Rune-etched bullets hissed through the air, shredding the wooden deck or ricocheting off plate armour. One musket round caught a Gold-Core knight square in the throat, but the wound barely slowed her as she shrugged off the impact with a blood-guttural roar. Two pirates fell over dead as Eri’s accurate artillery fire blasted holes in their torsos.

  The two groups closed the gap. Musket and blunderbuss fire became intermittent as pistols and hand grenades took over. Explosions threw men on their backs. Spats of white-hot fury from sidearms detonated in showers of shrapnel and fire.

  Then came the clash of sword and axes, and it was nothing short of bloody. Pistols were dropped in favour of two-handed melee instruments. Arte-empowered hammers slammed against faces, crushing helmets and splintering skulls. Shortsword and daggers sought the tiniest of gaps between armoured plates, shredding flesh and pulling guts out with each stab.

  The two groups were locked in a brutal melee. Roars of rage and the screams of the dying filled the air. The initial clash was even, but with each passing second, the odds tilted in the pirates’ favour. Though the men of House Elathion and House Dervaine fought valiantly, they were outnumbered and outmatched.

  One of the Silver Core knights went down as a flurry of sabres hacked them apart. Another took a shotgun blast to his chest when he got doubled by two Gold Core corsairs, laughing as they riddled his convulsing body with holes.

  The Gold Core knight lieutenant — a woman from House Dervaine — struggled valiantly, but against her Ruby-Core opponent, it was useless. The Jewelled-rank corsair punched a hole through her chest, ripping out her heart. The other was forcing back Lauren with sweeping strikes of their halberd.

  One knight fell after another — none yet dead, thanks to their superhuman constitution, but each hanging onto life by a thread. Nearly all were incapacitated with horrific wounds, mere seconds from death. The outcome seemed inevitable.

  Then Eri arrived, leaping straight into the melee with an explosion of mana.

  The mythic might of a Fourth Form Arte raged across the battlefield.

  [Unarmed Arts, Ascetic Fire Monks’ Fourth Form: Emberheart Martyrdom]

  There was an eruption of heat. A strange energy was in the air, accompanied by the stench of sulphur. Eri was on fire, the flames dark and sinister. Unfazed, the halbred Ruby-Core Chosen summoned an Arte and swung at Eri.

  To Lauren’s shock and dismay, Eri didn’t even bother dodging. The youth stood there, completely still, as he dispassionately watched the halberd scream for his head.

  He still didn’t move, even when the halberd slashed clean past his neck.

  Eri’s decapitated head fell to the ground.

  Lauren froze. Horror rooted him in place. The pirate leader laughed.

  Eri’s body was still standing. It was also burning brighter. And brighter. And brighter…

  Then, a crack.

  The ship’s belly lit up in an exploding inferno.

  Glowing magma erupted from Eri’s headless body, their volume far exceeding any that could possibly be stored in his diminutive frame. They poured across the enemy ranks. Corsairs screamed as their armour melted into their flesh — their Silver, Gold, or Ruby-wrought endurance no match for volcanic wrath. The floor and ceiling nearly came apart at the shockwave, desperately held together by arcane naval engineering. The dazzling display of destruction destroyed everything else on that deck.

  The pirates were all consumed by the wave of pyroclastic spew. Yet where the molten rocks touched the fallen knights, a strange, warm glow enveloped them instead. Fatal wounds were sealed instantly, and though they remained badly injured, none among them was at risk of imminent death.

  Mere seconds had passed. As suddenly as they had arrived, the phantom magma disappeared. The fires went out instantly, but the signs of their damage remained.

  The ship’s third deck was almost completely destroyed. The ceiling groaned as the reinforced support beams struggled to remain intact. Everything not part of the ship’s structure — machinery, weapons, or corpses — was either slag or ash. Even the two Ruby-Core pirates did not survive, for they had been closest to the epicentre of the explosion.

  Lauren and his knights remained intact. Some were unconscious, but those still standing marvelled at their recovery. The knight lieutenant gasped when she felt her heart beating in her chest again.

  Eri stood in the aftermath, his head somehow restored to its proper place on his neck, as if it never left. He swayed on the spot for a second before collapsing.

  “Young Master!” Lauren cried as he grabbed him.

  He was still alive and conscious, to Lauren’s relief. However, the youth was pale and shaking. With a trembling hand, he pulled ampoules from his spatial pouch. Weak as he was, Eri couldn’t muster the strength to bring them to his neck. Lauren hurriedly grabbed the drugs and injected their contents into the Young Master.

  The effects were immediate. Eri’s skill in medicine and alchemy would allow no other results. A flush returned to his pallid skin, and though his breathing was still shallow, life returned to the Young Master’s body.

  “Is everyone alright?” he asked urgently.

  “The knights are alive, my Lord. Wounds remain, but nothing we cannot recover from.”

  “This was my fault. I got too arrogant,” Eri coughed weakly. “I didn’t think the opposition would be so strong. So many Gold and Jewelled Cores on a mere Frigate… This isn’t normal. We have stumbled upon someone big. This boarding action was a mistake. I nearly killed you all.”

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  “No, Young Master. You saved us.”

  Eri grimaced. “That’s not the end of it, I’m afraid. Neither of those two Ruby Cores was the Admiral of this ship. Seeing as there’s no way anyone on this vessel could have missed my pseudo-suicidal explosion—”

  The ceiling gave way.

  Lauren registered the enormous mana signature before impact. He immediately leapt aside, Eri held tight in his arms.

  A glowing fist smashed against where Lauren and Eri had been a split-second ago, forming a crater on the magically reinforced deck. The man responsible stood up, visibly vibrating with unstable mana.

  His Core raged Sapphire.

  “You motherfuckers… You have done it now,” Admiral Rann growled, a half-manic, half-despairing whine in his voice. “Lord Drake is going to kill me. No way she will forgive me for this much damage and crew loss on one of her most prized frigates. But before that…”

  The Admiral took a step toward Eri. The pirate was covered head to toe in a sea-blue, crystalline exterior. Though his facial expression was not visible behind his diamond-like mask, the trembling in his form left no room for doubt about his rage.

  “I am going to have fun breaking every bone in your body, brat!”

  ~~~

  Lauren was barely able to dodge the first punch.

  With Eri still in his arms, the knight captain leapt away, narrowly tilting his head back in time as a crystalline fist blew past.

  The pirate admiral carried no weapon. There was no visible piece of clothing or conventional armour on his person, either. The figure before Lauren was simply a bulky crystalline humanoid — a man completely encased in thick sea-blue quartz. The only visible opening in the entire frame was a few narrow slits over where his face should be.

  The man charged at them once more, leaving cratered footsteps on the deck, the entire ship tilting from the force of his heavy frame. As Lauren desperately dodged, Eri pulled out a strange-looking pistol from his spatial pocket and fired.

  The recoil nearly made Lauren trip. Such was the force of the bullet that the captain heard Eri’s wrist snap.

  The Admiral was blown aback. When he landed on his back, the sheer weight of his crystal armour caused the floor to lurch. Though staggered, the pirate quickly got back on his feet, growling in annoyance.

  There wasn’t even a scratch on the crystal surface where the bullet landed.

  “It’s a defensive Arte,” Eri calmly said, injecting several recovery stimulants into his neck as Lauren ran as fast as he could. “The fact that he’s Sapphire-Core means there’s nothing I can do. His mana is too dense.”

  “Then we need to flee!” Lauren hissed.

  “As if I will let you!” Admiral Rann howled.

  Despite the cumbersome-looking crystal armour, the pirate moved lightning fast. Lauren couldn’t dodge this time. A single punch to the shoulder was all it took for the knight captain to be thrown off his feet.

  Eri landed in a roll and brought up an entropic mine, tossing it at the Admiral’s face.

  The powerful magical explosion barely slowed him. A split second later, he was right before Eri, fists raised.

  Lauren charged in from the side, his gladius empowered by his Sword Artes.

  The Admiral contemptuously raised a crystal arm to block the blow. The gladius shattered upon impact.

  A trio of rapid punches smashed into Lauren’s side before he could react in time. The knight captain folded over. The next fist smashed into the side of his head, sending him slamming into the floor.

  For that split second, the Admiral was distracted. Eri pulled forth a venom-laced dagger and stabbed it into the back of the pirate’s knee.

  The blade bounced off. Even the joints were armoured so thickly that they barely served as weak spots.

  Eri immediately dropped to the ground, avoiding a hammering kick that would have taken off his head. Twisting his frame quickly, he threw a few miniature pellets right into the admiral’s face.

  The pirate didn’t even bother blocking it, trusting his crystal armour to endure any pyrotechnics Eri used against him.

  That proved to be a mistake. The pellets burst apart, not in flames, but as thick wisps of blighted green vapour. They seeped through the tiny slits of the man’s face, carrying their poisonous caress into each breath.

  The admiral immediately began coughing violently. The gas was a caustic mix that could melt the flesh of any mundane organism. Against a Sapphire-Core, all it did was likely make the man’s eyes water and lungs burn.

  But it was enough for the moment. Admiral Rann tried to stomp on Eri, but slowed and blinded as he was, the youth was able to dodge the blow, grab Captain Lauren, and sprint out of the way without harm.

  “You need to get a better sword. This must be the third or fourth time it has broken in combat,” Eri said.

  “I’ll take that under consideration if I survive,” Lauren wheezed painfully, cradling his caved-in torso. “Young Master, you have to—”

  “No running. Not for me. Look after the other knights while I deal with the admiral. And before you start complaining again, I have beaten impossible odds before. I am owed some goddamn faith, Lauren.”

  “You have no mana left. I can sense your depleted Core.” Lauren spat blood. He was becoming unconscious. “Do not do this. You’ll lose.”

  Eri snorted. “Just for saying that, I’ll be sure to win, if only so I can make you eat your words. And when I do, you'd better not doubt me ever again.”

  Lauren didn’t reply. He had already blacked out. Eri set him down. The other knights — what few of them were conscious — rushed over.

  “Set up a defensive position on the next deck,” Eri instructed. “I doubt the ship has anything left it could throw at us save for the admiral himself, so hold tight and tend to your wounds while I deal with him.”

  “You are going to fight him?” One of the knights asked in disbelief. “He’s a Sapphire. You are still a Silver Core, my Lord. How are you going to win?”

  “With great difficulty, I expect.” Eri grimaced. “This goes without saying, but stay clear out of the way, lest you suffer friendly fire.”

  The female lieutenant from House Dervaine shakily laughed. “Good enough for me. Go kick his ass, Boss.”

  Eri nodded. He watched them leave, carrying the unconscious knights away.

  The entire deck was emptied. Eri was now completely alone with the admiral.

  When he turned around, the pirate’s furious gaze was on him, already recovered from his acid inhalation.

  Eri smiled tiredly. “Well, I did ask for this fight. Come and die, then.”

  ~~~~~~

  Optional Except

  [Unarmed Arts, Ascetic Fire Monks’ Fourth Form: Emberheart Martyrdom]

  Unlock at Unarmed Proficiency: Expert

  Effects: Sets oneself ablaze in unnatural fire, damaging all who are too close while almost simultaneously unleashing a reviving AoE heal effect to all allies. Reduces the user’s HP to 1, but converts all Major Wounds on nearby allies into Minor Wounds, and grants them temporary immunity to Fire DMG. When the user next receives damage and has their HP reduced to zero, they violently explode. The User must then pass a Willpower Check. Success restores full HP. Failure results in death. This Arte consumes all mana and leaves the user ‘Fatigue’ for the next 48 hours. (+300% Fire DMG per Tier in Unarmed Proficiency)