It didn't cause any noticeable damage. But it stopped the undead pirate's assault toward Lady Gemrose.

  The undead captain turned his head. Looking at Jack without expression. And then, he charged with extremely fast speed. Launching a palm strike to Jack's chest.

  Desperately, Jack attempted to dodge and deflect the opponent's deadly hand with his steamrune shotgun. It worked.

  But the undead stepped forward and used a backhand strike. BANG! It was so strong that it broke Jack's shotgun and blasted him away.

  But despite being thrown away so easily, Jack didn't forget his self-assigned task. He needed to stop the pirate captain. Even just for a second.

  His chained bracers blazed hot even when he was airborne. With a surge of will, the [Chains of Vengeance] were activated. Black chains, crackling with infernal flames, burst forth from them. Lashing out at the undead pirate leader.

  The chains struck and entangled the fused entity as Jack landed on his feet. He managed to stop the demonic captain. But, it was not easy. It was like trying to bind a hurricane with cobwebs.

  Even in his stronger rakshasa form, Jack wouldn't be able to stop the pirate leader from escaping. Now, in this human form, while the opponent was in that fused form... obstructing the captain for a couple of seconds would already be extremely lucky.

  And they were indeed very lucky right then.

  "Now!" Jack roared. His voice was raw with exertion.

  Reina immediately appeared nearby. Teleporting from her original location. She raised the spellcard. Its tarot-like patterns glowed with an inner light. She poured her mystic energy into the card. It pulsed. And then it broke into pieces. Turning into a beam of pure yet hazy energy. Striking the spectral captain square in the chest.

  "Sleep tight, Asshole." Jack muttered.

  He retracted his chains... Only to send them again to strike. Not the pirate captain this time. But to his allies.

  First target was Lady Gemrose's weapon. Her oversized gun was whirring. About to unleash another volley to the pirate captain. Jack's chains struck the barrel of her weapon. Deflecting the stream of bullets upwards.

  Almost simultaneously, another set of chains entangled Big Boss Lodegrey's fist. Swerving his about to be unleashed punch to different direction.

  "Don't attack!" Jack shouted. "Look!"

  A wave of rhythmic, golden resonance rippled out the pirate captain's body. It wasn't a loud sound. But it could be hear clearly. Humming a low, ancient melody that seemed to vibrate the very air.

  The undead leader froze on his place. His shoulders was previously tense and lethal. Now, they slumped. The green lightning cackling around his fused armor dimmed to a dull simmer.

  He took one staggered step. His head lolled to the side. And then he collapsed. He didn't just fall. He went down like a mountain of lead. His armor thudded against the ground.

  Soon, a deep, rhythmic snoring sound could be heard. Like the groaning of a ship's hull in a storm. Emanating from the fallen threat.

  "It worked." Reina whispered. Stunned in disbelief.

  "Don't celebrate yet." Jack said. "Love! Tell the city defenders to stay away from him. Tell them to focus on the small fry first."

  Reina nodded. Her form dissolved into puff of smoke as she flickered across the battlefield. Conveying the message with illusions and amplified whispers.

  Jack walked closer to the fallen pirate captain. Big Boss Lodegrey and Lady Gemrose were also approaching. With their weapons ready. But at least they knew enough not to attack right away.

  "Jack?" Big Boss Lodegrey, the Mercenary Union president, immediately asked. "The hell... why did he stop?"

  "Reina put him to bed." Jack said. "She used an artifact, our trump card. But this bastard is just asleep now, Boss. It gives us time. Not solution to the problem. Any attack will just wake him up and give us the same trouble."

  "How long will this bastard stay asleep?" Lady Gemrose asked.

  "It should be twelve hours if he isn't damaged." Jack replied. "The problem is... He is undead. He might be damaged by the sunlight... which will appear and touch him in about three hours if we do nothing."

  "So, we have about three hour break." Big Boss Lodegrey sighed. "Better than nothing I guess. But it might not be enough time to summon an illuminated level powerhouse from the capital city."

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  "Do you have appraisal tools here, Boss?" Jack suddenly asked. "I've seen a priest used a monocle to appraise a cursed object."

  "We do have some... Wait! You mean appraisal tools to identify this guy?" The union president widened his eyes. "We don't have any tool to appraise living... No! This one wasn't exactly living being. We have one that we could try... the [Great Appraisal Goggles no. XII]."

  "I'll bring that." Lady Gemrose volunteered herself right away. Leaving quickly without waiting for any confirmation.

  ...

  Meanwhile, the harbor was still busy with silent blur of activity. The elite mercenaries and City Watch members made short work of the remaining undead pirates. With the support of the remaining divine acolyte, it wasn't hard. Without their leader, the pirates were just moving targets.

  Several minutes later, Lady Gemrose returned. Holding an archaic and oversized goggles.

  The situation in the harbor was completely under control by then. All of the remaining undead pirates had been cleared. The only threat left was the sleeping undead captain.

  "Try using that on this son of a bitch, Jane." Big Boss Lodegrey instructed.

  Lady Janette Gemrose nodded. She wore the ridiculous gadget and activated it by channeling her energy into it.

  "This bastard is called Long Feng." Lady Gemrose reported. "A martial fighter from the New Continent more than four hundred years ago. An imperial guard who failed his job. His responsibility, the queen of the kingdom, was assassinated. And he couldn't stop the assassins."

  "He ran away from prison and became a pirate afterward." She continued. "But he offended a deity level being when he raped and killed a holy priestess of that deity. His ship, along with the whole crew in it, was cursed and became a ghost ship and undead pirates."

  "What about his weakness?" Big Boss Lodegrey asked.

  "He's an undead." She answered. "He weakens under... No, he's not just weakened. It will be damaged severely under the sunlight. And... it says here that he has an illuminated core. Obviously. And he also has a 'Ghost Dragon Physique'... whatever that means. That is all the information here."

  Jack raised his eyebrows. The artifact wasn't as good as his [Eyes of Judgement]. It couldn't identify the [Cursed Fusion] and it didn't explain the [Ghost Dragon Physique]. It seemed that he had to lie again to guide them.

  "If its [Ghost Dragon Physique], we had a chance." Jack said with faked enthusiasm. Luckily, his acting was good enough to fool the others nearby.

  "You know about it, Jack?" Big Bill immediately asked.

  "I've read about it. This [Ghost Dragon Physique]." Jack explained. He hadn't actually lied there. He did read it... in his system description.

  "Anyone with that physique is immune to physical and elemental damage." He continued. Making the others that heard that gasp in shock.

  Jack smiled and continued. "But it's not invincible. Healing energy damages it instead of recovering its injury."

  Almost everyone widened their eyes when they heard that. That was a massive drawback. The physique was indeed not invincible.

  "Really? Let me try!" A grim looking priest volunteered himself. Glaring full of rage at the sleeping undead. He had lost many friends because of him.

  "Wait!" Jack immediately stopped him. "Not now. It might harm this bastard. But, it will also wake him. If we want to completely destroy this bastard, we need more healers to strike him at the same time."

  He then grinned viciously. "And doesn't Lady Gemrose said the sunlight will severely injure it? If we hit him with every ounce of healing energy the city has, exactly when the first ray of the sun hits this bastard, our problem will be solved."

  Big Boss Lodegrey looked at the sleeping menace, then back at Jack. He immediately barked his order. "You heard the man!"

  "Round up everyone that has healing energy!" He instructed. "Everyone! And inform them... Other than stabilizing any victim that is severely injured, every healer must save their energy. They need to use it to send this bastard back to hell."

  He looked at the injured men and women nearby and sighed. "Sorry, everyone. You need to hold the pain for a bit longer."

  A mercenary with broken arm laughed. "Just get rid of that bastard, Boss. Even if we are healed now, we'll still die anyway... if that undead crap is still alive."

  The others nodded in agreement. Holding back their pain.

  ...

  Under the cover of darkness, a grim circle began to form around the sleeping pirate captain. Divine acolytes from the three churches, primal sorcerers with healing power, mystic scholars who knew healing spell, steamrune engineer with healing tools... All were pressed into service.

  It was not long before the sunrise...

  The sleeping pirate captain shifted. The snoring sound grew louder. More jagged. The obsidian mask he wore began to glow with a faint, resentful green light.

  "He's waking up." Big Boss Lodegrey said grimly.

  "Wait for it." Jack calmed him down. "Not yet. We need the sun."

  The horizon turned from grey to a pale, watery orange. The air grew cold. The pre-dawn chill.

  Long Feng’s fingers twitched. A spike of black bone on his shoulder moved slightly. The tension made the weaker acolytes tremble.

  "Steady!" Jack said firmly. His voice echoed over the sound of the crashing waves. "Wait for the light!"

  A single beam of gold broke over the edge of the ocean. It pierced the morning mist. Widening. Traveling across the water like a spreading carpet of fire. It moved toward the harbor. Unstoppable. And then...

  "NOW!" Jack roared.

  He moved forward and activated his [Steamrune Expansion] as he touched the pirate captain. The skill was designed to imbue objects with kinetic energy and expand their form. Normally, it wouldn't work on living creatures. But the captain was an undead. It wasn't exactly alive.

  "DIVINE LIGHT OF HEALING!" A divine acolyte screamed.

  The circle ignited. More than a hundred hands were thrusted forward. A massive, concentrated pillar of pure healing energy in various color erupted toward the enlarged body. At almost the exact same time, the first direct ray of sunlight hit the undead captain.

  The reaction was violent...

  The undead didn't even have time to scream. The moment the healing energy and the sunlight touched his skin and armor, it tore him apart like wild beasts feasting on their prey.

  His seemingly indestructible armor began to crack and flake away like burnt paper. The green lightning was swallowed by the myriad colored healing lights.

  The captain's body jerked a few times. His eyes snapped open. Two pits of hollowed things. And then they shattered.

  A massive explosion of light blinded everyone on the wharf. When the spots cleared from Jack's eyes, the center of the circle was empty.

  There was no body. No armor. Only a faint, lingering smell of blood and rot.

  The silence that followed was absolute. The city watch, the mercenaries, the priests... Everyone was staring at the empty space. They had just witnessed an illuminated-level threat being deleted from existence... by healing power.

  A system notification appeared in Jack's vision...

  [FATELESS THREAT ELIMINATED!]

  Beneath it, another set of messages materialized.

  [ACQUIRING PERSONAL ARTIFACT REWARD] CHOOSE ONE:

  [FLAMING UNDEAD CHARIOT]

  [ELDRITCH GHOST SHIP]

  [CURSED DRAGON MOUNT]