Chapter 17:Pitfall
Translated by: Chua
Edited by:I and Elkassar
“Kacha! Kacha!” a crackling sound broke out amidst the chaos, as both ships vibrated violently from the intense collision! The sharp bow of the Bell and Mug was made with a special and unique legendary material, upon collision it radiated out a piercing white ray, like a hot knife through butter stabbing into the enormous merchant ship. From a bird’s eye view, the Bell and Mug looked like a toxic sharp sword, deeply penetrating into the merchant’s abdomen!
The crouching pirates excitedly cried out, waving their already prepared lassos they cast them over in succession, binding the two ships together and at the same time forming a passageway. Unsheathing their sabres/swords and muskets, they charged over! The opposing merchant ship quickly organized men to welcome the pirates with a wave of gunfire, however the sparse bullets only found 5-6 pirates. This subsequently triggered their bloodlusted nature, even one-eyed Cuaron was proving why he could be a crew head with his tremendous showing of strength. He charged forth in the first wave of attacks, blood splashing over his entire body, swinging his sabre he cut down 5-6 enemies. This boosted the pirate’s morale, as they boldly advanced to clear the opposing deck.
In a side-to-side hand-to-hand combat battle, capturing the opposing ship’s deck would give them an upper hand. However, if the enemy’s resistive willpower was stubbornly strong, they had to go through the arduous battle of battling through individual cabins. Furthermore this merchant ship’s volume was more than a kiloton, its interior was probably segregated into three levels. Each level would have roughly 20 plus -30 rooms, if the members hid themselves, camping with their weapons, this sort of situation would waste a big deal of effort. It was like a hard bone that was tough to chew on.
At this moment, Ammand stood out, his face grim yet his eyes flashed with a bloodlusted excitement, his body posture remained absolutely straight. Pressing down on the sword hilt on his waist, with a graceful stride he walked down the stairs of the ship’s hold*. As his body disappeared beneath, the pirates frenziedly yelled out, raising their weapons and charged in.
(TN: A ship’s hold is a space that carries cargo, normally there will be stairs down to it from the deck for larger ships)
Below the stairs, a resisting line of 10 congregated opponents received them. Leveraging on the narrow channel within the hold of the ship, their front wave comprised of several gunmen aiming with their muskets as they high kneeled on the floor. “Bang! Bang!” They released their trigger. Because Ammand’s prominent body structure and aura exposed him as a/one of the leader of the pirates, most of the bullets were fired in his direction! Yet Ammand’s face leaked out a sinister sneer, unsheathing his silver sword in the nick of time. In a captivating and dazzling slashing tempo, with an unparalleled speed unable to be captured by the naked eye, traces of silverish lines formed circled around Ammand. Following that the incoming bullets suddenly deflected and penetrated deeply into the surrounding wooden walls.
Ammand’s advancing pace did not drop, striding towards the mini fort constructed by these few seamen at the last minute. Face against him, these seamen looked horrified, rooted in their positions. After a brief moment, their throats, faces and chest were vandalized with blood and wounds, as they collapsed like dominoes. Even after death, they threw a horrified gaze with their frozen pupils at the already distant Ammand’s graceful, imposing and upright figure!
The few pirates following Ammand were not at all surprised by this common occurrence, with a glance full of admiration to their captain, they surged forward. Taking no chance they mercilessly stabbed at the corpses, looting their personal items and then use the dead men’s clothes to wipe of the blood on their hands. Finally they lifted and tossed these motionless and bare corpses into the sea. Sheyan wanted to trying following, however seeing Ammand’s frightening monstrosity, and the manner at which the pirates cleared up after him, knowing himself he instantly halted in his tracks.
Because by following, even if he was able to loot a little, he will be despised by the pirates. One must never forget, he was still holding a side mission on his chest, he had to raise his reputation amongst the pirates. Such small matters was something he would never take part in. Yet the greedy and foolish Chris upon observing this lucrative opportunity, wagged his tail and charged forward.
The murderous shoutings gradually vanished deeper into the ship, obviously Ammand also could not keep up with his incredible one man against a thousand show. Undisputedly, these pirates under his leadership, exhibited out their maximum potential and strength. Yet Sheyan remaining on the Bell and Mug deck, with both his hands folded on his chest received numerous looks of disdain from the surrounding pirates. He coldly gazed towards his front as the merchant ship side once again exposed a row of black barreled cannons. A strange feeling faintly gathered in his heart, that was a negative feeling that this pirate’s assault was going too smoothly.
Presently, the huge groups of pirate ships had not arrived due to the lack in speed, which meant that a third of the assaulting force had entered the fray. The Spanish fleet demonstrated a clear advantage. There was something not adding up, if the Paragon fleet was so easily dealt with, then why would the British Royal navy request aid from the pirates? The only explanations was…. This was a planned trump card that the Spanish merchant Fernandez had set up!
As Sheyan standing at the bow of the ship, observing far, he noticed that one of the Paragon fleet ship that was currently locked in battle with the Black Pearl suddenly changed direction! Ferociously bombarding the Black Pearl, forcing it to retreat, following that he saw that 3 lifeboats were lowered down from the ship!
The great sea era had already established for a century, shipbuilding techniques had advanced to rather exquisite, even division of labour was considerably clear. Although the 3 boats lowered into the sea were only lifeboats, their capacity was nearing a hundred tons, their sail configuration was also pretty capable. Clearly seen atop the the boats were fully equipped Spanish navy troops, braving the winds and billows as they paddled like an arrow towards the Bell and Mug!
Under normal circumstances, these 3 boats could be described as ‘having a deathwish.’ Based on the Bell and Mug’s high speed, it could easily loose the and crushed them with their cannons! However, the current Bell and Mug was lodged into the merchant ship, and was even binded to it by the assaulting pirates. They had lost all mobility.
A grave problem was that at this moment captain Ammand had led his crew head Cuaron and a great batch of pirates to assault the merchant ship! Furthermore Chief Officer Scarface Harry was injured and unconscious. Under such a situation, the ones that were left were the old, the sickly, or those that were gravely injured and were nursing their wounds. Merely relying on these people, how were they supposed to go against these savage wolves and ferocious lions of these Spanish Paragon fleet?
At this moment, the pirates that stayed behind were all lost for thoughts, their only notion was “Captain! Hurry up and return!”
To Ammand, this was an unprecedented crisis throughout his entire pirate career!
After leading his crew into the merchant ship, he proceeded to clear the cabins and rooms one of its enemies one at a time. Ammand was extremely meticulous, because previously his father had missed an enemy member due to negligence during a raid. During the midnight partying, this enemy quietly crawled out and lit the entire pirate ship on fire while the pirates were drunk! Therefore, his father’s entire 20 years of building up his crew had vanished in one night and was even burnt to death. That year, fortunately Ammand did not go aboard, if not it would have been hard for him to escape.
However, such meticulous searching has its flaws in terms of efficiency. As Ammand started to chip off his opponent’s strength until he felt their resistive powers had expectedly weakened, he had already left a huge trail of scattered gold coins. These pirates were accustomed to unruly behavior, although they were brave and fierce in battle, their discipline was a total mess. Putting their self interest first, after affirming that their side had the upperhand, they immediately begin to break into a wild looting frenzy. Some even started insulting each other in splitting up their bounties. If not for Ammand’s threatening nature, they would have probably begun going at each other’s throats.
They greedy and chaotic pirates followed the trail of gold coins into an exquisitely decorated dining hall. The one-eyed Cuaron took the lead in battles, yet during plundering he maintained the same position, in one glance he saw that the left passage had a pouch of Escudo gold coins (Spanish currency), with eyes radiating, he immediately pounced forward. However, at this moment, Ammand’s expression sunk, because he had smelled an unexplainable bad odour coming their direction.
“Kacha!” the broken wooden board splintered in all directions! A black and heavy massive twin hatchet chopped onto the wooden partition of the ship’s hold. The axe head was broad and heavy, at least the size of a round table. If one were to calculate its weight carefully, it would be at least 200 kg! Blood flowed down from the middle of Cuaron’s eyes, as he forcefully raised his sabre with his left arm to fend of the attack. The sabre was blown away, as this horizontal huge axe flung him 5-6 metres away, as he crashed to the floor and rolled a few rounds before bouncing onto the pillar. He coughed out a mouthful of blood, looking at his state, he had probably broken a few bones!